Comfy. (Photo: Google Plus)

Google is well-known for its opulent work spaces and fantastic perks, which make everyone else feel like we're working in Soviet-era prisons.  Look at that spacious rooftop at Club Goog’s New York office: it emanates so many chill waves that Washed Out could play an impromptu set at any moment.

And now there’s something else that’ll reignite that office envy: hidden rooms. Behind some bookcases at Google’s offices in Chelsea, there are hidden doors that open into cozy nooks, which are adorned with comfy leather chairs (like a secret Barnes & Noble!).

iCrossing’s Tarah Feinberg posted the creepshot on his Google Plus page (how appropriate!), captioning it “coolest thing ever.”

We imagine the secret rooms are the perfect place to hide from your project manager.

H/T Search Engine Roundtable

(Photo via CBI Insights)

CB Insights released a new report about venture capital financing for the first quarter of 2013, and after a bleak 2012, things are looking up for New York startups. The state beat out Massachusetts for the second time in the last two years on “overall number of deals and funding” (not exclusive to tech companies), placing just behind California.

The report notes that the number of Internet deals hit its highest spike since the first quarter of 2010, with 379 deals.  Social websites aren't faring as well. The report mused that they're “so 2007,” as they accounted for just four percent of deals. Nationally, VCs invested $6.9 billion across 841 deals, making deal activity the “highest level since dot com days.” Seed funding "still registered a strong quarter," though it didn't near its Q3 of 2012 highs.

Meanwhile, clean tech deals are plummeting, with less than $500 million being invested in the sector in the year’s first quarter. “In the past, a single Clean Tech deal might be greater than that,” the report notes.

In New York, funding increased to a five-quarter high of $715 million, with funding climbing a "gargantuan" 113 percent since the first quarter of 2011. It's "no surprise,” writes the report, that Internet-related deals topped the number of deals made (71 percent) and money invested (74 percent share of investment dollars).

The report also ranked Warby Parker’s $41.5 million funding round as a “top” deal. Other deals of note include Aereo, SR Labs and AppNexus. Manhattan racked up 84 deals in the first quarter, totaling $642 million; Brooklyn had eight deals, totaling $13 million.

What bubble?

Don't lose this. (Photo: Hashgram)

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.

Riders can now view when the next train will arrive, trip duration, and arguably the most servicey feature of all: telling users of any delays or cancellations.

The updated data on Google Maps is the same info riders see on the (occasionally accurate) countdown clocks on subway platforms. Before incorporating open data from the MTA, Google Maps based its estimates on scheduled departure times rather real-time information.

Of course, Google isn’t the first company to use the data (apps such as Roadify, and NextStop have used it for awhile), but the Wall Street Journal calls it "the biggest endorsement yet" for the agency's open data experiment.

Google Maps manager (and self-proclaimed subway rider) Soufi Esmaeilzadeh wrote in a blog post that they want you (personally!) to have “access to the most comprehensive, accurate, and useful information.” Thanks, girl!  Similar travel information is now available in Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City, the post explained.

Now that our travel routine has been revolutionized, when is GOOG the Beneficent gonna gift us with more underground Wifi?

(Photo: LiveLeak)

What do you do when you lack the technology to create your own simulation of New York City under missile attack? You use footage from video games, of course!

Kotaku reports that a new space race propaganda video put online by North Korea's propaganda arm Uriminzokkiri depicts a city that looks an awful lot like New York being struck by missiles. Buildings begin to burn as an American flag waves overtop the footage. The video is couched as a dream sequence, showing the dreaming man aboard the rocket the country successfully tested in December.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads the caption, according to LiveLeak.

But as Kotaku points out, the footage of New York in ruins is actually borrowed from the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Even more bizarrely, the video is scored with the popular Michael Jackson/Lionel Richie song "We Are the World."

Is this some sort of ironic jab at the imperialistic nature of American pop culture, or do North Koreans just really really like MJ? Kim Jong-un does kind of seem like he'd be into all-night COD marathons.

We've reached out to COD publisher Activision for comment, though we have a pretty good feeling North Korea didn't reach out to them for permission.

Update:

Yup, Activision was none too happy with North Korea using its bestselling video game for propaganda purposes. The BBC reports that YouTube has taken the video down after a copyright complaint from the video game publisher.

