David Lidsky's Blog, page 4710

Biomimicry Challenge: TOA Uses Fungi to Reimagine Sustainable Neighborhoods

Our biomimicry challenge What Would You Ask Nature? drew dozens of real-world business problems submitted by companies from all over the world. We assigned three challenges to three firms and paired them each with a biologist. For the next three weeks, each team will be reporting their bio-inspired solutions.

As cities redevelop to provide greener, more efficient living and working environments for their residents, the greatest innovation happens in ecodistricts, small pockets of a city where...

Building a Fashion Runway at School? At the d.school, Yes

This week, Linda Tischler has revealed the ins and outs of Stanford's new d.school building. We asked the students to provide some insight on their new digs as well.

Four Stanford d.school students in Tina Seelig's Creativity and Innovation course used a unique space called the Concept Studio to prototype what a nearby high-end women's clothing store would look like with a runway inside.

[youtube Bymi5MMHuQY:]

-- Rachel Simpson is an undergrad studying science, technology, and society; Andrew...

India Establishes National Environmental Tribunal - Should The U.S. Start One Too?

Just as the scale of the BP oil spill starts really sinking in--leaking first 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000, now maybe 20,000 barrels (that's 850,000 gallons)--comes word that India has established, after much debate in the past year or so, a National Green Tribunal, with the main bench to be located in Bhopal, site of one of the worst industrial / social / environmental disasters in the world. Which got me wondering, should the United States also have special environmental courts?

Now...

Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Solutions Sought on the Floors of Hair Salons

Light waves, a giant dome, and 400,000 pounds of cast-off hair are among the innovative solutions sought to help clean up the massive, growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.

Wondering why it's taking BP so long to get a handle on the oil spill that is currently ravaging the Gulf Coast? Simple: We're still using much of the same cleanup technology that has been used for the past 40 years, including burning and skimming oil. If there was ever a time to innovate, this is it. But is anyone...

Ford Syncs With U of M Students for Cloud-Connected Car Apps

In-car apps have been a bit of a buzzword for some time, but Ford is in pedal-to-the-metal mode since launching its Sync technology last month. The system allows for all sorts of four-wheel fun and japes, including voice control. The next step: cloud-based apps. Six teams of students from the "Cloud Computing in the Commute" program at the University of Michigan have each developed an app as part of a contest run by Ford's Research and Advanced Engineering program.

The winner, Caravan Track...

Five Steps for Consumer Brands to Earn Social Currency

Major consumer brands still have a lot to learn as social tools continue to proliferate. How to stand out and profit in an @anywhere world.

Popularity. You can't just request it. As companies amass ever-larger collections of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and YouTube audiences, they should ask themselves one question: What are we doing with them? "There is a lot of wasted effort in social media," says Erich Joachimsthaler, managing director at Vivaldi Partners, an international brand...

Tokyo Hospital Turns Used Adult Diapers Into Fuel

It's no secret that Japan has a rapidly aging population. And with such a population comes the unpleasantness of adult diapers, which have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years in the country. Usually, these diapers are tossed in a landfill or incinerated after use. But as we've seen with Sharps Compliance's syringe to cement process, medical waste can have a sanitary second life. That's where Japanese automation firm Super Faiths' SFD Recycle System comes in.

The machine...

Meredith Artley, Managing Editor at CNN.com

The Media

Meredith Artley

Managing Editor CNN.com

Last December, just after CNN.com unveiled a redesign with a simplified, user-centric interface to better showcase its breaking news, a new blog appeared named Afghanistan Crossroads. But this wasn't just the hard-hitting tales of combat found on CNN.com's homepage: This blog showed overlooked stories like how troops were finding small ways to celebrate the holidays, interviews with Afghani bloggers, even reporters' personal...

Bill Gates: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Finger in Tablet Computing

You may think Apple's runaway success with the iPad, the rich and user-loved touch UI on the iPhone, and Apple's barrage of future-facing patents had really given finger-control a future in tablet PCs. But dear Bill Gates has a different view.

Bill was speaking to the Fox Business Network about a number of things, but the important thing to remember is that Bill tried to lead the charge into tablet-format PCs years ago. Gate's idea was to bolt support for pen-based touch computing onto an...

Stop Learning From Your Failures, It Creates a Culture of Fear

It's become a classic business mantra: you learn more from your failures than from your successes. But what if that idea is all wrong? Alex Bogusky, co-chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, believes it is--and recent MIT research showing that we learn more from success backs him up. "You create a fearful culture where you spend a lot of time looking at where you screwed up," he says. Instead, his company has bred a culture in which success is celebrated, and failure is forgotten.

Bogusky was...