David Lidsky's Blog, page 4637

Next Money: How StockTwits Changes Trading

Inside the Internet's first financial-news network -- a mashup of CNBC, the Bloomberg terminal, and the real-time Web.

There's an old saying on Wall Street: When you have something good, you're not going to share it. "But you can't develop good ideas without collaboration," counters Howard Lindzon, CEO and cofounder of StockTwits, referring to the traders who use his social stock-picking site. "From 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., we're all in the trenches together." Lindzon's 17-person team has spent...

What Will L.A.'s Cleantech Corridor Look Like?

L.A. isn't known as a leader in the cleantech industry. In California, that distinction falls squarely on the Bay Area--specifically Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Now L.A. hopes to get up to speed with the CleanTech Manufacturing Center, a proposed 20-acre "green" industrial park in the city, and local designers want to help with the planning process. At this month's upcoming Dwell on Design conference, The Architect's Newspaper and the Southern California Institute of Architecture

PlayStation Move Creator on How Sony Got Into Motion Gaming

At next week's E3 conference Sony will unveil the launch details and games for its answer to motion-control gaming, the PlayStation Move. But it isn't Sony's first foray into movement interfaces. PlayStation Move creator Richard Marks discusses the making of the EyeToy and subsequent PlayStation Eye cameras.

When I joined Sony Computer Entertainment's U.S. R&D group in July 1999, PlayStation 2 had just been unveiled, delivering workstation-level graphics in a home video game console. But as...

What Will L.A's Cleantech Corridor Look Like?

L.A isn't known as a leader in the cleantech industry. In California, that distinction falls squarely on the Bay Area--specifically Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Now L.A hopes to get up to speed with the CleanTech Manfucturing Center, a proposed 20 acre "green" industrial park in the city, and local designers want to help with the planning process. At this month's upcoming Dwell on Design conference, The Architect's Newspaper and the Southern California Institute of Architecture will...

Apple Pulls, Then Reinstates Pulse RSS Reader Due to Objection From New York Times

Pulse is a gorgeous-looking iPad app that aggregates news. It's essentially an RSS reader, like Google Reader or NetNewsWire, but with a nicer interface. It comes prepackaged with a mess of feeds, including the New York Times (and Fast Company). 

The app has been successful; it's reached sales of 35,000 and was even mentioned by name at Steve Jobs's WWDC 2010 keynote this past Monday. It's achieved wide acclaim from sources like, well, the New York Times. Yet now the Times Company has...

iFive: UN and Iran, Women Rock Primaries, Rockers Need Sleep, Le Goog Est Vendu--EVO Aussi, China Workers Revolting

While you were sleeping--and Meg and Carly toasting their respective victories with something fizzy and intoxicating--the rest of the world was busy at work. Here's what's been going on overnight.

1. It's sanction time at the United Nations, as the member states vote on whether to give the heave-ho to 41 enterprises they suspect of aiding and abetting Iran's nuclear weapon program. "Most significant," says La Clinton about the sanctions, which had to be watered down for China and Russia's...

Apple Pulls, Then Reinstates Popular RSS Reader Due to Objection From New York Times

Pulse is a really gorgeous-looking iPad app that aggregates news from a bunch of different sources in one place. It's essentially an RSS reader, like Google Reader or NetNewsWire, but with a nicer interface. It comes prepackaged with a mess of feeds, including the New York Times (and Fast Company). 

The app has been successful; it's reached sales of 35,000 and was even mentioned by name at Steve Jobs's WWDC 2010 keynote this past Monday. It's achieved wide acclaim from sources like, well, the...

Google's New Caffeine Search Indexing Tech: What It Is, and Why You Should Care

Google's Caffeine isn't a new mobile app or fancy bit of desktop-to-cloud software, like we're used to from Google. Instead it's a massive change to the underlying tech which powers Google's search. Caffeine will remain unseen, but you'll use it all the time.

Currently, Google indexes the web in layers. Some are scanned at shorter intervals than others, and the main layer is scanned every few weeks. That means there could be some delay in terms of when it's published to the web and when it's...

Twitter Introduces Bit.ly-Baiting URL Shortener, T.co

Say goodbye to the bit.lys that pervade your Twitter stream--along with all the other custom URL shorteners from your favorite publications--Twitter is rolling out its own way to shorten those unruly Web site addresses.

As early as this summer, any links shared via Twitter will be shortened and wrapped into Twitter's new t.co URL shortener, which will seem to have some smart capabilities when viewed on online:

A really long link such as...

BP's Latest PR Tactic: Buying Gulf Oil Disaster-Related Links on Google

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Search any of these phrases on Google: oil spill, BP, or Deepwater Horizon. Take a look at the sponsored link on top of the page. It doesn't direct you towards, say, an oil disaster recovery group or news about the spill's impact on the Louisiana economy. In each case, the sponsored link goes to BP's Gulf of Mexico response page--essentially, BP's propaganda page about the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

BP doesn't deny the PR tactic. In an interview with The Fiscal Times, a BP spokesperson...