David Lidsky's Blog, page 4724

Today in Most Innovative Companies

News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including Turner Sports, Ford, and Spotify.

Turner Sports: Late last week, CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting announced that a new deal had been reached with the NCAA that would give the networks TV, Internet, and wireless rights to the Division I Men's Basketball Championship from 2011 through 2024. The companies paid over $10.8 billion to secure the 14-year deal for the March Madness tournament, outbidding ESPN.

Ford: The Ford Motor...

World's Largest Glass Table Looks Like a Magically Frozen River

The table is cut from the same glass used in telescopes that see to the farthest ends of the universe.

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Fast Company favorite Tokujin Yoshioka has sent along another piece he'll be exhibiting next month in a tantalizing exhibition in Seoul, titled MUSEUM. beyond museum. If the Rainbow Church wasn't enough to draw crowds, Yoshioka will also show Waterfall, the world's largest table made of optical-quality glass. Almost 15 feet long, this is the first time the table will be seen in public, after...

ARM Financial Results Show Its Muscle, Nixes Apple Takeover Rumors

ARM holdings, the nifty British chipmaker rumored to be the object of Apple's affections, has released a sparkling set of financial figures--and poured water on the rumors surrounding it and the Cupertino Gang. Profits have almost doubled in the first quarter of this year, and it's shipped an incredible 1.4 billion of its RISC chips.

Chief Executive Warren East is, naturally, ebullient about these results--a 98% profit is never to be sniffed at, nor a 20% increase in sales--and he singled out

Uncommon Act of Design: The Secret of Getting Kids to Eat Veggies? Move the Salad Bar

A new study out of Cornell produces bigger results than any food revolution or food-policy change could hope for.

Lately, Jamie Oliver's become a saint in . And the White House and Michelle Obama have been flogging the idea of local produce, while making noise about changes in food policy, which gives woefully sums to big corn and red-meat farmers and contributes to making us fat.

But what if getting kids to eat more veggies is simpler than that...

RIM Dances Into a New Market With BlackBerry 6.0

RIM's released video footage of its upcoming BlackBerry 6.0 software--its answer to Android and iPhones. The interface itself is a little unsurprising, but the message behind the vid is clear: RIM is cool, and not just for business stiffs.

We already described how the BlackBerry hardware is suffering a bit of an image problem--the recent minor upgrades almost amount to incremental product spam. Hence the company's future smartphone fortunes, assuming it wants to remain at least proximal to...

Is Brazil Design's Next Superpower?

I recently returned from a trip to São Paulo where I was a member of the IDEA/Brazil Award jury. Arriving I expected to find a chaotic, dangerous and gray metropolis. Instead, I was more than surprised to find a colorful, dynamic and vibrant city. These same qualities are uniquely evident in Brazilian design.

For those of you who may not know, IDEA/Brazil is the Brazilian version of the IDEA Awards. Now in its third year, IDEA/Brazil is promoted by the design organization Objeto Brasil and...

Kurion Wants to Turn Nuclear Waste Into Glass

Schemes to turn CO2 emissions into useful products abound, but even clean energy can produce nasty byproducts. A startup called Kurion plans to tackle the problem of nuclear waste through vitrification--a process that can turn the toxic stuff into glass or ceramics, according to Greentech Media.

Kurion won't reveal exactly how its process works, though the company website does reveal that "Kurion's solutions are modular, quickly deployable, work with existing
systems, and substantially...

In the White Room ... No Idea Goes Undocumented at Stanford d.school

Cognitive scientists say our short term memories can only hold on to between five and nine things, max, at any one time. Which means, if you have a brilliant insight on, say, how to solve your company's supply chain problems and your brain is already at capacity, that idea could be bounced by a fleeting thought, like "Wonder what I should have for lunch?"Won't likely happen at the new Stanford d.school. The entire space is designed for idea capture, with whiteboard walls, Post-it Notes...

EPA's National Building Competition is The Biggest Loser For Buildings

Americans love a good weight loss story. That's why the Environmental Protection Agency has modeled its National Building Competition after "The Biggest Loser," the jiggly NBC show featuring contestants that drop pounds by the dozen. Except in this case, the 14 contestants aren't human--they're buildings throughout the U.S. that are using a suite of efficiency tools from Energy Star and the EPA to save energy.

The buildings, which include an elementary school in Colorado, a California-based...

RIM Dances Into a New Market with BlackBerry 6.0

RIM's released video footage of its upcoming BlackBerry 6.0 software--its answer to Android and iPhones. The interface itself is a little unsurprising, but the message behind the vid is clear: RIM is cool, and not just for business stiffs.

We already described how the BlackBerry hardware is suffering a bit of an image problem--the recent minor upgrades almost amount to incremental product spam. Hence the company's future smartphone fortunes, assuming it wants to remain at least proximal to...