David Lidsky's Blog, page 4580

Germany: Facebook Illegally Accessed, Saved Non-User's Data

German authorities have launched a legal case against Facebook for violation of the nation's strict user privacy laws. The case hinges on Facebook's retention of data on people who hadn't signed up to Facebook themselves. 

The Hamburg Data Protection Authority is behind this legal action, and it's pretty serious stuff according to the body's head Johannes Caspar: He's reported as saying that he considers "the saving of data from third parties, in this context, to be against data privacy...

Science Bloggers Outraged by PepsiCo-Sponsored Nutrition Blog

Corporations sponsor blog posts all the time. It's a reality of the world of online journalism--corporations can provide the big bucks necessary to keep the figurative lights on. Why, then, is the scientific community so riled up about Food Frontiers, a new PepsiCo-sponsored blog on the ScienceBlogs network?

The blog, launched this week, will purportedly offer insight on science, nutrition, and health policy--with information on PepsiCo's "nutritious" products sprinkled in. But ScienceBlogs...

Popularity, Ego, and Influence - What Is the Influence Project?

In roughly 24 hours, nearly 6,000 people have registered to participate in an experiment we started called The Influence Project. It's been written about by TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and a score of personal blogs. While it hasn't taken off the way as quickly as the David After Dentist or Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Rainbow videos, it's off to a good enough start to bust our servers (briefly). But like anything that gains traction on the Web, the reactions have been...

Facebook-MOL Partnership Brings Virtual Credits to Real Stores

Facebook is partnering with MOL Global to deliver a new way to buy Facebook credits--in person at a MOL-connected store. It's a strange real world/virtual world crossover, and definitely a sign of the way future digital finances will work.

MOL is a hot-topic Internet financial company, though if you haven't heard about it it's not surprising--while it operates in 75 countries, mainly its operations are centered in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, India, Australia, and...

Infographic of the Day: Drawing in 3-D, With Ping-Pong Balls and an iPhone

Floating Forecaster, by UK interactive designer Richard Harvey, is a ping-pong floatation device that lets you loft up your balls just by running your fingers across your smart phone. Using either the iPhone interface app c74 or a custom MaxMSP sequencing program, you can do pretty much anything with your balls -- shoot them up in the air, keep them quivering low to the ground, hold your own PowerBall lottery, whatever. Check out some epic ball-playing here:

[vimeo 13059978:]...

Frog Design Is Making the Smart Grid Sexy

Alternative energy and the promise of clean, reliable power has an allure, but power meters and electric vehicle chargers aren't all that exciting. Frog design wants to change that. The firm has joined with the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC)--a nonprofit amalgam of vendors, utilities, suppliers, and consumer advocacy groups--to help make smart grid-related products more user-friendly.

Smart energy products are still in their infancy. While plenty of tools exist to help homeowners...

Superstorm: The Worst Leonardo DiCaprio Movie Never Made

The pitch: An oil company lobbyist (Leonardo DiCaprio) is shaken after his girlfriend, a local meteorologist, breaks up with him over reservations of his contribution to global warming. The split is hastened by a massive hurricane thrashing its way toward the east coast of the U.S., which would likely wreak Katrina-like damage from Maine to Myrtle Beach. DiCaprio's character, feeling guilty, soon discovers that the hurricane's path will also cross a long-dormant volcano, causing it to...

Meet the Creators of Sunspring, a Portable, Solar, Water-Purification System

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Photograph by Jamie Kripke

Cofounders, Innovative Water Technologies
Dumont, Colorado

The Barkers -- Jack, 47, is the inventor; Carmen, 50, runs the business -- are behind the Sunspring, a portable, solar-powered water-purifying system.

Jack: "Everyone was shipping in bottled water to Haiti, but that's not a sustainable option. The Sunspring produces more than 5,000 gallons of water per day, every drop microbiologically safe to drink. The unit is constantly storing energy and can run at...

Borders Launches Own eBook Store: Is There Room for Another Competitor?

Borders announced today that the new Borders ebook store, to be paired with a whole mess of different devices, will launch today, with a new device and software network to come soon. But the ebook category has become increasingly competitive, and every store has its own hook.

Apple's iBooks has all the buzz, plus a built-in userbase of millions upon millions of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users. Amazon's pioneering Kindle has the name recognition, the lowest prices, and a solid long-term...

Foursquare Launches Layers: Annotated Collections of Places From IFC, HuffPo, and More

Two partners, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and the Huffington Post, announced the release of Foursquare location layers today. It's a new feature from Foursquare that could turn out very cool and useful, or ravaged by disingenuous ads.

The new feature allows users to opt-in (meaning, it's not on by default--you have to choose to use this feature) to the option of having a particular publisher's locations pushed to them. If you follow IFC or HuffPo, you'll be given notifications when...