David Lidsky's Blog, page 4534

Google Wave, Poorly Understood and Underused, Dies in Infancy

Google Wave was announced to great fanfare at Google's I/O 2009 conference. It sounded promising, a melange of new-world communication protocols--somewhere between an email and a chat room, but more real-time than either. Could this be Google's killer social media app, overtaking Twitter and Facebook?

But the warning signs were evident from the start. Wave proved extremely difficult to explain. I found it impossible to describe what the service was in unambiguous terms. I found myself...

iFive: Google-Verizon Pact, China's Eco Tax, Facebook's Friendster Patents, Wyclef for Prez, Model Blood Diamonds

Run for your life! Or cuddle up? From Wyclef to Supermodels to China and Facebook, here's what you missed overnight.

1. Google and Verizon have reportedly made a pact on how they will
handle Internet traffic, side-stepping the net neutrality debate and
sending Web-wonks into a frenzy today. It's good news if true: the deal
would restrict Verizon from slowing the content that travels over its
wires. But it won't apply to mobile data, which is bad news --
especially now that Google is...

Vonage App: Call Facebook Friends for Free

[youtube vPt_pdxzoRg:]

The inexorable march towards data-based phone calls proceeds with steady, clomping footsteps. Why pay for a separate voice plan, estimating the amount of time you might want to talk that month, when you're already paying for a set amount of data? Apps from Skype, as well as video apps like the iPhone's FaceTime and Android's Fring, use data, and Vonage looks to be next.

Vonage, of the annoying commercials, is a pioneer in VoIP (voice over IP) technology. Personally, I'm...

Google Slides into Social Gaming

According to New York Times source, Google just acquired Slide, a social networking gaming startup founded by Max Levchin. The New York Times reports the sale price as $228 million, while TechCrunch hears it's more like $182 million. That's a big enough disparity that we'll hold off on any kind of cost-based analysis, but the independent reports do suggest that the acquisition is very real.

Slide, the brainchild of ex-PayPal employee Levchin, began as a third-party photo sharing service, but...

Vonage App for iOS and Android Lets You Call Facebook Friends for Free

[youtube vPt_pdxzoRg:]

The inexorable march towards data-based phone calls proceeds with steady, clomping footsteps. Why pay for a separate voice plan, estimating the amount of time you might want to talk that month, when you're already paying for a set amount of data? Apps from Skype, as well as video apps like the iPhone's FaceTime and Android's Fring, use data, and Vonage looks to be next.

Vonage, they of the annoying commercials, is a pioneer in VoIP (voice over IP) technology, and actually...

Google Acquires Slide, Adds to Social Gaming Stable

According to New York Times source, Google just acquired Slide, a social networking gaming startup founded by Max Levchin. The New York Times reports the sale price as $228 million, while TechCrunch hears it's more like $182 million. That's a big enough disparity that we'll hold off on any kind of cost-based analysis, but the independent reports do suggest that the acquisition is very real.

Slide, the brainchild of ex-PayPal employee Levchin, began as a sort of third-party photo sharing...

Google Wave, Poorly Understood and Underused, Dies In Infancy

Google Wave was announced to great fanfare at Google's I/O 2009 conference. It sounded promising, a melange of new-world communication protocols--somewhere between an email and a chat room, but more real-time than either. Could this be Google's killer social media app, overtaking Twitter and Facebook?

But the warning signs were evident from the start. Wave proved extremely difficult to explain. I found it impossible to describe what the service was in unambiguous terms. I found myself...

Peer Pressure Works on Billionaires Too

There's nothing like a little prodding from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to get rich people to part with their money -- or half of it, at least. The pair has convinced over 30 of their fellow billionaires (and a handful of other millionaires) to sign the Giving Pledge, described on the pledge's website as "an effort to help address society's most pressing problems by inviting the wealthiest American families and individuals to commit to giving more than half of their wealth to philanthropy...

Lockheed Martin's Social Networking Platform's Not Rocket Science

Lockheed Martin, the giant defense contractor, is wary of letting its staff use social networking. Probably something to do with secrecy. It also knows its staff are people, so it's built its own social network structure, dubbed Eureka Streams, and is now releasing it open-source for ... well, pretty much anyone to use.

The idea first surfaced back in the middle of 2009, when Lockheed Martin began to talk about its internal efforts to develop a social networking structure. Writing in a July...

Lessons From a Failing Smart Grid

Smart grids are supposed to be the future of our aging electric system. And XCel Energy's SmartGridCity project was supposed to turn Boulder, Colorado into the ultimate smart grid hub. According to a 2008 press release from XCel, Boulder would become a city that could "support easily dispatched distributed
generation technologies (such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with
vehicle-to-grid technology; battery systems; wind turbines; and solar
panels)" through a "robust, dynamic electric...