David Lidsky's Blog, page 4755

Inside Microsoft's Kin Phones: Not a Dumbphone, Not Yet a Smartphone

Microsoft's Kin 1 and Kin 2 phones aren't exactly dumbphones, but they're not exactly smartphones, either. They're being marketed as social networking phones for the teen set (you can tell by the way the PR people showing them off are wearing weird thumb-shirts), and they're actually a giant step forward for that category--but the line between the Kin and its more advanced older brother, Windows Phone 7, is sometimes blurry.

First, the specs (or at least what we know of them at the moment,

Today in Most Innovative Companies

News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including HP, Spotify, and Microsoft.

HP: Today, HP completed its acquisition of 3Com at a price of $2.7 billion. The deal greatly improves HP's networking solutions, its position against Cisco, and its presence in China's market.

Spotify: The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (Basca) took Spotify to task today, complaining that the cloud-music service only "generates 'tiny' payments," BBC news reports. What's worse is...

Wild Cards for Tomorrow's C-Suite

In the first post of their 7-part series, John Elkington and Charmian Love look at how key C-Suite players are coping with the new wild cards dealt by environmental, social and governance challenges.

As sustainability activists and professionals are drawn into the corporate world as stakeholders and strategy consultants, we thought it might help to have a deck of cards identifying key players in today's C-Suite--the rarefied realm of business decision-makers like CEOs, CFOs and COOs, all of...

Tech Terrors and Triumphs Are Stuff of 2010 Pulitzers

The 2010 Pulitzers will go down as the year of the Washington Post--the venerable paper won four awards. The New York Times took home three. But the real winner was technology--both as a subject and as a way to deliver news.

The New York Times' staff landed the national reporting prize for its study on the increased crash risk when using cell phones (particularly to send and receive texts) and other electronic devices while driving. The story and its chilling interactive demo were...

LG Investing $18 Billion to Green Its Operations

Ever wonder how much it costs a major electronics company to green its operations? The answer, if we are to believe LG, is $18 billion. That's how much the electronics giant plans to invest by 2020 in an attempt to cut emissions 40% compared to 2009 levels and to expand energy-efficient and renewable energy product development.

LG already produces solar cells, but the massive investment will allow the company to produce energy-efficient air conditioners, TVs, refrigerators, fuel cells, and...

Drive Less, Pay Less: Insurer MileMeter Proves Long-Distance Relationships Work

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Illustration by Peter Arkle

Can an innovative pricing plan persuade Americans to drive less?

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"People aren't going to make decisions just to save the earth," says Chris Gay. "But if you can save $1,000 a year, you're going to change your behavior." Gay isn't flogging a solar-powered gizmo or a carbon-trading scheme. He's selling insurance. His company, MileMeter, is looking to revolutionize car insurance -- while creating incentives to drive less.

Auto insurers usually charge a flat fee for a...

Google Confirms Work on iPad-Baiting Android Tablet, Perhaps Made by HTC

According to The New York Times, Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed the tablet at a party, saying it would exclusively run Android. Other sources say Google has been covertly meeting with publishers of books and periodicals to provide content for the device in addition to Google's already substantial cache of books in Google Book Search.

Android has been tapped by many hardware manufacturers for future tablets, including the much-buzzed-about Notion Ink Adam (which features a dual-function...

Does Corporate Reputation Matter?

Last week, Harris Interactive released their annual study of the most visible and reputable companies in the country. Based on a poll of almost 30,000 people, companies were ranked on a "reputation quotient," calculated by a variety of public perceptions, including vision and leadership, financial performance, social responsibility, and perceptions of work place environments. I spoke with Robert Fronk, SVP of reputation management at Harris Interactive, to find out the impact of corporate...

Corporate Responsibility Magazine Publishing Black List of Corporate Villains

Corporate Responsibility Magazine is well-known for its annual list of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens, which has been honoring ultra-transparent companies like HP, Intel, and Abbott Laboratories for the past 11 years. Now CRM is taking a darker turn with its first black list of the least transparent companies, set to be published in the April-May issue this week.

Much like the "Best of" list, CRM compiled its list of corporate villains by scoring companies on the Russell 1000 index of...

Google Docs Overhauled, Microsoft Should Be Worried

Google Docs, the convenient online-competitor to Microsoft Office, today rolled out some great new features that combine many of the search-giants services into one handy product. The key to the overhaul is real-time collaboration. Essentially, it combines features from Buzz and Google chat to create a document-style layout, with an in-the-margins sidebar that allows you to track changes, add comments, and talk with co-workers as you would in Gchat. More importantly, the editing is done...