The Sun reports that a new Department of Education policy that "bans employees from linking to their Web logs in their work e-mail signature" is making at least one staffer with a blog unhappy. Lisa Nielsen, who is "the professional development manager for educational technology" at the DOE (according to her blog's About Me section), had included a link to her "professional blog," The Innovative Educator, where she discusses how technology can enhance teaching, but......

Photo via senseable city lab When MoMA and MIT join forces, the result is the highlight of an exhibition that zeros in on "current examples of successful design translations of disruptive scientific and technological innovations, and reflects on how the figure of the designer has changed from form giver to fundamental interpreter of an extraordinarily dynamic reality.” Translation: cool design developments meet scientific concepts meet human nature. The Design and the Elastic Mind is......

Earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new plan to put health information of millions of New Yorkers online. He touted the initiative, "By bringing this health technology to New Yorkers, we are building a national model for a health care system that works... In Washington, they talk about how our health care system should be reformed; here in New York City, we are actually doing it." Using $60 million of city, state, and federal......

2007 photograph of Yahoo billboard in front of a ticker mentioning Microsoft news by Mark Lennihan/AP Giving business analysts something to talk about besides the economy, Microsoft has made an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. The offer is at $31/share, which is 62% more than Yahoo's closing price. Microsoft hopes to create efficiencies by teaming up to compete with Google. However, Pioneer Investments fund manager Thomas Radinger told Bloomberg News, "Microsoft is under......

U.S. stock markets have not fared well in just the first dozen days of 2008, as indices are being dragged down by worries about the continuing subprime loan meltdown and the after-effects that a tightening in capital lending could have on the economy. According to The New York Times, Friday was just the worst of a bad stretch across the boards: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 246 points, or 1.9%, and is down 5%......

Former NBC News reporter John Hockenberry now a Distinguished Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab writes an interesting piece in the January/February Issue of Technology Review about his time at the network’s Dateline NBC. He claims that Dateline really cared about ratings and how it would mesh with the other shows on the NBC schedule. None of this is really a shock, nor is his tale of how a proposal to go......

Last week we learned that all New York taxis will soon be held to higher fuel efficiency standards; starting next October new cabs must get at least 25 miles per gallon. But the cab changes don’t stop there – in addition to upcoming GPS and touch-screen video technology, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is considering selling an unlimited card for cab riders, which may feature “fare integration” with buses and subways. Over half the city’s......

A plan is going to be submitted to the MTA's board for approval this week to spend $1.3 million to install a computerized monitoring system for the subway systems 300+ elevators and escalators. The purpose is to speed the response when elevators and escalators are out of service. Currently, the MTA operates a web page that is updated three times a day to inform riders when escalators and elevators are out of service, but it......

It seems like just yesterday that the Brooklyn Bridge was being blown up by Hollywood. How time flies. I Am Legend, the movie for which this post-apocalyptic craziness occurred, is opening today (get your promotional survivor kit ready!). In the 100 minutes of watching it, you'll meet three main characters: Manhattan, Sam the dog, and Will Smith ("Robert Neville"). The combination is apparently a winning one, as the reviews have been frighteningly positive...it will scare......

Spanish ibérico ham used to be banned in the United States because of USDA restrictions. However, as part of a newish approval process, the first shipments of the stuff arrived last week at New York stores Despaña and Dean & DeLuca. The former is selling free range sliced ibérico at $90-$99 a pound, and the latter has some of the fancier bellota ham at $75 a pound. More ibérico ham is on the way- in......

It may not be sweeps months, but WCBS 2 had a segment about a 12-week tiger cub who got a CT scan at a Long Island animal hospital. It's way easier on the eyes than the "woman who had a coat rack stuck in her face" story. Simba, a Siberian tiger at an Ohio zoo, was going to be put to sleep because she had a very bad sense of balance and could possibly......

Freaked out about the explosions in your neighborhood, only to find out via 311 that it's just fireworks? Or wondering about the fire around the corner? Well, the city actually does want you to know about what's going on in your neighborhoods and announced the pilot program launch of Notify NYC, which will deliver "emergency public information by email, text messages and reverse-911 alerts in four City community districts." The four districts are Lower Manhattan,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired on Soundview Ave. in the Bronx, a gas leak on Snyder Ave. and East 34th St. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on West 4th and 6th Ave. in Manhattan. High school girls (including a pair from Long Island) swept the top prizes in both team and individual categories for the first time in the history of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology. Houston St.......

Looks like everything's bigger in the city, including your risk of getting breast cancer. After analyzing about 1,000 mammograms, researchers found that women who lived in the city of London had denser breasts than their suburban or rural compatriots. Their findings were presented at the Radiologic Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting in Chicago this week. Mammographers lump patients into four broad categories depending on how dense their breasts are: extremely dense, heterogeneously dense,......

Irene Boland, the co-author of Wind the World Over, works in the sustainability office of the EPA. Her office covers Region 2 (New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) helps people pursue green living through their built environment. You can find out more about her office at the EPA on their website. Irene resides in Brooklyn, "under the BQE." How did you and your co-author, Vanessa Kellogg come up with the......

