David Lidsky's Blog, page 4585

101 Things to Do with Outlawed Speedo LASR WetSuits: Architecture

Designboom has got a nifty little post on a project by some platform 2 students from the Chelsea College of Art & Design. The s_pavilion is an external structure made from LZR Racers, those Speedo wetsuits that gave Michael Phelps his edge at the Beijing Olympics, and Flavia Zocarri the bum's rush a month earlier.

There's something very HR Giger meets Battlestar Galactica here. The team that turned it from its sartorial roots into something more architectural come from different departments...

Using Design Thinking, to Bring Michigan Out of Its Doldrums

It's hard to sell a service no one understands--just ask Nate Young, CEO of NewNorth, a fledgling non-profit education center that's using design thinking to help companies innovate. When Young makes his pitch, he gets a lot of head scratching in response--and that's precisely why he believes he's needed.

It's no secret that Michigan, and its generations of blue-collar factory workers, was one of the hardest-hit states by globalization. Fast-evolving technologies have left many companies...

US Air Force Takes On Dangerous Trash with Surveillance Satellites

There's a lot of space debris up there--and we're not talking moon dust: Smashed rocket fragments, dropped tools, flakes of paint even all orbit the planet at dangerous supersonic speeds. There's so much of this detritus, in fact, the USAF is planning a satellite to track it.

An automated Russian cargo ship nearly missed docking with the International Space Station last week, and if it had it would've turned into a seriously large addition to the cloud of space debris--albeit short-lived...

IDEA Spotlight: A Water Filter Easy on the Eyes and the Environment

Of the 35 billion plastic water bottles Americans buy each year, nearly four out of five end up in a landfill or an incinerator. That's a hell of a lot of trash for a few sips of exotic mountain freshness. NewDealDesign's solution: the Tami Bar Primo, which produces plenty of filtered water without damaging the environment. And unlike most kitchen appliances out there, it isn't a spectacular eyesore.

Primo is a sort of souped-up water cooler for your countertop. Using proprietary carbon...

Yahoo's The Upshot Creates Niche Editorial From Search Engine Data

Today, Yahoo launches The Upshot*, a news blog that uses search queries to determine its content. Staffed by a couple of editors and six writers (no robots as yet, though) it is, as James A. Pitaro claims--he's the VP of Yahoo Media--what differentiates Yahoo from its competitors. But does it?

The NYT has a lengthy piece about how The Upshot works--and it's not all about ranks of Asimos banging out copy to crappy techno. First of all, you've got the folks who analyse the trends on Yahoo's...

If Your Company Went Out of Business, Would Anybody Notice?

One of the truly jarring dimensions of the Great Recession is the death sentence it has imposed on of hundreds of brands, even whole companies, that were once familiar parts of the business landscape--not just bankruptcies, but liquidations and flat-out disappearances. Once-proud automobile nameplates, including GM's Oldsmobile and Pontiac, and Ford's Mercury, have become history. The ghosts of once-prominent (and now liquidated) retailers, from Circuit City to Virgin Megastores to Linens N...

Meet Sorena 2: He's Humanoid, He Walks, He's Iranian

Meet Surena 2, a human-sized, human-shaped (ish) robot that's new on the world robotics scene. He's capable of walking, and designed to perform the similar sort of human-assist role as other similar bots. He's from Iran. What? 

Surena 2 was unveiled recently in front of none other than President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's 1.45 meters tall, weighs in at 45 kilos and, according to the state news network, is "designed and developed to be used in sensitive and difficult jobs on behalf of a...

Netflix Signs Streaming Deal with Relativity Media, Beats HBO, Showtime, Max

HBO, Showtime and Starz, consider this a warning. Netflix and Relativity have just announced a deal that will see all first-run theatrical releases from the production company available via streaming to Netflix subscribers, just months after their release on DVD. It's a bit of a coup for the mail order 'n' mobile-streaming service, as it will give its 13 million subscribers access to new(ish) films before they're viewed on pay TV.

Under the terms of the agreement, Netflix gets licensing...

Why Apple Hasn't Succeeded in China ... Yet

Apple isn't doing as well as it could in China. Why?

The chairman of China's tech giant Lenovo thinks it's largely down to Steve Jobs himself, as the killer quote in the Financial Times article which is the source of this discussion reveals: "We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China. If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble." Many other pieces of analysis of Apple have centered on Steve Jobs as...

Infographic of the Day: What's Cheaper Now Than It Was in 2000?

Inflation is an iron law of economics. But not everything rises in price
over time: When people talk about "rising standards of living," they're
referring in part to the fact that over time, lots of things actually
get cheaper, thanks, in part, to rising productivity and competition.