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Amazon picks 20 finalist cities for its next major HQ
After poring through 238 applications in the US, Canada and Mexico, Amazon has narrowed the list of cities for its next major headquarters to 20 candidates. Most of the centers picked by the Seattle-based company for its "HQ2," like Boston, New York City and Austin already have strong tech sectors. However, there were a few dark horse picks, including Columbus, OH, Raleigh, NC and Toronto, Canada.
Postmates promises 30-minute grocery deliveries in New York
Postmates isn't just for late-night take-out delivery anymore. The service just launched grocery delivery in Los Angeles, Manhattan and San Francisco. It's called Fresh. More than that, the firm completely overhauled its app to make ordering a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper or a loaf of bread (or basically anything else you forgot while at the grocery store) a lot easier. A post on Medium claims that it shouldn't take more than a half an hour for your goods to arrive -- supposedly a quarter of the time some of its competitors. It's about the same wait time for a Postmates booze drop-off. Amazon Fresh, on the other hand can take hours to make a delivery.
NYC subways get tap-to-ride turnstiles starting late 2018
New York City's plan to modernize its mass transit payments is getting underway... although you definitely won't want to chuck your MetroCard any time soon. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is greenlighting a hefty $573 million contract that will install NFC-equipped fare systems across NYC. The plan should start installing readers in 600 buses and 500 subway turnstiles starting in late 2018, so you may tap your phone or card sooner than you might have thought (there was talk of a rollout in 2021). The rollout won't reach every corner of the city (plus Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains) until late 2020, though, so it won't be consistently convenient for a while.
Airbnb offers Sarah Jessica Parker as your shoe shopping partner
Tomorrow morning, Sex and the City fans will have the opportunity to grab one of four Airbnb Experiences that will take them on a shopping trip with Sarah Jessica Parker. Airbnb is expanding its offerings of Experiences in New York City, which will include Parker's listing among a number of others. The proceeds of the Airbnb booking will go to the New York City Ballet. Parker, a NYC Ballet board member, told the Associated Press that the ballet is "one of the great cultural experiences anybody can have."
NYPD is already replacing its Windows phones with iPhones
The NYPD is learning a hard lesson about the dangers of buying a declining smartphone platform in bulk. The New York Post understands that the police force is replacing all 36,000 of its officers' Windows phones with iPhones just two years after the rollout began. It's not exactly clear as to why, but Microsoft recently ended support for Windows Phone 8.1 -- the standard-issue Lumia 830 and 640 XL devices won't get any help if something goes wrong. The switch to iPhones also suggests that the NYPD doesn't see a long-term value in upgrading to Windows 10 Mobile.
Bloomberg: Elon Musk is building his own Hyperloop
Elon Musk may have dreamt up the Hyperloop, but the bulk of its development has been carried out by others. When he unveiled the white paper in 2013, the South African billionaire said that his vision was "open sourced," and it would be for other startups to build it out. Now, however, sources close to Musk say that he will now build his own Hyperloop, starting with the New York to Washington D.C. route.
HP brought a trippy tech museum to a music fest
It was a blazing hot summer's day, but inside a pitch black room in HP's "The Lab" at the Panorama music festival in New York, I got the chills. I was experiencing Right Passage, one of seven art installations hosted at a gallery set up by the company, which sponsored the festival. Right Passage was by far my favorite -- it's a spectacle that captured my imagination without inundating me with the "tech" of it all.
Ride-hailing services in NYC must now offer a tipping option
All ride-hailing services operating in NYC must make sure they offer in-app tipping, now that the city has made it a requirement. Authorities have passed a rule proposed by the Independent Driver's Guild (and backed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission) a year ago that requires a tipping option for all for-hire drivers. According to the pamphlet (PDF) distributed by IDG, it conjured up and submitted the proposal because the drivers that decided to take the ride-hailing route have lost out on hundreds of millions in tipping income.
Fox broadcasts Formula E's historic NYC races starting July 15th
Formula E is about to make history by bringing racing back to New York City, and you'll have plenty of chances to tune in... though it's not always live. Fox Sports (the league's official broadcaster) has detailed a coverage schedule for the two Brooklyn races on the weekend, including the pre-race build-up. Everything starts on July 15th at 6:30PM, when FS2 and SDD will rebroadcast the round 9 race's qualifying results. You'll see the race itself an hour later, at 7:30PM. Round 10 qualifying will air 11AM on July 16th. The real fireworks start at 12:30PM on the 16th -- that's when the pre-race (and half an hour later, the race itself) broadcasts live on TV. Both races will livestream online through Fox Sports Go, though you'll need a TV subscription to take advantage of internet viewing.
