David Lidsky's Blog, page 3302
March 26, 2014
Viral Quiznos "House Of Thrones" Mashup Is Great, But Can It Sell Bad Sandwiches?
House of Cards and Game of Thrones fans go crazy for new Quiznos ad, but not necessarily the sloppy toasted subs themselves.
If you had no idea that Quiznos just filed for bankruptcy, things would look pretty peachy for the sub-par sandwich maker, which has received lots of praise for its Game of Thrones/House of Cards mashup. Fans have called it "brilliant," "clever," and "spot-on." And it indeed is all of those things:
Building The Next Pixar
Some of Pixar's most illustrious alums, steeped for decades in Pixar's potent creative culture, reveal how they apply the company's philosophies of success to their own ventures--and you can, too.
While working as an animator in London in the late 1990s, Suzanne Slatcher spent her lunch breaks at the comics shop, reading a hardcover book on the making of Pixar's then-latest film, A Bug's Life. "It was like 40 pounds, and it was so expensive I couldn't possibly afford it. But at lunchtime I went and just pored over this beautiful artwork," she says. "The craft of this thing…it wasn't like movie effects, it was very much from a high quality tradition." Slatcher worked at a traditional 2D studio, but was teaching herself 3D animation, a skill that eventually got her hired at Pixar itself, where she worked for nine years as a modeler and layout artist.
March 25, 2014
Facebook Acquires Oculus VR For $2 Billion
Facebook's latest billion-dollar-plus acquisition is virtual reality gaming headset maker Oculus VR (and its vibrant developer community).
Facebook is purchasing Oculus VR, maker of virtual reality gaming headset Oculus Rift, for $2 billion--just weeks after the social networking company acquired WhatsApp for $16 billion. The acquisition bolsters Facebook as a major player in the gaming sphere, and also gives the company access to a staff of massively talented engineers. While there might be lots of jokes about Facebook pokes in 3-D, this purchase is serious business: The acquisition of such cutting-edge hardware strengthens Facebook's image as an agile technology player, and brings with it a vibrant external developer ecosystem eager to develop for the Oculus platform.
Watson's Next Challenge: Smarter Cancer Treatments
New innovations in computational biology are changing the way researchers tackle cancer and diabetes. Can algorithms find drug treatments that human doctors can't?
Computational biology--the application of coding, mathematical models, and large-scale data processing to biology--hasn't turned into a huge buzz term the way that "big data" and the "Internet of things" have. But it will, very soon. The unheralded effort by hospitals, universities, pharmaceutical companies, governments, NGOs, and tech firms to marry biology to heavy-duty server power will change the way medicine works. In one of the most intriguing use cases to come out lately, two famous institutions are using big data to tackle a particularly difficult variety of brain cancer.
The IRS Says Bitcoin Isn't A Currency. It's Property
And that means it is subject to federal taxes.
On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service announced that bitcoin and all other forms of digital currency were to be counted as property, not currency. Per the Wall Street Journal, this distinction will give the fledgling market "a potential boost to investors" while imposing "extensive record-keeping rules--and extensive taxes--on [bitcoin's] use."
Will Pandora Survive The Streaming Music Boom?
The Internet radio giant has to cross some major chasms if it's going to stay dominant. We asked cofounder Tim Westergren how he plans to make it happen.
Pandora has never had a more pivotal moment than this one. The 75 million user-strong service is synonymous with Internet radio, but a growing list of competitors (which now includes Apple) and its royalty dance with the record industry loom large.
Spotify Cuts Premium Price In Half... For College Kids
The streaming service looks to ramp up its presence on college campuses across America.
Spotify is heading to college. The music streaming giant, which already claims the ears of at least 24 million registered users and 6 million paid subscribers, is slashing the price of its premium service in half, from $10 to $5 per month, for students in the U.S. enrolled in accredited Title IV institutions.
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Admittedly Creepy Exoskeleton Adds Music To Your Every Movement
On the body of a trained dancer, it's strangely captivating.
It sounds cruel to say, but traditional dancers are little more than highly trained marionettes. Even after countless hours of training, of bending their body to sheer will, it's ultimately the directors, choreographers, and musicians who dictate their movements and shape the vision of the performance.
Google Glass, Coming Soon To A Mall Near You
The Google/Luxottica partnership isn't about making Glass look hipper. It's about world domination.
Google's partnership with the glasses giant Luxottica is much more than just a fashion play: It's a plan to get Google Glass into every mall in America, and in doing so gain cultural acceptance.
This Is The New HTC One
Here's an overview of what's different now that HTC One's successor's out.
For a long time, the biggest knock on Android phones was that they were ugly. Plastic. Cheap looking. Indiscernible from one another, no matter who the manufacturer was. Then, in February 2013, HTC quietly unleashed its Hail Mary, of sorts: the HTC One, a big, beautiful, premium-looking device carved from a thick sheet of aluminum with a super-sharp 4.7-inch screen.
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