Mr. Hughes. (photo via flickr.com/dsearls)

New York has just published a lengthy profile of Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, and it confirms what we've long suspected: This young man has the chutzpah of a well-capitalized comp lit major. After serving as PR interlocutor for Zuck and helping Barack Obama on his path to the presidency, Mr. Hughes is now plowing that Facebook fortune into the ailing New Republic.

But New York suggests that before he settled on his current property, the most literary of the Facebook mafiosos asked around about a different outlet. Buried in the profile is this tiny tidbit:

For Hughes, the advantage of trying to fix journalism by fixing The New Republic is that, in addition to its good breeding, it’s always been small and will remain small: He wasn’t taking the helm of a grand, listing superliner like, say, Newsweek. (Though, a source says, he did ask around first about buying The New York Review of Books, which isn’t for sale and is, actually, profitable.)

Oh, the hubris of the Harvard-educated. "May I rescue your weekly?" "No, thank you, we're doing just fine!" But if the choice for newly-minted millionaires is shopping for super yachts or venerable literary outlets, we'd chose the latter too.

And now that he owns the New Republic, guess what he wants to turn it into? "He was going to re-create the magazine as something like The New York Review of Books meets The Economist, he told these people."

But despite any discreet inquiries Mr. Hughes might have made, there doesn't seem to be any weirdness, judging by this bit of scene setting from the New York Times' profile of Mr. Hughes, from back in May:

The evening was his debut in New York’s clubby literary society. Robert Silvers, the longtime editor of The New York Review of Books being honored that night, offered Mr. Hughes a warm hello.

Can't hurt to keep the old lines of communication open--especially not with ominous clouds brewing on the horizon.

(Photo: Yellow Cab NYC)

It's a secret point of pride for experienced New Yorkers that we know how to properly parse the mystifying taxi light system. It gives us a leg up over tourists, who spend so much time trying to differentiate between the Available and Off Duty lights that by the time they realize the cab is free, a local has already settled into the backseat.

But now, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Taxi & Limousine Commission has voted to revamp the baffling system: during scheduled taxi inspections between January and April, all taxis will be outfitted so that their signs only display one light when they're available. When they're taken or off-duty, the sign will be dark.

"From the point of view of the person on the street, they just need to know I can stick my hand up and flag it down," said TLC Commissioner David Yassky at the meeting, prior to the vote.

The TLC discussed the change during the same meeting in which they addressed Uber's longstanding e-hailing battle, though voting on that decision may be a long ways off. The TLC's Beaver Street office is still being run off of a generator after losing power during another large public meeting, during which attendees had to exit by walking down 19 flights of stairs.

Revamping the complicated light system should go a long way towards making a cab easier to catch. Mr. Yassky said the new system just makes "plain, common sense."

Still, some New Yorkers are rather disgruntled about the leveled playing field. "New York is not supposed to be easy," a certain Betabeat reporter angrily Skyped. "Tourists are supposed to get lost."

Additional reporting contributed by Nitasha Tiku.

(Photo: City 24x7)

A few months ago, City 24x7 teamed up with the city of New York to create touchscreen neighborhood directories in phone booths across the city. Today, in partnership with Cisco, the company announced that it's rolling out the high tech public communications systems to 250 more phone booths across the New York area.

Each phone booth is outfitted with a 32-inch touchscreen device that offers directory information, city news and alerts, transportation schedules, restaurants and maps. City 24x7 has partnered with a host of companies to bring up-to-the minute info to each booth.

"You can get your real time train alerts, best New York restaurants through Zagat, green market information through Grow NYC, theater tickets through Theater Mania," said Tom Touchet, City 24x7's CEO. City 24x7 has also partnered with CityMaps for hyperlocal maps for each booth, and will provide services for those who are disabled and have difficulty using a standard pay phone.

The new touchscreen platforms will serve as an alternative vehicle to deliver city announcements and information. It will host some ads, primarily for local mom and pop shops, which will help pay for the device's upkeep.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, when cell phone networks were experiencing major outages and power was out across swaths of the city making it difficult to charge cell phones, suddenly high tech city dwellers had a use for payphones. Many were seen lining up to make phone calls from a technology that until then had seemed obsolete.

With backup battery power, the touchscreens could effectively keep running in the event of a power outage, providing important city alerts to residents in the event of a similar crisis. "They come equipped with backup battery power, which will keep them running for hours but not weeks," Mr. Touchet said. "That said, we are working on a green roof to augment and extend the battery life."

