GOWEX Releases Free 1Mbit Wi-Fi Across New York City

GOWEX wants to turn New York into a Wireless Smart City (WSC). The plan is to have free wireless Internet available everywhere and today the company announced the beginning of its push to create “Global Wi-Fi cities for global citizens” by offering free Wi-Fi to nearly 20 million New Yorkers, not to mention more than 50 million tourists.

GOWEX offers free Internet access in hundreds of hotspots between Manhatten, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the Bronx thanks to a deployment of 1.953 Wi-Fi smart zones around the biggest neighborhoods in the city.

The launch of New York is just another step in the strategy GOWEX that, in the near future, will be implemented in the U.S. over three cities this year,”said Jenaro Garcia, CEO of GOWEX. “We are talking with various private and public entities that have a high interest in using and expand this project of WSC.”

The company has recently updated their free GOWEX WiFI app to include New York City. Users can download the app and see a map that includes the various free Wi-Fi hotspots the company has to offer.

GOWEX boasts free download speeds of up to 1Mb and points out that their network frees up other 3G networks that have been bogged down by so many users in the New York City area.

Google offers free Wi-Fi in Chelsea and GOWEX promises to deliver the same quality of Internet service to all neighborhoods in New York City, “which will make the city into a paradigm of free wireless connectivity around the world.”

Why Facebook Is Sending Its People to Mobile Coding Camp (And Not Just Engineers)

Do me a favor — listen to Facebook’s next earnings call and count the number of times CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the word “mobile.” If you played it as a drinking game, you’d be blotto before CFO David Ebersman even got on the line.

That’s no mistake (obviously). It’s the company’s mission to spread the “mobile first” mentality throughout the organization (a maxim oft heard and quickly becoming trite in the Valley), which means thinking about designing for mobile in all of the company’s product development.

How to do that, after the organization already has upward of 3,500 employees, with more being added every day? Part of the solution: Send ‘em to boot camp.

Facebook has contracted the services of Big Nerd Ranch, an 11-year-old outfit responsible for running a week-long, 40-hour crash course in mobile development that any and all Facebook employees can sign up for.

“Eighty percent of those who took the training were software engineers,” Facebook Director of Mobile Engineering Mike Shaver told reporters at a roundtable Monday. But surprisingly, folks from departments other than engineering were willing to sign up for the course, from marketing to sales to disciplines that wouldn’t require a comprehensive knowledge of mobile coding.

The way Shaver describes it, it’s part of Facebook’s grand, yearlong initiative to shift from a Web-centric model of thought to incorporating “native code” — or programming language specific to iOS or Android — into the company’s thinking. In short, it’s crucial in making Facebook’s apps actually perform well. (Remember how crappy the Facebook app was a year ago? I certainly do.)

Which is sort of important, given that Facebook is one of the most popular apps on smartphones across the world.

The program seems to be going well. More than 450 employees have gone through Big Nerd Camp’s sessions since last July, with nearly two-thirds of those opting to focus on Android rather than iOS. And that’s important to note, too, considering Android’s massive reach in the global mobile device market.

I’d imagine as Facebook continues to hire, the program will continue to expand. Facebook doesn’t require that folks have specific engineering experience in certain areas — “generalists are welcome,” Shaver said — but the ones who are already well-versed in either iOS or Android can move through the organization and act as “little seed crystals for different product groups,” Shaver said, which will hopefully beef up the mobile focus overall.

Former Top Yahoo Ad Exec Sues Yahoo, Accusing It of Trying to “Cheat” Him Over Acquisition Compensation

Michael Katz, a former high-profile advertising exec at Yahoo who sold Interclick to the Silicon Valley Internet giant, has filed a lawsuit, claiming the company tried to “cheat him out of the compensation he was promised during negotiation of the acquisition and to humiliate him as well.”

The filing centers on a retention bonus that Katz alleges was owed him as part of the purchase of the ad-targeting company he sold to Yahoo in 2011 for $270 million.

Katz was fired in a bar by HR head Jackie Reses, the lawsuit states, two weeks before he was due to receive the first large bonus payment of $1.35 million from the company. Three other payments were to follow, along with the vesting of a number of stock options.

As I previously reported, Katz’s exit from Yahoo was not pretty, which has also been the case with several former exec after new CEO Marissa Mayer arrived last year:

Considered a savvy online ad player and a well-regarded entrepreneur, Katz came to the Silicon Valley Internet giant a year ago when it bought Interclick, the ad-targeting company he co-founded and headed, for $270 million.

