David Lidsky's Blog, page 4697

Former FTC Chair Timothy Muris to Steer Facebook Through Washington

Today's top gamekeeper-turned-poacher news is that former FTC chair TImothy J. Muris is to join Facebook as a lobbyist in Washington. Muris, who served between 2000 and 2004, is a bit of a consumer hero, seeing as he set up the National Do Not Call Registry in 2003. The sense of irony is palpable, don't you think?

Although the Financial Times claims that Muris is there to "defend [Facebook:]'s privacy practices, it is probably more likely to be lobbying by any other name. Unlike Google, which...

Toyota: $50K Hydrogen Sedan Will Be Ready by 2015

Electric vehicles get the lion's share of the attention in the world of futuristic automotive technology, and for good reason--automakers are quickly sending reasonably-priced EVs down the pipeline, and startups like Coulomb and Better Place are hard at work building an EV charging infrastructure. But we can't count out hydrogen fuel cell technology quite yet. Toyota--the automaker perhaps best-known for producing hybrid vehicles--now claims that it will be able to produce a $50,000...

The Year's Sexiest Houses, Selected by the American Institute of Architects

Fresh from announcing the year's Top 10 Green Buildings, the American Institute of Architects has just announced its 2010 Housing Awards, which recognize the 18 best projects, designed in America by American Architects. What follows is a sampling of ten of those, which caught our eye.

New York Scanned by Airborne Sharks With Fricking Lasers! (Minus the Sharks)

Airborne lasers  shooting at the streets of New York. I know: putting those phrases together in a sentence makes it sound like a plot for an Austin Powers movie, but take a chill pill--it's for your safety and convenience, New York. 

From April 14th to April 30th this year, an aircraft patrolled Manhattan at a height of 3,500 feet, sinisterly tracking back and forth in the sky and firing laser beams at the city. Fricking laser beams! From space! But alas, there were no space craft or even...

BP's Cofferdam Container Failed, How Will They Stop the Gulf Oil Spill Now?

Having already spent $350 million on containment efforts, BP is looking for new ways to stop the Gulf oil spill--including the junk shot: pumping rubber trash down the hole to plug the leak.

The oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico continues unabated, with at least 5,000 barrels of oil each day gushing into the ocean. The containment efforts have failed miserably so far, and the newest ideas are questionable at best. So far, BP has spent $350 million on containment efforts, immediate emergency...

Twitter Follower Hack Has Twitter Leaping to Fix, Tweeps Panic-Tweeting [Updated]

Want to force anyone on Twitter to follow you (yes, even the wondrous Mr. Fry)? There's a hack for that, and it's damned simple. The thing is, it looks like it's kinda, sorta, maybe broken Twitter...and everyone has zero followers.

Gizmodo just had a piece demonstrating the hack, which they speculate may be a layover code from Twitter's earlier days that's still in action. It couldn't be simpler: Visit Twitter.com, log in to your profile, click on "Find people" and in the search box type...

Infographic of the Day: Privacy on Facebook Is Vanishing

Privacy has become an "opt-in" feature on Facebook--and that has massively changed the service.

Facebook privacy settings are eroding. But the scope and speed of that transformation has happened fairly quietly--maybe because we've never before had an infographic that lays all the changes out.

The chart was a personal project created by Matt McKeon, who by day is a researcher at IBM's Visual Communication Lab (where Fernanda Viegas used to work).

It's concentric rings show the groups who can...

Michael Crichton on the Block: Record Haul Expected from "Jurassic Park," "ER" Creator's Collection

Most people know Michael Crichton as the guy who threw over his medical practice after hitting the big time as author with a knack for penning movie-ready novels, first with The Andromeda Strain, then with Jurassic Park and State of Fear. The freakishly tall (6'9") but good-looking doctor (named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1992) was a workaholic who, besides churning out novels and screenplays, created the long-running TV hit, ER In 1994, he became the only...

Twitter Follower Hack Has Twitter Leaping to Fix, Tweeps Panic-Tweeting

Want to force anyone on Twitter to follow you (yes, even the wondrous Mr. Fry)? There's a hack for that, and it's damned simple. The thing is, it looks like it's kinda, sorta, maybe broken Twitter...and everyone has zero followers.

Gizmodo just had a piece demonstrating the hack, which they speculate may be a layover code from Twitter's earlier days that's still in action. It couldn't be simpler: Visit Twitter.com, log in to your profile, click on "Find people" and in the search box type...

How Technology Thwarts the Real-Life Nurse Jackie

Randy Lipps, CEO of Omnicell, knew his medical surveillance technology was working when a certain hospital group (kept anonymous because of medical privacy concerns) reported a sharp spike in actions taken against staff for swiping drugs.

Nearly 7 million Americans are abusing prescription drugs according to the DEA, more than the number abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy, and inhalants, combined -- an 80% increase over 2000. Some of that is average folks and their kids...