The New York Observer

It’s a gloomy, rainy Friday in New York, but we’re about to serve you a piping hot bowl of gossip. Bon appetit!

Map-maker, Map-maker, Build Me a Map! If Tim Cook‘s mea culpa wasn’t enough to demonstrate how hard Apple is scrambling to fix its iOS 6 mapocalypse, then how about its last ditch recruiting techniques to find Ruby developers? Mojo Talantikite, a cluster engineer at Engine Yard in New York City, said he (and a number of his technically talented friends) have been hit up by Apple recruiters recently.

“I don’t think it’s too out of the ordinary for a company to scramble to soak up talent once they figure out their product is deficient,” he told Betabeat by email. “But considering that the beta of Apple Maps was terrible three months ago, you’d think they would have started the aggressive recruitment phase then,” he said, adding, “It’s pretty easy to realize they are in put out the fire mode.” Read More

421 Kent Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has sold for around $40 million, sources have revealed to The Commercial Observer.

It wasn’t clear immediately who the identity of the buyer was, though speculation has swirled whether it is a member of that area’s Hasidic community. The site can accommodate about 400,000 square feet of residential space, but has a restriction penciled into its deed that disallows more than 216 apartments to built on the site, a relatively sparse number of units considering the size of a potential project – the parcel is about two acres in size. Read More

Via Gizmodo we have learned of PlaceRaider, the scariest damn Android malware you never want hiding on your cuddly old pal, the full-featured smartphone.

Researchers at the US Naval Surface Warfare Center created PlaceRaider and have dubbed it “visual malware.” It was developed as a proof of concept but would also be a great idea to sell to producers seeking spy gadget ideas for the next James Bond film, because PlaceRaider hints at the future of covert surveillance: Read More

It’s time for the latest installment of our weekly scorecard for next year’s potential mayoral candidates, rating how they’ve been doing in recent days. Overall, the candidates seemed generally pretty active on the issues they cared about, with the biggest change possibly being a Wall Street Journal report discussing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s feelings and meetings with the candidates. But at Politicker, we’re really just interested in Lady Gaga. That’s something you’re just going to have to deal with. Read More

Watch out Maggie Gyllenhaal, in certain districts of New York City, local elected officials are not cool with you right now. The problem at hand? Her new movie, Won’t Back Down, where she portrayed the role of frustrated public school parent using the local “parent trigger” law to take over the failing educational institution and turn it around. A group of public school advocates have already released a video entitled “Educating Maggie” outlining their beefs with the film, but now politicians are getting on Ms. Gyllenhaal’s case as well.

“No matter what some Hollywood movie says, this ‘Parent Trigger Law’ is a dangerous ruse to undermine public education in the United States by systematically weakening the relationship between parents and schools, and our communities cannot and will not allow it to happen,” Councilman James Sanders said, for example, in a press release put out by the group New Yorkers for Great Public Schools. Read More