David Lidsky's Blog, page 4605

Google and Spectrum Bridge Send Your Power Use Data Over TV "White Space"

Google continues on its quest to firmly embed itself in the energy industry, this time by teaming up with service provider Spectrum Bridge to launch the country's first smart grid wireless network trial utilizing TV's white spaces spectrum. In other words, Spectrum Bridge and Google will send data from smart meters to utilities via unused television broadcast channels, or "white spaces".

Don't worry--you won't accidently channel surf over to the smart grid data channel. White spaces exist...

HP Brings the Noize--and Dr. Dre and Timbaland--to Culver City High School Graduation

In the world of strange partnerships--Catherine the Great and her horse, HP and, um, Palm--then HP and Interscope records might seem like bedfellows from indeed, a galaxy far, far away. Unless, however, you're a student at Culver City High, in which case a hookup between a firm best known for printers and arguably two of the most talented artist-producers music has seen in the past 20 years, must seem like the most logical thing. Here's what they did last night.

Courtesy of a little bit of HP...

Flickr Begins Updates With Overdue UI Tweaks

Flickr's not being lazy about its commanding position in the photo-upload game, and it's soon due to roll out a list of news features. The upgrades have just started, though, with a new photo showcase page with some significant new powers. 

As announced on the site's official blog, the updated page is all about building, "a better showcase for your photos." These changes will be welcomed by Flickr's millions of users. The service has long been a fabulous place to store and share images, but...

Eric Schmidt: 160,000 Android Phones Activated Each Day. Impressive, or Anti-iPhone PR?

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, has given an interview to the Guardian in which he claims that 160,000 Android mobile devices are being activated each day. That's up 60% in a month. Schmidt also claimed that because Android is free, it might become more ubiquitous than Microsoft on computers .But it's hard to know whether this means Android will eventually be the go-to OS in the mobile world, or whether this is just Schmidt indulging in some diversionary tactics on the day of the iPhone 4 was...

Robotic Toy Blocks Beautiful Enough For Design Nerds

Using a few dozen blocks, the assembled toys can move in mysterious ways.

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Robotic blocks are usually the province of computer geeks, but two Norwegian design students took it upon themselves to change that for a recent class project. [vimeo 12454254:]

Lars Marcus Vedeler and Ola Vågsholm's toy kit, dubbed Olars, was inspired by a project in the 1990s by Karl Sims, "Evolved Virtual Creatures," which simulated the evolution of dozens of wriggling creatures, whose body parts were no more than...

How Do You Collaborate From Different Locations?

Peppercom's Co-founder and Managing Partner, Ed Moed takes on the challenge of fragmented collaboration.

Candy Cigarettes Are Officially Banned, Other Drug-Themed Candy Remains Legal

It's a tough week for cigarette companies looking to recruit the next generation of smokers. Cigarette companies can no longer lure the young with claims of "light," "mild," "medium," or "low." And candy cigarettes have officially been banned as part of the larger Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, marking the end of a decades-long detente between lawmakers and cigarette manufacturers.

The ban makes sense. A 2007 Harris poll found that 22% of current or former smokers regularly ate...

Dreamworks President on the Challenges Facing 3-D, and Why CGI Blows Away Live Action

Dreamworks's co-president of production sits down with FastCompany.com to discuss how 3-D is rocking the moviemaking world.

In the last few years, CGI films have consistently been some of the biggest critical and commercial successes in the movie industry, and two studios are responsible for that excellence: Pixar and Dreamworks. And now, having pioneered what computer animation can do--and the emotional gravity they can bring--those two studios are trying to do something similar for 3-D...

Does Poor iPhone 4 Design Cause Dropped Calls?

One of the featured tricks of the new iPhone 4 is that its metal frame actually forms the antenna system for calls and wireless connections. It's clever, but there are reports that holding the phone actually blocks the signals. What's going on?

The stories appeared over at MacRumors in the forums at first, and then were given more spotlighted attention over at Gizmodo, where it was reported that many people could reproduce the effects. What appears to be happening is that the iPhone 4 display...

America Gets Earnest With Social Change Theme at Venice Architecture Biennale

A preview of some of the projects which will be featured at the Biennale's American pavilion this summer.

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Every other year, hotshot architects from all over the world descend upon Venice, filling the waterlogged streets and crumbly old buildings with some of the weirdest (and occasionally pointless) archi-experiments around.

At this year's Venice Biennale of Architecture the U.S. Pavilion is mounting an exquisitely earnest exhibit on social change. It'll include everything from a mobile food...