Sometime last year, Nancy Schwartzman came across a tech competition -- the 2011 White House "Apps Against Abuse Technology Contest." The Brooklyn filmmaker and founder of The Line Campaign wondered: can a simple app prevent sexual assault and dating violence?

So the Sunset Park resident partnered with Deb Levine, ISIS founder and mobile app expert, to design Circle of 6 -- which sends out a help-seeking text alert to six friends with two taps. The pair submitted their prototype to the contest and won, but the iPhone app just launched several weeks ago. It has already been downloaded some 20,000 times.

Schwartzman tells Runnin' Scared: "We basically just wanted to make it really easy for people to get out of bad situations."

How does it work?

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​Map enthusiasts and social media aficionados, rejoice! A website and iPhone application that is officially launching today is taking the concept of mapping to a whole new interactive level that might forever change your physical and virtual existence as a New Yorker.

In all seriousness, though, this thing's pretty cool -- CityMaps, a one-stop shop map site and iPhone app, integrates hyperlocal data with all kinds of social media functions so that users can browse around and make plans based on real-time information coming from across the city.

Here's how it works: The map, which aims to include the name and location of every storefront on every block, is connected to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and all the other cool networking sites kids are using these days. CityMaps users can browse what's around them, find out what other people have said and are saying about these establishments, and get info on what kinds of deals or events these businesses are having at that moment. All in a user-friendly, visually-intuitive format!

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​It's Feb. 14 -- the best day of the year!

No, of course we don't mean Valentine's Day (ew.)

It's National Condom Awareness Day -- and 2012's holiday has gotten even more special for you and your special lady or man-friend: New York City's Department of Public Health and Mental Hygiene is releasing a version of the mobile phone app for Windows phones and BlackBerries today that will point you to the nearest pro-bono prophylactics. And it's free! (Before it was just for iPhones and Androids.)

How does the program work?

The app determines users' location via GPS technology and then gives specific directions to venues that offer the free NYC Condoms throughout the five boroughs -- including the sites' hours and what other safe-sex products these locations offer.

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Sam Levin

Shelby Knox, from Change.org, at an Apple protest in Grand Central.

​There were more reporters than protestors at a rally today at the new Apple store in Grand Central. A lot more reporters.

But it's an important cause, especially for you iPhone-iPad-MacBook-Apple-loving folks, so listen up!

SumOfUs and Change.org, two groups speaking out against labor practices in China, partnered up today to pressure Apple to address recent reports around the inhumane labor conditions in the factories that build the technology giant's products.

Officially, the groups arrived at 10 a.m. this morning to deliver a petition to the store. But as soon as the organizers -- four or so of them -- arrived, it quickly became a media spectacle. We're talking about Runnin' Scared running in circles in a fruitless effort to keep up with dozens of cameras and reporters surrounding the protestors as they ascended the steps of Grand Central to enter the Apple store.

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Sean MacEntee

Beware of cops selling stolen Apple products.

​Two weeks ago the NYPD announced that it had arrested 141 people in a city-wide sting operation directed against criminals selling stolen iPhones and iPads.

Called "Operation Takeback," the sweep put undercover cops, pretending to sell cut-rate Apple gadgets, in stores and on street corners where they suspected stolen goods were bought and sold.

"This was a two-pronged approach to apprehend both thieves and receivers of stolen property," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. "Suspects at both ends of the equation are learning the hard way that 'victims' and 'sellers' may in fact be undercover police officers."

But one family caught up in the arrests say the numbers Kelly trumpeted obscure police misconduct and entrapment.

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​Thousands of people crammed into the Apple store in Grand Central for its opening today, and we decided to pop in and check it out. For a 23,000 square-foot flagship store, the new Apple store occupying the east balcony of Grand Central Terminal is pretty invisible. In fact, the most striking thing about the store is its seemingly negligible presence on the terminal. From ground level, the only things giving away the presence of the world's largest Apple store are the two glowing logos and the sardine-like density on the stairway.

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​Rayon McIntosh, the McDonald's cashier who was videotaped beating two unruly customers with a metal rod in October, was cleared of all charges after eleven days of grand jury testimony. The Daily News reports McIntosh, who had previously served almost ten years in jail for a manslaughter rap, was being held at Rikers on assault and weapons charges. The two women who were ruled to have provoked McIntosh still are facing charges, including criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. [NYDN]

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Grand Central Terminal's new Apple store is opening soon, and has been shielded by a temporary construction screen that doubles as a moving ad. It simulates the old Grand Central timetables, with flipping letters. The display, which says things like, "Apple Store, Grand Central, Arriving Soon," "Grand Central Has Added Another Stop," and "Use Personal Pickup, And Your Order Arrives Before You Do," blends in pretty well -- it's possible that commute-addled travelers will miss it entirely. We hope the same cannot be said for their trains.

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​Did Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography leave you hungry for more access to the Apple founder? Would you mind if that access came in the form of a 16-year-old interview transferred from a VHS tape onto a 70-foot movie screen? No? Good news! The Los Angeles Times reports that in mid-November, Landmark Theaters will be showing a "lost" interview with Jobs from 1995.

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This morning the flagship Apple Store on 5th Avenue unveiled its new look. As a reminder, here's what the old one looked like:

Luis Penadas/flickr

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Now, the new and improved version:

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