Note To Self

New Year's is here, and that means resolutions. Some of you may aspire to plug in more next year and better manage your social media presence or organize your photos stored in the cloud. On the other hand, some of you may plan to do the exact opposite and tune out, for at least a few minutes a day, and set  limits on when and where you use your tech gadgets. Whatever your goals this coming year, technology is likely to play a role. In fact, you might be using tech to track how well you're doing with your resolutions. This week on WNYC's New Tech City, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Douglas Rushkoff about how media and the digital age will change the way we live and think in 2013.  Rushkoff is an authority on the intersection of technology and culture. He’s written 12 bestsellers. His new book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, comes out in March. He argues that digital technology and other 21st-century trends are making it harder to organize around "future-based goals" like building an atomic bomb or landing a man on the moon. According to Rushkoff, today's challenges are not so easy to put in a box.  "As we mature as a society, we have to start looking at sustainable models," he says. "And sustainable models of working things out aren't quite so dramatic. They don't have that same sense of mission and endpoint and goal."

Americans have purchased millions of smartphones, tablet computers and other digital tech this holiday season, and many of those gifts are showing up under Christmas trees this morning. As many parents know, ubiquitous digital devices mean kids are developing their tech savvy at an early age, often swiping, tapping and typing before learning to swim or ride a bike. Nineteen percent of kids between the ages of two and five know how to use a smartphone application, while just nine percent can tie his or her shoelaces, according to a 2010 study conducted as part of a year-long 'Digital Diaries' research project on the influence of technology on children by the internet security company AVG.  This week on WNYC's New Tech City, hear host Manoush Zomorodi's interview from November 27 with Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study on the effects of media on children. The AAP suggested kids two years old and younger be completely screen-free and that older children should get no more than two hours of screen time a day.  Dr. Brown weighs in on the longterm effects of digital technology on childhood development and what parents should think about when deciding when their kids should get their own smartphones or Facebook accounts.  Plus, a report on the growing number of 3D printing companies like MakerBot that are taking "homemade" to a new level.

New York City is now the number two hub for tech companies in the nation after Silicon Valley. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and eBay have all opened offices here, and the Bloomberg administration is partnering with Cornell University to build a new computer science grad school on Roosevelt Island.  The startup scene is thriving, too. According to SeedTable, more than 40 New York startups have been acquired so far in 2012.  This week on WNYC's New Tech City, Manoush Zomorodi hosts a debate on whether the Silicon Alley tech boom is sustainable or whether New York could see a repeat performance of the dot-com bust of the late nineties. On one side of the table is Greg David, former editor of Crain’s New York Business and now director of the business and economics program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.  In a recent blog post for Crain's called “Time to Start Worrying about a Tech Bubble,” he cites a drop in venture capital investments in New York companies in the second and third quarters as one cause for concern.  "The tech story in New York has been bullish for a couple of years now. It’s time to start looking at the sector with much more skepticism," he writes. On the other side of this debate is Laurel Touby, founder of mediabistro, which she founded in 1996 and sold for $23 million 11 years later. She invests in and advises small Internet companies.

Apple's App Store and Google Play have hundreds of thousands of smartphone apps. When it comes to the megabytes, however, apps are tiny things. The average smartphone app takes up about the same amount data as any 3-minute song you can buy on iTunes.  So how hard is it to create one of these itsy-bitsy pieces of software? This week on WNYC's New Tech City, Stan Alcorn and Tracey Samuelson — reporters with no programming experience — explore the resources and classes available for wanna-be smartphone app developers. According to Apple, app developers have received more than $6.5 billion in royalties since the App Store launched in 2007. A report from the Yankee Group estimates that revenues from apps could grow to $97.6 billion by 2016. But as our intrepid reporters find out, it's not easy money. "A lot of programmers sort of get frustrated at this whole 'learning to code is easy' movement," says Zach Sims, founder of Codecademy. "It's definitely not easy."

When it comes to growing a business, sometimes it’s about looking to new horizons, and other times, it’s simply about trying to hold on to what you have. After Sandy, many restaurants and budding food businesses in Red Hook were inundated by flood waters.  Several have already started to rebuild, but in some cases, they’re not waiting for FEMA or the Small Business Administration to provide grants or loans. Instead, they’re turning to crowdfunding websites to raise money.  The owners of Court Street Grocers are restoring their catering kitchen and sandwich shop destroyed by the storm thanks to online donations. In the case of the co-working space General Assembly, it’s leaders just raised nearly $10 million and are expanding globally. Not just as a place for entrepreneurs and start-ups to find a home, but as education centers.

