David Lidsky's Blog, page 3326
February 21, 2014
How To Sell Your Company To Google In A Year
Password replacement firm Slicklogin just pulled off the slickest deal of all.
Israeli startup Slicklogin thinks passwords are insecure, messy, and time-consuming--and that two-step authentication via SMS text message is too awkward. The answer to the world's password woes, according to Slicklogin: soundwaves. It seems at least one tech giant may think Slicklogin might be on to something: even though the company has only been around for a year or so, they have just been acquired by Google.
Scraps Of San Francisco's Bay Bridge Could Become An Airbnb Rental
That is, if the Bay Bridge House can secure the materials.
Back in September, the eastern span of San Francisco's Bay Bridge was replaced for seismic purposes. The old span still stands next to the new suspension bridge connecting the city to Oakland, as transportation officials slowly deconstruct it to minimize environmental impact. Demolition is expected to be completed by early 2015, but plans to scrap most of its parts has David Grieshaber concerned. The cofounder of the Bay Bridge House project wants to save pieces of the bridge, which is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and turn them into an eco-friendly, self-sustaining, and income-generating home--one that could be listed on Airbnb for anyone to stay in.
An Open Source Library For Turning Journalism Into Podcasts
A journalism student in Chicago has built a free tool for converting article text to speech--one of a growing number of new tools trying to improve the reader experience without adding tons of code.
When Texas Senator Wendy Davis gave her 13-hour filibuster against an anti-abortion law last summer, journalists filled the web with a heap of multimedia: videos, tweets, GIFs, and Internet memes that often outshined their written articles. But the Washington Post blog "The Fix" didn't make its readers choose between listening and reading its filibuster coverage. By using SoundCite, a web tool that streams an audio clip behind the text, the Post's account of Davis's speech uniquely captured the event's emotions in digestible snippets without awkwardly breaking up its written text.
The British Are Streaming . . . For Free! So Why Isn't NBC?
The BBC's access to Olympics coverage highlights how expensive and broken the TV user experience has become.
In the U.S., NBC has a death grip on Olympics coverage, aggressively keeping clips off YouTube and monetizing its broadcast at every possible turn. But the BBC tells a much different story. This winter, the BBC is broadcasting the Olympics live and in their entirety at no additional cost to viewers. To stream NBC's live Olympic coverage stateside, however, customers must absorb the cost of both a pay-TV subscription and Internet connection respectively (not to mention withstand commercials) for access to the online broadcast. Sports enthusiasts within the U.K., however, can enjoy not only their national BBC television broadcast, but each and every Olympic event streamed live to their preferred desktop or mobile device by purchasing a standard yearly BBC license (for only £145.50 per color TV per year, no less)--ad free.
The U.S. Postal Service Is Planning A Steve Jobs Stamp
The commemorative stamp is scheduled for 2015.
Steve Jobs's face could adorn your next piece of mail. An internal list obtained by the Washington Post reveals approved stamp subjects by the U.S. Postal Service's Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, and among the collectible stamps scheduled for 2015 is the late Apple cofounder and CEO.
HereFeed: A Real-Time Heatmap Of Instagram Photos
The tool shows what's happening around you, according to Instagram.
The premise behind HereFeed is simple enough: It provides a visual map of the things going on around you. It works by cribbing Instagram photos geotagged to specific locations, and indicates where the buzz is with big, pink bubbles. Clicking on those bubbles pulls up the most recent pictures uploaded.
Inside Erlang, The Rare Programming Language Behind WhatsApp's Success
Facebook's $19 billion acquisition is winning the messaging wars thanks to an unusual programming language.
How do you support 450 million users with only 32 engineers? For WhatsApp, acquired earlier this week by Facebook, the answer is Erlang, a programming language developed in the '80s that is finally having its moment in the spotlight.
This Tumblr Highlights "Things That Are Cheaper Than WhatsApp"
For example: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
When Facebook announced its intention to purchase WhatsApp, the breezy, innovative messaging platform used by millions around the world for $16 billion ($19 billion if you include $3 billion in restricted stock), you'd be in the minority if you weren't a bit sticker shocked.
Sidecar's New Ridesharing Model: Pick Your Own Driver And Price
In the business of revolutionizing the act of hailing a taxi, there's room for different ideas --especially if it gives riders more freedom than competitors like Uber and Lyft.
Sidecar was one of the first startups out of the gate in the world of ridesharing, but it never really managed to carve out a niche. It had a unique system for picking up riders, but overall offered a similar experience as its competitors--and most riders would just as soon grab a ride from Lyft and its pink fuzzy car-staches or Uber, which is probably the most well-known of the services.
Learn to Write Like Papa With The "Hemingway App"
Are you utilizing an alarming profusion of ostentatious and unnecessary words in your written expression? The Hemingway app can help.
"Most technical writing is awful," says Adam Long, who works in marketing. "Ever read the full manual for a new gadget, or even for your car? Me neither--they're verbose, confusing, and use jargon the rest of us don't know." He says that lawyers are also chronically poor wordsmiths. "There's a good reason why it takes you three years to learn how to screw up the English language," he says. Adam and his brother Ben Long have created the Hemingway app to counter all of the horrendous prose used across all areas of business writing. It may not turn you into a great storyteller, but, drawing inspiration from Hemingway's lean style, it does promise to strip the extraneous, the weak, and the complicated from your writing.
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