NYC inks deal to put train tickets on smartphones
Part of New York City’s train system is set to get a 21st-century kick in the pants. Digital tickets that live on commuters’ smartphones will soon be introduced thanks to a deal inked between the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Board and Masabi, one of eleven companies that offered to build such a system for the city. The pact follows a — presumably successful — trial conducted between Masabi and the MTA in 2012. Not every locomotive route will see paperless ticketing at first; only the Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Railroad are scheduled to be equipped with the new tech.
Once the program is firing on all cylinders, users will be able to buy tickets and present them to conductors using only their phones. While the setup will be a first for the Big Apple, a number of cities already have similar schemes. Masabi alone has has similar ticketing programs in Boston, San Diego and even Long Island. There’s no firm launch date in place for the MTA’s solution, so don’t expect to see it running in a matter of weeks. Ben Whitaker, Masabi’s CEO, told the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog that the MTA system is so massive that “planning, training and testing” will take a fair amount of time. For now, dead-tree tickets will still have to do.
[Image credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Flickr]
Filed under: Transportation, Software
Microsoft’s Innovation Center to school citizens on technology, help startups in Miami
Miami is going to get a whole lot geekier if Microsoft has its way. The software giant has recently announced plans to open its first US-based Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) in the sexy city later this spring, with more stateside locations to follow. The Miami MIC will focus on four different audiences: academia, the local Latin American community, government and start-ups, and it’s said that each group will benefit in its own way. Students, for example, will have a place to net specialized training and pick up valuable tech-related job skills. Will Smith’s favorite burg will also serve as a part of Microsoft’s CityNext program, which uses locals to create “healthier, safer and more sustainable” places to live. Only time will tell if the siren song of South Beach will have an adverse effect on any of the above, though.
[Image credit: Shutterstock]
Filed under: Microsoft
Via: Microsoft News
Source: Microsoft, The Official Microsoft Blog
White House wants immunity for telecoms that surrender customer data
American telecoms already have legal immunity when they cooperate with the government’s warrantless wiretapping, and they may soon be in the clear when they supply customer data, too. As The Guardian has learned, the White House is asking for legislation that would grant immunity to anyone obeying requests for phone records once companies are in charge of that information. The request isn’t surprising, according to an unnamed senior official — it’s in line with existing measures that shelter companies when they respond to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders.
Whether or not the administration gets its way is another matter. House intelligence committee members have written a bill sparing telcos from legal liability, but it’s currently stalled; the White House doesn’t like that it would let the government demand phone data without a judge’s approval. There’s also a rival bill that, if it escapes committee, would defund large-scale data collection within the US. However, it’s safe to say that carriers will push hard for a law offering immunity. While they don’t necessarily believe that scooping up phone records en masse is constitutional, they certainly want to avoid lawsuits.
[Image credit: The White House, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Internet
Source: The Guardian
HTC One (M8) Mini 2 leak reveals a single rear camera
Notorious leaker Evleaks has taken to Twitter to reveal what looks like the HTC One M8 Mini or what it is actually being called the HTC One Mini 2 according to the leak, dropping the M8 designation.
In addition to the name change, it seems that the HTC One Mini 2 won’t have the same Duo Camera setup as seen on the HTC One M8, but instead will have a single 13-Megapixel camera.
HTC One mini 2, 2014 pic.twitter.com/s3wXCD1gyA
— @evleaks (@evleaks) May 4, 2014
The upcoming HTC One Mini 2 will run Android 4.4.2 KitKat with the latest Sense 6.0 UI and will be powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor running at 1.7GHz. In addition, the device will have 1GB of RAM, a 4.5-inch display, and a 720 x 1280 resolution, with 16GB of internal storage via a microSD card.
So there doesn’t seem to be any surprises when it comes to the look of the device, but it seems HTC have chosen to drop the M8 naming convention the big brother device seems to have adopted to differentiate from its earlier version.
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