By Kelly Faircloth 5/07 4:45pm

Hackathons

Bullshit the N wasn't running. (Photo: flickr.com/anniemole)

Stalk Your Favorite Subway Buskers With the Winner of the MTA’s Transit Hackathon

Your smartphone is useful for more than Bejeweled now that there’s Wifi in many stations, and the MTA is trying to use that connectivity to make your commute better. (Just don’t ask when your train is getting a countdown clock.)

This weekend, techies gathered in Brooklyn at NYU Poly’s MetroTech Center campus for the first official, MTA-approved transit hackathon. Participants threw together a total of 17 submissions judged by authorities like Rachel Haot, General Assembly cofounder Matt Brimer and AT&T New York president Marissa Shorenstein. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 4/25 10:19am

Metro Tech

~Waiting on the world to change. (Photo: Flickr)

MTA Debuts Cell and Wifi Service at 30 Stations to Distract You From Late Trains

Now social media editors can finally afford to leave their desks and shower. The MTA is announcing later today that it’s rolling out cell and Wifi service to 30 additional subway stops, including Times Square, Columbus Circle, and Rockefeller Center. Prior to today, the only stations that offered the free service included the C & E platform at 23rd Street, two stops on the L line, and several platforms at the 14th Street station. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 3/28 2:25pm

Metro Tech

Don't lose this. (Photo: Hashgram)

Google Implements Real-Time Subway Data, Destroying Another Excuse for Brunch Tardiness

Expect a marked drop in “running 15 late sorrrrrrryyyy don’t hate meee ” texts thanks to a new feature on Google Maps that shows real-time travel updates on its desktop and mobile products.

Google is getting timelier information by pulling from the MTA’s open data program. However the improved intel is only available for numbered lines (sans the 7) and the Times Square Shuttle thus far. If you are dependent on perpetually infuriating lettered trains like, for example, the C, you are out of luck. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 12:27pm

Digital Underground

Among the locations: Six subway stations. (Photo: flickr.com/anniemole)

Enjoy Your Diseases From These Touchscreen Subway Maps

Good to know the MTA is putting the increased cost of our metro cards to good use: Fast Company reports that several stations are getting a high-tech new amenity. The agency has hired a design firm, Control Group, to design and install 90 touchscreen map kiosks across the subway system, starting later this year.

Just like with the subway pole, however, it’s a bring-your-own-Purel situation. Read More

By Patrick Clark 1/29 2:16pm

NFC

metrocard

Now You Can Blame Your Bank Next Time You Lose Your MetroCard

Guess it’s going to be a little longer before we can do away with our easy-to-misplace, hard-to-use-up MetroCards: While the MTA has been experimenting with near field communication technology for subway fares as far back as 2007—inviting us to imagine a day when we can pay for mass transit with the tap of a smartphone or debit card—the full adoption of the technology remains beyond our grasp. Read More

By Myles Tanzer 1/16 1:04pm

startup rundown

Katie Couric in Warby Parker (Photo: Facebook.com)

Startup News: Warby Parker Ate Way Too Much Salad and Sold a Lot of Monocles This Year

Rose-Colored Glasses Warby Parker just released its annual report for 2012, and it’s a pretty fun slideshow to click through. The glasses empire now has 113 full-time employes and 42 part-time employees. Of those bespectacled folks, 108 have company-sponsored gym memberships. In other Warby Parker health news, 2,507 pounds of salad were eaten in the office this year. Although there are not too many exact sales figures in the package (besides the fact that 296 monocles were sold this year) a diagram on the last page shows that sales from the first quarter of the year to the last one have nearly tripled. Warby Parker says it gave out 250,000 pairs of glasses this year, some of which went to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Read More

By Patrick Clark 12/17/12 2:30pm

pink and pink

(Mehreen Zama/Instagram)

Microsoft Goes Full Steel Magnolias on the Inside of the 42nd Street Shuttle

Microsoft has chosen the Times Square-to-Grand Central shuttle to launch an advertising campaign for the Surface, and it’s a full-on assault: not only did the company install video screens to loop an ad for the tablet computer, but it painted entire cars flamboyant pink, the same color, Mashable points out, as the double duty screen protectors/keyboards that Microsoft calls Touchcovers. Read More