Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Are we having the right conversation about Marissa Mayer? Mayer, Yahoo’s new CEO and the youngest in the Fortune 500, according to Fortune Magazine, is also the 19th female CEO and an expectant mother. We can choose to view this as a success for women (as long as we don’t act too surprised), however, in the year 2012, it seems like we’re still talking about Mayer’s gender—or issues surrounding her gender (pregnancy, her looks, etc.)—for all the wrong reasons.

(by Alissa Fleck)

According to the Boston Globe, “Working mothers and workplace observers pronounced themselves encouraged that Mayer’s pregnancy was not a factor [in the appointment], somewhat annoyed that in 2012 a pregnant chief executive even merits conversation.”

The conversation about whether you can “have it all” has been a hot topic as long as women have had top jobs. Victoria Budson, founding executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said we should be focusing more on how companies can better maximize talent, including incorporating women of “child-bearing years,” rather than talking about whether you can really “have it all,” according to the Globe. 

Though here at NY Press we do feel the need to question why the Globe follows this observation up by dissecting Mayer’s beauty. How often does that happen with male CEOs? Do we somehow take her achievements at Google to be all the more astonishing because she has a “Kathleen Turner voice” (according to Vogue)? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a beautiful CEO. I mean, let’s talk about Tim Armstrong over at AOL. Let’s talk about how he “demolishes old-fashioned oppositions of beauty and brains” (also Vogue), or maybe not, because, you know, he’s a man.

In 2010, when there were 12 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 11 of them were mothers, reported the Wall Street Journal. Mothering does not just make you incommunicado after 5 p.m., it has its benefits in the CEO world—learning to raise children can facilitate the management of others. Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said “parenthood taught her the value of picking battles at home and work,” according to the WSJ. So if we decide to view motherhood as a moot point, or even an upside, what conversation should we be having about gender?

Unfortunately the WSJ also reported the reality: “Men with children are more likely to rise into management than women with children in most major industries.” Additionally, women who manage still make 79 cents to the dollar of men who manage, a figure which has stagnated since 2000, said the Journal.

This is why the conversation about gender must stay on the table, but for the right reasons. Hopefully when the next expectant, mother or woman CEO is designated, we won’t have to talk about whether it will be doable, we can just talk about progress.

Photo courtesy of Samsung.

The Samsung Galaxy S III is just the thing to make Apple loyalists question the sanity in their devotion. Apple should do the same.

In 2007, when everyone was running around with RAZR flip phones in one hand and an iPod nano in the other, Apple gave us a sea change. Nobody who has ever bought movie tickets with Fandango, decided on dinner with Yelp, or wasted actual precious chunks of their lives playing brain-hole games like Angry Birds or Temple Run (e.g. me, sadly) can deny that the iPhone changed the way we interact with the world and with each other—by changing our understanding of how we could.

But, yo, people. That was five years ago. That thing caught everybody of guard. We were silly with it; remember? People paid $999.99 for I Am Rich, the arrow-pointing-up-I’m-With-Stupid-shirt for the new millennium. An app called iFart Mobile famously inhaled $10,000 dollars per day in 2008. iFart. iFART! Yes. We were silly, turns out it was all worth it, but we were super silly, y’all.

But now all that stuff that ooh’d and genuinely awed us is standard issue. So many people have smartphones that the New York Times actually thought it was news that a handful of contrarians choose not to join the fun. I wonder if they ran a similar article when that wacky Internet was all the rage. Remember that? I could Google it, but why bother?

What I’m trying to say is that unless the next iPhone is a G.D. spaceship, or transmogrifies the raw materials of the cosmos into Popeye’s famous popcorn shrimp, anything it brings to the table will likely be nothing new.

Will it have maps? Not Google Maps, which now runs offline on the SGS3, and all Android phones (lightning fast!). Will it have crazy good resolution? Likely. Retina? It would behoove them to do us the favor, but the SGS3 has an HD Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screen which, at 4.8” feels a little bulky, but dang if that thing doesn’t look cleaner than Starbucks bathrooms in TriBeCa. Will it have Facebook? Instagram? Will it have…what? A camera? Will it have a phone?

