Note To Self

Bitcoins. Bitcoins. Bitcoins. These days, you can’t swing a digital cat without reading a story about the digital currency that’s got tech and financial reporters all in a froth. It’s complicated (though h/t to Quartz and its explanation about how it all works) and at times, hard to figure out how to make it relevant to everyone else. That is until I heard two stories about bitcoin that make up this week’s New Tech City.  First, there’s Gina Fox, a self-described "old mom" from Rhinebeck, New York, who misplaced as many as 100 bitcoins. So you know, in real life dollars, that could be worth about $100,000.  Can she find them?  Then, the second story, bitcoin goes locally-sourced near the organic aisle at a Whole Foods (and not in Brooklyn…yet…). Where bitcoin dealers meet for some face to face trading.  Slightly odd considering it’s a virtual currency. 

The millenial generation has a reputation for selfies, oversharing and cat memes, but many faith leaders are flocking to platforms like Facebook and Twitter to attract more of these young people to the church. In this week's episode, reporter (and lapsed Catholic) Marielle Segarra visits several tech-savvy churches in and around New York City to see if worship via smartphone apps and social media can bring her back into the fold. Click on the audio to hear Segarra's personal journey and how one Long Island pastor tracks down parishioners away at college to make sure they are going to Mass.   Do you have any personal stories about technology and faith?  Leave a comment below or tweet us at @NewTechCity.

Workers of every age have to keep their tech smarts up to date to stay relevant in today's workplace. 

You love the planet and your gadgets, so how do you find a balance?

This week on New Tech City, we're crossing the digital divide. 

Games have power, so this week, we play a few that can motivate kids to learn more, whether they realize it or not. And we see how a test case of a new technology for football might help keep young heads safer (and smarter) from injury.

Andrew Rasiej, chairman of NY Tech Meetup, argues that tech talent can do more for kids and New York's tech sector, if talented programmers get more involved in the classroom.

Coders have a very specific way of working, it’s called Agile.  One family decided to apply it to their lives.  What if healthcare.gov had too?

The tiny Baltic nation of Estonia puts the United States to shame when it comes to electronic voting (not to mention marinated eel served cold and teaching little kids to code.)

This week New Tech City looks at New York's internet connectivity a year after Sandy knocked out communications for so many New Yorkers.

He wants to find in a cheaper way to get to outer space.  He’s building a clock that ticks once a year, moves its "century hand" once every hundred years and chimes once a millennium.  Oh, and he’s also the CEO of the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon.  He is Jeff Bezos.

No heavy subject matter this week. Instead, we're diving into two subcultures that have been transformed by tech: Coffee and cigarettes. If you've never heard of a burr grinder or cartomizer, this podcast is for you. 

More and more micro-entrepreneurs are using online services like Etsy, Kickstarter, Uber and Lyft to create their own jobs. Welcome to the new DIY economy.

The recent revelation that companies like Google and Facebook routinely hand over data about users' digital communications to the National Security Agency has many Americans wondering whether everything they do online is being tracked by the government. 

As Twitter's lawyers prepare to take the company public, they aired some of the company's financial dirty laundry in a regulatory filing this week, confirming that the social media service continues to lose money.