David Lidsky's Blog, page 4674

Google TV Launching This Fall with Support from Intel, Sony, Logitech and Best Buy

Google has just debuted its TV platform at today's Google I/O conference. Project leader Rishi Chandra described it as "a new platform that we believe will change the future of television," adding that "we've gone from 100 channels that you find on traditional TVs to over a million overnight."

Yes, it mixes the web with TV, as Chandra demonstrated in the somewhat glitch-filled launch (at one point, the audience was asked to turn off their cellphones, over fears that they were affecting the...

The Best Olympics Have the Ugliest Mascots - London 2012 Is Going to Be Awesome

Yesterday the London 2012 Olympics, owners of what may be the most widely panned logo in history, revealed yet another frightening piece of their fragmented branding puzzle: Olympic mascots Mandeville and Wenlock. As the legend goes, the cycloptic blobs were created from the last two drops of British steel used for the
London 2012 Olympic Stadium (they built that thing with steel drops?). "That's why we're so shiny," they say on their Web site," reflecting the
people, places and things we...

Samsung Predicts 50% Boost in Smartphone Sales, With OLEDs Aplenty

Speaking at the Global
Technology Summit, executives from Samsung's Mobile Display sector, who have their finger very much on the pulse of where the industry and consumer demand is trending, said that the future belongs to clever, large touchscreen displays. It's important for Samsung to correctly divine such trends, as it costs quite a pile of beans to set up a fabrication plant for certain types of displays, and an incorrect investment could cost the company big-time.

So these are not...

New Urbanists Convene in "Sprawlanta" Seeking Solutions to "Bright Flight"

Musician David Byrne joins the HUD secretary and transportation specialists in an effort to reinvigorate city centers.

I'm in Atlanta this week for the annual Congress of the New Urbanism. Founded 30 years ago by the husband-and-wife architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, the practice of New Urbanism stresses dense, walkable, diverse communities -- created and enforced by strict master planning -- over the familiar free-for-all of auto-driven sprawl.

We need more of it...

Almost Genius: "Alarming Clock" Imitates Woody the Woodpecker's Drumming

A clock that recreates the sound familiar to anyone who's spent time in the woods.

Alarm clocks are a singular design challenge: It's one of the few objects--besides smoke alarms--intentionally designed to be as annoying as humanly possible, without being hopelessly unpleasant.

Thus, you have fire alarms on your iPhone; clocks that roll away when you try and shut them off; and the ubiquitous, startlingly loud bleeting that graces almost all digital alarms. And now, the gorgeously analogue

David Byrne on New Urbanism, Burning Down of Houses at CNU 18

If you were in the market for an introduction to the New Urbanism -- what is it for? what is it against? what is it about, really? -- your choices on the opening day of the Congress of the New Urbanism (CNU 18) were either a seven-hour seminar with some of the rock stars of the movement (Andres Duany and Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones) or a deceptively modest 20-minute slide show with an actual rock star, David Byrne.

The polymathic Talking Head has been a critic of sprawl and...

Apple Hasn't Forgotten Its TV Hobby, and May Inject Exciting iPhone Apps Into It

With lots of Google TV and other Web TV news hitting at the moment, I asked yesterday where Apple was ... and today there's a well-timed patent filing showing some new tweaks to Apple TV. These include an iPhone "simulator," suggesting Apple's bringing apps to the TV too.

The bulk of the newly revealed Apple patent points to a big refresh to the Apple TV's controls. Apple sets out a way in which its little set-top box could be controlled by third-party remotes, as well as the tiny...

How Maia Josebachvili Turned Her Skydiving Hobby Into a Business

Here's how one broke college student e-mailed all her contacts and turned her wanderlust into Urban Escapes, a company that takes young professionals on adventures outside the concrete jungle.

[vimeo 10335390:]

*In Partnership with

 

About Urban Escapes: Urban Escapes is an outdoor adventure company that offers excursions for urban dwellers. From white water rafting to apple picking, these trips range in length and intensity level. The company has expanded to four cities across the United...

Almost Genius: "Alarming Clock" Imitates Woody The Woodpecker's Drumming

A clock that recreates the sound familiar to anyone who's spent time in the woods.

Alarm clocks are a singular design challenge: It's one of the few objects--besides smoke alarms--intentionally designed to be as annoying as humanly possible, without being hopelessly unpleasant.

Thus, you have fire alarms on your iPhone; clocks that roll away when you try and shut them off; and the ubiquitous, startlingly loud bleeting that graces almost all digital alarms. And now, the gorgeously analogue

Life on Board a Gulf of Mexico Oil Drilling Platform

The people of Ursa, Shell's $1.45 billion oil-and-gas platform, live 65 miles offshore, in an environment that is demanding and dangerous, and that could drive them crazy. Here's how they work -- and how they cope.

This story was originally published in September 2000, but it offers an insight into a aspect of the Gulf oil spill coverage that's been overlooked in recent coverage: life on board an oil rig -- in this case, Shell Oil's Ursa platform (above). At the time of original publication...