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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Cory Booker’s Silicon Valley Friendships Started at Stanford

Cory A. Booker has deep ties to Silicon Valley, ties so deep that they have raised questions about money and influence, particularly now that Mr. Booker, the mayor of Newark, is running for Senate.

Mr. Booker is an avid user of Twitter, talks about how tech can change governing and regularly taps tech billionaires for campaign donations.

But there is more. As an article that David M. Halbfinger, Raymond Hernandez and I wrote on Wednesday explains, Mr. Booker was named co-founder of an online video start-up, Waywire, with a stake valued at several million dollars. The prize comes at a time when Silicon Valley is working hard to make more friends in Washington as it deals with issues from immigration and piracy to antitrust and privacy.

So how did the mayor of Newark, a city far removed from Silicon Valley in many ways, make these friends in the first place?

The answer is Stanford University, according to interviews with Mr. Booker’s friends in tech. He went to college there in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the same time as many people who would become some of the richest and most successful tech entrepreneurs.

“Stanford is the piece that is basically the untold story of Cory Booker’s relationship with Silicon Valley,” said Gina Bianchini, an entrepreneur who met Mr. Booker as a freshman there, when he was a senior and her peer counselor. “People who were friends with him in college, admired him in college and shared the same values he has built start-ups that have become very successful.”

She and other former classmates described him as a golden boy on campus â€" a scholar-athlete who was also student body president.

“Cory became Cory when he was at Stanford, and being a part of Stanford, you’re inherently part of Silicon Valley,” said Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, the Silicon Valley philanthropist who also met him at Stanford and hosted a fund-raiser for him last spring. Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen is married to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

“His college friends were basically like, ‘Let’s support Cory Booker,’ so he’s kind of never left,” said Ms. Bianchini, who is now founder and chief executive of Mightybell, a Web service for online communities. “He’s done a very, very good job of maintaining these relationships.”

Take Reid Hoffman, for instance. He and Mr. Booker attended both Stanford and Oxford together. Mr. Hoffman went on to help start PayPal and LinkedIn, which have made him worth $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. Then he became an investor in start-ups â€" including Mr. Booker’s company, Waywire.



Video of Veterans Describing Sexual Advances by San Diego Mayor

Video of military veterans accusing Mayor Bob Filner of San Diego of unwanted sexual advances.

The latest women to accuse Mayor Bob Filner of San Diego of unwanted sexual advances are military veterans who were sexually assaulted and met him at support group events, CNN reports.

The women, who first told their story to CNN, said that what upset them most about Mr. Filner’s conduct was that he approached them at events for victims of sexual assault in the military.

Eldonna Lewis Fernandez, who retired from the Air Force in 2003 after she was sexually assaulted while on assignment in the Middle East, said she met Mr. Filner about a year ago, when he was a congressman, at a “Healing and Hiring Fair” in San Diego that was sponsored by the Veterans Association of America.

She told CNN that after she handed him her card, Mr. Filner said, “Fernandez. Are you married? Do you have a husband?”

“Very quick, very direct,” Ms. Fernandez said. “I said, ‘No, I’m divorced.’ ‘Well, you’re beautiful, and I can’t take my eyes off you, and I want to take you to dinner.’ I was really shocked and I was like, ‘Uh, O.K.’ ”

On camera, she played what she said was a voice mail message from him: “Hi, it’s your newly favorite congressman, Bob Filner. You know, the one who fell in love with you at your last speech. I don’t want to wait till you come back to have dinner with you.”

Mr. Filner, who has dismissed calls for his resignation, entered a two-week therapy program on Monday after more than a dozen women, including his former communications director, said publicly that he had sexually harassed or made unwanted sexual advances toward them.

Tips, sources, story ideas? Please leave a comment or find me on Twitter @jenniferpreston.



Satellite Images Show Destruction in Aleppo

Satellite images analyzed by Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science show the destruction caused by a government strike in the Aleppo neighborhood of Ard al-Hamra in February 2013. The picture on the left was taken before the strike, and the picture on the right was taken after.Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images analyzed by Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science show the destruction caused by a government strike in the Aleppo neighborhood of Ard al-Hamra in February 2013. The picture on the left was taken before the strike, and the picture on the right was taken after.

