David Lidsky's Blog, page 4779

Tokujin Yoshioka Unveils Chairs Made of Foil, Chandelier of Living Crystal

A poet of materials previews the products he'll debut in Milan.

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The year's biggest design event, the Milan Furniture Fair, is still two weeks away, but the previews are already trickling out. And we bet this ends up being best in show: Japanese design master Tokujin Yoshioka has sent us images of Memory, a new chair for Moroso made from a "special fabric with recycled aluminum." Which sounds like super-thick aluminum, to us.

Yoshioka's known for some brilliant, subtle explorations of material...

Apple Winning the HTML5 Video War: ABC to Stream TV Shows to iPad

What seemed like a tiptoeing start to a revolution seems to be turning into a steady march: First we had rumors CBS was toying with iPad-friendly HTML5 videos, and now we learn this is a fact, and that ABC is joining the party, too. 

The Wall St Journal really is confirming its position as Apple's leaky news valve with this piece, as it quotes "people familiar with the matter," in a move to gently bump up the hype a notch or two in iPad week. One of the "people" is CBS Interactive president...

Will the Open-Ended Innovation of "Lost" Ultimately Deliver for its Audience?

Good design is polarizing. You could argue the same is true for
good television. Case in point, Lost. For almost six years, viewers have been
arguing over the possible endings and explanations behind ABC's hit television
show.

In my experience, most fans are
divided into two camps. On one end of the couch are the die-hard devotees like
my wife, who maintain that the writers have planned everything from the
beginning and have faith that the show will wrap up in a coherent and
satisfying...

John Doerr Gives $100 Million Thumbs-Up to iPad

Venture Capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers has announced it is to double its investment in its iFund to $200 million. At a press conference, its head, John Doerr, described the iPad, whose first reviews hit the media last night, as "gorgeous," and "magic" and claimed that it would kick off a "third renaissance in software." (A rerenaissance, then.) "I've touched it. I've caressed it," he said, refuting the most popular accusation that the device is nothing more than an...

Google: Vietnam Pulling Similar Anti-Free Speech Cyberattacks to China

Google, probably still sore after its fight with the spiky Chinese authorities, has nevertheless opened a new front in its battle against Net censorship: It's discovered a huge cyberattack against people who contradict the Vietnamese government.

The discovery was apparently made as part of Google's ongoing investigation into the allegedly China-sourced hack attacks that prompted the entire recent Google versus China fiasco. According to Google, something like tens of thousands of email...

Crib Sheet: First iPad Reviews

Major publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Chicago Sun-Times all got Apple iPad review units--but so did odder pubs like BoingBoing.com and PCMag. I read through them all so you don't have to--and here's what I learned that I didn't know before.

The screen is a fingerprint magnet. (New York Times)The virtual keyboard is "a horrible experience" when in portrait mode; in landscape, it's "just barely usable" (New York Times), though some find it "acceptable." ...

iPhone 4.0 Multitasking Preview: Exposé-Like App Switcher

It's another long-standing rumor. Every other competing mobile OS, including Google's Android, Palm's WebOS, RIM's BlackBerry, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, is capable of running more than one third-party app at a time. But on the iPhone, if you're listening to Pandora and have to quickly look up a restaurant on Yelp, you've got to shut down Pandora, open Yelp, find your listing, shut down Yelp, and then restart Pandora--and by then, you've lost the song you were listening to, and if you...

Apple Refunds iPad Rush Shipping Cost After Realizing It Isn't Actually Faster

It was a logial decision for a lot of pre-orderers; if you were so excited about the iPad that you'd drop more than $500, sight unseen, you want that thing as fast as possible. And if you're spending that much already, why not opt for rush shipping? "Damn straight!" you'd think. "Rush that thing to me!"

Too bad iPads shipped via standard and via rush would arrive on the exact same day, this coming Saturday. Apple customer support was unable to explain the difference between the (free...

Confirmed: iPad Will Get a Free Netflix Instant Watch App on Launch Day

When people talk about the lack of Flash on the iPad being a problem, they mostly mean video. Flash games are fun, sure, but the App Store has better games anyway, and those big Flash-designed websites are annoying anyway. The lack of Flash means no Hulu (though apparently that's in progress) or most other streaming video sites (besides YouTube). But with the news that the iPad will launch alongside a beautiful-looking Netflix app, that may matter a bit less.

Netflix Instant Watch is only...

Most Boring YouTube Videos Ever: Amazon Wants to Show You Your Package as It's Packed

Showing that it's not just Apple that files weird, off-center patents in the tech world, TechFlash found that Amazon just received a patent for delivering videos of individual packages being packed in their warehouse, so customers can make sure everything's correct. This could make some serious stars out of the Amazon warehouse crew.

A description, in traditional patent-tongue:

One or more images of items for an order being processed at processing
station of an order fulfillment center may be...