Now Postmates' SF couriers can make eco-friendly deliveries
You'll need your own vehicle if you want to be a courier for Postmates, but if you're in San Francisco, you can rent an eco-friendly option from the company itself. The food (and booze) delivery service has started renting out e-bikes to delivery personnel in the city as part of the zero-emission initiative it launched a few months ago in Manhattan, where it has electric scooters on offer. While the program is only live in two locations, Postmates says it could eventually expand to other cities across the US.
NYU lands New York City's ambitious VR/AR hub
New York City is diving into VR in a big way with the launch of a virtual/alternate reality hub at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. It'll serve to nurture companies and projects relying on the new technologies, with the hopes of cementing NYC as a place where AR/VR can thrive. The hub will be backed by $6 million in funding from the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, as well as NYC's Economic Development Corporation. The city also claims that the NYU lab will also be the first publicly funded VR/AR hub in the country.
New York City plans to track every homeless person in its borders
To assist New York City's efforts to combat homelessness, the mayor's office is planning to deploy a new tool to count every vagrant person within its bounds. In the hands of workers that reach out to the homeless every day, StreetSmart will help them track health, income, demographics and other figures. But unlike the siloed databases currently used by individual departments, the city wants everyone canvassing homeless populations -- civic employee and nonprofit worker alike -- to feed into the tool to create a comprehensive data collection.
New York City sues Verizon over its fiber rollout
When New York City said it was upset with Verizon for allegedly backtracking on a promise to bring FiOS service to every household in the city, it wasn't joking around. The city has sued Verizon, accusing the telecom of failing to live up to a cable franchise agreement that required fiber to pass by all residences in the city by mid-2014. The company also didn't complete some requested installations, according to officials.
Recommended Reading: AI and the future of music
We Are the Robots: Is the Future of Music Artificial? Jack Needham, FACT Artificial intelligence is invading more of our lives by the day and it's going to work making music as well. FACT takes a look at the use of robots for creative exploits and if we as a collective audience are ready for AI to compose our tunes.
New York City expands program linking students to tech jobs
If you ask New York City, the Tech Talent Pipeline is a shining star in its technology education efforts. The program helps students find internships and training that get them cushier tech jobs when they graduate, and it appears to be paying off -- the average starting salary among participants has gone up 34 percent, and 96 percent of first-wave graduates landed jobs. Accordingly, the city is expanding the partnerships for the Pipeline to give more students a chance. The wider participation includes new schools, companies and charitable donations.
Drivers push NYC to require tipping option in ride-sharing apps
In New York City, some ride-sharing services offer an in-app option for riders to tip the driver. Uber doesn't, so the Independent Drivers Guild is pushing the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to make a decision on the matter. The group has over 8,000 signatures on a petition that asks the taxi regulators in the city to require app-based transportation services to offer a tipping option. A change in policy would force Uber to add the ability to tip to its app.
All NYC subway stations will have cell service by January 9th
When officials recently vowed that all New York City underground subway stations would have cellular coverage sometime in early 2017, they weren't joking. Governor Cuomo has revealed that all active stations will have service from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon on January 9th. That's on top of WiFi, which went live just before 2016 came to a close. The only exceptions are four stations that are either in mid-renovation or about to go through renovations, but they'll have live service as soon as the makeovers are finished.
MIT: Carpooling services could replace most NYC cabs
Researchers have proved mathematically what you probably already knew: Carpooling services are more efficient, less polluting and less costly than traditional taxis. Using data from three million New York City taxi rides, a team from from MIT's CSAIL computer science lab found that just 3,000 vehicles from services like UberPOOL and Lyft Line could replace NYC's 14,000 strong cab fleet. What's more, they'd reduce congestion by three times, barely impact travel times, and you'd only have to wait an average of 2.7 minutes for a ride.
All New York City underground subway stations now have WiFi
Officials vowed that all of New York City's underground subway stations would have WiFi by the end of 2016, and they're meeting that goal... if only at the very last minute. As of New Year's Eve, every one of the 279 stations now has internet access thanks to Transit Wireless. WiFi is a long time in coming (the first stations went online in 2011), but it's important if you either have spotty phone reception or a WiFi-only device that would otherwise go dark.
New York City now lets you pay for parking with your phone
New York City is making good on its promise to have smarter parking meters before 2016 is over. As of December 19th, the first ParkNYC-capable Muni-Meters are live in midtown Manhattan -- you can now pay for parking through a smartphone app (or the web, or a call) instead of fishing for cards and coins. While you'll need to load a virtual wallet, you can extend your parking if you're in danger of running out. The days of racing to the meter to top it up will soon be over, then, but so are the days of pleading with traffic officers when you're a little too late.
