David Lidsky's Blog, page 4622

Xbox 360 Slim Designer Scott Wilson Is Also Making Conference Tables More Fun

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You'd expect most gaming console designers to only care about how we interact with our Guitar Hero peripherals. But Scott Wilson, designer of the new Xbox, the slender, more affordable Xbox cousin that was revealed Monday at E3, thought he could also improve the way we interact with each other. So he reinvented the conference table. Wilson's line, named SW 1 for Coalesse, just won an Innovation Award from Contract Magazine at the NeoCon show in Chicago.

[image error]Wilson currently heads the...

Martha Stewart's Twitter Tips

In just 5 months, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart attracted over 1 million followers on Twitter (she's
now nearing 2 million). Even more remarkable is how little time she
spends on the service. "I only tweet 5 minutes a day," Stewart told the
audience at TwtrCon this week, explaining that it's a rule she rigidly follows. "It's too
addictive!"

Stewart spoke with New York Times columnist David Pogue about her popularity on Twitter, and how she's using the 140-character platform to boost...

iFive: SF's Cellphone Radiation Law, Whale Poo Cleans CO2, OK GO on Facebook, LinkedIn Lawsuit, Maicon's Goal

After you put your book down and turned out the light last night, innovation was cramming hard for its exams today--and finding the time to score a goal from an impossible angle.

1. San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to pass a law forcing
handset manufacturers to display their phone models' radiation levels on
the packaging. There is still inconclusive proof that cellphone
use is dangerous, although one neuroscientist has called the untested use of cellphones "the largest human...

Next Generation of Droid Smartphones Coming Next Week From Verizon and Motorola

Motorola's Droid is the best-selling Android phone ever--it even reached the million-sold mark faster than the iPhone--and Verizon is set to announce the followup next week, on June 23rd.

Verizon owns (or at least rents from George Lucas) the "Droid" name, and it doesn't seem to be manufacturer-specific. HTC's Droid Incredible (essentially an HTC Sense version of the Google Nexus One) also carries the Droid name, for one. But this invitation notes that the new devices will be introduced by...

Apple iPhone 4 Pre-Order Is a Security-Breached Nightmare: AT&T to Blame?

Apple's iPhone 4 (check out our hands-on here) is available for pre-order today. Not purchase, just pre-order, which makes it even crazier that customers have come out in such force that AT&T customer service agents are probably crying themselves to sleep tonight. They should try to sleep--they've got a long day ahead of them tomorrow, given the major security breach that occurred today.

It appears that AT&T was unable to deal with the large number of orders, and since all orders (even from...

Obama: There Will Be More Oil Before This Siege is Done

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The Obama administration has received a lot of flack over the past several weeks for its timid approach to the BP oil disaster. On May 27, the President hinted in a speech that he would turn up the pressure on BP. And now, weeks later, Obama is finally defending his response to what he calls "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."

In today's Oval Office speech, Obama guaranteed viewers that the government will make BP pay that it "will fight this spill with everything...

TEDxOilSpill Event to Bring Together Renewable Energy, Ocean Experts

The inspiring lecture series tackles the unfolding oil-spill disaster.

TED recently launched TEDx, a program for independently organized events that has usually centered on individual locales--TEDxVienna, TEDxTehran, and TEDxCalgary, for example. But on June 28th, TEDx is tackling the BP Gulf Spill: TEDxOilSpill, in Washington, DC, will feature renewable energy and ocean experts, including oceanographer Sylvia Earle, adventurer Philippe Cousteau, and SunEdison founder Jigar Shah...

Sony at E3: PS3 Goes 3D, and Motion Sensing Won't Come Cheap

Though Sony owned the last two video game console generations, they're having trouble with the PS3. The Nintendo Wii introduced motion sensing and sold incredibly well, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has the best online experience and the innovative controller-less Kinect, and Sony's PS3 is...lagging. But a host of announcements today at the E3 conference in Los Angeles shows that Sony isn't out of it yet, and they're targeting hardcore gamers above all else.

PlayStation Move, the microphone-looking...

Infographic of the Day: How Good Is Your Local Hospital?

This infographic by GE and Pentagram looks a hundreds of hospitals across the country, on 27 different performance metrics.

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Usually, you trust that your local hospital is a competent, well-run place where you can go to get skilled treatment. But this infographic, produced by GE and Lisa Strausfeld at Pentagram, punctures that myth with cold, hard data.

The data is taken from the Joint Commission, a non-profit that monitors the performance of 1,700 accredited hospitals. Their 2009 Annual...

Father's Day Contest: And the Winner Is...

Check out the winning submission, by Jonathan Good, whose father will receive one pair of Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth.

First off, a big thanks to everyone who took the time to share their
personal stories for our Father's Day contest. The submissions were superb,
so it has been extremely hard to pick a winner.

We found that the
best stories shared some common features: The song was linked to a
specific moment (rather than a general sentiment); the song itself spoke
to a shared...