David Lidsky's Blog, page 4556

iFive: BP's Photoshop Disaster, Apple Is Evil, Robot Car Trip to China, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Freebie, Cow Wash!

While you were sleeping, innovation was reviewing its quality-control policy down at the factory, before jumping in a robot-controlled van and heading out to the car wash.

1. What is it about BP and its ongoing relationship with the phrase "up to its neck in s***"? The leak from the Deepwater well may have slowed to a trickle, but there's no end of doctored photos to cheer up those of you missing the oil firm's status as summer's top whipping boy. WaPo puts the figure of federal government...

iFive: BP's Photoshop Disaster, Apple is Evil, Robot Car Trip to China, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Freebie, Cow Wash!

While you were sleeping, innovation was reviewing its quality-control policy down at the factory, before jumping in a robot-controlled van and heading out to the car wash.

1. What is it about BP and its ongoing relationship with the phrase "up to its neck in s***"? The leak from the Deepwater well may have slowed to a trickle, but there's no end of doctored photos to cheer up those of you missing the oil firm's status as Summer's top whipping boy. WaPo puts the figure of federal government...

Wham! Bang! Pow! Comic-Con 2010 Starts Today

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Typography by Julie Teninbaum

Comic-Con 2010 and its 125,000 attendees will hit San Diego this month. The ever-popular megaconvention sold out its four-day passes 280 days in advance. And while we won't be part of the 1% who show up in costume, we will celebrate by looking at the numbers of the comic-book business.

The Market for the Comic Book and its cousin, the Graphic Novel, reached $680 million last year in the U.S. and Canada, up 20% since 2005.

The typical price of a comic today is...

61% of Netflix Subscribers Choose to Stream Video

Netflix reported their quarterly earnings today, and the news was mostly--though not entirely--good. Revenue was $519.8 million, up 27% from the year-ago quarter, but fell a few million short of Wall Street expectations. As a result, the stock was down nearly 10% in after-hours trading. But the number of subscribers is up 42% from the  year-ago quarter, up 2 million from last quarter--and there are sure to be more as Netflix expands northward into Canada.

There are also some very encouraging...

Is HP's Windows-7-Powered Slate Still Alive?

HP's Slate was one of the early stars of The Year of the Tablet. Before anyone knew what the iPad would be, HP and Microsoft introduced the Slate at January's Consumer Electronics Show. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer even did the actual introduction, so the Slate was guaranteed a ton of buzz.

But the Slate was actually a pretty traditional tablet--according to a leaked spec list, it ran the full desktop version of Windows 7 (possibly with a touch-oriented skin), and packed netbook internals...

Rumor: Verizon Switching to Tiered Data Plans This Month

It was inevitable.

AT&T was the first to officially move away from unlimited smartphone data plans to a tiered system. That move aroused a ton of ire among techies: AT&T didn't just add tiered pricing, they eliminated the old unlimited plan. Of course, a lot of that is a gut reaction to the elimination of what we may come to see as the golden years of data pricing--the vast majority of customers (98%) will actually save money under the new plan.

That's not to say that having the unlimited...

Test Drive: The 2011 Volkswagen Jetta

Volkswagen wants to be world's biggest automaker by 2018. The company's secret (or not so secret, as the case may be) sauce: the Jetta. This week, FastCompany.com had a chance to take the yet-to-be-released 2011 Jetta SEL for a spin on the sharp twists and turns of Northern California's Highway 1.

First, the interior. Volkswagen representatives told us that the company made an extensive effort to keep the Jetta looking classy despite its relatively low starting price of $15,995 (the 2010...

Googling the Google Lobbyists

As we told you earlier, Google has ramped up its lobbying efforts, spending $1.34 million last quarter influencing the Washington elite--up 41% from the same period last year. Who are these lobbyists Google is using to pressure federal lawmakers and what are they trying to accomplish?

Here, we've Googled the Googlers for you, and found that the search giant is most concerned with influencing policy related to privacy and net neutrality.

Alan Davidson. Davidson is Google's director...

David Harvey's Urban Manifesto: Down With Suburbia; Down With Bloomberg's New York

"New York? The whole damn place has been turned into a suburb," sneered David Harvey, startling a roomful of New Yorkers who prided themselves on the same things he derided: the makeover of the city's parks; the new network of bike lanes; the pedestrian malls along Broadway. "The feel of the city is losing its urbanity and being made okay for suburbanites to enjoy Times Square," he continued, going on to condemn New York's gentrification not on aesthetic or nostalgic grounds, but for being...

Google Calls Out Luddite Tendencies in FTC's Newspaper Protection

The debate over old-media news versus new Net-generation news usually rumbles on with all the fiery theatrics of a party sparkler. But not today: Google's injecting some volcanic ire.

It's not new to talk about how Net technology is eroding the bastions of traditional news organizations--heck, even the dear ol' supposedly-tech-friendly Prez has weighed in on the debate, slightly favoring newsprint. But Google (as a prominent player in the new media game) has evidently had enough of all the...