It may be time to face the facts: the rest of the world may have caught up to the iPhone.

Now, I’ll say this, Samsung may have been being real smart and all, but they came super cocky with it. Not a good look, y’all. They seem to think that the coolest thing about the SGS3 is how easy it is to share pictures, music, or just any pseudo-tangible item made of up to 3GB worth of binary. Like, that is cool. Certainly. But it’s not easy. Not unless all your homies also have the SGS3, and even then it involves permissions and settings and really, nobody’s sweating that stuff when it’s already very easy to share electronic data without forcing friends to resent each other cause they had to buy the same phone (if you want to twist our skivvies, stick a USB on that doggie, dawg).

No. The coolest thing about the Samsung Galaxy S III isn’t htat it dims to save power when you look away from the screen, or that it’s got wild facial recognition capabilities, or that you can watch video on a pop-out player while multitasking. No. The coolest thing is TecTiles.

This: little squares about 1” x 1” or so that can be programed to activate whatever stuff on your phone. The example I keep seeing is that you can put one nightstand to activate your alarm just by placing your phone on the thing. But there’re tons of potential uses for these TecTile deals:

• Put one: on the door and tap to open your subway app;
• near the table and tap to open your morning news;
• on your amp and set your phone down to open your guitar tuner;
• bands should have one on the merch table so that fans can FB Like them
• businesses might have one on the counter for a quick 4^2 check in;
• put one on your wallet and tap your pocket to open your camera (HOT!)
• etc. etc.

So, whatever, is the Samsung Galaxy S III going to be an ‘iPhone Killer’? Maybe not, but not for lack of guns. This little buddy is about as good as they get. If you’re looking to buy a phone this summer, it’s a good time to go Samsung. The Galaxy S III has everything you need, and a whole lot of stuff you probably won’t even know what to do with.

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons.

By Paul Bisceglio

Boingo Wireless teamed up with Google Offers this week to launch free wireless internet in six Chelsea subway stations. According to the New York Times, Google will foot the bill for the service this summer until September 7, after which Boingo expects to find other sponsorships to keep the underground Wi-Fi free. Boingo aims to cover 36 subway stations with its wireless service by the end of the year, and 270 stations in five years, which sounds like a cause for celebration for corporate rank climbing workaholics, blog addicts and nypress.com readers alike. Before we pop the Youtube video of champagne, though, we have to ask: does it work?

With laptop in backpack, I jogged downtown yesterday evening and hopped into each of the six stations to test things out. At every stop, I opened an article on nypress.com, logged into my e-mail (Gmail), searched for the location of the station on Google Maps and watched the HD music video for “Call Me Maybe” – pretty much everything I’d do with internet on a normal commute. Then, I made up some categories and rated them in wireless service bars (like the ones on the bottom right of your computer screen, 0 = bad, 5 = good), including the actual number of service bars themselves. Check out the results below.

(Note: 1. I used a 2010 Samsung Notebook that has slowed down with age, so my evaluations do not reflect the performances of today’s fastest computers, I-pads, I-phones, Androids, etc.; 2. I sat by the underground gates at each station but never paid to enter, so results may vary when you are right next to the tracks.)

C, E Station at Eigth Avenue & 23rd Street

Service Bars: 3-4 bars
Seating Availability: 2 bars
Lighting: 2 bars
Cleanliness: 2 bars
Ambiance: 1 bar

Static sights like nypress.com were easy to navigate here, but once I started piling on the tabs and blasting the Carly Rae Jepsen things started to stop and stutter. If I ever get locked in this station with my laptop for a day (and manage to find an outlet), catching up on American Ninja Warrior on Hulu is going to be a pain in the ass. This station was no smellier than a usual one, but boring white walls, cramped space, dim lighting and sparse benches along the track made it less than ideal for relaxed web browsing.

