David Lidsky's Blog, page 4668

Will Movies Hit the Small Screen Just a Month After the Big One?

How would you like to watch movies on your TV, with the benefit of home-made food and cheap soda, a mere 30 days after they hit the silver screen in the theater? Time Warner may be about to try it, but it'll shake up the movie industry.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, this idea is definitely in the cards. TWC spoke to Hollywood studios for the first time about the idea last week, outlining their "home theater on demand" system. The key feature of this scheme is to get movies available as...

Designers of New York's Subway Cars Turn Attention to Modern-Day Work Culture

Antenna's new office system Knoll offers ingenious flexibility--which has become all-important, as our work culture has changed.

When Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa, the two founders of Antenna Design, first looked at designing a new line of office furniture for Knoll, they saw what most of us do: a sea of desks, chairs and dividing panels. "Everything looked the same," Udagawa says.

At first blush, they were an unusual pick to design Knoll's new line of open plan office...

Facebook's Zuckerberg Nearly, But Not Quite, About-Faces on Privacy [Updated]

After months of complaints on Facebook's gung-ho attitude to its user's private data, Mark Zuckerberg has relented. Facebook will streamline its privacy settings. But did Zuckerberg really do an about-face on privacy or not?

Mark Zuckerberg's confessional letter appeared today on the Washington Post's Web site, and its headline suggests a no-nonsense piece of writing: "From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings." Straight away this sounds promising--Facebook is aware that...

Zappos Loses $1.6 Million in Six-Hour Pricing Screw-Up

[image error]This past Friday, between midnight and 6 a.m. PST, 6pm.com, a Zappos sister site, accidentally made the biggest pricing error in the company's history. All items in the store were capped at a maximum price of $49.95--a huge mistake, since 6pm.com carries luxury items that can reach into the thousands of dollars.

Though obviously 6pm.com didn't advertise the "sale," bargain-hunter sites picked up on the error and publicized the vulnerable vendor, leading 6pm to lose "over $1.6 million" in...

California Supreme Court to Hear Former Employee's Ageism Case Against Google

The California Supreme Court has been called into a dispute between Google and a 54-year-old engineer in an ageism row. Brian Reid was employed at the search engine giant in the summer of 2002 but, within two years was deemed "an old man," "sluggish," and "slow" by colleagues. He was fired for being a poor "cultural fit." Reid, who had worked on Apollo 17, as well as building one of the first ever search engines at AltaVista, will finally have his case heard on Wednesday in San...

Infographic of the Day: The 140 Most Influential People on Twitter

When did they start? And what did they first say?

Their annual Web Trends map made Information Architects Internet famous, but this year, they've ditched the formula in favor of illustrating one single trend: Twitter.

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Their Cosmic 140 is a maps the 140 most influential people on Twitter--as measured by followers--and lists their handle, subject matter, follower count, and tweet frequency. There's even the date of their first tweet and what they first said:

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And here's some tiny sections of the...

The Android 2.2 "Froyo" Roundup: Ready to Upgrade?

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Android 2.2, Google's mobile operating system which is codenamed Froyo and was unveiled at the company's I/O conference last week, is already rolling out for the Google Nexus One. While only a limited number of people are getting the upgrade automatically, it's available online for anybody who wants to do so manually. I haven't got a Nexus One with which to test this newest version of Android, but I do have eyes, so I'll use those instead to synthesize what all the early adopters are saying...

Facebook's Zuckerberg Nearly, But Not Quite, About-Faces on Privacy

After months of complaints on Facebook's gung-ho attitude to its user's private data, Mark Zuckerberg has relented. Facebook will streamline its privacy settings. But did Zuckerberg really do an about-face on privacy or not?

Mark Zuckerberg's confessional letter appeared today on the Washington Post's Web site, and its headline suggests a no-nonsense piece of writing: "From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings." Straight away this sounds promising--Facebook is aware that...

Tech Talk: A Roundup of Android 2.2 Impressions

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Android 2.2, codenamed Froyo, was officially unveiled at Google's I/O conference last week. It began officially rolling out for the Google Nexus One just a few days after, in limited numbers, but it's available online so anybody who wants to upgrade can do so manually. I haven't got a Nexus One with which to test this newest version of Android, but I do have eyes, and according to my high school Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test scores I have adequate reading comprehension...

Zappos Loses $1.6 Million on Six-Hour Pricing Screw-Up

[image error]This past Friday, between midnight and 6AM PST, 6PM.com, a Zappos sister site, accidentally made the biggest pricing error in the company's history. All items in the store were capped at a maximum price of $49.95--a huge mistake, since 6PM.com carries luxury items that can reach into the thousands of dollars.

Though obviously 6PM didn't advertise the "sale," bargain-hunter sites picked up on the error and publicized the vulnerable vendor, leading 6PM to lose "over $1.6 million" in those six...