Technology: NYC Adds Free AT&T Wi-Fi to Public Parks

Give a "w" for technology......

"New York-dwelling tech geeks rejoice: Pretty soon, you’ll be able to access Wi-Fi while lounging in the park.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, announced Thursday a five-year initiative to bring free Wi-Fi to 26 locations in 20 New York City parks across the boroughs. Today, AT&T Wi-Fi will be up and running in Battery Bosque (a garden in Battery Park), the north-end playground in Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx, and around the recreation center at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem.

The other 23 locations will begin to pop up over the summer — Wi-Fi is even coming to the blighted grass of Brooklyn’s McCarren Park, where I personally plan to while the summer away.

The city has been getting increasingly digital of late, adding Wi-Fi to subways, car services and hotspots like Times Square (via AT&T as well). This new parks effort, however, is a part of New York’s Road Map for the Digital City, a plan unveiled in May 2011 to make the city more connected. AT&T, meanwhile, gets some badly-needed PR." - via Masahable

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Android Phones Claim the #1 Spot over Blackberry and Apple

"Google’s Android now holds more than a third of the U.S. smartphone market share, eclipsing both RIM’s BlackBerry OS and Apple’s iOS with a growing lead, comScore reports.

Measuring more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers through its MobiLens service from December 2010 to March 2011, ComScore found that Android now holds 34.7% — a solid increase from 31.2% in January, which was when Android jumped ahead of RIM as the top smartphone platform in the U.S. for the first time.

Apple held its own, growing from 25% in December 2010 to 25.5% in March 2011. It seems most of Android’s growth was at the expense of RIM, which dropped from 31.6% to 27.1% in that same period.

Microsoft and Palm, which hold the fourth and the fifth place on the list, also lost a fair share of subscribers, dropping to 7.5% and 2.8%, respectively.

On the mobile equipment manufacturer front, very little has changed. Motorola dropped from 16.7% to 15.8% from December 2010 to March 2011, and the only company that experienced significant growth in this period was Apple, which grew from 6.8% to 7.9%, largely due to the iPhone launching on Verizon in February." - via Masable
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