technology
Post-Bloomberg New York: cell phones in schools, drones in the sky
The people who are advising Anthony Weiner, or not. [Reid Pillifant]
WNYC reporter Bob Hennelly is leaving as the station deals with a digital divide. [Joe Pompeo]
Democrats would lift Bloomberg's cell phone ban, and Carrion is open to use drones for surveillance. [Azi Paybarah]
Video: Bill de Blasio impersonates Arnold Schwarzenegger. [Azi Paybarah] More
De Blasio opposes Airbnb, Quinn tries to 'thread the needle' for them
Two major Democratic mayoral candidates defended current New York laws prohobiting the kind of short-term apartment rentals like the ones found on AirBnB.com. More
Democrats would lift Bloomberg's cell phone ban, Carrion open to drones
The major Democratic mayoral candidates said they would list Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on cell phones in public schools if elected. Speaking at a technology forum this afternoon. More
On a hiring jag, 'Businessweek' brings in a new tech editor, Doug Cantor
He replaces Barrett Sheridan, who left to pursue a fellowship at the Columbia Journalism School. He joins the magazine from Popular Science, where he was a senior editor. He also previously worked as an editor at Esquire. More
Now that open data is law in New York, meet Carole Post, the enforcer
She points to a Department of Parks census of street tree demographics. Inside city government, she said, the reaction was, “Who cares?”
But Parks didn’t see any particular reason not to release it to the public. After all, they were using the data to do their work, and it was just sitting around on their computer systems. That information formed the basis of an app called Trees Near You, a mobile tool that allows urban dwellers to click on a nearby tree and pull up details on its kind and size, along with the Wikipedia entry on the particular type of tree.
“We were able, at no cost,” Post said, “to satisfy an unknown public need.” More
(1)In defeat of SOPA and PIPA, Washington learns not to meddle with 'West Coast Code' (and technology advocates learn the public is with them)
The news today that next week’s planned floor vote on the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), Senate sibling of the controversial Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives, were to be postponed indefinitely, is a big rebuke to Washington. But, more importantly, it's a watershed moment in our understanding of the way the American public instinctively views the relationship between technology and government regulation. More
For blind New Yorkers, a different, and complex, relationship with technology
For many blind and visually impaired New Yorkers, when they can afford it, technology—often the very same technology used by people with perfect vision—has drastically changed the way they navigate the city. For all that has changed for everyone in the digitally-mediated, smartphone-obsessed New York, for people who are blind or have other vision disabilities, the difference between then and now is that much greater. More
(2)Cory Booker pitches Newark as a 'startup' to New York tech elite
Speaking to a room of a few dozen of the city’s tech elite, likeNew York’s chief technology officer Rachel Sterne and Personal Democracy Forum co-founder and city advisor on new technologies Andrew Rasiej; Bob Lessin, vice chairman of Jefferies & Co.; Brandon Kessler, chief executive of ChallengePost and the man behind the city's BigApps competition; and Toby Daniels, chief executive of Crowdcentric and head of the city's Social Media Week, Booker was pitching Newark, in terms they'd understand: as "an incubator, a laboratory, of innovation and reform." More
(1)(More than) 101 ways to read the New York Times
The Times in your hands, in more ways than one. More
(1)See something, scan something: Bloomberg pushes 'Q.R. codes'
You’ll find these symbols peeking out from the corner of a subway advertisement for the New York Public Library, the Flying Karamazov Brothers’ show at the Minetta Lane Theatre and JetBlue package deals.
On a building at Wooster Street and Grand Street, on the same wall where Banksy’s infamous rat wearing an “I <3 NY” t-shirt was once painted, you’ll see Picasso’s face formed with hundreds of these symbols, including one giant one painted at eye-level. Take out your phone, snap a picture of the code with a special application, and you will be directed to a mobile site advertising the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ new show: “Picasso: Discover the Master.” More
(1)Cyborg City: New York’s central nervous system is growing; here's what it can do
The city is already laced with "sensors," a category that could include anything from barcodes that are activated by a device to parking sensors on Roosevelt Island to things as old fashioned as cameras that take photos, identify license plates and send out tickets automatically to red-light runners.
Sensors in weather towers record temperature, air pressure and cloud coverage so eventually we will know whether to take an umbrella to work--or whether our plane will land on time. Traffic cameras tell which bridges are snarled with traffic. Sensors on subway cars record delays, send them to the New York City Transit announcers, who then relay the information to tired commuters.
But this is a boomtime for sensors, as much as anything else because of the possibility of making use of data collected in the physical city to provide services directly to the public as for its old purely administrative uses.The demand for more of this sort of technology, embedded in the physical city to automatically relay information about how the city works to the agencies that govern its most basic bodily functions, is on a steady rise. More