Yahoo later used Interclick’s technology in its audience-buying platform called Genome. In a reorganization announced in January, Katz was placed in charge of sales operations and data and performance optimization for Genome.

The data unit is at the center of efforts by Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer to turbocharge its ad business.

But the Katz missive clearly signaled that his departure was not an amicable one, which sources underscored was part of a larger rejiggering of the ad sales staff under new COO Henrique De Castro.

“As some of you are starting to learn, my last day with the company will be today,” wrote Katz on Friday. “Leaving Y! is not the hard part — how it happened and leaving all of you is what makes this difficult.”

How it happened, said several sources, was that Katz was suddenly told by HR head Jackie Reses last week that there was not a place for him, only days before a large 12-month retention bonus was to be paid out to him for the Interclick acquisition.

While it is an unusual thing to part on willfully difficult terms with an entrepreneur, as it sends a bad signal to others considering joining the company, Yahoo’s new leadership has been playing hardball with a lot of top execs it is parting ways with, and is also limiting departure packages.

Asked for comment, a Yahoo spokeswoman responded, “We don’t comment on legal matters.” Katz was unavailable for comment, but referred me to the lawsuit filed.

Here’s the lawsuit complaint and summons, with more to come:

dpny-23850838-v1-Complaint

dpny-23850837-v1-Summons

Denmark claims Microsoft owes it $1 billion in tax

The big technology companies regularly grab the headlines due to their business practices related to tax avoidance. It’s in their interests to minimize the tax they pay, and they use clever accountants to do so without breaking the law. However, for Microsoft, such practices may be about to bite them in Denmark to the tune of over $1 billion.

Nearly 11 years ago in May 2002, Microsoft acquired the Danish business software vendor Navision for $1.3 billion in a stock and cash deal. Microsoft then sold Navision’s accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software rights to one of its Irish subsidiaries for a bargain basement price rather than a price the market would deem fair. By doing so, Microsoft avoided the high taxes in Denmark.

The problem is, the Danish Treasury took notice of what Microsoft was doing and isn’t happy. They see it as Microsoft transferring assets out of the country without paying tax on the true value of those assets. Now they are asking Microsoft to pay the tax (and 11 years of interest) based on the true value of the assets transferred to Ireland.

The surprise tax bill for Microsoft is thought to be for 5.8 billion kroner, which is just over $1 billion. That’s a nice boost for the Danish Treasury’s coffers, but a huge bill for Microsoft, which totals almost as much as they originally paid to acquire Navision.

Microsoft is understandably trying to negotiate with the treasury in an attempt to get the tax bill down, but even if they succeed, it’s still going to be hundreds of millions.

Now read: The price of the Nexus 4 doubles for Danes

Samsung releases first Galaxy S4 teaser trailer, but it reveals nothing

In case you haven’t heard, we are less than two weeks away from the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4. Samsung sent out invites to the event last week, and will be teasing us right up to launch day with Samsung Unpacked videos on their YouTube channel. If this first teaser is any indicator, though, we’ll not really know anything of significance about the phone before the launch day.

Samsung has a history of long form story commercials. The idea is that you would watch them all and enjoy the story as it is told over time. This assumes that users care enough about your product to remember that these commercials have anything in common at all. They have gotten better about it over time, like their Super Bowl commercial series that wasn’t about any one product in particular.

This new teaser features a young child who struggles with being the secret messenger for the Galaxy S4. It ends with a girl of roughly the same age demanding to know what is in his mystery package as he locks himself in his bedroom. No one would ever think to check the kid with the white box for an unreleased smartphone, right? We’re all too busy waiting for one to get left in a bar.

This teaser format is in fairly stark contrast to the recent release of the HTC One, which included daily photos and videos that offered hints in regards to the physical features of the phone. The rumors surrounding the Galaxy S4 have yet to be verified by blurry cam photos or accidental benchmark leaks, but for the most part they focus on a nearly 5-inch screen with either a Snapdragon or Exynos processor. Samsung’s TouchWiz variant of Android is expected to come with a significant feature bump as well, though nothing specific has been leaked so far. In fact, considering how notorious Samsung has been in the past for leaking hardware there’s surprisingly little confirmed about the Galaxy S4.

Aside from demonstrating that Samsung thinks kids would rather protect corporate secrets than play outside with girls, there’s not much to go on. Hopefully the next one offers something resembling substance.