A series of satellite images analyzed by the human rights group Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science graphically illustrate the devastation wrought upon Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, by months of ferocious combat between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel opponents.

The images, released on Wednesday, show neighborhoods scarred by air strikes and ballistic missiles, hundreds of damaged or destroyed homes and more than 1,000 checkpoints, Amnesty International said in a statement. It said it worked with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science to analyze the images, which were taken over a period of nine months by two aerospace imagery providers, DigitalGlobe and Astrium.

Amnesty said the images were the most comprehensive assessment of physical damage in Aleppo to date, and left “little question as to a significant cause for the staggering displacement of half of the city’s population: frequent bombardments, often of indiscriminate nature, have reduced entire areas to rubble.”

Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab before a government strike in February 2013, left, and after, right.Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab before a government strike in February 2013, left, and after, right.

For those residents who have remained in Aleppo, life has become dangerous and grim. The city has been divided between rebel-held and government-held neighborhoods for much of the last year, and the violence has been both fierce and grinding, with neither side seemingly able to gain a decisive battlefield advantage. The borders between rebel and government territory are often perilous, and in January at least 50 bodies washed ashore in a canal in the rebel-held neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr. Residents said all of the dead were men who had crossed into a nearby government-held area.

The images released Wednesday focused on three neighborhoods that have been the target of government air strikes or ballistic missile attacks: Jabal Badro, Ard al-Hamra and Tariq al-Bab. For each location, Amnesty released a “before” and “after” picture to illustrate the destruction caused by ballistic missile strikes from Feb. 18 to Feb. 22.

Amnesty also released comparison pictures of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, whose minaret was destroyed by a government strike. The mosque has been the site of intense fighting between government forces and rebels, and video posted to YouTube in February by accounts associated with rebel groups provided a rare glimpse of the damage to the nearly 1,000-year-old landmark.

Satellite images show the Great Mosque of Aleppo before its minaret was destroyed in a government strike, left, and after, right.Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Great Mosque of Aleppo before its minaret was destroyed in a government strike, left, and after, right.

On Amnesty’s Web site, a visual tool allows viewers to scroll between the before and after images.

In each of the three neighborhoods, the “before” pictures show packed city blocks punctuated by occasional green parks and cut through by wide boulevards. The “after” pictures show the damage caused by blasts that punched through the tight city grid and spewed wide circles of debris.

Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Jabal Badro before a government strike in February, left, and after, right.Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Jabal Badro before a government strike in February, left, and after, right.

Amnesty and the science association said in their statement that the destruction wrought by shelling, air strikes and ballistic missiles was “severely lopsided,” and that the lion’s share had been visited upon parts of the city under rebel control.

“Government forces have relentlessly bombarded areas under the control of opposition forces across Syria, with civilians being at the receiving end of such attacks and at the same time being subjected to abuses by armed opposition groups,” the statement said. “Satellite image analysis suggests that the destruction across the city is ‘severely lopsided’ toward opposition-controlled neighborhoods.”



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Trying to Reinvent Itself, Yahoo Searches for a New Look

Since Marissa Mayer took over as Yahoo’s chief executive, the tech company has been spending its way back to importance, acquiring 20 companies under Ms. Mayer’s leadership, including the popular blogging service Tumblr and the company behind the social Web browser Rockmelt.

Now Yahoo is rethinking its logo. On Wednesday, the company announced that it would unveil a new design next month.

“Over the past year, there’s been a renewed sense of purpose and progress at Yahoo, and we want everything we do to reflect this spirit of innovation,” Kathy Savitt, Yahoo’s chief marketing officer, wrote in a statement posted to Tumblr on Wednesday. “While the company is rapidly evolving, our logo â€" the essence of our brand â€" should too.”

In the meantime, Yahoo will release a different variation of its current look, a typographic treatment of its name followed by the company’s iconic exclamation point.

A promotional video from Yahoo about its new logo initiative.

It’s their way, as Ms. Savitt put it, of “having some fun while honoring the legacy of our present logo.”

