Rendering of retail space via Prudential Douglas Elliman. Just after Apple turned sour on New York (and vice versa) over the city's green apple logo, Microsoft is primed to plug into the retail racket with their very own outlet. The Brooklyn Paper reports that the nation's first Microsoft store might be in Brooklyn; the company is eyeing the ground floor of the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank. If they seal the deal, they'll be taking......

Bronx snowfall, by Somebody Shouted McIntyre at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: person under a train fatality at Lafayette and Classon Aves. in Brooklyn, another person under a train at 53rd St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and yet another person under a train at Lincoln Ave. and N. Railroad on Staten Island. The giant apple will be popping up every time a Mets player hits a home run at the new Citi Field......

2007 photograph of Yahoo billboard in front of a ticker mentioning Microsoft news by Mark Lennihan/AP Giving business analysts something to talk about besides the economy, Microsoft has made an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. The offer is at $31/share, which is 62% more than Yahoo's closing price. Microsoft hopes to create efficiencies by teaming up to compete with Google. However, Pioneer Investments fund manager Thomas Radinger told Bloomberg News, "Microsoft is under......

The fourth annual DigitalLife event kicks off today at the Javits Center. Featuring over 200 exhibitors, it is easily the best preview of digital gadgetry coming to life in the fall quarter. Today saw new product releases from Palm (with the Centro - a $99 Treo follow up targeted to new smart phone users exclusive to Sprint), iRobot (new cleaning robots!) , Gateway (a sleek new all-in-one called "One"), and Microsoft (Extenders for Windows......

Cops seized 160,000 pairs of counterfeit Nike shoes from six locations in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island after conducting a multi-year investigation to disrupt pirated merchandise. The New York Sun reports that it was one of the largest busts of counterfeit goods in US history and one of four recent successful operations that targeted purveyors of fake Microsoft, Motorola, and Nike products. The haul of bogus shoes was reportedly worth $7.1 million. The Staten Island-based......

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is many things. He's the head of the largest public school system in the country, he's a lawyer (he was a former Assistant Attorney General - biggest case: going after Microsoft) and he's a businessman (he was chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann). But who knew he was someone who should appear on The Colbert Report? The Daily News reports that the Department of Education's media relations department approached The Colbert......

A report being released tomorrow by the Industrial Assistance Corporation (IAC) titled "Buried Treasure: New York's Hidden Tech Sector" asserts that New York City rivals cities like Seattle and areas like Silicon Valley as the largest technology center in the country. The study counted the number of tech workers in the city, at branches of corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and the research and development departments of medical centers in the city. The IAC report......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a motorcycle jacking at 230th Place and 148th Ave. in Queens, shots fired at police at Gates and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and multiple pedestrians struck at Coney Island and Ditmas Aves. in Brooklyn. State and city politicians broke ground in the Bronx yesterday on a new Metro-North station stop at the under-construction Yankee Stadium. It's hoped that the transit option will cut down on auto traffic from upstate......

Google Maps has upped its considerable offering to include "Street View," which offers views of the certain locations at the street-level imagery. The areas where you can see images are noted by blue lines on the map (click the "Street View" button). Manhattan is pretty covered and downtown Brooklyn is covered, but the Bronx, Queens and State Island views are pretty much limited by major roads. Below is 1 Centre Street; you can't get......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

The typeface that defined high modernity and thrives today as something "at once populist and authoritarian," according to graphic designer Steven McCarthy, is getting its own cinematic biography. Helvetica, the film, will survey the panorama of “typography, graphic design and global visual culture” that has evolved since Max Miedinger unveiled the bedevilingly sleek Helvetica typeface fifty years ago. New Yorkers and other city dwellers wallow in the Helvetica typeface; we encounter it many times......

At the Nokia Theater in Time Square last night, Microsoft officially launched Vista and Office 2007 to the US masses. It was here in New York City, twenty-four years ago, that the software behemoth first announced their commitment to a GUI interface. Last night, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer rattled off stats and spiel in a setting where even the escalator bolts were Vista branded! The much often-delayed and joked-about OS comes with 1.5......

With the unseasonably mild weather we've been having, it's a great week to check out the sculptures nestled in Madison Square Park's outdoor gallery before they are taken down after the holidays. The four large scultpures, created by internationally renown Ursula von Rydingsvard, are abstract works primarily expanding upon her established vessel theme. Or, in less erudite terms, the odd-shaped wood and plastic-looking forms make for a really good excuse to take an extended......

Terrifying: the entire lawn at Cadman Plaza has been astroturfed! [Via Brownstoner.] Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery in Staten Island, a suicidal member of service on the George Washington Bridge, and a perp search down by the Manhattan Bridge. Foreign tourists are bum-rushing New York because of the weak dollar: "For example, the Microsoft Zune player - a rival to Apple's iPod - sells for $442 in London but can be......

