David Lidsky's Blog, page 4656

10 New Education Companies to Watch (Plus 3 More for Extra Credit)

[image via Einztein]

Last year I covered Berkery Noyes' first-ever Venture Capital Summit in Education held at Stanford, where VCs and private equity firms talked about the enormous potential in disrupting one of the world's biggest industries, one that still remains tantalizingly locked up by bureaucracies within bureaucracies. This year's edition will be held at the SoHo HQ of Scholastic, the ginormous kid's publisher, and co-sponsored by Startl, the "venture philanthropy" and educational...

Meet Andrew Sampson, the Guy Who Makes FryPaper Sticky

Stephen Fry's business partner details the creation of the new FryPad iPad app, and the upcoming launch of their online talent agency, Untied Artists.

Today, the iPad launched in the U.K. And alongside all the apps that you'd expect to see--Financial Times, Murdoch's Times--there was Stephen Fry's FryPaper. A gratis app (are you listening, Murdoch Senior?) that was the second most popular free download on iTunes' app store within a couple of hours. We got in touch with Andrew Sampson...

Young Architects Buy Detroit Home for $500, Turn It into Design Lab

The Motor City has 33,529 vacant houses. To most of the country, that's 33,529 reasons to wring its hands over What To Do About Detroit. To architects, it's a gold mine.

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The Motor City has 33,529 vacant houses. To most of the country, that's
33,529 reasons to wring its hands over What To Do About Detroit. To
architects, it's a gold mine.

Five research
fellows from the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture
and Urban Planning transformed an abandoned house in Hamtramck (which...

Reinventing Memorial Day: Solutions for Silence and Sacrifice

In his series on making Memorial Day more meaningful, Steve McCallion presents solutions from quieting our social networks in observance to asking companies to celebrate country over commerce.

So far we've explored how Memorial Day lost its meaning, but how can we get it back? How can we remember Memorial Day in a way that is authentic and relevant today? In this era of instant gratification, can we come together as a nation to recognize the sacrifices that have been made for our...

Today's Vision of Tomorrow: Apple TV, Revamped, Rocketed Into the Cloud

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The Apple TV may be about to graduate from a "hobby" project into a world-beater, if leaked info that's reached Engagdet proves true. It's set to rival Google's TV offering, and will see Apple embrace cloud-based content streaming for the first time.

Engadget got a tip from persons unknown, and called on a contact "very close" to Apple who's confirmed it: The next Apple TV is going to be awesome. Why do we know this? Because the data in the leak reveals that the Apple TV2 will be ditching the...

The BP Oil Disaster Timeline in Pictures

On April 22, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico, spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day into the water. Here's a visual timeline of the spill's effects.

From "Top Kill" to "Dead Man's Switch": What BP's Oil Spill Lexicon Reveals About Its Brand

After the devastating Gulf oil spill, I wrote a few weeks ago about BP needing to look after their brand's soul and not
worry too much about their brand image. But the longer this tragedy goes
on, the more I wonder if this company ever had a soul. In the latest news, as BP scrambles to stop the leak, the misguided brand is drowning in poor word choices that are making its failing efforts feel even worse.

Strategies to stop the leak are named "Top Kill," "Top Hat," "Hot Tap," "Junk Shot....

Tesla Troubles: Model S Could Be Delayed, Elon Musk Is Out of Cash

 

Is Tesla Motors in trouble? Earlier this month, Tesla surprised us all with news that the startup is teaming up with Toyota to work on electric vehicles. As part of the deal, we learned, Toyota will also buy $50
million of Tesla's common stock once the company's IPO is complete, and Tesla will buy Toyota and GM's out-of-commission California auto plant, NUMMI. But according to Tesla's recently filed revised S1 form (PDF), all may not be well in Elon Musk's EV empire.

The filing reveals...

How a Collar Could Help Deaf People "Hear" Music

Most of us assume deaf people can't register sound, let alone enjoy Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik Podzuweit taps into the deaf's ability to feel music.

Most of us assume deaf people can't register sound, let alone enjoy
Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik
Podzuweit taps into the deaf's ability to feel music.

Music
for Deaf People is a collar that converts auditory input into vibrations, triggering the same...

MillatFacebook, Pakistan's Answer to Facebook, Goes After Facebook

Ticked off by Facebook's hosting of a page that had a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, a group of tech professionals in Lahore have created a rival social net for Muslims, just a week after the social networking site was blocked by the Pakistani authorities. It's called MillatFacebook, and it's founders are fervently anti-Facebook.

The word Millat is an urdu term for nation, referring to the greater Muslim nation, and this is pretty much the entire thrust of the new service--it's a...