During the Q&A period, Dawn Barber, cofounder of the New York Tech Meetup, asked Mr. Schumer what he thought of the role of the technology community would play in the city's future.

The topic has been received with considerable skepticism recently, particularly after Mayor Bloomberg waved his pom-poms at a press conference yesterday trying to lure more startups to New York.

The event--hosted at Buzzfeed's perky Flatiron headquarters--was light on actual news. Mr. Bloomberg officially announced the "Made in NY" label invented for the entertainment industry could now be applied to tech companies. While he was it, he also launched an online hub, We Are Made In NY. The site builds on the pre-existing Made in NY map, which let's tech-happy workers search for which startups are hiring or where to find investors. It also provides links to apply for resources subsidized office space or broadband connectivity.

However, as Kevin Roose noted over at Daily Intel, in order to qualify for that "Made in NY" sticker, companies have to have 75 percent of their technology development based in New York City. That eliminates major employers like Facebook and Google, who can make a bigger impact on the jobs market. Those types of companies are motivated more by "talent arbitrage"--luring engineers from other strong sectors (hi, Wall Street!) who might be open to taking tech jobs if they don't have to leave New York.

Thus Bloomie's brand of PR push doesn't work on them, Mr. Roose argued:

" . . . they're incentivized when they want to reduce their tax burdens, when they want to open a new market, or when they can get something in a satellite location that they can't get at home. Mayor Bloomberg isn't proposing any new tax breaks for start-ups, but he could convince West Coast–based computing giants like Apple, Microsoft, or Genentech to expand their New York presence by pointing out the vast engineering talent that exists here and can't be moved. That alone would create more New York jobs than convincing a hundred small start-ups to set up shop."

What's more, as The Awl's Choire Sicha pointed out today, the nebulous resources highlighted on the We Are Made In NY page won't necessarily move the needle for smaller startups either.

This morning's breakfast offered Mr. Schumer an opportunity to respond to some of those concerns, albeit indirectly. He mentioned his proposed immigration bill, which allows STEM (science technology engineering and math) graduates to "get a green card attached to your diploma," as a way to attract technical talent to New York, "because we’re the most hospitable place for immigrants anywhere in the nation."

"I’m a competitive New Yorker, so I like to see us do better than everybody else," he said. Mr. Schumer predicted the tech sector would be "one of our great futures," noting venture capital reports that show New York as second only to Silicon Valley in venture funding and a bigger percentage of growth in funding here.

This time around, he added, the promise is "not illusory the way it was in 2000." By way of proof, he offered the following anecdote:

"It's much stronger and deeper. I talk to experts in California. Eric Schmidt, the head of Google, told me that he gets more productivity per worker out of the 3,000 Google workers here--per person, per dollar--than out of the 13,000 people in Mountain View in their headquarters."

Huh, wonder what they're putting in the food trucks at Googleplex East?

Mr. Schumer didn't offer any further explanation, so it's impossible to say whether that enhanced productivity-per-dollar is because GOOG found a way to marshall New York neuroses or just because engineers in the Valley are paid a prettier penny. But that certainly sounds like the kind of stat that might interest Facebook and Twitter.

If City Hall does decide to start publicly courting the big boys, it might want to tread lightly. There's such a thing as being too welcoming.

(Photo: Phone Arena)

Gmail has improved its search capabilities, making it possible to now search for emails by size or specific date parameters. This should make finding all those embarrassing emails you sent to your ex even easier. [Gmail Blog]

NY Senator Charles Schumer proposed an initiative yesterday that would create two new high school diplomas that focus on promoting high-tech industries. Gotta start 'em young? [Press Connects]

The Queen of England prefers the Galaxy Note over the iPad for some unknown reason. [CNET]

Here's something to alarm you before 9 a.m.: Mat Honan, the Wired writer who was famously hacked, on why passwords are basically useless in protecting your personal information. [Wired]

Americans are too prudish to get into the spirit of fancy butt-washing Japanese toilets. :( [Priceonomics]

The Times tells us that the pair were wedded yesterday, at their home--excuse us, their "estate"-- in Garrison, New York. The announcement recounts their meeting:

The couple met in November 2005 through a college acquaintance of Mr. Eldridge’s at a brunch in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Eldridge was working as a customer service manager for a moving company in Somerville, Mass., and Mr. Hughes was a senior at Harvard, and already a founder of Facebook.

