David Lidsky's Blog, page 4560

Will Crowdsourcing Public Opinion Lead to Government Action?

As if in response to yesterday's story about a Princeton scientist's hope to improve government through crowdsourcing, Washington has launched a series of democratic idea incubators that aim to align government action with public opinion. Taking advantage of a

platform called IdeaScale, these open government initiatives enable the public to submit and vote on ideas for anything

from state budgets and federal transparency to health care priorities and education. While this may sound...

Analysts: Case Closed on Antennagate

Steve Jobs closed Apple's iPhone 4 antennagate affair with a press presentation last Friday, and though portions of the media are still fretting over the matter, one group of important stakeholders are convinced it's over: analysts. 

Different opinions have been stirred up by Job's explanation to the press, and while Consumer Reports is still puzzlingly confident in their unscientific "no recommended buy" investigation, other media players--like Dibert creator Scott Adams--were won over by...

WeCU Technologies Advances Airport Security

A new airport-security system uses physiological signals, including rapid eye movements and heightened body temperature, to identify risky passengers.

Infographic: Body Scan

Even the best-trained terrorists will be betrayed by their bodies. That, at least, is what is suggested by the seven years of research behind WeCU Technologies, an Israeli startup that proposes to measure intent by reading physiological parameters and screen out potential threats.

CEO Ehud Givon compares the function...

National Ocean Council to Protect U.S. Water Resources

There are few bright spots in the BP oil disaster, but if nothing else, the Gulf spill has reminded us of the value of our ocean resources. Perhaps that's why the Obama administration chose this week to announce the creation of a National Ocean Council--a group in charge of developing policy goals and balancing both commercial and recreational aquatic needs. The Council, which will consist of 24 officials from an assortment of federal agencies, is the fruit of a year-long study from Obama's...

Infographic: Our App-Happy World

Via: MBA Online

This infographic, taken from Online MBA, is a pretty good overall look at our app world and how far we've come in only a few short years. Worth noting: Apps existed before the iPhone. Of course. And as a matter of fact, the first iPhone was app-less. But it was the introduction of the App Store back in 2008 that really launched apps from being programs you hunted down on your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile browser to a centralized, insanely profitable repository of software.

So...

iFive: Seabed Leak Benign, the Afghanistan Conundrum, HP's Tablet Plans, FIFA Pauses on Goal-Line Tech, Cheney Lacking Pulse

While you were sleeping, innovation was getting angry that football's men in blazers seemed to be backtracking on their technology promise, but feeling somewhat mollified by the heartening news on the sea-bed leaks close to the Deepwater oil spill. Palms up for an iFive high five!

1. Admiral Thad Allen thinks that the leaks on the sea bed near BP's Deepwater well may be unconnected to the cap itself. The British PM is meeting Obama today, and it's thought that the President will give him a...

Microsoft, Intel, and Sony-Backed UltraViolet Digital Movie System Nears Testing Stage

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE, is a consortium backed by a whopping 58 high-tech and content providing companies, including Warner Brothers, Paramount, NBC Universal, and Lionsgate on the content side, and Microsoft, Intel, HP, Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic on the tech side. Netflix and Comcast, as content deliverers, are on board and could prove vital. Sony is kind of the ringleader on this one, with Sony Pictures CTO Mitch Singer working as president of DECE.

You...

A Stagnant Nokia Launches Search for New CEO

Nokia is one of the giants of the old cellphone world. The company sells about 40% of the world's cellphones putting it in first place by a long shot. But Nokia is losing ground incredibly fast. Many of its customers are in developing countries like India, which yield little profit, and even its European base mostly consists of low-end models, which, again, have a razor-thin profit margin. Despite selling several times more devices than Apple, Nokia in fact made less profit last year than...

Facebook Nears 500-Million-User Mark, Prepares Self-Loving "Facebook Stories"

When the first official poster for the Facebook-themed movie The Social Network was unveiled last month, some of us wondered about that official tagline. "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies." Catchy! But does Facebook have that many? The last number quoted was 400 million, at the f8 conference a few months ago.

Facebook revealed to All Things D that they do expect to announce the joining of the 500 millionth Facebook member sometime this week. It was bound to...

The Oft-Unhappy Marriage of Apple and AT&T: "We're Apple. We Don't Wear Suits."

Wired has a huge, comprehensive piece up about the relationship between Apple and AT&T since negotiations over the original iPhone began back in 2007. For those who have been following the life of the iPhone obsessively, there's a lot we already knew--but there's also some particularly juicy tidbits from some anonymous sources.

Those anonymous sources aren't necessarily to be discredited out of hand: Any Apple employee blabbing to the press about these upper-level meetings would certainly be...