David Lidsky's Blog, page 3195
August 12, 2014
Twitter Reveals How Many Of Its Active Users Aren't Quite Human (Updated)
Twitter revises its user count, and admits that 23 million of its active accounts are bots.
Twitter is growing. In December 2012, it had about 185 million monthly active users; right now, that figure stands at 271 million.
Lyft Accuses Uber Of Canceling Thousands Of Ride Requests At The Last Second
Uber says Lyft's claims are "patently false."
Here's some more gasoline to flame the ongoing rideshare war blazing between Uber and Lyft. On Monday night, Lyft accused Uber of summoning its drivers through its app, and then canceling those rides at the last second. Lyft has even put a specific number to how many rides were canceled: 5,560. That's a lot of wasted gas and frustrated drivers.
A Motorcycle Fueled By Bacon Is Sizzling Down America's Highways
Because bacon brands are struggling to find outlandish things that haven't been done to bacon yet.
Bacon is one of those foods that elicits passionate responses--you are either absolutely obsessed with it or you hate it. That leaves bacon brands with the challenge of taking the love of bacon so many people already feel to the next level.
Can Skylanders Trap Team Turn A Tablet Into Your Favorite Video Game Console?
The popular franchise is treating tablets like "just another console" in its upcoming game release.
The fourth installment of Activision's hit Skylanders series, is bringing something unusual to department store aisles this October: a console style video game that you plug into your iPad, Android, or Kindle Fire.
Ex-Googler On 4 Ways Designers Can Help The Working World Master Big Data
Big data won't mean a lick if designers don't do a better job of organizing it.
Our lives are becoming more data-driven by the day. How do my step count, sleep efficiency and eating habits combine to show me my weight next month? Where am I spending most of my money across all of my bank accounts, down to the penny?
Why The Kindle Is A Device Dieter Rams Can Love
Over the years, the Kindle has hewed closer and closer to Dieter Rams's 10 principles of good design with every iteration.
No gadget gives me as much pleasure to pick up as my Kindle Paperwhite. I'm hard pressed to think of a device that is better designed to do one thing well: read digital books. But what makes the Kindle unique to me as a product is that it is one of the few modern devices that has used the ideals of simplicity to improve with each iteration.
How PBS's Masterpiece Went From Musty To Must-See
Rebecca Eaton, longtime executive producer of Masterpiece, reveals the creative risks she took to reinvent a failing series.
PBS's Masterpiece series--home to the deliciously soapy English period drama Downton Abbey--has become as much of a cultural touchstone as, say, HBO or AMC. And much of that has to do with the work of one woman, Rebecca Eaton.
August 8, 2014
Meta's New M1 Smartwatch Emphasizes Design Over Tech
Rather than doing new things, it to do the same things more stylishly--in eight different versions.
The first MetaWatch smartwatch, which debuted in 2012, was an extremely direct competitor to the higher-profile Pebble. Both came from startups rather than major electronics companies; both dispensed with color touchscreens in favor of more power-efficient monochrome displays and push-button interfaces; both were bootstrapped through Kickstarter campaigns.
¿Qué? Twitter Removes Translation Feature Powered By Bing
Twitter would not say if it plans to use another translation service.
Twitter quietly pulled a translation feature powered by Microsoft's search engine Bing from the social network about two months after its implementation.
360-Degree Camera Captures Chilling Destruction In Gaza
The panoramic footage reveals the devastation wrought by Israeli air strikes on the farming village of Khuza'a, Gaza.
The Telegraph has created a powerful encapsulation of the hell that is Gaza right now using a 360-degree camera. Panoramic footage captured the devastation wrought by Israeli air strikes and tanks on the small farming village of Khuza'a, Gaza.
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