David Lidsky's Blog, page 4583

Good Looking: Chicago Gets 30-Foot Eyeball

 

Open your eyes, Chicago, and meet the gaze of a 30-foot eyeball.

That stare--from the 30-foot "EYE" sculpture--officially opens this morning in Chicago's Loop. Tony Tasset, the artist behind the eyeball--adorned with a blue iris and blood vessels--modeled it after one of his own.

For help with his handiwork, Tasset turned to Wisconsin-based Fiberglass Animals, Shapes & Trademarks. Sculptors built and painted the ocular mass by hand, using between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds of fiberglass and...

Space Shuttle Winds Down, Project Orion Winds Up

Just two scheduled Space Shuttle flights remain before the
most complex machine ever made is grounded, and support companies are now
restructuring their staffing levels. Good thing, then, that Orion is on track.

The United Space Alliance, a Texas-based company owned
jointly by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, has been involved in Space Shuttle
operations since its inception in 1995, and USA's big contract with NASA comes to a
close on September 30, 2010 with the end of Space Shuttle...

Twitter Now the World's Fastest Growing Search Engine

What is your search engine of choice? Google? Yahoo? Bing? Try Twitter.

According to co-founder Biz Stone, who spoke yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Twitter now reaches some 800 million search queries per day. That's over 24 billion searches per month, more than Bing (4.1 billion) and Yahoo (9.4 billion) combined.

While Stone's company is still a long way off from Google, which supports around 88 billion search queries per month, Twitter is quickly catching up. Since last...

Google and Ridley Scott Go to Sundance with 'Life in a Day'

Google is attempting to tell the story of a single day on earth by collecting videos from around the globe. The "Life in a Day" project, a collaboration with filmmaker Ridley Scott, will "aggregate and mold" the videos into a "cohesive story."

In order to participate, grab a video camera and capture some footage on July 24th (Queue viral ad campaign slogan: Google is with you 24/7). After uploading it to YouTube, Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and...

iFive: Storms Push Oil Closer to Shore, Climategate Report, UK's Tech Bill, Foursquare and HuffPo, Sea Shepherd, Firefox 4

While you were sleeping, innovation was not crying in court after being informed it was to spend time in chokey. Instead it was poring over data receieved courtesy of an FOIA request, picking the right smiley face, and then facing deportation. Oh, innovation, what will we do without you?

1. The East Coast might be enjoying a heatwave, but weather further south isn't exactly endearing itself to the Gulf states. With oil found in Lake Pontchartrain and Barataria Bay, it's causing spats between...

Borders Joins The E-Books Game Late, But Still Competes With Amazon

Borders just joined the ranks of bricks-and-mortar bookstores embracing the brave new world of e-publishing by launching its own digital bookstore and e-reader apps. It's late to the game, but not too late, and it's a sure sign of the future. 

Barnes and Noble's efforts to counter Amazon's dominance of the e-book market struck an interesting chord as the publishing giant also commissioned its own dedicated e-book reader device. This was an attempt to really tackle Amazon head-to-head with a...

Cable's Reach, Revenue, Ratings Threaten Network TV's Supremacy

With ratings and revenue on the rise, basic cable is taking aim at network TV's supremacy.

When Conan O'Brien string-dances on TBS this November, it'll mark a major victory for cable television, which has long been considered second string to big broadcasters ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. But any way you slice it -- reach, revenue, ratings, and (as Team Coco shows) respect -- cable is king. Today, with about 90% of Americans now subscribing in some form, basic cable is basically the norm. Revenue...

Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?

Does our desire to help do more harm than good?

Gary Vaynerchuk on Influence, Emotion, and Being a "Douche Bag"

Gary Vaynerchuk says authenicity trumps likeability.

This is the first in a series of interviews related to The Influence Project.

Gary Vaynerchuk made his name as the host of Wine Library TV, hit bestseller status as the author of Crush It!, and is the founder of the consulting firm Vaynermedia. His hyperactive approach to pushing the power of social networks has earned him the distinction of being the original Vayniac, a label an ever growing legion of devotees embrace (46,700 Facebook...

Organic Valley's CEO George Siemon on the Crooked Art of Leadership

George Siemon isn't just in the business of organic milk. As the CEO of Organic Valley, he has shepherded the company to its own organic brand of leadership and corporate culture. In 1988, Siemon was a dairy farmer who started a cooperative with a few neighbors in the Kickapoo Valley of Wisconsin. That venture grew into Organic Valley, a 550-employee company with $530 million in sales last year. The company has gotten big, but not exactly corporate. Siemon is more likely to cite homespun...