Dr. Ari Brown is a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics study on the media use by children. RedLaser — "I love a bargain. Need I say more?" C25K — "It lets me have a personal trainer yelling at me to keep running without having to pay for one. I'm not sure what I will do once I get to running a 5k though." Camscanner — "It's great to be able to send perfectly centered documents instead of looking like you just snapped a picture of it with your phone (which is what you do!)"

Americans will buy millions of smartphones, tablet computers and other digital tech this holiday season, and many of those gifts will be given to children. As many parents know, ubiquitous digital devices mean kids are developing their tech savvy at an early age, often swiping, tapping and typing before learning to swim or ride a bike. Nineteen percent of kids between the ages of two and five know how to use a smartphone application, while just nine percent can tie his or her shoelaces, according to a 2010 study conducted as part of a year-long 'Digital Diaries' research project on the influence of technology on children by the internet security company AVG. This week on WNYC's New Tech City, host Manoush Zomorodi talks to Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study on the effects of media on children. The AAP suggested kids two years old and younger be completely screen-free and that older children should get no more than two hours of screen time a day. Dr. Brown weighs in on the longterm effects of digital technology on childhood development and what parents should think about when deciding when their kids should get their own smartphones or Facebook accounts. Plus, a report on the growing number of 3D printing companies like MakerBot that are taking "homemade" to a new level.

In September, when millions of iPhone users downloaded iOS 6 and found Google Maps replaced by Apple Maps, it became clear how reliant people have become on digital maps. Suddenly, a large slice of the smartphone generation could not find a certain restaurant or a friend's apartment. It's no surprise that digital maps now play a huge role in everyday tasks, but they also figure large in more serious pursuits like disaster cleanup and rebuilding. This week on WNYC's New Tech City, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Steven Romalewski, director of the Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center, about mapping before and after Sandy. Plus, a visit to the map room at the New York Public Library. Cartographers there are working with NYPL Labs to put old maps online and make them useable in the digital age thanks to a process known called "map warping."

Using technology to get communities back on their feet faster after a crisis might include floating blimps with wi-fi over a disaster-hit city or creating a National Guard of tech geeks to take action when the digital infrastructure goes down or maybe even stockpiling electronics and generators for tech reserves, similar to oil reserves. These are some of the ideas that the Chairman of New York Tech Meetup, Andrew Rasiej, and I discuss on this week’s New Tech City on WNYC. Rasiej wonders if the recovery from Sandy is happening as efficiently as it could. In the days after the storm, NY Tech Meetup (with the help of some of its 28,000 members) launched NY Tech Reponds – a website where over a thousand techies have volunteered to help businesses and non-profits with their tech problems caused by Hurricane Sandy. But much more could be accomplished. “The city still thinks of technology for the most part as a slice of the pie,” he told me. “And what we need the city to understand is that technology is actually the pan that supports everything else that the city does.” Rasiej and I met up in Dumbo, one Brooklyn neighborhood that was flooded during the storm and is populated by a lot of tech startups. After 9/11, he told me, NYC’s tech community also volunteered to work with small businesses, school, and non-profits to get them back up and running. Inspired by that, a bill called NET Guard was passed to create a national tech corp that would spring into action after a crisis to rebuild communication networks, databases, and digital infrastructure. Even though the bill passed the Senate 97-0 and was incorporated into the Homeland Security Act, Rasiej said neither the Bush or the Obama administration did much about it. Rasiej now hopes Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute of Health and Human Services (which oversees FEMA) will do more. “She has already called for volunteers for helping with cyber security and she has told us that she’s very interested in operationalizing the idea of tech volunteers, just like a national guard to be present, whenever there’s disaster coming,” Rasiej said.

Two weeks after Sandy hit the New York region, is the recovery coming along as fast it could? In the city's tech community, some are pondering this question, including Andrew Rasiej.  He's the chairman of the 28,000-member New York Tech MeetUp. Soon after the storm, the group helped launch New York Tech Responds, a website to coordinate the tech community's response to help in the relief efforts. Rasiej tells New Tech City that there is more that can be done to prepare in advance of natural disasters.  He argues that technology shouldn’t be seen as part of the solution, but as integral to the rebuilding in New York City. “The city still thinks of technology for the most part as a slice of the pie and what we need the city to understand is that technology is actually the pan that actually supports everything else the city does.”