A few things will not change, however. The Yahoo logo will stay purple and the exclamation point isn’t going anywhere.

What do you think the new logo will look like? Tell us in the comments below. And if you have your own take on what it should look like, upload a picture to Twitter and mention @nytimesbits. We’ll feature a selection on our blog.



Protests in Morocco After King Pardons Spanish Pedophile

Video of a demonstration in Tangier, Morocco, posted on YouTube on Tuesday.

Protests have roiled major cities in Morocco after the country’s king recently pardoned a Spanish pedophile. The demonstrations have persisted since late last week even after the king later retracted the mistaken pardon of the convicted child rapist, Daniel Galván Viña, 63, and he was arrested again in Spain this week.

Mr. Galván had been convicted of raping 11 children in 2011 and was serving a 30-year sentence in Morocco before the pardon came through, The Associated Press reported. It said Spain’s king had asked Morocco to transfer 30 convicts to prisons in Spain, while requesting that a separate list of 18 prisoners be pardoned and freed. But the Moroccan authorities apparently put the two lists together, a Spanish official said, according to The A.P., and Mr. Galván was released.

Protests are rare in Morocco against King Mohammed VI, but since late last week activists and Moroccan news outlets have documented the outcry against the pardon on YouTube and on Twitter using #Danielgate. They are demanding an apology from the king and an independent judiciary.

Hisham al-Miraat, a Moroccan blogger and free speech advocate, posted a photograph of a protest in Casablanca on Wednesday.

Montasser Drissi, a Moroccan writer, often about human rights, posted images of Mr. Galván, including some showing him with children, on his blog and gave a list of the names and ages of the victims, boys and girls who ranged from 2 to 15.

Mr. Drissi was apparently injured during one of the demonstrations last week, as were other protesters in a range of cities.

Maroc News compiled YouTube footage of protests in several major Moroccan cities, including those outside the parliament building in Rabat, as well as in Tangier and Tetouan. Some of the images showed bloodied protesters after baton-wielding security forces tried to break up the demonstrations, and at one point a voice can be heard shouting, “Don’t hit!”

Maroc News compiled footage from protests throughout the country.

Another video showed the protest in Rabat from last Friday, the first night that the demonstrations started.

Morocco’s king retracted his pardon of Mr. Galván over the weekend, and Morocco, via Interpol, the international police organization, issued an international arrest warrant for him, the Associated Press report said. Since Spain does not extradite its citizens to Morocco, Mr. Galván is most likely to finish his term in a Spanish prison. The request for the pardons was made during a visit to Morocco by King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Morocco’s consent was viewed as a gesture that would benefit bilateral relations, the news agency reported.

The Moroccan Press Agency reported this week that the king had “inadvertently” pardoned Mr. Galván and held the prison administration responsible for the error. It said the king met with the families of the victims on Tuesday.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



Children’s Advocacy Group Faults Learning Apps for Babies

In a challenge to the electronic learning market for infants and toddlers, a well-known children’s advocacy group on Wednesday morning filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission against certain popular mobile apps for babies made by Fisher-Price and Open Solutions, a software developer.

According to the complaints filed by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a nonprofit in Boston, the companies say in marketing material that their learning apps teach infants spatial skills, numbers, language or motor skills. But, the complaints say, there is no rigorous scientific evidence that these kinds of products provide those benefits.

The complaints also contend that using such apps “may be detrimental to very young children.” Susan Linn, the director of the advocacy group, said the programs could take time away from activities, like hands-on creative play or face-time with caring adults, that have proven benefits for infant learning. She noted that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents avoid screen media for children under two.

“The baby genius industry is notorious for marketing products as educational, when in fact there is no evidence that they are,” Ms. Linn said. “Parents deserve honest information about the educational value of the activities they choose for their children and they are not getting it from these companies.”

Reached by phone, the public relations team for Fisher-Price, a unit of the Mattel toy company, did not provide an immediate comment on the complaint.

Stefan Babinec, an executive at Open Solutions, which is based in Bratislava, Slovakia, said that the childrens’ advocacy group had never contacted his company with its concerns.

