David Lidsky's Blog, page 4722

Fernanda Viégas, Cofounder, Flowing Media

The Brainiacs

Fernanda Viegas

Cofounder Flowing Media

As an undergrad, Fernanda Viégas dropped out twice and studied chemical engineering, linguistics, and education on two continents, before finally finishing with a degree in graphic design. And then, she didn't want to be a graphic designer.

Nonetheless, that trait of never quite knowing what she wanted lures her to what no one's ever done before: First, as a data visualization researcher at IBM, and now as cofounder...

Moving Designs for San Francisco Transit Terminal Put the Light Back in Rail

On top, there will be a 1000-foot long fountain shaped like a bus. Yes, a bus. Since this is a bus station, get it!

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The current hub for Bay Area bus routes coming into downtown San
Francisco is a thick, heavy concrete monstrosity that glowers over
the sidewalks. But (somewhat) soon, it'll be gone, replaced by the Transbay Transit Center, a light, bright antidote to its predecessor and a
catalyst for livening up a central corner of the city.

The $4 billion building was just approved...

Wallpaper Your Bedroom With Spam

If spam ever gets eradicated, maybe this wallpaper will become a poignant reminder of a modern-day curse.

We get enough spam at work. Why would we want to sleep with it? Here's why.

So To Do, an Italian interaction-design firm, created Spamghetto, a wallpaper populated by by thousands of spam emails. Using their own generative software, they custom fit the wallpaper to the contours of any room. To Do insists that there's something poignant about all the adds for get-rich schemes, porno, free...

Pick Me Up: 8 British Rising Stars of Graphic Design

The U.K.'s first contemporary graphic art fair kicked off this week at Somerset House in London. Here's a peek at eight up-and-comers defining British design.

Innovalight Sets Silicon Ink Solar Cell Efficiency Record

Cheap, easy-to-manufacture silicon ink solar cells are slowly gaining ground on traditional solar cells. Innovalight, a startup that makes low-cost silicon ink-based solar cells, recently announced that it has achieved 19% conversion efficiency--a record for
silicon ink-processed solar cells. Most solar cells average approximately 15% efficiency.

Innovalight's secret sauce is a process that allows silicon ink to be printed on solar cells using thinner substrates and fewer materials...

Volkswagen Taps Crowd to App Your Ride

Once upon a time, cars used to be all about mechanics. Now it's all about technology--oh, and clever, tech-based marketing. Volkswagen has seized on this fact and is using it as a way of improving its vehicles, hiring talent--oh, and with a bit of positive publicity thrown in for good measure. On May 3, it is launching App My Ride, a competition to improve its in-car infotainment systems.

The German auto firm, whose name means "the people's car," useless fact fans, has discovered...

How Soft Drinks Could Cause Rapid Aging

Hoo boy. The American Beverage Association isn't going to like this
news one bit. Food companies now add significant amounts of phosphates
to soda and other processed foods. And now researchers have found
evidence that phosphates may accelerate aging (via Science Daily):

High phosphate levels may also increase the prevalence and severity
of age-related complications, such as chronic kidney disease and
cardiovascular calcification, and can also induce severe muscle and
skin atrophy.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Gizmodo iPhone Saga

 Get an overview with this handy flowchart. Then scroll down and start clicking through the interactive story.

[Infographic by Sheryl Sulistiawan and Tyler Gray:]

Click below to begin your adventure!

Every fact we discover about this whole lost iPhone story leads to another, and then there's one that refutes the first fact and then another that proves the first one true but negates the latter two, and so on. The legality of the case is in the murkiest of water, to the point where you can...

Infographic of the Day: Let the Wind Knit Your Next Scarf

Visualizing the wind, by making it produce something useful.

Designer Merel Karhof wanted to visualize the wind--a challenge made poetic by the fact that the wind's ever present but always invisible and almost always ignored. And what she eventually came up with is having a windmill create a scarf--an item that would protect the wearer from the very power that created it.

[youtube itHjRzzKuTQ:]

"The machine visualizes directly what you
can produce with the present amount of urban wind," she...

Armageddon Energy Moves Closer to Producing Plug-And-Play Solar Panels

When we last checked in on Armageddon Energy, the prefab solar panel startup had completed panel prototypes and was working on a beta funding round. Now, nearly a year later, Armageddon has teamed up with electronic component manufacturer Tyco Electronics to speed up the release of Armageddon's SolarClover system, which is scheduled to go on sale later this year.

A single 400-watt SolarClover features three 10- to 12-pound silicon hexagonal panels, a triangular frame and a micro-inverter...