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"Venture funding is growing as well. According to data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, the amount of New York City-based startups that received venture funding rose 34 percent between 2007 and 2011, while deals in Silicon Valley declined 7 percent and those for the country overall dropped 8 percent. Last year, venture investors plowed $2.75 billion into 390 startups in the New York City area-the most money and investments since 2001, when the dot-com bubble was rapidly losing air in Manhattan's "Silicon Alley" and everywhere else, too. So far this year, $942 million has been invested in 182 startups in New York."

We've long noted the need for data science types who can bridge between us. And now, to my utter delight, a new lab is emerging to complement our lab. The folks who are going to serve as the founding members of the new NYC lab are computer scientists, physicists, experimental economists, and data scientists. Many of them are interested in social network analysis and big data problems but - or shall I say crucially - they all see the value in collaborating with ethnographers. In other words, we're building a cross-lab team that'll create new possible interdisciplinary collaborations that make my heart go pitter patter. The new lab will become the thirteenth Microsoft Research office worldwide, but it is being heralded as a particularly significant addition, according to researchers who will work directly with the New York team. Danah Boyd, a member of Social Media Collective at Microsoft's New England site, says that new the new lab will complement the organisation's existing structure and help provide a bridge with her lab for future research:

(New York, New York, 8 June 2012) - The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named Riverside, California, USA as the world's Intelligent Community of the Year 2012 during its annual awards ceremony at Steiner Film Studios in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Riverside, which has appeared among the Top Seven Intelligent Communities for two years in a row, was represented by a delegation led by Mayor Ron Loveridge, as well as the city's CIO Steve Reneker and Assistant City Manager Deanna Lorson. The co-founders of ICF - Louis A. Zacharilla, John G. Jung and Robert A. Bell - presented the award to Riverside, which succeeds Eindhoven, Netherlands, the 2011 recipient. 

Amitabh Chandra, professor of public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, argues in a new video that investments in new medical technology should be done in a cost-effective manner. The video - part of a collaboration between Harvard and New York City nonprofit 92Y - tackles how to approach the costs that come with new medical tech. For example, Chandra points to Proton Beam Therapy as an example of how cost might outweigh benefit. Beam therapy is a new high-tech method for treating men's prostate cancer, but Chandra argues that it hasn't been proven any more useful than other, less expensive forms of treatment.

This week, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman launched NYOpenGovernment.com, a new website that his office touts as a means for "voters, the media and government watchdogs hold state government accountable" by providing the public online access to government data on campaign contributions, lobbying, and state contracts. "Secrecy breeds corruption, while transparency generates confidence," Attorney General Schneiderman said, in a prepared statement. "New York Open Government will help the public keep an eye on what their government is doing in order to deter corruption and increase confidence in the public sector. This site is a one-stop-shop for New Yorkers demanding up-to-date and comprehensive information about their government."

Since the crisis of 2008 New York City's massive financial sector - the city's richest economic engine, once seen to have unlimited potential for growth - has languished. In the meantime, attention has turned to its nascent startup sector, home to Foursquare, Tumblr, 10gen, Etsy and Gilt, where VC investment has surged even as it's been flat in other big U.S. tech centers (PDF). I've started to poke around the tech community here with a view toward eventually publishing a paper on the rise of New York's startup scene. In my initial conversations, I've come up with a few broad questions I'll focus on, and I'd welcome thoughts from this blog's legion of smart readers on any of these.

Today, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot unveiled the city's 2012 Digital Roadmap, which follows the success of last year's 2011 digital roadmap. This initiative was created to share NYC's past success in digital and tech initiatives, and to simultaneously "spur the development of" the city's tech scene. According to the release, 80 percent of the objectives that NY established last year are now complete. This includes everything from rapid expansion of WiFi-serviced parks and the city's Big Apps competition to the nearly 5.5M individuals reached by government social media channels. As you might expect, plenty of boasting was done, especially when it comes to NY's recent growth as a tech hub. Check out the related infographics here. What's next? As far as the city's next steps go, the graphic below shows the direction which NY hopes to head. Specific areas of improvement include expanded broadband connectivity, mobile payments in taxis, a new NYC.gov site, live broadcasted city council hearings and more.

Investigating the financial fraud and misguided power plays that brought down the telecom industry Once the foundation of the Dow and NASDAQ, the telecom industry has eaten up more capital than any other industry in recent history and has nothing to show for it. Today, it is by far the worst culprit in the spate of financial dirty dealings that have been splashed across the business pages, and yet the rewards reaped by top executives at many of these failed or failing companies have been inversely proportionate to their decline. Broadbandits takes readers behind the scenes to get the story they won't get in the media. Investigative reporter Om Malik follows the money trail and deciphers the actions and motivations of a generation of new economy "barbarians" that brought down this once lucrative industry. This intriguing book offers an inside look into the telecom bubble, with tales and anecdotes about mavericks who turned simple light and glass fibers into veins of gold, financiers who got greedy and fleeced unsuspecting millions, clueless venture capitalists who thought they'd tapped into the mother lode, hapless entrepreneurs who believed that they were changing the world, and self-proclaimed pundits who were cheering it all on from the sidelines. Broadbandits is a compelling account of the downfall of telecom giants such as WorldCom and Global Crossing, and will show readers how many telecom upstarts and veterans alike became victims of what one chief executive aptly described as "high-yield heroin." Om Malik (New York, NY) is a Senior Writer for Red Herring who focuses on the telecommunications sector. Prior to joining Red Herring in July 2000, he was senior editor at Forbes.com. His work has also been published in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, Brandweek, and Crain's New York Business. For a very brief while, he was a venture capitalist.

