David Lidsky's Blog, page 2952
June 30, 2015
Apple To Pay $450 Million In Settlement For Price Fixing E-Books
A federal appeals court stood by a 2013 decision that found the tech giant guilty of fixing e-book prices with publishers.
Apple's last-ditch attempt to avoid paying $450 million to e-book buyers was just quashed, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan voted 2-1 on Tuesday not to overturn a July 2013 ruling that found Apple had fixed e-book prices in collusion with five major publishing houses.
New Evidence For Letting Employees Nap At Work
Sleeping on the job has measurable benefits for work performance.
Sleeping pods, mobilize! We here at Fast Company have long been proponents of napping at work to increase productivity. A new study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences lends further support to our theory that you would be better off sneaking some (guilt-free) shut-eye in the office.
Jaunt Unveils First Pro 360-Degree VR Camera Built From The Ground Up
Most VR cameras have been made using commodity components. Jaunt wants to mix high design and an end-to-end production pipeline.
Attention professionals interested in making virtual-reality films: The first camera purpose-built from scratch to do the job may finally be here.
The Stories Behind 15 Of Vivienne Westwood's Signature Punk Fashion Designs
Pharrell has her to thank for his hat—you know the one.
The look of punk rock owes a great deal to Vivienne Westwood, the rule-breaking fashion designer who brought a subculture's style into the mainstream. In the 1970s, she and her partner Malcolm McLaren ran a London boutique called Sex that became a hub of the punk movement and defined its aesthetic.
Dave Eggers Wants To Help Low-Income Students Discover Their Dream Schools
With ScholarMatcher, students can search for colleges with strong academics and fair financial aid.
Author Dave Eggers taught a high school course on "The Best American Nonrequired Reading" (also a popular anthology) for over a decade. Each year, the same pattern would repeat: He'd write college letters of recommendation, watch as students were accepted to well-regarded schools, and then hear stories of their struggles with overwhelming levels of debt. Opaque language, predatory practices—"They'd figure it out too late," he says.
The Upside Of Living In The Cities With The Worst Commutes
Seven out of 10 states that have the worst metro area commutes also have plenty of work for telecommuters.
How much do you hate your commute to work?
How To Turn Your Smartphone Into Your Personal Therapist
Could the technology that causes so much of our stress and anxiety also be the cure?
Last spring, Paul Ford was sick of the self-sabotaging, disparaging voice in his head, so he decided to do something about it. He'd been living with anxiety all his life, but it was getting in the way of his professional career. So Ford, a longtime tech tinkerer, decided to turn his anxiety into a bot that he named AnxietyBox.
June 29, 2015
"The Future Universe": When Audiences Attack
A new game show pits in-studio contestants against viewers armed with mobile devices as we inch closer to The Running Man.
The technology has been converging for years: high-quality, computer-generated visual effects; immersive interactivity in a 3D virtual world; motion-capture in live-action filming; real-time mobile apps; and a global network to tie it all together.
Twitch Had 21 Million Viewers During E3
The live streaming platform for gamers scores TV-like viewership numbers for video-game simulcasts.
Gaming live-stream platform Twitch reached a high point during the E3 gaming conference two weeks ago: more than 21 million unique viewers and 840,000 peak concurrent viewers. Those staggering numbers are great news for the Amazon-owned service—and indicate which advertisers might be interested in gaming simulcasts with sports broadcast-style live commentary.
Only Type Nerds Can Save Us From This Galactic Invasion Of The Fonts
Blast those sans-serifs...literally!
Design can take it out of you sometimes. Everyone needs to take our their frustration, and now typographers finally have that outlet: an online version of the 1979 game Asteroids in which the titular menaces are replaced by letters.
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