Sandy turned the New York City metropolitan area into a low tech region last week. The storm knocked out power, cut internet access and limited phone service throughout the tri-state region. For many in the tech scene, it caused additional damage, flooding data centers and the offices of start-up companies. New Tech City talks with the Rachel Haot, the New York City’s Chief Digital Officer, about how Sandy affected the city’s tech companies and infrastructure. It’s also Election Day, and it could be a confusing one.  Sandy only further complicated recent redistricting, by knocking out power to several polling centers.  Does your polling station have power?  Is it a shelter?  Host Manoush Zomorodi talks with Jed Alpert, CEO of Brooklyn-based Mobile Commons, about its national text messaging campaign to help the election process.

The social media realm can at times seem like a frivolous place full of out-of-focus photos and posts about what your friends ate for breakfast. But for businesses, it can also be a cash cow thanks to the sheer number of people you can reach with something as simple as a tweet. Facebook recently announced that a billion people — one in seven in the world — use the social network, and 60 percent of Americans log on to some form of social media, according to a study released Friday by the Pew Research Center. This week on New Tech City, WNYC business reporter Ilya Marritz investigates how traders are crunching millions of data points from Twitter and other sources in the hope of generating serious money. It's a growing field of research known as "sentiment analysis," where investors analyze messages posted on social media and headlines on news sites to help determine how to invest. Then, New Tech City host speaks with Mark Schwanhausser, an analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research who studies how banks are using social media for branding, marketing and replying to customer complaints. He says big U.S. banks have been slow to develop a social media presence compared to other American businesses in part because of their "locked down" culture. "Banks are ones that like to control the message," Schwanhausser said. "And when you start putting things out onto social media, on Facebook and Twitter for instance, you lose that control."

As the medical world goes digital, patients are accessing healthcare online and through smartphone apps while doctors and hospitals are using software to do everything from track prescriptions to transfer patients to different offices or departments. This week on WNYC's New Tech City, reporter Mary Harris gives a tour of New York City's rapidly changing health care tech scene where competition is fierce to get a fraction of the big money flowing into the medical tools of the future. Venture capital funding for healthcare IT has skyrocketed — tripling over the last three years from $343 million to $955 million, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters. Plus, the federal government is planning to spend up to $29 billion in incentives to get providers to digitize healthcare records, changing the way hospitals and doctor's offices process claims, track patient prescriptions and more. And with the carrot also comes the stick. Obamacare, as even the president referred to the Affordable Care Act during the first presidential debate, would penalize providers who don’t move to electronic records by 2014. The government argues that digitizing medical records and other processes will save time, money and even lives, but some critics say that given where things stand now, don't believe the hype. New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi talks with Ross Koppel, professor of sociology and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the principal investigator of its Study of Hospital Workplace Culture. He is also the co-editor of the book First, Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety. Koppel agrees that healthcare IT is the way of the future, but he says the systems on the market today are far from flawless and need a major overhaul.  

As Silicon Alley has boomed, so has the market for events that cater to tech sector employees and those that want to get their foot in the door at the city's start-ups. Meet ups, happy hours, hackathons, breakfasts: It seems there's an event for every time of day and every possible subculture in tech. Interested in collecting data about yourself? Join the Quantified Self group. Into rewriting computer code? Check out HackNY, Hack and Chat or Hack'n Jill. This week on New Tech City, reporter Tracey Samuelson discusses how to navigate all the tech events and talks to entrepreneurs about how to network in New York. Plus, our host Manoush Zomorodi introduces us to the fast-growing world of coworking, where freelancers and other independent operators rent space in a shared office instead of working from home or signing a lease. We visit one such space — the Brooklyn Creative League in Gowanus — to find out how it works.

When President Obama and Mitt Romney take the stage in Denver for their first presidential debate Wednesday, the talking points will no doubt center on jobs and the economy. The unemployment rate is hovering above eight percent nationally, and here in New York City, it stands at 9.9 percent. One phrase you probably won't hear from the candidates is "applicant tracking systems" — a fancy name for the software that automatically scans and screens your resume without so much as a mouse click from a human being. Running resumes through these programs is the first step in the hiring process at up to 90 percent of large companies.  It's become a nearly $4 billion industry.  On this week's New Tech City, reporter Ben Bradford puts his own resume to the test and discovers that automated resume screening can be a hazard for job hunters despite being a godsend for overloaded HR departments. Then, there are some economists who think the unemployment rate would be much higher if it were to account for people who have stopped looking for work. But what about people who have taken the job situation into their own hands?   At the third-annual Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, reporter Stan Alcorn talked to members of "the maker movement" — a loose federation of digital age tinkerers — about their entrepreneurial projects and how often they translate into a paycheck.