"Celebrated fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg tried on Glass for the first time a few months ago at a conference that she attended with Sergey Brin. She immediately loved it and they agreed to bring Glass to New York Fashion Week. Diane is a champion for innovation and effortless design, so it's unsurprising that Glass fit seamlessly into her production. In the week leading up to her Spring 2013 show in New York, and during the show itself, everyone from stylists and models to Diane herself used Glass to capture never-before-seen footage of the creative process."

In the middle of last year, the hacking group Anonymous tried but failed to attack various Vatican Internet servers. A report that was just released by Imperva shows the extent of their prowess, and is a blueprint for other corporate security managers who want to try to protect their own networks in the future from miscreants. While the report itself doesn't divulge the destination of the attack, it has been widely reported by the New York Times and other news outlets that it was the Vatican.

In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans - one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world - Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities. News, data and conversation about education in New York. Join us on Facebook » Follow us on Twitter » Harvard's involvement follows M.I.T.'s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project to be known as MITx. Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, some 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. Those who complete the course will get a certificate of mastery and a grade, but no official credit. Similarly, edX courses will offer a certificate but will carry no credit

"The paper highlights the massive amounts of energy data centers consume. But is that all it got right?"

This encyclopedia covers areas relevant to the design of interactive products and services like websites, household objects, smartphones, computer software, aircraft cockpits, you name it. The encyclopedia is free, includes HD videos, commentaries, and lots more. All chapters are written by elite professors or elite designers who have contributed greatly to the area they write about. We think you deserve free access to materials written by the world's foremost authorities - worth thousands of dollars - whether you are from New York or New Delhi. In fact, we wrote a mission statement about what we want to continue to do for you. And since we save you time and money, we know you will help us in return!

We all know poor people are on the wrong side of an uncrossable technological chasm known as the "digital divide." Their lack of iPads and data plans and broadband is just one more way they're doomed to stay poor right up until they become the shock troops of the zombie apocalypse, am I right? Indeed, a recent New York Times piece, "Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era" (or, as Gawker put it, "Poor People Are Wasting Time on the Internet!") asserts that while all kids are spending more time with media, those with lower socio-economic status were spending even more of it, and on activities like Facebook that aren't exactly conducive to learning. In other words: even when you give poor people access to technology, they don't know what to do with it! Might as well give a paleolithic tribe access to a chip fab, pffft.

Around the world, massive open online courses-MOOCs-are drawing thousands of participants eager to learn sophisticated skills and maybe even pick up some sort of credential or credit. MOOCs are not only becoming a "tool for democratizing higher education," as Tamar Lewin writes in The New York Times, they are also changing educators' atttitudes about teaching.

Matt Richtel's recently published article in the The New York Times posits that "Wasting Time is the New Divide in Digital Era." The article raises provocative and important points. Based on studies of media use among low-income communities, Richtel discusses an evolving notion of the digital divide-one that moves beyond access to machines towards a focus on what users do with the time they spend using technology.

The debate over whether we are in a technology bubble - and if so, what kind of bubble it might be - flared up again over the weekend, sparked by a piece in the New York Times that said venture-capital investors are encouraging startups to forego revenue so they can fetch higher valuations. Others immediately took issue with this idea, however, saying there is no bubble and repeated attempts to find one are just an attempt to stir up controversy. So which is it? That depends a lot on what you mean by the term "bubble." Does it mean the kind of investment mania that resulted in a public-market bloodbath a decade ago, or just any sign of overvaluation?

Pour favoriser la réappropriation des œuvres d'art grâce à l'impression 3D, le Metropolitan Museum de New York a organisé au début du mois "Met 3-D", une rencontre entre la communauté de l'impression 3D, dont Bre Pettis, le fondateur de MakerBot, l'imprimante 3D grand public la plus populaire, et des artistes

The eight articles that the New York Times published this week in a special Science series on health information technology called "The Digital Doctor" covered everything from advances in imaging technology to the psychological impacts of a wired society. The articles are well worth a read. One story, on the "ups and downs" of electronic health records (EHRs), examined doctors' and nurses' experiences as EHRs become more wide-spread because of the U.S. government's multi-billion dollar EHR adoption incentive program. What I found interesting in the Times story was the admission by some of the fiercest advocates for EHRs, like Dr. David Brailer, the first national coordinator for health information technology, that, "The current information tools are still difficult to set up. They are hard to use. They fit only parts of what doctors do, and not the rest."