David Lidsky's Blog, page 4650

Hackers Create Virtual Pottery Wheel (That Makes Real Pottery)

Users can mold a virtual, 3-D model, and have it printed out on demand.

In the future, maybe pottery class won't involve getting your hands dirty at all. Maybe you won't even have to wear a smock.

At the "Design by Performance" exhibition at Z33 in Belgium, Unfold, a Belgian design firm founded by Claire Warnier and Dries Verbruggen, and designer Tim Knapen installed something they call "L'Artisan Electronique" ("The Electronic Artisan). Composed of a 3-D laser scanner and a RepRap--a cheap...

James Cameron Wants to Stop BP's Oil Disaster, Can Our Readers Do Better?

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf gets more depressing by the day. BP's latest attempt to slow the spill with a containment dome isn't going so well, Florida officials tell us that oil could reach state beaches by Thursday, and at least one energy investment firm isn't counting out the possibility that the well could keep on leaking until Christmas--or for the next decade. Even nuking the spill isn't out of the question, according to NG Oil and Gas (method pictured above). Things have gotten...

Apple Solar Power Patent Could Explain iPhone 2010's Ceramic Back

Trawling Apple's patents is a rewarding and frustrating game, since you never know what'll make it into reality. Rarely do you earn an "aha" moment. But this time, we may have struck a vein of relevant info--a new patent could explain the new iPhone's ceramic back piece.

The new application is a revisiting of an earlier patent where Apple demonstrated how it may build photovoltaic solar cell technology into the front of the device, inside the display screen. Now Apple's demonstrating how the...

Infographic(s) of the Day: How We've Mapped Time Through the Ages

In the poetically titled new book Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline (Princeton Architectural Press), authors Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton plot what time has looked like (in the West any way), from early tables on Christianity and world history to Mark Twain's life-sized time line of the British monarchy -- mocked up, apparently, in his own driveway. It's, in one sense, a fascinating cultural tale, as infographics shifted away from an almost exclusive focus on the Bible...

Storied Chair Designer Invents a New Crutch

Jeff Weber spotted a design rarity: The market opportunity is massive, and the products out there are terrible.

When Jeff Weber suffered an injury to his left foot five years ago, he was given a set of standard crutches from the hospital. But the crutches were uncomfortable and seemed to only add ergonomic insult to the original injury: Weber's hands chaffed and his wrists ached because of poorly designed, badly placed grips. "All in all, it was a pretty awful experience," he recalls.

Weber...

Can Coda's All-Electric Sedan Compete?

California-based EV startup Coda Automotive has a tough job ahead. Even though the company recently closed a third round of financing with $125 million in investments, Coda still has to convince consumers to buy its upcoming all-electric 2010 Coda Sedan. And who's going to spend upwards of $30,000 on an EV from a no-name company when they could buy a similarly priced vehicle from a familiar brand like Nissan, which is releasing the all-electric Leaf in the coming months?

Coda makes its pitch...

SolarMagic Raises Solar Panel Efficiency by 20%

Solar panels suffer from being an imperfect tech, and differences between the quality of each individual cell can even affect how efficiently the whole thing works. Enter National Semiconductor, with smart solar optimizer chips.

The electronics in National Semi's "SolarMagic" chips are the "solar industry's first" in-panel solution to optimizing the electrical light-to-power efficiency of photovoltaic solar panels, according to the press release, and NS is going as far as saying this means...

Why Change Is So Hard: Self-Control Is Exhaustible

[transcript of video:]You hear something a lot about change: People won't change because they're too lazy. Well, I'm here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.So picture this: Students come into a lab. It smells amazing—someone has just baked chocolate-chip cookies. On a table in front of them, there are two bowls. One has the fresh-baked cookies...

Sonic Solutions Buying Video Experts DivX to Power Future Net Movie Streaming

Sonic Solutions just announced it's buying out DivX for a whopping $323 million. If you don't know who these companies are, it doesn't matter--you've almost certainly used their products, and the deal is all about the future of TV on the Net.

The acquisition is a straight share buyout, worth $9.83 per share at yesterday's stock closing price, meaning Sonic Solutions could be paying something around $323 million for DivX Inc. That's a 40%+ premium over DivX's price, demonstrating the strength...

The Green Products Innovation Institute: Is This What "More Good" Looks Like?

Last week I received five emails, forwarded from friends, with an announcement about the launch of the Green Products Innovation
Institute, a type of green product certification based on
Cradle to Cradle. In the email, victoriously headed "CRADLE TO CRADLE FOR ALL!," Yves Béhar, principle at industrial design firm fuseproject and a founding member of GPII,
wrote: "Cradle to Cradle reconciles the notion of business growth WITH
the health of the world and its people. It is simply...