Last night, Microsoft Zune threw another launch party to celebrate the release of the portable mp3 player (Gothamist reviewed the device earlier this week). The location was secret up until yesterday morning, but once it was announced, we got a whole lot more interested in checking the party out. Why? It was also the official opening of the brand new LES venue, The Box. We were supercurious to see what this place was gonna......

After giving Apple's iPod a five year lead, Microsoft is finally set to officially launch its comeback response in the form of Zune. But is it too late to eat into Apple's market share? We spent a few hours with the device last week, here are our findings. A digital music player at its heart, it contains a 30GB hard drive, a beautiful three inch screen, and an FM radio. It also can play......

Good news for all those that love mapping features as Microsoft added Virtual Earth 3-D to their Live Search today. The bad news? You have to be using Windows Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and install software (that takes a long time to install). We assume that Virtual Earth doesn't work on Macs. Maps are currently viewable in 2-D through any browser. The bad news is that the program is such a memory hog......

On Tuesday, the American -ists will be celebrating democracy and hitting the polls, letting politicians know what they really think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for? Londonist votes for better skincare, alternative spaces for art, cute little birds and the men who keep them, and concrete. Lots of concrete. Shanghaiist votes for one of the Bee Gees and Air Supply (it's a......

MUSIC: Love is All takes over the Knitting Factory tonight with not one, but two shows. The early show is with Cause Co-Motion! and Devastations, the later one with Cause Co-Motion! and Tyvek. Choose wisely. Or you could always watch Jared Leo bring his emo wrath upon bloggers, his band plays Roseland tonight. Friday // The Knitting Factory [74 Leonard St] // $13 MORE MUSIC: The Battering Room is putting on a show at the......

The comedian we always thought of as a "Mac guy", Demetri Martin, is playing Town Hall on October 27th (buy tickets here), and for some reason - he is also doing a series of "webisodes" for Microsoft. Seems like Mac and PC's are pulling from the same talent pool lately. The marketing campaign featuring Demetri is for the upcoming Windows Vista. As part of the deal, Martin appears in the ten webisodes, they also......

Based on all the reader responses on our last Shake Shack post, we figure that the image that Adam over at A Hamburger Today found might please some of you. Adam writes:I was just on Windows Live Local, Microsoft's answer to Google Earth, and typed in "Madison Square Park" to see if there'd be a satellite image of the line at Shake Shack. There's no line in the photo because THERE'S NO SHAKE SHACK.......

- New York magazine reviews what they predicted and what really happened with the Brangelina baby pictures - The NY Times revisits the pianist who was viciously assaulted in Central Park 10 years ago - The East River State Park might be all hype, especially after seeing this YouTube video [via Curbed] - Hey, Glenn Lingle must have the same upstairs neighbors as us! - Ooh, we dig this kind of beach home -......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi’s tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy’s most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. They also found the best possible use......

- The Phoenix looks at the Village Voice's changes - including the missing Press Clips (last seen on January 31) - An advocacy group goes online for its outreach efforts to educate gay blacks and Latinos about crystal meth - Congratulations, Columbia - you have more dangerous professors than any other NYC school - The NYPD says it acted correctly in the case of the 7 year old beaten by her stepfather - Ugh: Planes......

When not discussing his distaste for Microsoft Office games, Mayor Bloomberg revealed some of what will be in his annual Mayor's Management Report. Here are the highlights: - Pest control complaints leveled off - The proportion of working families living in public housing was higher - Response time to child abuse reports increased - Placements in permanent housing rose for homeless single adults but fell for families - More students graduated from high school in......

Forget city policy for a moment - people want to know if playing solitaire while being paid on the city's dime is a fire-able offense. And yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg admitted that the city employee up in the Albany office was really fired because the Mayor saw solitaire up on his computer. Edward Greenwood, victim of the Mayor's "all work, no play" ethic and Microsoft, told the Times he has no "real animosity towards the guy.......

Hot damn: The Post says an employee in the city's Albany office was canned because Mayor Bloomberg saw solitaire on his computer! Of course, the Mayor's office claims that it was because there were budget cuts across the board and a job had to be eliminated in the 13-person office, but let's face it, that's a boring way to tell the story. Edward Greenwood (husband and father of one) was paid $30,000 to do aministrative......

Google has added two more levels of zoom to most of their satellite maps. Check out the insane detail in shots like the one of the Manhattan Bridge above! You can see little cars! Also note the very cool reflection of the bridge in the water! Still not quite as cool as the Microsoft Live Local map, but good for frittering away an hour or two today trying to spot the roof of your......

Colin Smith, Freeverse...

Microsoft throws itself hard into the local maps game today with their WLL site-- pretty similar to maps.google.com, but with a great "Birds Eye View" layer-- close-up pictures taken from either a helicopter or a very good satellite. The map is kind of cludgey to use-- the controls are overly complex, and the drag map function doesn't seem to work that great. Still, you can't beat these closeups-- check out the detail in the......