A, C, E Station + L Station at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street

Service Bars: 3 bars
Seating Availability: 4 bars
Lighting: 5 bars
Cleanliness: 4 bars
Ambiance: 4 bar

Oddly clean and exceptionally bright, these two connected stations had it all — except for decent wireless service. Getting serenaded by an elderly a cappella group helped me almost tolerate Google Maps’ pixel by pixel loading, so I hope that service improves just enough once you go down to the tracks to make surfing the web at this station actually enjoyable.

1, 2, 3 Station + F, M, L Station at Seventh Avenue and 14th Street

Service Bars: 5 bars
Seating Availability: 3 bars
Lighting: 5 bars
Cleanliness: 2 bars
Ambiance: 4 bar

Good service and good lighting at this one, though a lot grimier than the previous. Outside the gates the hallways are crowded and have no seats, but alongside the tracks there is decent space and a number of benches. I sat outside the gates on a green Greenline: A Textron Company storage bin and no one seemed to mind. Hummed along to a Steel Drum band’s rendition of “Eight Days a Week” while zipping through my e-mail.

1, 2, 3 Station + F, M, L Station at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street

Service Bars: 0-5 bars
Seating Availability: 1 bar
Lighting: 2 bars
Cleanliness: 2 bars
Ambiance: 1 bar

This is a strange, circular shaped set of stations with both local trains and PATH trains to New Jersey. It’s cramped and dingy, and has a very limited wireless range: I found no signal at all when in one corner, then a full set just down the hall next to the ticket / information box. With nowhere to sit, I crouched against the wall to browse, and got accosted by a homeless dude for holding a piece of paper in my mouth as I typed.  He claimed it was “not rational behavior.” The paper in my mouth, I disagree — I had nowhere else to put it. Spending piles of money to blanket the city’s underground with wireless so that we all can spend 20 more minutes each day in front of a screen, on the other hand — well I’m not so sure.

Photo Courtesy of Wikicommons.

by Adel Manoukian

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer expressed concern today over Apple’s and Google’s plans to create a digital mapping system which would publish distinct images that may be considered an invasion of privacy. The companies’ digital mapping plan would use military-grade spy planes to map communities with technology strong enough to capture objects as small as four inches, even catching private activities in one’s backyard.

The companies do not disclose to communities about when the mapping occurs, which is something Schumer thinks should be changed.

In a letter to Apple and Google’s CEOS Tim Cook and Larry Page respectively, the senator requested that the corporations provide notification when communities are mapped, blur photos of individuals and any sensitive infrastructure detail, and give property owners the option to opt-out of having their property mapped in such programs like Google Maps and Google Earth. He also asks that Apple and Google explain the safeguards that they plan to put in place to protect privacy needs and security in greater detail.

Schumer also expressed concern that the companies’ competition may compromise basic privacy expectations and create security risks as criminals and terrorists may have access to secure locations. The maps would possibly provide these criminals and terrorists with detailed views of sensitive utilities. This might mean they could have more control over the power and water grids of the city as many power lines, power sub stations and reservoir access points will be made visible, unlike their state in the current maps. With any sort of measures, Schumer believes it would be impossible to secure every location.   

“We must strike the proper balance between privacy and technology,” said Schumer in a statement released today. “And while the use of this technology may well have very functional and important uses, we need to make sure that reasonable protections are in place to protect individuals and the public.”

Google plans to create these three dimensional maps that cover over 300 million people's homes by the end of 2012.

Photo courtesy of Groundreporter and Flickr Commons.

Following the sleepy-faced 7:30am curtain call David-Michel Davies, founder of the Webby Awards and cofounder of Internet Week itself, gave a quick hello and passed the mic to New York City’s Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne. The work that Sterne has been doing in partnerships with the local tech community is a large part of the growth we’ve recently seen here in the city. She mentioned the recent New Tech City Report, put out by the Center for an Urban Future, stating that “New York City is the only region in the country that over the last five years has experienced an increase in venture capital funding.” People! Not only were we the only ones, all the other popular cities like Boston and Silicon Valley actually saw investment fall. Good job us. Speaking of jobs, Mayor Bloomberg and Rachel Sterne’s unveiled a little dealy called Made in New York, a Google map for job seekers that pinpoints tech companies that are hiring. Very cool.

