Zerkin, who spends his days creating experimental and creative integrations between technology, happened to see the Google co-founder on the subway in New York, wearing one of his innovative new projects, the Google Glass augmented reality glasses:

Yeeeah... I just had a brief conversation with the most powerful man in the world. On the downtown 3 train. Nice guy. http://t.co/cx93BXKY

—
Noah Zerkin (@noazark) January 21, 2013

I’m not sure about the “most powerful man in the world,” but Brin is a billionaire perhaps 18 times over, is number 24 on Forbes’ list of the richest people in the world, and owns a Boeing 767 jet. And yet, he  apparently rides the subway just like any other commuter in New York, wearing a beanie cap and a track jacket.

One thing he’s wearing that most other commuters can’t, however, is Google Glass.

Project Glass, which hasn’t updated its Google Plus page in about two months, made the list of Time’s best inventions of the year for 2012 but won’t be available for widespread purchase and use until perhaps 2014. Which means that the rest of us can’t videochat, check maps, see appointments, and benefit from a cyber-assisted memory without actually looking down at our smartphones. How lame.

In any case, it sounds like Brin is a pleasant enough multi-billionaire to run into in public. Zerkin says he was a “nice guy.”

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc

You know what a $5 foot-long is, but have you ever heard of a $10 million foot-long? Two Romanian hackers admitted today to stealing $10 million by hacking into U.S. Subway sandwich chains’ point of sale systems.

According to Ars Technica, Iulian Dolan and Cezar Iulian Butu hacked Subway and sustained the data-stealing operation over two years, 2009 to 2011. The two gave their pleas to the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire Monday. Specifically, Dolan plead guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud. His job in the heist was to look for Subway POS systems and hack into them for Adrian-Tiberiu Opera, who led the operation.

Butu admitted to only one count of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud.

After they located the systems, Dolan installed a key logger, or program that watches for any activity on the system or device and records that action. In the case of a POS, this meant the hackers were siphoning off data from every credit card swipe and pin entry in over 150 Subway sandwich shops. Over 6,000 people were affected by the hack.

In a separate incident, Australian law enforcement blamed those involved with the Subway hack for a hack on point of sale systems in the country. Police wouldn’t disclose the name of the business due to the ongoing investigation but pointed to the Romanians as potential suspects.

Dolan is sentenced to seven years in jail; Butu will spend 21 months in jail.

via Ars Technica; Subway image via pat00139/Flickr

With the cost of living in New York City constantly increasing, New Yorkers have come to appreciate anything that’s free. And Wi-Fi provider Boingo‘s latest deal has it working with Google Offers to bring free Wi-Fi to New York City’s subway riders.

Boingo offers the free service in six subway stations from June 25 to September 7. The selected platforms are limited to a group of stations along 14th and West 23rd streets in Manhattan.

The free service also extends to the more than 200 above-ground Boingo hotspots in New York City.

For Google Offers, this means that smartphone users can search for local deals while on subway platforms, and for Boingo, it means plenty of exposure.

But Boingo has a much larger stake in this. After all, it’s teaming up with Transit Wireless to bring Wi-Fi to 36 subway stations by the end of the year. By 2017, Boingo says it intends to bring service to over 270 stations, which means that not even subway tunnels will be a viable escape path for technology-weary New Yorkers.

Here’s the full list of free Wi-Fi-equipped stations:

• A, C, E station at Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street
• L station at Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street
• C, E station at Eighth Avenue and West 23rd Street
• 1, 2, 3 station at Seventh Avenue and West 14th Street
• F, M station at Sixth Avenue and West 14th Street
• L station at Sixth Avenue and West 14th Street

Photo: Flickr: Paul Lowry

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

London commuters have something new to cheer now that their city is the latest to get a free route-planner iPhone app from Pandav. The app, called Ride London Tube, lets users plan trips on mass transit with a deceptively simple touch interface.

“This is our first international release. And we’re going to take London very seriously,” Pandav co-founder David Hodge told VentureBeat in an interview. The app launched last week.

Pandav apps have offline navigation and arrival times, so users can find the ideal route to their destination in the widest variety of circumstances. Realtime updates are another key feature available on Pandav’s navigation apps, so when users have a data connection, they can be alerted to track construction and other possible delays, and plan accordingly.

The London app offers the same touchscreen navigation as the developer’s other apps, but will soon be able to alert riders to the availability of so-called “Boris Bikes” at their destinations — Boris Bikes are the citywide bike-sharing program spearheaded by London Mayor Boris Johnson. The hope is that the app will be used by locals and tourists alike.

“Definitely the biggest thing we learned was that there are many people who are comfortable enough with transit systems but didn’t even realize how much of their time they wasted without our app,” says Hodge. “With that in mind, we honed trip planning and made sure we could provide people with good delay/reroute information.”

San Francisco-based Pandav thinks it has a winner should it start selling location-based deals, because when people are in transit, they’re neither at home or at work, and are most receptive to location-based offers. As a opposed to a location service like Foursquare that knows where you are when you check in, Pandav knows where you’re going to be, because the app is helping you make better public transportation decisions.

With their first $3,000 the Pandav team was able to roll out iBart, the transit app for Bay Area commuters, and chalk up more than half a million users. Today Pandav apps are available for transit riders in New York City (MTA, Metro-North, Long Island Railroad) Chicago (Metra  and CTA, aka the L), and the Washington D.C. Metro, as well as the newly-launched London Tube map. Hodge says he’s seeing 1.4 million sessions per month, and they’re growing by 25 percent month-to-month.

With the 2012 Summer Olympics just around the corner in London, the Pandav team expects that tens of thousands of people may be using this app during the games to get around the city. “We aim to be able to help tourists get to specific events easily and help locals avoid the madness as much as possible. So that means specific event listings with built-in directions,” said Hodge. “It sounds straightforward on the surface, but it get’s pretty involved.”

Pandav has three full-time employees and part-time designer, and has received unattributed funding.