Open Solution’s marketing material does not make extreme claims like “get this game and let it teach your child everything,” Mr. Babinec wrote in an e-mail. Rather, the company thinks its apps “can help parents with babies, either by entertaining babies or help them see new things, animals, hear their sounds, etc.”

The company agrees with the idea that digital screens are not a replacement for live interactions with humans, he added, and assumes that a child uses its apps together with a parent, sibling or baby sitter.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood singled out seven iPhone or iPad apps marketed by Fisher-Price, along with eight by Open Solutions, which have been available for download on the Apple App or iTunes stores. The colorful apps feature animated or high-definition illustrations of animal characters who invite young children to listen to phrases or point to the animals’ ears, noses and other body parts. The apps are marketed as having educational value for very young children.

The information page for a Fisher-Price iPad app called “Laugh & Learn Let’s Count Animals for Baby,” for instance, says the app “teaches numbers and counting, 1-10, animals, first words and action/reaction.”

An information page for an app from Open Solutions called “Baby Hear and Read Verbs” makes more elaborate claims:

“Here comes a new and innovative form of kids’ education. The application provides learning opportunity to learn how to read, pronounce and spell basic verbs. We have tested this app and the kids and parents simply love it!”

The complaints against the app companies are only the latest salvo by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood against the electronic learning market aimed at infants and young toddlers.

In 2006, the children’s advocacy group filed a similar complaint with the F.T.C. against videos marketed by Baby Einstein, a giant in the electronic media market for infants. After the complaint, The Walt Disney Company, which owns Baby Einstein, amended the educational claims it had made about the videos and in 2009 agreed to offer refunds to consumers who had bought the videos.

In 2011, the group filed a complaint against the marketers of another popular video product, “Your Baby Can Read,” whose ads suggested the products could teach infants as young as nine months old to read. Last year, the company, called Your Baby Can, agreed to settle charges of false advertising brought by the F.T.C.

Now app developers are marketing the same kinds of baby learning programs in mobile formats, Ms. Linn says, with the potential to increase the amount of time that infants spend in front of screens and effect their brain development.

“This is one of our main concerns and why we take this industry on,” Ms. Linn says.



Children’s Advocacy Group Faults Learning Apps for Babies

In a challenge to the electronic learning market for infants and toddlers, a well-known children’s advocacy group on Wednesday morning filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission against certain popular mobile apps for babies made by Fisher-Price and Open Solutions, a software developer.

According to the complaints filed by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a nonprofit in Boston, the companies say in marketing material that their learning apps teach infants spatial skills, numbers, language or motor skills. But, the complaints say, there is no rigorous scientific evidence that these kinds of products provide those benefits.

The complaints also contend that using such apps “may be detrimental to very young children.” Susan Linn, the director of the advocacy group, said the programs could take time away from activities, like hands-on creative play or face-time with caring adults, that have proven benefits for infant learning. She noted that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents avoid screen media for children under two.

“The baby genius industry is notorious for marketing products as educational, when in fact there is no evidence that they are,” Ms. Linn said. “Parents deserve honest information about the educational value of the activities they choose for their children and they are not getting it from these companies.”

Reached by phone, the public relations team for Fisher-Price, a unit of the Mattel toy company, did not provide an immediate comment on the complaint.

Stefan Babinec, an executive at Open Solutions, which is based in Bratislava, Slovakia, said that the childrens’ advocacy group had never contacted his company with its concerns.

Open Solution’s marketing material does not make extreme claims like “get this game and let it teach your child everything,” Mr. Babinec wrote in an e-mail. Rather, the company thinks its apps “can help parents with babies, either by entertaining babies or help them see new things, animals, hear their sounds, etc.”

The company agrees with the idea that digital screens are not a replacement for live interactions with humans, he added, and assumes that a child uses its apps together with a parent, sibling or baby sitter.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood singled out seven iPhone or iPad apps marketed by Fisher-Price, along with eight by Open Solutions, which have been available for download on the Apple App or iTunes stores. The colorful apps feature animated or high-definition illustrations of animal characters who invite young children to listen to phrases or point to the animals’ ears, noses and other body parts. The apps are marketed as having educational value for very young children.

