David Lidsky's Blog, page 3282
April 17, 2014
Save The Planet By Boozing With These Paper Wine Bottles
PaperBoy Wine uses recycled cardboard bottles and their carbon footprint is 67% smaller than that of glass. Now that's how we like to celebrate Earth Day.
On-the-go drinking isn't just about breaking open container laws. Outdoorsy types who want to enjoy some red at the summit have to lug a heavy glass bottle up a mountain and then carry the damn thing back. Now they have what appears to be a pretty reasonable alternative.
Tencent: The Secretive, Chinese Tech Giant That Can Rival Facebook and Amazon
A tech war has raged in China, and a winner seems ready to emerge. It's Tencent--a controversial, $139 billion company with nearly a billion users, which functions like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and Uber all rolled into one. Now it's gunning for global expansion.
China's most powerful Internet company is headquartered in a bland, glassy tower in southern Shenzhen. Unlike Silicon Valley's funky campuses, there is nothing to reveal that this might be a hub of creativity. An insurance company, perhaps? In the middle of its nondescript, corporate lobby, an information desk stands next to the only sign of personality: a pair of giant plush penguins, the Tencent mascot times two. Nearby, an iPad displays stats on the company's messaging services. But when I pull out a notebook and start jotting down the numbers, the receptionist waves her hand. "Oh no, that's not updated!" she says. "It's just for show."
April 16, 2014
Judge A Food By Its Texture And Risk Being Wrong
Food designers, rejoice: Low-cal's all about crunchiness, or so people think.
Texture counts for a lot when we eat. New research, in the Journal of Consumer Research, says people assume that "hard" foods, such as raw vegetables, have fewer calories than "soft" foods, such as ice-cream. Calorie-counters tend towards those harder foods when planning their diet, and eat more of them altogether. This has big implications for the way food is designed.
Embattled Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Expected To File For Liquidation
It's also possible the Japan-based Bitcoin exchange could find a buyer.
What was once the largest Bitcoin exchange now plans to file for liquidation.
Google's Next Big Conference Is About Design
Google plans to focus on design at Google I/O, the developers' conference that draws thousands of software engineers each year.
Every year, a few thousand software engineers head to Google I/O at San Francisco's Moscone Center to eat Goldfish, listen to other geeks lecture, and learn how to tap Google's intricate and endless code libraries to create the products of tomorrow.
A Handy Guide To Maker Culture, For Kids Ages 1 To 100
Fusing 3-D printing and DIY robotics with traditional crafts like woodworking and metalworking, the maker movement is booming. The Makers' Alphabet, whimsically illustrated by two SVA students, offers an A-to-Z guide to making things in 2014.
How do you introduce children to today's exploding maker culture, which fuses cutting-edge technology, like 3-D printing and DIY robotics, with traditional arts and crafts, like woodworking and metalworking? With The Makers' Alphabet, that's how. It's a whimsically illustrated A-to-Z manual of all things maker-y in 2014, created by Sneha Pai and Melody Quintana, interaction design MFA candidates at New York's School of Visual Arts. The book is simple enough to serve as a primer for creative kids, but its breadth makes it appeal to anyone with an interest in innovation and design.
Oddball Wallpaper Will Turn Your Room Into A Big Happy Funhouse
It's not your grandmother's toile.
The trend in wallpaper design has definitely been leaning toward maximalism, and if that's your jam, have we got something for you: Netherlands-based design collective Extrapool. The studio commissions artists (mostly European) to create original prints for its wallpaper collection. And original they are. In these designs, children have disappearing heads and repeat patterns include abstract butts and breasts, eyes on trees, and bats.
iPhone Alarm Gives You A Seat In A Global Orchestra
Wake up and you become an instrument in an impromptu musical composition.
Wake Up With The World, an iPhone app by Pratt Institute MFA student Eric Rieper, can't solve the repetitive Pavlovian torture of being forced to wake up early every morning, but it can make the horrors of daily wake ups a more positive, communal experience. It's an alarm clock that syncs with other alarm clocks around the world, turning your phone into but one instrument in a global orchestra.
As Black Box Pings Go Silent, Here's How Data Can Narrow The Search For Malaysia Air Flight MH370
Our evolving data model shows the most likely locations for the plane's remains, according to recent evidence.
We're now entering the 6th week of search of MH370, and the 5th week of FastCoLab's MH370 model. There are two major developments since the last installment of this series.
Mark Zuckerberg Doesn't Seem Too Worried About Facebook's Teen Exodus As His 30th Birthday Looms
Facebook is looking beyond American teenagers to emerging markets around the world.
Looking at Facebook's recent moves--What's App, Oculus Rift, the death of in-app messaging--the company seems to be in experimentation mode, grasping to find what works and what doesn't. All of these decisions are part of the same overarching (and important) strategy: finding the next generation of Facebook users, as it's becoming clear American youth might have other loyalties.
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