City 24x7 is already looking for more places to deploy the touchscreens. "There are a lot of other places that we’re talking about deploying," Mr. Touchet explained. "Any place that a city wants to impact urban flow in a positive way: bus stations, subway stations, campuses. It’s designed to align with the city and to get their info out in a way that helps people."

REMAIN CALM. (Photo: Flickr.com/dpstyles)

Parts of New York and New Jersey are still without power from the last major news event and yet here we are, in the throes of election day. And with cleanup efforts still ongoing, there's really no excuse for anyone who forgets one of the lessons we just learned about the rapid speed at which misinformation courses through social media in general and Twitter in particular.

For the love of God, as you go about your day for the next several hours, please take almost everything you read on Twitter with a grain of salt. No, a barrel. Maybe an entire salt lick.

At the height of the hurricane hysteria, mixed in with the wisecracks and genuinely useful information were outright, bald-faced lies (meet @comfortablysmug, everybody). But perhaps even more pernicious were the rumors and false reports. Remember the Coney Island hospital fire that wasn't? The Con Ed workers supposedly trapped? The system-wide subway shutdown that would last through the end of the week? The Fire Department turning to Twitter, as an alternative to an overburdened 911 system?

Not a one of them was true, but you're not alone if you feel for at least one of them. Gawker's conclusion: Twitter is one big old lie generator. A dynamo of bullshit, if you will.

The next few hours are going to be, if anything, more insane. This is a nationwide event, of global interest, one that most people are constitutionally incapable of shutting up about. This is also a nation where, after four years,  there are a few holdouts who still don't believe President Obama was born in America.

So when videos like this start bubbling up from Reddit and onto your Twitter feed, please remember to take a deep breath and do a little Googling around before you conclude a voter fraud conspiracy is afoot.

Unfortunately, however, it appears that at least a few of these "vote white" tweets are for real.

Glamorous Houston. (Photo: flickr.com/mrbill)

Apparently Boston wasn't the only town a little put off by the AP's flattering article about New York's burgeoning tech scene. Take this response, which appeared earlier this week in the Houston Business Journal. Upon hearing about our fair city's recent investments, the reporter couldn't help wonder: “Does this mean Houston has more competition in terms of trying to be the next Silicon Valley?"

The Journal spoke to Brad Burke, the managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, who promptly attempted to set the minds of Houston's techie citizens at rest:

"One of the advantages of Houston is the breadth of industries here. We have such a strong life science, energy, nanotechnology and information technology (presence) here,” Burke said. “Also, New York has an inherent problem. The cost of doing business is so expensive, and Houston is a much more business-friendly environment.”

It's certainly true that building some enormous facility downtown is a tough row to hoe. Then again, maybe having to get by on a shoestring budget is good for nascent companies.

But then Mr. Burke really showed his claws:

Also, Burke said he found it most interesting that New York has just recently decided to start building a technology presence, while cities like Houston have been working on it for 10 to 15 years.

Burn! Don't call it a comeback.

"Fuck you, Boston's most successful startup is AMERICA, okay?" -- Paul Revere, probably.

This weekend, several outlets ran an AP story about New York's startup scene, hitting all the high points--CornellNYC, the river of VC money, the local outposts of national companies like Google and Facebook. BostInno, however, has a quibble: 

New York is seeing huge activity in Internet and Mobile by CB Insights’ categorization. In other words, in software + internet. Boston/Massachusetts has a much more balanced ecosystem, with huge strength in healthcare and, until recently, in energy. And of course we have a growing robotics cluster as well.

Of course, as a Boston news outfit, the site decidedly has a dog in this particular fight. But while the spirit of good-natured rivalry between our fair cities inspires a knee-jerk tendency to reply "consumer Internet rules, biotech drools," it's a fair point. Partially because it's so strong here and partially because they're the most obvious to us as consumers, it's easy to lapse into thinking that SoLoMo apps are the whole of technology, but it's just not true.

That said, the VC funding number crunchers over at CB Insights (who don't exactly shy away from pointing out New York's weakness on everything that isn't Internet and software) admitted in their most recent report that New York has been showing "signs of life" in healthcare and green energy. Witness, for example, the advent of the New York Genome Center, which aims to close the local biotech research gap. New York City has also lately been bolstering its robotics bona fides, and then there's all the excitement around MakerBot and Shapeways. Oh, and let's not forget how Armonk-based IBM wants to deploy Watson the AI to save your life.

All that, and we even have a good ten minutes more of daylight in the winter.