Now read: Samsung’s Tizen 2.0 demo proves it can compete with Android

The Easy*, Cheap* Way to Build a Kick-Ass BBQ Pit in Your Backyard

After one of the wettest, blizardiest winters in recent memory, it’s high time for some spring grilling. But why spend thousands on a gas grill that can’t even cook a whole hog when you can create your own wood-fired pig pit for under $300?

Materials and Tools Required

• shovel
• hand tamp
• rake or hoe
• level
• carpenter’s square
• tape measure
• (4) 2″ x 4″ stakes
• 48 cinder blocks (standard 8x8x16 size)
• 2 sheets of 4′ x 4′ 16 gauge steel
• 1 sheet of 2′ x 4′ 16 gauge steel
• 1 sheet of 48″ x 80″ expanded metal
• masonry or washed “play” sand

Difficulty and Cost

This project is labor intensive but straightforward and can be done in as little as a day. It doesn’t require a high degree of skill—it’s not like you’re going to be mortaring anything or embedding rebar supports—but you will need to be precise when laying the foundation. The materials are all available from your local home improvement center, though the sheet metal will likely be the most expensive component so don’t be afraid to shop around.

Building It

Lay the Ground Work: You’re first going to need to pick a site for the pit and its 80″ x 48″ footprint. The site should be fairly level bare ground located a safe distance from your house and wooden structures like decks and gazebos as well as clear of dry vegetation.

Once you’ve settled on a spot, use the shovel, rake, and tamper as necessary to ensure the site is level. Grab 14 cinder blocks and assemble them in a 80″ x 48″ (that’s five cinder blocks long, two cinder blocks wide) rectangle and place the 2×4 stakes at the inside corners. Then, remove the bricks. Excavate 4 – 6 inches of top soil from the interior area of the pit (inside the stakes) and refill it with the masonry sand. This sand acts as an inflammable base for your wood or charcoal fire and also sops up grease drippings (replace grease-saturated sand with fresh as necessary). If you want to get fancy, dig down a full foot and grade the excavated area so that it runs down to a central point, 12-inches deep—this prevents the grease from seeping laterally into the topsoil—and refill the hole with sand or line it with fire brick.

Build It: Reassemble the first 5 x 2 layer of cinder blocks. Decide which of the shorter, 2-block ends you want to be the front of the pit and remove those two blocks. This gap will be used to load fresh charcoal and wood in during the cook so make sure it’s facing an area open enough to swing a shovel or tree branch. Next, stack a second layer of block atop the first. Make sure all the blocks line up with those under them and use the carpenter’s square to ensure the two blocks at each corner are flush, then lay the sheet of expanded metal on top of that.

Next, stack two more layers of cinder block on top of the expanded metal grill and place the two 4 x 4 steel sheets as a roof. There is going to be a bit of overlap between the sheets as well as over the edges of the pit—that’s good. The overlap will allow you (preferably with a helper) grip the sheet and slide it off when checking on a cook. Finally, set the 2 x 4 steel sheet against the open end of the pit, allowing for ventilation, and that’s it. Now you just need some charcoal or hardwood, enough meat to cover the pit’s 10 square feet of grill space, and two dozen of your closest, hungriest friends.

Or, if you’re lazy:

If you’d rather not dedicate a corner of your yard to grilling, or don’t have a yard to grill in, check out the Big Green Egg. And if the entire process of cooking your own meal seems like a bit of a hassle, there’s always Seamless.

[Joe Davidson - NY Times - Snap Guide - How-To Specialist - eHow]

NYT: The Galaxy S IV Will Auto-Scroll By Gazing Deep Into Your Eyes

With the Galaxy S IV announcement just barely over a week away, rumors are swirling. But one of the stand-outs, now being confirmed by the New York Times, is that the Galaxy S IV will be able to scroll all by itself, just by looking at your eyes.

It’s a super simple concept. As you’re reading down the screen and reach the bottom, the phone watches where your eyeballs are lookin’ and scrolls down for you. Futuristic, right? There’s no word on exactly what kind of tech would be being used to do this, but Samsung has trademarked the terms “Samsung Eye Scroll” and “Eye Scroll” in Europe and the U.S. respectively. “Eye Pause” too, but it’s anybody’s guess on how that works.

While it certainly sounds neat-o to have your phone auto-scroll, your hand is right there, you know, holding the phone. Not to mention it also means the thing is staring at your face all the time. The ability to auto-scroll like that would indicate some eye-tracking and facial recognition tech with some serious finesse though, so it could very well be put to other uses as well. We’ll find out soon. [New York Times]