David Lidsky's Blog, page 4750

Underage, Underpaid Workers, Sexually Predatory Security Guards at Troubled Chinese Microsoft Supplier

Underage, underpaid workers working 15-hour shifts, sexually predatory security guards, hourly pay of just 52 cents per hour after deductions for the canteen food. No talking during work hours, no listening to music, no bathroom breaks. These are just some of the conditions that workers at China's KYE Systems Corp. plant in Dongguan City have to endure. The factory produces hardware for U.S. companies, including Microsoft, and its work practices have been documented in a report by the...

Chirp Update: Watch Out Foursquare!

UPDATE: WATCH OUT FOURSQUARE. Williams promises a 'Points of Interest' feature,
allowing users to check-in at certain locations, and see what tweets
are occuring there. However, Williams says this is not exactly like
"checking in." "We're not looking to duplicate what Foursquare and
Gowalla are doing but rather integrate them better into the service,"
he says. "What we care about is what's happening in those places, and
not just where they are." He continues, that it's "A way to see where a...

GM Unveils Video of Self-Driving EN-V Vehicle in Action

We recently took a look at the EN-V, GM's concept road-connected electric vehicle that can theoretically drive itself on city streets. The features are impressive enough--lithium-ion powered electric motors, vehicle-to-vehicle communications,
distance-sensing, GPS--but up until now, we only had pictures to satiate our curiosity.

Now GM has released a video of the EN-V, and we have to admit that it looks a bit ridiculous in action. The EN-V also looks unsafe--an accident in this thing would...

It's 10 p.m. Do You Know What Your Kids Are Hacking?

Half of New York's teens have fallen victim to hackers, a survey says. Out of 1,000 kids questioned by Tufin Technologies, 500 of them claimed to have had the passwords of their Facebook or email accounts cracked but, unlike their British counterparts in a similar survey last month, 75% of the respondents thought that it was morally wrong. Seven in 10 even went as far to say that it should be a criminal offense.

Of the 16% of teens who admitted to hacking, three in every 10 were...

iPhone 2010 Due June 22 ... Guess What It's Called

In just 68.5 days, as of the moment of writing this piece, it's hotly rumored that Apple will be revealing its new generation iPhone for 2010. June 22nd is the date for your calendars, folks. And there's a tiny frisson of Verizon iPhone excitement too.

MacDailyNews dug the rumor out of the ModMyi blog, so its veracity has yet to be 100% verified, but a June timescale certainly chimes with previous Apple behavior, and a late June window gives a bigger gap between the iPad's launch and the new...

American-Designed Shanghai Pavilion at World Expo Built With Old CD Cases, Rainwater [Video, Slideshow]

When the World Expo in Shanghai opens on May 1, some of America's leading design talent will be center stage. And not just in the American Pavilion.

If you want to see what state-of-the-art interactive experience design looks like, you'll have to hike on over to the Dream Cube, which is the Chinese corporate pavilion. That's where New York-based ESI Design, in collaboration with Chinese architectural firm Atelier FCIZ Architects, will dazzle fair goers with a building that changes color based...

Global Health & Innovation Conference

"Social entrepreneurship" is a buzzword that has been floating around a lot of do-gooder conferences and Web sites. For a while, calling yourself a social entrepreneur seemed like enough to draw funding and prestige, but more and more investors want to know what works, what's sustainable, and what unintended consequences there might be. At the Global Health & Innovation Conference, hosted in New Haven, Connecticut, by the not-for-profit Unite for Sight, experts will discuss these challenges...

Toyota Plug-in Prius U.S. Test Program Details Revealed

Listen up, Prius fans: Toyota has finally released some of the details of the much-awaited U.S. plug-in Prius test program. But unless you work for a major corporation or government office, you probably won't get to test out the car.

According to Autobloggreen, 150 plug-ins will be released to universities, corporations, city, local governments and car sharing programs at some point in the near future. The lucky organizations include Qualcomm, Silicon Valley
Leadership Group, Southern...

NASA Gets a $6 Billion Booster for Mars and Beyond

Find hope in this, NASA, science and Mars fans: President Obama's new stance on NASA's funding will likely pump no less than $6 billion into the agency to create a new heavy rocket sooner than we'd hoped. Mars is its target.

Over the previous few weeks we've heard rumors about what NASA's future might look like. All of them seemed attractive compared to the grim reality we'd assumed would happen: The Space Shuttle grounded, the Constellation moonshot program canceled, big delays in getting...

American-Designed Shanghai Pavilion at World Expo Built with Old CD Cases, Rainwater [Video, Slideshow]

When the World Expo in Shanghai opens on May 1, some of America's leading design talent will be center stage. And not just in the American Pavilion.

If you want to see what state-of-the-art interactive experience design looks like, you'll have to hike on over to the Dream Cube, which is the Chinese corporate pavilion. That's where New York-based ESI Design, in collaboration with Chinese architectural firm Atelier FCIZ Architects, will dazzle fair goers with a building that changes color based...