“He was very intelligent and charismatic,” Mr. Hughes said of Mr. Eldridge. “He was very kind and politically engaged, and he cared about the world around us. All of that was very attractive to me.”

Aw, it's almost enough to make us forget we find the Vows section even more agonizing than the Modern Love column!

A source tells Betabeat that while the wedding itself was intimate, at around 75 people, the party was a blowout, with something like 400 guests. Mark Zuckerberg attended, as did fellow Facebook cofounder Andrew McCollum and his wife Gretchen Sisson. Misters Hughes and Eldridge are quite connected in the city's Democratic circles, which probably explains what Nancy Pelosi was doing at the party, getting down to "All The Single Ladies."

Arianna Huffington put in an appearance at the couple's wedding dinner at Cipriani--and couldn't resist tweeting out a photo of herself with fellow guest Senator Charles Schumer. Senator Chris Coons likewise attended, betraying an endearing sentimental streak (or maybe just a sweet tooth) by tweeting out a picture of the wedding cake.

Mr. Hughes may be busy recruiting for The New Republic in his new role as media mogul. But there were plenty of friends from the tech world in attendance as well. LocalResponse founder Nihal Mehta and his wife Reshma Saujani were both there and tweeting their congratulations--no great surprise given Mr. Hughes' support for Ms. Saujani's 2010 Congressional campaign. Ms. Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code; the program's executive director Kristen Titus was also among the guests. We heard that Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley of Upworthy (which aims to "make important content shareable") were in attendance as well, and that Olivia Ma of YouTube did a reading.

Alberto Ibarguen, head of the Knight Foundation, and Ivanka Trump also attended. (Ms. Trump is married to Jared Kushner, head of the Observer Media Group, which owns Betabeat.)

Of course, Mr. Hughes' nuptials follow hard on the heels of those of both Mark Zuckerberg's surprise wedding and Andrew McCollum's seaside affair. Starting to reconsider that bachelor lifestyle, Eduardo? Inquiring minds want to know.

With contributing reporting from Nitasha Tiku.

"Uh uh, Google." (Photo: Blogger)

Sassy hand-gesturer and potentially technophobic New York Senator Charles Schumer has some serious concerns about the privacy of New Yorkers' backyards. In a letter to Google and Apple published yesterday on his website, the Senator concern-trolled the tech companies over their 3D map technology, which uses fly-over cameras to construct the images.

“Barbequing or sunbathing in your backyard shouldn’t be a public event," said Senator Schumer in a statement while presumably wearing a "Kiss the cook!" apron and brandishing a six-pack of hot dogs. "People should be free from the worry of some high-tech peeping Tom technology violating one’s privacy when in your own home."

In order to protect the privacy of New York's heavy-voting sunbather constituency, Senator Schumer proposed the following provisions on Google and Apple's mapping techniques:

1)      Provide notification to communities as to when you plan to conduct mapping

2)      Automatically blur photos of individuals who are captured, and give property owners the right to opt-out of having the company map their homes

3)      Put protocols in place with law enforcement and local municipalities to ensure that sensitive infrastructure details are blurred from published maps

Sen. Charles Schumer

Well-known foe of fun and fan of probes Senator Charles Schumer has asked the Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) to examine claims Apple and Android can spy on your application data. The Senator's request was made public Sunday. In it he referenced recent reports that certain smart phone and tablet applications can look at user photos and upload contacts to Apple and Google servers.

As reported by Reuters, the Senator's letter to the F.T.C.  stated that the app functions in question "go well beyond what a reasonable user understands himself to be consenting to when he allows an app to access data on the phone for purposes of the app's functionality."

Mr. Schumer also pointed out that the companies may be violating their own terms of service in allowing applications such easy access to private data. Apple and Google, the Senator wrote, "should be required to put in place safety measures to ensure third party applications are not able to violate a user's personal privacy by stealing photographs or data that the user did not consciously decide to make public."

It is still unclear as to whether this counts as another item in the Observer's recent rundown of "fun" things Sen. Schumer has "tried to destroy."