So word. Then what? Billy Beane, the dude who was portrayed by Brad Pitt in Moneyball, gave a keynote speech on how he harnessed data for the power of good (i.e. money…and ball). As for things that can be seen on everybody’s lips, #BigData is the new hipster mustache. I suppose it makes sense to have Mr. Beane get up and talk about it in a sort of Old Guard passing the torch way, but really we all just wanted to see if he was as handsome as Pitt. On that point, “they pretty much nailed it,” said Billy Beane while on a stage. Fair, though. In a completely objective sense, I’ll say, dude was pretty Silver Foxy.

Beyond Beane, we had a treat of a speech on Tuesday morning with David Carr and Brian Stelter of the New York Times. First, I should just say that these guys really don’t seem to like each other very much. Until they hit the groove it was a fairly uncomfortable back and forth about who would win in a fight between the Past and the Future, played by Carr and Stelter, respectively. Now I’m no Nostradamus but—based on the way that he is dead and I am alive—my money’s on the Future. Sorry, Carr. Moving forward the gist of their banter was that the New York Times won’t fail…no matter what. So don’t worry, y’all: The Times is here to stay; stay here, indeed.

Today we saw Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and former CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, give an awesome talk about the trajectory of her organization and, in effect, well, us. When Mozilla dropped Firefox it really changed the way we understand our interactions with Internet technology. Think about the difference between the world of proprietary software that we had before and the push of Open Source that they sort of ushered in. It’s all very cool. Where we’re headed, though, with all the data out there and concerns over privacy and fair use and $$$, is for a bunch of people a pretty worrisome landscape. Mozilla’s Do Not Track initiative, which started with the browser add-on and has recently gone mobile, is one response to the issue of uncontrollable consumer transparency. It’s one response, and it’s a good one. Regardless of what your stance is on whether or not companies should have hold of all our infos, just having the option to not be tracked—to opt-out—is what Baker is all about. Her whole deal is that if there’s this “ball of information about me out there, that can be very personal, and that can be very scary. But it can be used to get a degree of personalization that you just can’t beat.” That’s real, right? But in order to make this Personal Web really a human thing we need to find a way to “maintain a workable balance that allows companies to use that valuable information, but that also ensures individual control.” I couldn’t agree more.

So that’s what’s up for the first two days of #IWNY! I’ll be back shortly to fill you in on the rest.

Follow me for updates and just because, @44carib

Indeed. The new Google Privacy Policy, taking effect on March 1^st 2012, matters. To even mention how deeply Google has permeated our lives seems silly. For a whole ton of people, Google basically is the Internet. Now, while the company has only modest (relatively) market share within many of the sub categories that make up the full scope of Google Services, just the fact that all of these exist creates a pervasive, fungal, sort of presence across e-society.

Up until now, each G Service requested that new users agree to a clearly stated Terms of Service before entering—remember all those Terms? No? Me neither, bro! Nobody reads those things. It’s just generally accepted that companies aren’t binding us into contracts for our first-borns, or any overtly Satanic requirements, in order to use their services. What they do ask of us is that we allow them to sell information about us so that they can generate income. Which is fair. I’m certainly not paying them. Now, instead of each sub-Goog having separate policies, all of them will be grouped under one big legal roof.

So what will the new Privacy Policy mean to you? Well, it’ll mean that if you ever become curious about what you’ve consented to, you’ll only have to read ‘one’ (fairly giant) wad of text. In the same sense, it means a consolidation of your Internet person. You could think of it as, like, a declaration of self, vaguely. A coming of age.

Before now, the Internet knew you in a piecemeal way. It’d be, all, “Oh, you like that? Let me show you where to get more,” and then you were, all, “Dude, I hate that. I was just curious,” and then the Internet would say it was sorry, and urge you to tell it more about yourself, and you’d be, like, ‘God! You’re smothering me!’ but then y’all were back together the next day, because, by now, you just can’t live without one another. Come March 1st, it’s going to be like all of your Ex’s just got together for drinks with your current special someone, a.k.a. Google, and…well, suffice it to say that your Sexy Air of Mystery just got a lot less Airy.

