David Lidsky's Blog, page 4741

Facebook's Community Pages Thrust You Into a World of Connections

Right now, Facebook's Pages are a kind of limited-use group, usually for branding purposes--they'll let you join groups focusing on celebrities, musicians, and businesses, but that's about it. That's about to change: Pages are set to invade your Facebook existence.

Starting Monday, there will be two types of Pages: Official and Community. Official Pages are the old type, set up by one person or organization. Community Pages will spring up organically, creating groups based on interests...

Tween Girls Blaze Through 100 Texts a Day: Pew Internet Report

Texting is the preferred method of communication between American teenagers, the latest Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project report has found--and they're sending and receiving thousands a month.

Eight hundred 12- to 17-year-olds and their parents were surveyed for three months last year for a survey by Pew, and while the fact that almost three-quarters of them use cell phones is impressive--proving to be both help and hindrance to their parents--it is the minutiae of the...

The Mekanism Guarantee: They Engineer Virality

[image error]

Photograph by Peter Rad

[image error]

WORKING BLUE: The partners (topless and vulnerable) and fellow Mekanistas at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco's Mission district. From left, CEO Pete Caban, director Ian Kovalik, president Jason Harris, and founder and creative director Tommy Means | Photograph by Peter Rad

Its viral ad work runs from lowbrow to esoteric to downright scary -- and that's all part of the plan. The machine behind Mekanism.

[image error]

Spending time with the partners from Mekanism can be

Today in Most Innovative Companies

News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft.

Apple: Nothing really new with Apple...except that Gizmodo published pictures and video of the upcoming iPhone 4 today!

Netflix: Lately, Netflix and Blockbuster have been going to the mattresses. Even Blockbuster's CEO has jumped into the scrap. This week, though, Netflix is expected to release its fiscal results, which may shed some light on whether or not its winning-streak over the struggling...

The Sweetest Eye Candy From the 2010 Milan Furniture Fair

For the last few weeks, we've been scouring the Web for the best designs unveiled at the 2010 Milan Furniture Fair, the year's single most important design event. And now, here's a slideshow round-up of what caught our eye. 

Should We Stick Cows on Treadmills to Generate Electricity?

Energy-generating treadmills for humans? Been there, done that. William Taylor, a farmer in Northern Ireland, has decided to put idle cows on treadmills to produce power for his farm, according to Popular Science.

The inclined belt causes cows to slide off unless they continue to move forward. The forward-walking motion causes the belt to turn, spinning a gearbox that drives a generator. A feed box sits in front of the treadmill to keep the cows on their toes.

It's not as crazy as it...

NASA's Earth Exchange Allows Scientists to Collaborate on Data Analysis

NASA is continuing on its quest to study climate change and all things Earth-related with the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a supercomputing application that allows researchers to share data sets and analysis through a Web-based portal. NASA is providing visualizations, Earth system data sets, social networking tools and more through NEX, which runs on a 609 teraflop supercomputer dubbed "Pleiadies."

NASA explains:
Using on-line collaboration technologies, NEX will bring together...

Microsoft's "Fix It" App Trying to Take Pain Out of Broken PCs

Microsoft's testing a service that may, just may, be a breath of fresh air to PC users struggling with balky or broken Windows installations: It's called "Fix It"...and it purports to do exactly what it says, largely automatically.

The system is free, and it's in beta-test mode, so if you're afflicted with a problem PC, give it a whirl and see what you think. It's specifically targeted at users who haven't got Windows 7 yet, as in some senses it replicates that OS's advanced diagnostics...

Google Maps Reveals Chinese Earthquake Devastation, Can Chinese Google Users See This?

The company prepares a disaster response similar to what it put in place after the Haitian earthquake.

[image error]

Last week, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit Qinghai, a remote Chinese province on the Tibetan plateau--a place so remote that it was days before any reporters made their way there, and reliable information on the catastrophe is still hard to come by. But thankfully, there's Google Maps: Working with GeoEye--a company that runs survey satellites--they've produced some astonishing pre- and...

Google Cloud Print Promises to Make Your Printer Available to Any Internet Device Anywhere

Google's vision of your future home printer is one where you can skip not just the part where you directly connect your computer, but avoid installing print drivers altogether, and put it to work whether you're home or not. Dubbed Google Cloud Print, the Chromium OS-based technology (read: headed for Chrome OS) is still in its early stages but looks promising already.

So here's the skinny: You get your Internet-connected printer set up and talking to your home network. Then you tell...