David Lidsky's Blog, page 4602

Analysts: 1.5 Million iPhone 4s Sold on Day One, Many as Upgrades

Did Apple just sell 1.5 million iPhone 4s in the first day of actual sales? You bet they (probably) did. According to several pieces of analysis some three quarters were upgrades too--people have really caught the iPhone bug.

The 1.5 million figure comes from Yair Reiner of Oppenheimer, who notes that this kind of guessing has "become something of a national sport." His figures seem solid, though, and the math really isn't that complex. We know that Apple revealed some 600,000 iPhones had...

Infographic of the Day: The Rise of User-Generated Porn

Together, the top five sites alone grab 20 million unique visitors a day. And then the visitors grab themselves.

A couple years back, maybe the hottest Internet startup category was user-generated porno sites--places such as as PornHub, which allow users to upload their porno stashes. How's that working out? Quite well, as this infographic by Woorkup shows:

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The pluck and success of that Paris Hilton is truly inspiring, innit? Click here for more information. At the very least, the infographic...

Microsoft's Marc Whitten on ESPN Coming to Xbox, and Using Kinect for Interactive TV

With Microsoft's new Kinect camera, new kinds of interactivity will be coming to living rooms. Marc Whitten, the General Manager of Xbox Live, tells about speech recognition, about natural control, and how Kinect will change the living room.

Kevin Ohannessian: What is your favorite thing at E3 this year?

Marc Whitten: I like our stuff pretty well, and that's not just a PR answer. I have been working with Xbox for 10 years, and the stuff we're doing around ESPN and Kinect, and finally...

Why the World Won't Heed Hackers' Security Lessons

Yesterday, the FTC admonished Twitter with a gentle wrist-slap, following its breach of security in 2009. The same day, on the other side of the Atlantic, one of its persecutors, a 23-year-old Frenchman called Francois Cousteix, aka Hacker Croll, was given a suspended jail sentence in a court in Clermont-Ferrant, central France. His defense--the same that all hackers use--was that he was doing it for the common good, to alert people to the dangers of using either "0000," "12345670,...

Facebook Open Graph Search Brings the Fight to Google

Ever wondered the significance of the Like button? It's Facebook's portal that will take it into Google territory. The social media giant, half-a-billion users strong, has just announced the arrival of its Open Graph search feature, which will allow websites who use the platform to be added to Facebook search. In short, Facebook can start searching the web at will, rather than merely its own site. Social semantic search here we come.

The difference between Google and Facebook is that Facebook...

Bizarrchitecture: An Aquarium That's Also A Giant Pile of Pebbles

It's an aquarium!

The Georgian port of Batumi has more rocks than anyone knows what to do with. So what have Henning Larsen Architects decided to build? Even bigger rocks! With dolphins inside!

This pile of cartoonishly big pebbles is an aquarium that looks more like Fred and Wilma's two-car garage. It won a design competition recently to replace an old aquarium in the former Soviet republic's main port city, and it'll house a dolphinarium and a zoo.

Henning Larsen was inspired by rocks that...

Why The World Won't Heed Hackers' Security Lessons

Yesterday, the FTC admonished Twitter with a gentle wrist-slap, following its breach of security in 2009. The same day, on the other side of the Atlantic, one of its persecutors, a 23-year-old Frenchman called Francois Cousteix, aka Hacker Croll, was given a suspended jail sentence in a court in Clermont-Ferrant, central France. His defense--the same that all hackers use--was that he was doing it for the common good, to alert people to the dangers of using either "0000," "12345670,...

How One New Jersey County Is Financing a Multi-Million-Dollar Solar Project

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We've got to hand it to New Jersey--the oft-maligned Garden State is slowly but surely securing its place as a renewable energy leader. Last year the state's board of public utilities approved a $200 million contract between Petra Solar and Public Service Electric and Gas for the installation of over 200,000 utility pole-mounted (and grid-connected) solar panels. Now Morris County is funding a mammoth 3.2 megawatt solar project with what it calls the "Morris Model"--a combination of...

Russia Hires Cisco to Build a Silicon Forest, Easier Said Than Done

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrapped up his whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley yesterday, and while it's fun to imagine Steve Jobs giving him the five-cent tour of One Infinite Loop or Ev Williams and Biz Stone teaching him how to tweet, Medvedev's mission was to round up investors for Skolkovo, his attempt to clone a Russian Silicon Valley and diversify its economy away from oil and minerals.

He succeeded, wrangling a $1 billion, decade-long commitment from Cisco, including promises to...

How One New Jersey County is Financing a Multi-Million-Dollar Solar Project

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We've got to hand it to New Jersey--the oft-maligned Garden State is slowly but surely securing its place as a renewable energy leader. Last year the state's board of public utilities approved a $200 million contract between Petra Solar and Public Service Electric and Gas for the installation of over 200,000 utility pole-mounted (and grid-connected) solar panels. Now Morris County is funding a mammoth 3.2 megawatt solar project with what it calls the "Morris Model"--a combination of...