The question is, are we ready to settle down with this cyber-babe? Are we prepared to give ourselves to Google TDDWP? Does that stand for till death do we part? Yes! Yes to all of it. It does. We do. Because we just have no choice. Google has been nice enough to let us opt out of any and all of their services, and, it’s easy enough: stop using them. Otherwise you can just opt out of the data-mining part, or the web-history part, or the Relevant Interest Advertising part, and it’s all right there on the Google Dashboard that you probably didn’t know existed. Though, even if you do all of that, there are so many websites and apps grabby-handsing at your data-sandwich that, well gosh, you might as well not have packed a lunch at all.

Personally, I think Chris Davies at slashgear.com is right in saying that we don’t give a shit about our privacy. Granted, we give huge amounts of shit when our bank numbers are swiped, or we find out that Apple knows where we get while we loop around our—suddenly so visibly pathetic—daily trajectories. But is it all so bad?

What Google wants to do with our information is make a ton of money. That’s reasonable. Google is a product(s), and we are consumers, and this is how that works. The how of Google is advertising. Paradise for advertisers is for every ad seen by consumers to be, not just relevant, but necessary. That’s kind of a paradise for consumers too. If, after the new Policy takes effect, a person were to use Google for everything—really. From Calendar to Wallet to Health—Google, in turn, could conceivably make life extremely convenient for that person.

Imagine a life where you don’t forget to set your alarm because your phone knows your schedule. It tells you that your normal route to work is going to make you late and suggests the best alternative. It even highlights an alternate Starbucks because you stop there every day for a your favorite drink—which—it will order for you once you get close enough so they’ll have it waiting at the bar. Or you could imagine that Google = Cyberdyne Systems and soon we’re all going to die in a brutal robo-pocalypse.

So, what? Are we ready to wear Google’s pin, or will they play us like a fool? What do you think?

Follow @44Carib on @Twitter just because!

Manhattan is abuzz with buildings going up and others coming down. There is a continual thrum and almost rhapsodic cacophony played out by jackhammers, cranes and cement trucks, but it is rare to feel hopeful about the economy or the state of the city when one views this upheaval. Enter WeWork.

WeWork is a company launched four years ago with the mission to nurture entrepreneurs by providing the connective tissue and support they need to succeed. Or, more simply put, WeWork provides flexible, month-to-month shared office spaces with a laundry list of amenities.

“We want to support people to do what they love. If your work is your passion, you will ascend. If we can help by keeping the place clean, the trash empty, the coffee running and the vibe of your workplace, whether it is 20 people or just you, a very positive and collaborative one, then WeWork works. Really, it’s that simple,” said co-founder Adam Neumann.

There are already four successful WeWork offices dotted across Manhattan, one in San Francisco and another debuting in Hollywood this spring. Some of the spaces even have waiting lists.

One might expect the shared office space to be cold cubes with sterile architecture and annoying hubbub swirling around it. But stepping into the WeWork office on Little West 12th Street is like entering a Hogwarts-style collaborative high school for the cool entrepreneurial kids.

Perhaps the positivity comes from the unique architecture. All of the sitting rooms are one-of-a-kind and feature overstuffed furniture, leather chairs and bookcases filled with curios. The glass doors allow co-workers to peer in to see new product pitches or just furious thinking, writing and creating. In the WeWork space in Soho, 30 percent of the tenants are now engaged in projects with each other. There is real synergy afoot.

There are five floors at the Little West 12 Street location, featuring large conference rooms to share, a coffee bar and an actual bar. Tenants of WeWork can stay for a month or years. They are a diverse group: gold traders, theater people, hedge fund managers, inventors, shoe designers, new technology wizards and public relations mavens.

WeWork is also adding a new Tribeca site in spring 2012. The location at 175 Varick St., a full 74,000 square feet, will occupy floors 3, 4, 5 and 8, as well as some ground-floor space. The space will feature high-end office suites in addition to conference rooms with LCD monitors and screening rooms for movies and presentations.

