David Lidsky's Blog, page 4592

iFive: A Whale in the Gulf, Oil Boss in Dock, Droid X vs. iPhone 4, Finland Makes Broadband a Right, Animals and Innovation

As you slept last night, and Roger Federer drowned his sorrows in the Chalkdust pub in Wimbledon, innovation was putting on the pancake makeup and stepping out of its FEMA trailer for a YouTube appearance.

1. While Hurricane Alex makes life difficult in the Gulf, a Taiwanese whale is hoping to make life easier. At three-and-a-half football fields in length, and ten stories high, the A Whale is the world's largest oil skimming vessel. Scientists are finding "Dead Zones" in the affected areas...

Amazon Buys Daily Deal Shopping Site, Woot for $110 Million

[image error]Online retailer Woot has built up a huge and passionate fanbase like few other retailers ever could. The site started out by selling one item per day at a steep discount, often some sort of electronic gadget. (Today's Woot item is a current-gen 8GB iPod Nano, the one with the video camera, for $100.) The company later expanded to a few other sites, including Shirt. Woot (which sells $10 American Apparel shirts with user-submitted designs), Wine.Woot (which sells fancypants wine), Kids.Woot...

Infographic: How Does Google Search Work?

Infographic by PPC Blog

Google is pretty secretive about all this--understandably, as it's the company's bread and butter and there are viable alternatives out there, like Microsoft Bing and Yahoo--so this infographic is based on the little information and clues Google has given. Even for someone who deals with SEO (search engine optimization) all day (alternate headline for this post: "Google Apple Babies Steve Jobs Boobs iPhone Obama Scandal!"), there's some stuff in here I didn't know.

For...

Google Editions Seen as a Possible Boon to Independent Bookstores

Google Editions, a long-gestating project probably due out relatively soon, is still not very well understood. Most of the details haven't been disclosed, but we're starting to get a general sense of the philosophy behind the project. Google intends for Editions to be much more than, say, the iBookstore, which is tied to one app and one company's hardware. It'll be open and device-agnostic, even more so than Amazon's Kindle store, because all Editions will require is a web browser (Kindle...

Google News Revamped: This Is Your News, Personalized and Localized

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Google announced a major update to Google News today, focusing on a more personalized experience. When you head to Google News today (at least in the English-language version), you'll see a new section called "News for You." It's the heart of Google's new strategy.

News for You is designed to provide users with a more personalized set of news. If you consistently ignore any sports news, but obsessively read every update about the new Supreme Court nominee, you would typically do a lot of...

Microsoft Axes Kin Phones Just Six Weeks After Launch

Word came down today, first in a post from Gizmodo and later in an official statement from Microsoft, that the brand-new Kin line of phones is now discontinued.

Kin, you might remember, was a series of two phones aimed at the young teenage set. They had some very interesting elements, including an innovative cloud-based backup service, but fell victim to confusing branding and an uncertain place in the phone hierarchy. Are they messaging phones, like the Sidekick? Well, sort of, but they...

Amazon Buys One Deal, One Day Site Woot for $110 Million

[image error]Online retailer Woot has built up a huge and passionate fanbase like few other retailers ever could. The site started out by selling one item per day at a steep discount, often some sort of electronic gadget. (Today's Woot item is a current-gen 8GB iPod Nano, the one with the video camera, for $100.) The company later expanded to a few other sites, including Shirt.Woot (which sells $10 American Apparel shirts with user-submitted designs), Wine.Woot (which sells fancypants wine), Kids.Woot...

How Does Google Search Work?

Infographic by PPC Blog

Google is pretty secretive about all this--understandably, as it's the company's bread and butter and there are viable alternatives out there, like Microsoft Bing and Yahoo--so this infographic is based on the little information and clues Google has given. Even for someone who deals with SEO (search engine optimization) all day (alternate headline for this post: "Google Apple Babies Steve Jobs Boobs iPhone Obama Scandal!"), there's some stuff in here I didn't know.

For...

How Honeywell Is Redesigning the Skies for Quicker, Greener, Less Painful Flying

Bob Smith, Honeywell's CTO, talks with FastCompany.com about the technology that will soon control the skies overhead.

If you've flown on an airplane anytime recently, at some point you probably sat in seat, bolt upright, uncomfortable and thirsty, as your airplane sat idling on the tarmac—only to hear the captain's voice crackle overhead: "Well, folks, we're currently number 35 for take-off. It's gonna be awhile." You probably blamed lots of things: the sluggish airline people; the...

Remembering Rammellzee: Hip-Hop Pioneer, Breakthrough Artist, Occasional Robot

A writer who first encountered the artist during the dawn of rap remembers him and his influence on the scene.

Rammellzee was remembered Wednesday with affection and admiration as a man whose originality and idiosyncratic vision was a hallmark of early-'80s hip-hop. He died Tuesday at age 50 from causes unknown at the time of writing.

"Beat Bop," the 10-minute single he cut with K-Rob in 1983, was tinged with the surreality of dub music; the sleeve designed by his close friend, a