David Lidsky's Blog, page 4693

Study: Air Near Oil Spill Contains 100 Times the Safe Amount of Toxins

Louisiana residents have enough problems to deal with from the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill without worrying about breathing. But they might have to. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) recently evaluated the EPA's air content and quality testing results in Venice Beach, Louisiana and found that the level of some airborne toxins is greater than 100 times the quantity considered safe to humans.

LEAN's claims are beyond disturbing. The group reports that the hydrogen...

Crib Sheet: David Cameron, Prime Minister of the U.K., My Perfect Cousin

You think choosing a new Pope is a long-winded process? Well, try electing a new Prime Minister in the U.K. Over there, the parliamentary system works on a first-past-the-post basis, meaning that, in order to stick its man in Downing Street, a political party has to win over half of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. No outright majority, no keys to Number 10.

So, six days after the country went to the polls, a puff of white smoke has appeared above the rooftops of the Palace of...

This TV Will Cost You $550,000 (Bodyguard Sold Separately)

Yesterday, at a corporate gathering in New York City, Panasonic showed off their latest plasma 3-D television--the biggest in the world, weighing in at 1,500 pounds and measuring 152 inches, crushing the last record the company held of 103 inches. But why stop at that monstrous size?

According to Jim Noecker, head of Panasonic's business development for professional displays, it's because this was the largest size that wouldn't require multiple glass panels to cover the screen. And with...

Another iPhone 4 Prototype Leaks--What Can We Learn From it? [Updated]

Surely this can't have happened? After the media and legal storm surrounding Gizmodo's leak of the iPhone 2010 prototype, how did another phone break free? It certainly seems the real deal and we can glean a few extra details from it.

As MacRumors reports, the new images surfaced at a Vietnamese forum called TaoViet.tn--and unsurprisingly this Web site is now experiencing problems, probably due to the massive traffic hit it's currently taking. So the original images and even cached backups...

Google Maps 4.2 for Android Introduces Bike Directions and Location Sharing

[image error]

Android's Market has a ton of apps, and while there are plenty of high-quality, professional, and good-looking examples (yesterday also marked the release of the New York Times's excellent official Android app), as a rule, Android apps are often less impressive than competing iPhone apps. But Google's own apps are amazing almost without exception. Gmail, Sky Maps, Goggles, Voice, and Listen are just about the best of their type around, regardless of OS, and Maps for Android beats every other...

IBM's New Analytics Software Interprets Slang and Even Emoticons for Better Service

Here's an example of a sentence that would be tough for most software to interpret: "The iPad's great...if you don't care about Wi-Fi. :-p" The sentence isn't actually pro-iPad; it uses sarcasm, implicit criticism, and an emoticon to convey distaste. But if, say, Apple tried to use most kinds of analytic software to glean reaction to the iPad, that would show up as positive. It says "iPad" and "great"!

IBM's new predictive analytics software scours the web for feedback on the product or...

Verizon CEO Confirms a Google Tablet Is Coming to the Network

The Wall Street Journal today reported that Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon, announced that a Google tablet would be coming to the Red Network (so named because of its favorite color and not any communist sympathies---that we know about. I've got my eye on you, McAdam.). 

"What do we think the next big wave of opportunities are?" Mr. McAdam said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We're working on tablets together, for example. We're looking at all the things Google has in its...

New York Times Presents an Interactive "Moment in Time" Across the Globe

[image error]

Lens, the NYT's photojournalism blog, recently published the interactive efforts of the "A Moment in Time" project. In their words:

 

Earth, covered by stacks of thousands of virtual photographs, corresponding in location to where they were taken by Lens readers at one "Moment in Time" (15:00 UTC, Sunday, May 2). 

 

Please select the category of picture you'd like to view from the pull-down menu in the upper left corner. Spin the globe to get where you want to go, then click on a stack to open...

How a $2 Version of Microsoft Office 2010 Could Cost More Than $100, Eat Up New PC Memory

Calm yourselves, Microsoft Office fans--the new version for 2010 isn't due for launch until tomorrow. Until then you can amuse yourselves with info on how MS is manhandling, shoehorning, and maneuvering to make the launch a success.

Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet has managed to get the skinny on Office 2010 from an authorized reseller, meaning the info is coming from the horse's mouth. And while some of the MS marketing strategies are pretty typical for this sort of grand-scale global product...

Cell Phones to Replace Game Controllers: The Next Generation of Potato Sack Races

We've already shown you how ZooBurst is changing pop-up books, now designer Elie Zananiri, who was also featured at the NYU Tisch School's ITP spring show Monday, is changing the potato sack racing game forever. Yes, that's right. Potato sack racing.

As Zananiri told me, the game is an online potato sack race that you control using your voice. To play, you dial the community number displayed on the screen (above) to register for the next game. Each player's phone number is then...