David Lidsky's Blog, page 4624

Ingenious Flipper Bridge Melds Left-Side Drivers With Right-Side Drivers

Hong Kong drives on the left side of the road, mainland China on the right. So how do you prevent crashes when driving between them?

One of the most vexing aspects of traveling between mainland China and
Hong Kong is the car travel: People in the former drive on the right
side of the road; people in the latter drive on the left (a vestige of the British empire).

So to quell
confusion at the border and, more importantly, to keep cars from
smashing into each other, the Dutch firm NL...

Tesla Sets IPO Terms: $185 Million, With Help From Toyota

Tesla Motors, apparently unaffected by rumors of CEO Elon Musk's money woes, has announced it's set terms for its IPO at $185 million--through a public share deal and private purchase by Toyota. Tesla's predicted to make losses until 2012.

At IPO Tesla will sell 11.1 million shares for between $14 and $16 per share. This will bring in around $185 million in cash, and then after IPO Toyota's May-announced investment will add another $50 million to this--totaling some $235 million of fresh...

Asian Anti-Piracy Campaign Kills Music Stars With Illegal Downloads

Judicious use of lookalikes and a clever Facebook app make Grey Group's online anti-piracy campaign pretty damn smart. Conceived in the agency's Hong Kong office, in conjunction with Chinese music magazine re:spect, the Let the Music Live On Campaign takes the original music piracy slogan--Home Taping is Killing Music--literally, by assassinating the artists.

The app promises you free downloads of a variety of artists, from Madonna, White Stripes, and Amy Winehouse, to Blur, Gorillaz, and...

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...

Tesla Sets IPO Terms: $185 Million, with Help from Toyota

Tesla Motors, apparently unaffected by rumors of CEO Elon Musk's money woes, has announced it's set terms for its IPO at $185 million--through a public share deal and private purchase by Toyota. Tesla's predicted to make losses until 2012.

At IPO Tesla will sell 11.1 million shares for between $14 and $16 per share. This will bring in around $185 million in cash, and then after IPO Toyota's May-announced investment will add another $50 million to this--totalling some $235 million of fresh...

Microsoft High School's First Graduating Class Has a Bright Future

Today is graduation day at The School of the Future, a high school started in 2006 by Microsoft as part of its U.S. Partners in Learning program and the School District of Philadelphia. We covered the school in 2007, while this graduating class was in its sophomore year (there they call it "second-year"). How have the students fared in this experimental new environment? We talked with Partners in Learning executive director Mary Cullinane to find out.

Out of the 156 students who started...

Microsoft's No-Glasses 3-D Display Watches You While You Watch It

The system figures out the angle you're watching from, and calculates a custom image just for you.

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3-D displays that don't require you to wear glasses are a devilishly tricky problem. But Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group has created a novel solution, in the form of a TV with a specially shaped lens that adjusts the image you see, depending on your viewing angle [twistage 8df99b276dffe:]

The TV knows where you are thanks to motion tracking software that follows exactly where your head is...

Apple's App Store Gets Its Own Apple Store App--Seriously

Apple's App Store is right now carrying the Apple Store app. If that statement doesn't twist reality up in a Doctor Who style for you, then read on to find out about its iPhone-buying powers (from an iPhone!) and Genius session booking. 

According to Apple the new app can let you:

See new and featured products from Apple.Shop the full selection of products available from the Apple Online StoreFind the latest accessories and softwareRead customer reviews and get answers to product questions.Buy ...

E3 Day 0: Wins for EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft - But Activision Shows Us a Good Time

EA: Gamer's Games

EA showed that it really wanted to connect with its fans, announcing a reward community for those who play its shooters dubbed EA Gunclub (a name so politically charged that it's certain to arrive with a bang). To support it's new mixed martial arts game, there will also be Live Broadcast, where gamers compete like athletes and the fighters they create can become "stars." EA Active 2 will have an online social media component, with users getting profiles, fitness tips, and...

Twitter Finally Going "Places," Adds Foursquare and Gowalla Integration Starting Today

Twitter Places was first announced back in April, but you'll be able to use it starting today, and it's going global.

At the moment, you can go to Twitter's site or use the app on your mobile phone to tag your location along with your tweet. You can either pick from an existing location, or enter a new one; the list of place names is sure to blossom quickly. Then anyone who reads your tweet, including you, can click on that location to see recent tweets also linked to that location. Twitter...