The information page for a Fisher-Price iPad app called “Laugh & Learn Let’s Count Animals for Baby,” for instance, says the app “teaches numbers and counting, 1-10, animals, first words and action/reaction.”

An information page for an app from Open Solutions called “Baby Hear and Read Verbs” makes more elaborate claims:

“Here comes a new and innovative form of kids’ education. The application provides learning opportunity to learn how to read, pronounce and spell basic verbs. We have tested this app and the kids and parents simply love it!”

The complaints against the app companies are only the latest salvo by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood against the electronic learning market aimed at infants and young toddlers.

In 2006, the children’s advocacy group filed a similar complaint with the F.T.C. against videos marketed by Baby Einstein, a giant in the electronic media market for infants. After the complaint, The Walt Disney Company, which owns Baby Einstein, amended the educational claims it had made about the videos and in 2009 agreed to offer refunds to consumers who had bought the videos.

In 2011, the group filed a complaint against the marketers of another popular video product, “Your Baby Can Read,” whose ads suggested the products could teach infants as young as nine months old to read. Last year, the company, called Your Baby Can, agreed to settle charges of false advertising brought by the F.T.C.

Now app developers are marketing the same kinds of baby learning programs in mobile formats, Ms. Linn says, with the potential to increase the amount of time that infants spend in front of screens and effect their brain development.

“This is one of our main concerns and why we take this industry on,” Ms. Linn says.



Video of Iran’s New President on Nuclear Talks

As my colleague Thomas Erdbrink reported, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, told reporters on Tuesday that the dispute over his country’s nuclear program could be resolved “not in the distant future but very soon,” if the United States has the political will for “serious” negotiations.

Video of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks, with English subtitles, was posted on YouTube by Bahman Kalbasi, a BBC Persian correspondent.

Video of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, speaking about nuclear negotiations on Tuesday.



Video of Iran’s New President on Nuclear Talks

As my colleague Thomas Erdbrink reported, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, told reporters on Tuesday that the dispute over his country’s nuclear program could be resolved “not in the distant future but very soon,” if the United States has the political will for “serious” negotiations.

Video of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks, with English subtitles, was posted on YouTube by Bahman Kalbasi, a BBC Persian correspondent.

Video of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, speaking about nuclear negotiations on Tuesday.



Magazine Newsstand Sales Plummet, but Digital Editions Thrive

Even as readers turn to digital versions, some women’s and celebrity-oriented titles had steep circulation losses on the newsstand during the first half of 2013.

Magazine Newsstand Sales Plummet, but Digital Editions Thrive

Even as readers turn to digital versions, some women’s and celebrity-oriented titles had steep circulation losses on the newsstand during the first half of 2013.

Daily Report: For Washington Post, a Promise of Innovation

With Jeffrey P. Bezos, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Amazon, buying The Washington Post, observers are now wondering how he will bring his technological background to bear upon the newspaper, Jenna Wortham and Amy O’Leary report.

If Mr. Bezos’s business history is any indication, don’t expect a quick answer and don’t expect any short-term fixes for The Post, which has experienced years of sliding revenue and circulation. While terms like disrupter and innovator are often used to describe Mr. Bezos in his years at Amazon, he has also proved to be a long-term thinker, someone willing to buck Wall Street demands for big profits in order to invest in his company’s growth.

Now that he is the private owner of The Post, it would not be surprising to see him worry little about turning a quick profit and instead push to upend the often ossified world of newspaper publishing, just as he did with books more than a decade ago.

Indeed, Mr. Bezos, who declined a request for an interview, hinted in a letter to employees that he felt a “need to invent, which means we will need to experiment,” and that “there will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years.”

But just what those experiments will be is anyone’s guess.

“Jeff Bezos doesn’t need The Washington Post to make money tomorrow or even in five years,” said Glenn Kelman, the founder and chief executive of Redfin, a real estate site that, like Amazon, is based in Seattle. “He’s proven that he’s able to think over a geological time scale.”



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