Amenities include a recording studio, pool table, Xbox lounge, fresh fair trade organic coffee, purified water and meditation rooms for breaks and relaxation. Clients also have access to private phone booths, bike storage on the roof and discounted Zipcar memberships. As Neumann said, “The space was designed to let tenants be creative by eliminating many of the negative aspects of the mundane work environment.”

As a startup company, you cannot usually offer your employees many perks. WeWork’s concept, however, as explained by Eric Meyer, a manager at the development corporation Colliers, who worked with WeWork to create the new space on Varick Street, is “a next-generation office suites company that wanted to be part of the creativity and technological explosion in Hudson Square. With its nearby presence, Google sets the standard for campus-style workspaces. WeWork shares a cultural DNA that made Hudson Square a natural draw.”

Miguel McKelvey, 37, who co-founded the company with Neumann, believes WeWork is “attempting to create a basis for a new environment of responsibility. We are bringing together people who are progressive in their work minds and lives.

“WeWork is making connections through a shared work environment and we are hoping to create a new paradigm that allows people to focus on creativity, much the way they did at Google by providing a collaborative environment. But WeWork is for entrepreneurs who need and want their own private Google,” he explained.

In a time when it seems as if constraints of finance and space make it impossible to dream, WeWork can provide a startup office for as little at $275 dollars a month for a shared desk—there is no charge for the synergy.

The WeWork space in the Meatpacking District. Photo courtesy of WeWork

In May, I moved home after a semester abroad, where I left a hopeful and loving boyfriend who wanted to “make it work.” Being a realist, I was fully aware that thousands of miles is an insurmountable hurdle at this point in my life. Being a complete coward, I could not and still cannot be the one to break that poor boy’s heart. So my current relationship status is lingering in limbo and my sex life has been basically nonexistent.

If you’ve passed the 2nd grade and can count, you’ve probably put it together that this makes almost six months since I have had any kind of encounter with the opposite sex. I’m not looking for sympathy, I just want to convey the desperation of my situation. I am not the kind of girl who will go home with the first guy who buys me a drink at the bar, so with my tight schedule and lingering boy troubles, I have had zero opportunity to find someone to, ahem, help me out.

Friends have offered several solutions to this problem, the most frequent of which is to cruise the world wide web to find a little viewing material and some self-love. Watching porn is not really my style, but I figured I would give it a go just to see what all the fuss is about.

Diving into the porno-sphere was difficult enough just in the execution. Am I the only person who didn’t know that there are about a zillion websites featuring everything from foot fetishes to needle play (yikes)? I had no idea what I was getting into. My Google search history is now fairly hilarious—and pathetic—with queries like “normal porn” and “regular sex scenes.” I didn’t know where to look for standard stuff, sex that doesn’t involve vegetables or riding crops.

Through several embarrassing and awkward conversations with friends, I did manage to find some sites that have things close to what I am familiar with. I’m no prude, but the websites I have seen do the opposite of turning me on. I don’t know if it’s a girl thing or just a me thing, but the idea of a girl taking it from behind while she robotically moans or, worse, screams like a banshee, basically ensures that I will not be wanting anyone or anything south of my border. Call me a romantic, but I wouldn’t mind a little plot.

Which led me to a revelation that could perhaps simultaneously help lift both the economy and the female libido out of the recession. There is an industry that is (according to my extensive research) completely untapped: Girl Porn. Any lady who has seen the extended version of the sex scene in The Notebook or the library scene in Atonement knows exactly what I am talking about.

I have made peace with the fact that men’s porno fantasies are often a dark and scary place and I have no place in a male porn world. I wouldn’t mind a little visual stimulation, but are my only options hardcore doggy-style or two-hour-length feature films? I am not ready to make a commitment to either, so I propose this: short, but plot-driven films that are graphic but not gross.

I don’t need sweeping romance, but I do need the sense that the two people involved may have met before, and aren’t immediately going at it like farm animals. Is that too much to ask? The first company to produce female-friendly erotica will be a wealthy one. Until then, I suppose I will continue my search for adult entertainment that doesn’t make me want to Purell my brain.