David Lidsky's Blog, page 4682

Almost Genius: The Once-a-Month Stem-Cell Collector for Ladies

A Parsons design student whips up a silicone tampon that collects stem cell-rich menstrual blood. Move over, baby embryos!

[image error]

File this under gross and kind of brilliant: Chelsea Briganti, a senior at Parsons
The New School for Design has produced a device that collects menstrual
blood for adult stem cells. Made of medical-grade silicone and
resembling an ultra-thick thick condom, Mademoicell works like a
tampon. Pop it in, fill it up, pull it out, store in the fridge
alongside last night's...

iPhone's In2Pay Case Turns Your iPhone Into a Credit Card

DeviceFidelity announced their In2Pay iPhone accessory yesterday. It's basically a paired case and app which allows you to simply whip out your iPhone and swipe it over Visa's PayWave consoles. PayWave is fairly common already--many grocery and retail stores use it, and I've played with it in my hometown at the Wawa deli chain (I mention Wawa because my barometer of how useful a new payment system is is heavily based on its ability to buy a hoagie). 

Visa says it's expanding PayWave...

Real-Time Feeds Coming to a Website Near You, Courtesy of Google

[image error]

Google's Feed API lets website owners easily pop in a feed of their choice, by simply adding a few lines of JavaScript code. It's pretty great, really; you can add a Twitter feed, blog, news updates, or all kinds of other feeds really easily. It currently works like the rest of the Internet is indexed: Google (or whoever) essentially does looks to see if the feed in question has any updates, then makes that change on their side. Once that's done, the next time a visitor to the site reloads...

Windows Live Hotmail: Completely Re-Invented (Read: It Actually Looks Good Now)

Hotmail seems like one of those relics of the early internet, like AOL, that I'm always surprised to find out still exists. That's my fault in Hotmail's case, really, because despite its current lousiness (compared to Gmail, say), it's still the biggest email client in the world. But Gmail's better interface, features, and ease of use have led to a quickly growing userbase, and Microsoft had to act. The new Hotmail is the result, and it looks surprisingly excellent. Let's get to the big...

Amazon Posts Dozens of New Job Listings Implying a New Kindle Is on the Way

Amazon has been posting dozens of job listings on its site over the past few weeks, most notably for positions that have nothing to do with the company's core retail business. "Hardware platform engineer"? "Advanced materials specialist"? "Product design manager"? These are not online retail positions: these are for the next-gen Kindle.

Frustratingly, they're all very vague. Just once, I'd like Amazon to put out a job listing for, I don't know, "LCD multitouch display engineer," with job...

Q&A: Inga Sempé on Designing a Sofa That Doesn't Bore Her Stiff

Parisian designer Inga Sempé discusses her exuberant new Ruché sofa for Ligne Roset.

[image error]

Inga Sempé is one of the hottest designers working in Europe now,
a description that would doubtless annoy her to no end. Sempé, who was
born, lives, and works in Paris, has said she would like to
die in Paris and has a uniquely French disdain for tidy labels. She thinks artistic
inspiration is for hacks and refuses to characterize her work
thematically, claiming only that, "My aim is to do things I'm...

Avatar Teaches Social Workers How to Talk With Iraq and Afghanistan Vets

Lieutenant Rocco's recently returned from deployment in Iraq and he's having trouble acclimating. He sits near the edge of a sofa in his social worker's office, still dressed in fatigues, and sporting a buzz cut. Even though he says he's okay, he admits to getting flack from his boss about his lack of productivity and that he's arguing with his wife. "There are things I don't want to talk about with her. Things I can't get out of my head," he says.

The more you listen in on Lieutenant...

Study Links ADHD in Children to Pesticide Exposure

No, the increase in ADHD over the past decade or so isn't just your imagination. It might even be linked to the food we eat everyday. A recent study in the journal Pediatrics claims that children with high levels of exposure to a group of pesticides called organophosphates are nearly twice as likely to end up with ADHD as kids with minimal levels of the pesticides in their urine.

Reuters that researchers analyzed the urine of 1,139 children between the ages of 8 and 15. The kids...

Greenpeace Social Media Campaign Forces Nestlé To Stop Using Unsustainable Palm Oil

Greenpeace has once again succeeded in heckling a major company into making major change. This time around, the environmental organization's two-month Give Rainforests a Break campaign has prompted Nestlé to remove companies from its supply chain that own or manage plantations and farms linked to deforestation--including Sinar Mas, a major palm oil producer. Nestlé's new partnership with the Forest Trust will help the company implement its plan.

Greenpeace accredits its success to a...

London's Big Red Double Decker Bus Reincarnated With Green Tech

It was one of the pledges of his electoral campaign, and now London Mayor Boris Johnson has made good on his promise to bring back the Routemaster, London's iconic red double-decker bus. However, this is not just a return of the diesel-chugging monster that contributed to London's smoggy reputation, but a cleaner, greener--and a damn sight dearer--model. And today, the new design, complete with new-generation hybrid engine, was unveiled to the general public.

"This iconic new part of our...