One of the first rules of using your iPod in the subway is to ditch the white headphones. Apple's tell-tale earbuds can have the negative effect of drawing attention to the fact that you are carrying a ~$400 device on you (we've known this since 2005, when iPod robberies were all the rage). Probably not something that needs to be advertised. When Gothamist first purchased our iPhone on launch day this fact weighed heavily......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a woman fell from a building at 35th St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan, a body part was found on 20th Rd. and 18th St. in Queens, and a pedestrian was fatally struck at 50th St. and 6th Ave. in Brooklyn. Architects may lose the 408 foot spire that tops off the Freedom Tower because giant antennas may be technologically obsolete. An alliance of broadcasters are considering moving to......

Should Bob Saget, John Stamos or … that other guy... decide to keep it real by riding the New York City subway, they’ll likely find themselves wondering whatever happened to predictability. That’s right; consider yourselves on notice Danny Tanner, Joey and Uncle Jesse. The Olsen twins are one thing, but our subways are full enough without you and your irreverent hi-jinks, thank you very much. Though we might consider an exception for Stamos if......

If you've been paying for Wifi at coffee shops between 42nd Street and Central Park South and between 8th and 6th Avenues, you can start saving up for more grande mocha lattes. CBS will be creating a "CBS Mobile Zone" with free wifi in midtown. In turn, CBS will lead users to an ad-supported homepage. CenterNetworks says that Citi and Salesgenie.com have already signed up. CBS, which owns CBS Outdoor, will wire billbards, MTA displays......

The police arrested a man for the killing of a poker player during a robbery earlier this month. On November 2, a group of robbers held up a secret poker club in an office building at Fifth Avenue and 28th Street. During the chaos, one of the robbers "accidentally" fired a gun, killing Frank DeSena (pictured), a math teacher at the Steven Institute of Technology in NJ. The robbers were wearing masks, making the police......

1) Features about the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, in anticipation of this year's Radio City Christmas Spectacular. The NY Times looks how performances from the 1930s and 1940s inspired this year's show while Newsday notes on the technology being used. Both focus on the amazing synchronized dancing. 2) Starbucks has decorated its stores with Christmas decorations and has started to use Christmas/holiday themed cups. Cajun Boy in the City also counts Josh Grobin......

Sometime before 8 this morning, Patrick Moberg and Camille Hayton introduced themselves to Good Morning America viewers, Diane Sawyer and hopeless romantics everywhere. The Subway Cyrano met up with his mystery lady last night for dinner, where they said they "clicked." Hayton suggests the subway moment was serendipitous because she wouldn't have been on it (going to a friend's place) if her house hadn't just burned down. Moberg is compared to a Hollywood leading man,......

Cops are now searching for the three gunman who apparently killed a New Jersey man by accident during a Friday night Flatiron poker club robbery. Fifty-five-year-old Frank Desena was declared dead at St. Vincent's Hospital shortly after he was shot in the abdomen during the robbery. Initial reports said that Desena was shot when one of the gunmen was picking up his sawed-off shotgun, which he'd dropped. Today, the New York Post is saying that......

One of the economic incentives that Mayor Bloomberg supports for students that perform well in city schools could include free cellphones and airtime. Previously, incentives included cash rewards for students passed AP exams. Any plan to encourage cellphone use by student may come as a surprise to those familiar with the Mayor's strong aversion to allowing students bringing their phones to school. A small cottage industry has even sprouted at bodegas nearby public schools who......

FILM: Ease in to Halloween with classic horror flick The Innocents, based on Henry James' novella The Turn Of The Screw. Evil and innocence, the strange and the everday, will mingle as you...enjoy complimentary vodka an tapas! 6pm // Mantra Lounge [986 2nd Ave] // Free, RSVP here EVENT: Neurologist Oliver Sacks explores "the complexities of human response to music and its powerful ability to move us physically and emotionally" tonight as he shares experiences......

Many taxi drivers are prepared to go on strike again tomorrow to protest the mandatory installation of expensive GPS equipment, credit and debit card readers, and video screens in the rear seats of their cabs. The effect of the first strike seemed negligible to many New Yorkers. A very informal survey of cab drivers who already have the equipment installed in their cars yielded a consensus opinion of the new technology: it sucks. Drivers complained......

Note to all mixologists: Tomato juice does not go well with X-ray machines. Especially when the X-ray machines are part of the screening process at LaGuardia Airport, where thousands of passengers are waiting to be checked out. WCBS 2 found out that security screening at LaGuardia was a lot slower than usual (and it can be really slow already!) because someone spilled tomato juice on an X-ray machine yesterday: "The Transportation Safety Administration confirmed......

We explained that many NYC taxi cabs are covered with flowery decals as part of Garden in Transit, a mobile public art project to celebrate the taxicab's 100th anniversary. The program is voluntary amongst taxi cab drivers, which is why not all cabs are decorated. Now it turns out that some of reluctance to go floral is because cab drivers think the designs are affiliated with the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The Post reports......

Probably the best way we can describe Snooth, a unique wine database that recently launched online, would be if the illegitimate web-child of Google and Facebook went to wine school. Or, more simply, it’s a ridiculously large database of wine that allows you to do really cool things and share it with your friends. Technically, Snooth is a self-described, “web based social shopping experience that is simplifying how people select, interact with and purchase their......

iTunes/Starbucks Partnership Launches Sony Bravia Ad rip off Artists work MLB & Joost Partnership Zune 2.0 And finally iTunes/Starbucks Partnership Launches On Tuesday the announced Apple & Starbucks partnership, to offer wireless iTunes in store experiences, launched in 600 locations in Seattle and New York City. Laptop (both Mac and PC), iPhone and iTouch users will be able to purchase music from the iTunes music store wirelessly at participating locations. What is really interesting......