David Lidsky's Blog, page 4707

Infographic of the Day: The Best Guide to the Oil Spill's Impacts

The Washington Post delivers a stunningly rich chart of all the natural resources and businesses threatened by the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

If there were as many people policing oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico as there were people designing infographics about the BP Gulf spill, there would ... well ... be no need for all of these oil spill infographics. That said, this is, hands down, the best one yet.

Created by The Washington Post, it details both the top-level economic impacts of the...

News Corp's Murdoch Bites iTunes' Ankles

Rupert Murdoch revealed better-than-expected profits for News Corp.'s third quarter of 2009 on Wednesday, but most interesting was a little aside about the forthcoming paywall. I quote. "We're in final discussions with a number of publishers, device makers, and technology companies. We will soon develop an innovative subscription model to deliver digital content to consumers wherever and whenever they want it." Was it, a reporter asked, going to compete with iTunes? Apparently so.

With over...

New Sons of Design Reinvent the Solar Panel for "Sunny Memories"

A solar panel can do so much more than collect the sun's rays. A collaboration between students at four design schools resulted in some extremely bright visions of solar energy's future.

The Idea Lab: A Look at Stanford's d.school

The new home of Stanford University's d.school puts the institute's philosophy of creativity and collaboration into smart glass, steel, and concrete.

The glassy garage-door-style entrance telegraphs openness. It also alludes to the famous Silicon Valley garages where powerhouses such as HP and Apple began. "The competitive advantage that a place like Silicon Valley has is in creating the next thing," says James Plummer, dean of Stanford's engineering school. "The d.school is a place where...

How to Build a Monument to Nazi Evil Without Celebrating It

Berlin's new "Topography of Terror" exhibition center documents, doesn't honor, the Gestapo and the SS.

[image error]

 These were some of the most evil 11 acres in Germany, a place where Nazi leaders hatched plans to terrorize millions as casually as you might send an email. Heinrich Himmler had an office there. So did Adolf Eichmann, the "architect of the Holocaust." It was there that, in a matter of months, German democracy began to crumble.

Sixty-five years on, Berlin has transformed the Topography of...

Users of Facebook's Social Network Are Mostly Anti-Social: Poll

Facebook users are still very skeptical about socializing online. And they're slightly confused about what exactly Facebook should be used for, according to a study of user behavior by Denmark-based Red Associates. They surveyed close to 500 members of the Facebook community -- hand-picked from fans of

Fast Company -- to learn more about how users interact online.

When did you first register for Facebook? Has it been that long? Can you even remember why you registered (Besides: All my...

Chevy Volt Faces Its Uphill Battle With "Mountain Mode"

Still can't decide whether to buy the Chevy Volt PHEV when it goes on sale later this year? GM is offering a unique feature to entice customers that are skeptical of the EV's potential performance: Mountain Mode--an option for drivers who know that they are about to climb a big hill.

The Mountain Mode option gathers an energy reserve in the lithium-ion battery so that the car has the full power of both the gasoline engine and the electric powertrain behind it for, say, navigating a series...

8 Lessons for Creating Social Impact

Have "design thinking" and "social innovation" become permanently intertwined? You'd have to think so based on Tim Brown's book and the prevailing discourse at any major design/innovation conference (SXSW, PICNIC, GEL, GAIN, LIFT). There seems to be a firm belief that you can't establish any cred as a designer these days if you haven't applied design thinking to a major social issue of some sort (health, energy, education...). Similarly, it would seem that social innovation (or social...

Intel Takes Aim at Apple and ARM With New Atom Chips

Intel's revealed some details of its next-gen Atom CPUs, essentially extending the capabilities of the chips that powered the netbook revolution. Since this is over, Intel really wants the Atoms inside tablet PCs, to rival Apple's ARM relationship.

The chips are the "Moorestown" architecture we've been hearing about for a while, and it's been rebranded with a much sexier-sounding "Z6" label for the official launch. The earlier Atoms were revolutionary because though they were, in some sense...

Jill Tarter, Director of SETI

The Brainiacs

Jill Tarter

Director SETI

When astronomer Jill Tarter was awarded the TED Prize in 2009, she was given the opportunity to make a wish big enough to change the world, and she did: "I wish that you would empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company." Now Tarter is laying the groundwork to make her own wish come true, by reorganizing the way the scientific community works and how we Earthlings search for...