David Lidsky's Blog, page 3231
June 25, 2014
Warby Parker Has Now Sold--And Distributed--More Than 1 Million Pairs Of Glasses
"Our business model is designed to make people happy," says cofounder Neil Blumenthal. And people, apparently, like to be happy.
Warby Parker announced today that it has given away 1 million pairs of glasses to people in need, meaning it has sold more than 1 million pairs of glasses. (There's a few-month lag between sales and donations for its buy one, give one program.) That's double the 500,000 figure Warby announced last July. In four years of operation, it has more than doubled sales every single year.
The World's Happiest Places, Visualized
Moritz Stefaner uses data from the Better Life Initiative to show how your region stacks up.
Data viz wunderkind Moritz Stefaner has been on a happiness kick lately. Earlier this year, he analyzed the data of more than 3,000 images to try to determine the happiness of people New York, Bangkok, Moscow, São Paolo, and Berlin, according to their selfies. And now he's back, visualizing the happiness of the entire world--using a more objective data source.
The Nest Thermostat Is Now Much More Than Just A Thermostat
By opening up its Nest thermostat to developers, Google just branded the Internet of Things for itself.
We've been told that an Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, and our salt shakers will soon be speaking to our light bulbs. But how? There's no decided way for all of these devices to talk to one another.
June 24, 2014
Oculus Acquires The Killer Team That Made The Xbox 360 Controller
Will the Oculus Rift's looks finally match its technical prowess?
The virtual reality company Oculus, newly flush with lots and lots of Facebook cash, just announced that it's acquiring a company called Carbon Design. That company's name may not register with the average person, but if you're a gamer, you know its work well.
Sorry, Amazon. FAA Reiterates Its Drone Policy: For Hobbyists Only
Drone deliveries are strictly commercial, the FAA says.
Once again, the Federal Aviation Administration has reaffirmed its policy on drones: for hobbyists only.
If Your Smartphone Was Just Hacked By The Government, This Could Be How It Happened
Discovered: a remote-controlled trojan that can capture anything from keystrokes to voice and video content to calendar entries.
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab in the U.S. and Canada's Citizen Lab have just uncovered the global servers of a particularly invasive brand of remote-controlled trojan that governments can use to hack into--and take control of-- smartphones.
A Company Is Selling Bottles Of Forgotten Old Whiskey. Here's Why You Might Actually Want To Drink It
Beverage company Diageo is turning abandoned liquor leftovers into a small-batch whiskey series called Orphan Barrel.
The way Stephen Rust tells the story, the moment he took a sip, he knew it was the one. "You instantly understand," he says. "There's magic." Rust, the luxury division president at the alcoholic-beverage company Diageo, was in Kentucky bourbon country earlier this year to taste a forgotten, 20-year-old whiskey that had been pulled from the historic Stitzel-Weller distillery's rick house. With him were Ivan Menezes, the company's CEO; Larry Schwartz, its president of North America; and Peter McDonough, its chief marketing and innovation officer. Together, in front of a big bow window out of which, legend has it, Pappy Van Winkle himself once shot turkeys during the workday, they all sampled the amber liquid. The whiskey was left over from Diageo's brief ownership of the Bernheim distillery in Kentucky. Though it had come with the purchase, it hadn't found a purpose in any of the company's existing whiskies, and it had been aging well past typical American whiskey age, waiting for someone to figure out what to do with it.
Despite Losing Its Cool, Facebook Is Still The Most Popular Social Network For Teens
A new survey finds that more than three-quarters of online youth in the U.S. still use Facebook.
With teachers, parents, and even grandparents hopping on the Facebook bandwagon, it's no longer the hip online destination it once was--but that doesn't mean teens have abandoned the world's most popular social network.
With New API, Developers Can Build Apps For Nest's Smart Home Devices
Building atop Nest's technology will enable partner brands to bring a new dimension of functionality to their hardware products.
Hardware maker Nest has finally released its API, which will let developers build applications for its smart thermostat and its smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, allowing those appliances to talk to other connected devices in your home.
Ever Wonder How Music Is Matched To Your Mood?
How do music services know to play "Happy" when you're in a good mood? Hint: It's not just the title.
Before long, it won't be enough for music services to play songs you might enjoy. Instead, the music platforms of the future will know exactly what you want to hear based on your mood. But how?
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