David Lidsky's Blog, page 4663

BBC's Plans for Makeover of Its 50-Year-Old Television Centre May Not Include BBC

 

The BBC, whose annual expenditure runs to $4.3 billion, and with almost 25,000 employees, has come up with a radical proposal for Television Centre (TVC), its historically protected, 50-year-old building that's in dire need of a fit-for-purpose overhaul and TLC.

According to MediaGuardian, the 23-acre site, a prime slice of real estate, is to be turned into a cultural center, the idea being that a whole raft of creative organizations, from orchestras to independent production houses...

More Oil Spill Solutions: From SQUID to Oil-Eating Microbes

If BP's upcoming attempt to plug the Gulf oil spill with drilling mud fails (the so-called "top kill" approach), perhaps the oil giant should consider taking some tips from our readers. We've received a number of creative ideas for cleaning up the spill in the past few days. Below, a few of our favorites.

Reader Rene Sugar directed us to Ed Corpora's HTP Oil Containment Sock, a water-repellent product that solidifies and encapsulates oil on contact. It can reportedly absorb ten times its...

The Mongoliad App: Neal Stephenson's Novel of the Future?

This may, possibly, be one future of the novel: as an app. And who better to push the limits of writing than Neal Stephenson, an author whose novels have already explored weird and unusual corners of sci-fi, including intelligent books. 

Late yesterday in San Francisco, at the SF App Showcase, a sneaky little startup company called Subutai demonstrated some of the tech that'll be going into the Mongoliad app. This oddly-named creature is actually what we're interested in--a reinvention of the...

Sustainability Faceoff: J.P. Morgan Chase vs. Bank of America

Can big banks ever be sustainable? The numerous government loans funneled to the largest banks in the U.S. indicate that entities like J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America might not be completely economically sustainable, but they are at least making strides in other types of sustainability. Author and investment adviser R. Paul Herman compares these two banks in the new book The HIP Investor. Below, we do the same.

J.P. Morgan Chase deserves credit right off the bat for transparency. The...

The Mall Is Undead, but Maybe Not for Long

Is the mall dead? And if so, is it permanently dead? That question hung in the air on the last day of the annual Congress for the New Urbanism. "We have too much retail," said Francis Scire, a senior leasing executive at Simon Property Group, the nation's largest mall owner. "I think the mall's sick, and hopefully on the way to recovery with some adaptation."

A similar
event taking place in Las Vegas a day later--the semi-annual meeting of
the International Council of Shopping Centers...

Designing the World Cup: Coke Taps Vuvuzelas and K'naan for Inspiration

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The FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour winds its way through South Africa on its way to the tournament's opening match in three weeks, and marketers have begun ramping up their own World Cup promotions. From soda to athletic gear to high fashion, the World Cup is providing fodder for merchandise design, proving that sports is the world's language -- as long as you're talking commerce. Even the soccer clueless, who can't distinguish between Ronaldo and Drogba, will be able to get a hit of that...

Could Oversharing Save the Lives of Seniors?

A new device lets long-term-care patients broadcast their moods via Facebook and Twitter.

People who chart their emotional ups and downs on Facebook
and Twitter are generally considered over-sharers, but what if those status
updates could help save your life? That's the idea behind the Buddy Radio, a
concept from the U.K.-based social innovation company Sidekick Studios currently
undergoing a 12-month trial with the U.K.'s National Health Service. The Buddy
Radio helps patients with...

iFive: Facebook, Microsoft, Human-Computer Viruses, Green Streets, and Twitter

After a 13-month siesta, iFive has returned--so imagine just how much innovation has been going on during this mother of all power naps.

1. Today we're all waiting, breath a-bated, for Facebook's changes to its privacy settings, which may or may not look like this. Tomorrow, Zuck and his henchmen will be Washington-bound, for a congressional briefing on privacy, including a Q&A session. Anil Dash of Expert Labs will be in attendance.

 

2. The missing link between a human virus and a computer...

The Factories Are Coming to Town! Manufacturing Reimagined for High-Tech Age

A grad student at the Royal College of Art dreams up a world in which we crank out goods in mobile factories, street stalls, and caravans--smack dab in the middle of the city.

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City factories are a sadsack casualty of globalization, cast off to
foreign fringes where land's cheap and labor's cheaper -- or so the
conventional wisdom would have you believe. In David Benqué's vision,
the problem isn't that urban manufacturing's dead. It's that it hasn't
been invented yet.Benqué, a grad student at...

Why Is BP Investing in a Bloated, Ineffective Oil Spill PR Coverup?

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is out of control. Anyone who takes five minutes to glance at the news can see that--BP has no surefire way to plug the leaking pipe, the ocean is awash in oil, and nearly 20% of all commercial and recreational fisheries in the area have been closed as a result of the spill. So why is BP continuing to spend time, money, and manpower on ineffective PR coverups?

BP is doing its damnedest to keep reporters out of the hardest hit areas, as evidenced by this...