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New York City finally figured out what to do with all its old phone booths.

New York City's phone booths are about to be replaced.

By what? You may ask.

By these:


A LinkNYC Wi-Fi hotspot outside of Jay Zs home. Photo from YouTube

That, my friends, is a public Wi-Fi hotspot. And it's free.

They may look like the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but instead of providing light-speed, mind-expanding information access to a species of primates, the Wi-Fi hotspots will ... actually, they'll sort of do exactly the same thing! (Humans are primates for those of you who slept through biology class.)

Starting this summer, Wi-Fi terminals from a project called "LinkNYC" will start appearing all over New York City.

Since at least 2012, New York has been trying to figure out what to do with all the old pay phones. They launched a nationwide competition looking for solutions, and the idea to turn them into Wi-Fi hotspots was the winner.

The project is run by CityBridge and funded in part by three tech companies: Qualcomm Technologies Inc., a smartphone chip maker; CIVIQ Smartscapes, a networking company; and Intersection, which has backing from Google's parent company Alphabet.

CityBridge plans to install 500 of these hotspots in July 2016, with the eventual goal of 7,500 appearing throughout the city.

Cities have tried in the past to provide free public Wi-Fi, and CityBridge plans to leave those efforts in the digital dust. LinkNYC terminals will provide a whopping 1,000 megabits/second (mbps) Internet speed with no ads. That's a lot faster than a typical wireless carrier offers. (One of Verizon's more expensive wireless plans is only 50 mbps.)

That's great news for New York City's many cafe writers, Instagrammers, and public porn-viewers.

Lots of New Yorkers go to coffee shops to use free Wi-Fi and pretend they're working. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

This is also great news for the wireless market in general.

New York City offering such blazing fast Internet for free will force all Internet carriers in that market to step up their game.

“This is creating all kinds of competition,” Colin O’Donnell, CityBridge’s chief technology officer told the Wall Street Journal. “This is going to set a new standard for speed, drive pricing competition, and set new expectations for data caps."

Since New York City is one of the countries largest Internet markets, competition is beneficial to all. Among the chief providers of Internet service in New York is Time Warner Cable, which has been rated as the most unpopular company in America.


They were even voted worse than Skynet, a fictional company that literally ended humanity. Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Three hand clap emojis for New York City setting yet another major precedent.

After all, this is the same city that successfully banned trans fats and invented salt warnings for the sake of public health, recently gave working parents and caretakers legal job protection, and even planted 1 million trees to improve the environment.

Now, NYC is setting a high bar for information access in the age of the smartphone.

In 2011, the UN declared Internet access a human right, calling "upon all states to ensure that Internet access is maintained at all times, including during times of political unrest."

Starting summer 2016, all of New York City's residents can enjoy that human right free of charge and free of hassle. Perhaps it could set an example for other cities to do the same.

Frankly, it'll just be nice to have something in the city without Donald Trump's name on it.

The only question left is: Where is Superman supposed to change now?

Sorry, buddy. DISCLAIMER: May not actually be Superman. Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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via Google and Freepik

Google's new personal information removal submission page.

In the internet era, the idea of personal privacy is all but a myth. With a few keystrokes just about anyone can get your home address, phone number, email, age and the names of your family members. The fact that this information is readily available puts us all in the dangerous position of being the victim of fraud, stalking and violence.

What makes the situation even worse is that our information was put online without any of our consent.

The good news is that Google just made a big change that gives us all a little more control over our personal information. On April 27, the company announced it will allow anyone to request removals of their personal information from its Search feature.

“Open access to information is a key goal of Search, but so is empowering people with the tools they need to protect themselves and keep their sensitive, personally identifiable information private. That’s why we’re updating our policies to help people take more control of their online presence in Search,” Michelle Chang, Google’s Global Policy Lead for Search, announced on the company’s blog.

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Joy

An 8-year-old snuck his handwritten book onto a library shelf. Now it has a 56-person waiting list.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel— written by "Dillon His Self"—captured the hearts of his local librarians and their patrons.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel captured the hearts of his local librarians.

Writing a book is no easy task, even for adult professional writers. Many would-be authors dream of a day when their work can be found on library shelves, unsure if it will ever come.

But for 8-year-old Dillon Helbig, that day has already arrived—in truly unconventional fashion—thanks to his own determination to make it happen.

Dillon wrote his 81-page graphic novel, "The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" (written by "Dillon His Self") in a hardcover journal with colored pencils over the course of a few days. He even put a label on the back of the book that reads "Made in Idho" [sic] and put an illustrated spine label on it as well. Then, without telling anyone, he brought it to his local library in Boise, Idaho, and slipped it in among the books in the children's section.

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Becca Moore and Raul Torres having margaritas.

Becca Moore is a popular TikToker with over 800,000 followers who's known for her funny, laid-back takes on dating. Like any influencer-type she was at the Coachella music and arts festival in Indio, California recently. While she was at Coachella, she was robbed of her phone, rental car keys and wallet.

“I went to Coachella this weekend and I thought this guy was kinda hitting on me but then he just robbed me,” Becca says at the beginning of her three-minute TikTok video with over 3 million views. After the festival, she was left with no ride, money, or means to get in contact with friends and family. She was stranded in the desert.

Becca’s friend’s hotel called her an Uber so she could get to a local store to buy a new phone. The driver she was incredibly lucky to be connected with was a lot more than a guy with a car in a time of need, he was a guardian angel named Raul Torres from Fresno, California, six hours north of Indio.

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Joy

44 years ago he became her protector after a terrible act. Today, they've been reunited in love.

Betsy and Irv are finally getting the happy ending they deserve. Together.

It’s pretty safe to say that everyone loves a good love story.

There’s a whole genre of music and movies dedicated to the idea of someone being swept off of their feet after circumstances tried to keep them from their true love. Romance novels could single handedly keep public libraries and bookstores afloat. Everyone loves "love" and the story of Betsy and Irv just takes the cake. Betsy Sailor attended Penn State University as a business major, which was almost unheard of in 1978 and Irv Pankey attended the university while playing football. The pair’s paths never crossed, until an unfortunate incident bonded the two forever.

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@SopheAlice/TikTok

Best way to travel, really.

As they say, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

This old adage was brought to life in a whole new way after two friends who thought they booked tickets to Budapest, Hungary, instead found themselves heading to Bucharest, Romania.

Just a minor 500-mile difference, but who’s counting?

TikToker @SophAlice posted a video of the pair realizing their mix-up, which went viral and set them off on an impromptu adventure based entirely on the comments they received.
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