David Lidsky's Blog, page 4780

iPhone 4.0 Multitasking Preview: Expose-Like App Switcher

It's a 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 want to...

Exclusive: Google Goes to Jail for April Fools?

Sorry to spoil the fun, Googlers, but one of your own just sneaked us a peek at your April Fool's Day prank: Google Jail. That or, um, Google is far more sinister (and naive) than we ever imagined ... Nah!

This all came to us from, let's say, a trusted source connected to Google. Perhaps most surprising is the sense of humor and amount of leeway to goof off apparently given to Googlers. (We figured the Eric Schmidt-Steve Jobs man date was the end of shenanigans). Still, there's part of us...

Rumor: Hulu to Test Subscription Model on the iPad

In The New York Times piece, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is more forthright about the possibility of a paid Hulu subscription than ever before. The rumor isn't new, but coupled with Kilar's hinting, it gains a lot more credence.

The reasons to introduce a paid version of Hulu are obvious; Hulu, despite showing a profit in the past two quarters, is evidently not bringing in enough revenue to convince content providers that offering their product is worth it. Viacom even removed their content...

Fail Rail! High-Speed Train Connecting Vegas to L.A. Comes Up 100 Miles Short

Obama may have declared our country the Land of High-Speed Rail last April, but here in California, we promised back in November 2008 to raise more than $40 billion to fund a massive high-speed network running from San Diego to the Bay Area. But that didn't include an all-important spur for one of the most heavily traveled routes in the state: One third of Las Vegas' 38 million annual visitors are Southern
Californians who drive the four-hour route up I-15 in heavy traffic clogged by...

Seton Hill University to Hand Out iPads, Sense of Superiority Starting This Year?

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Students at Seton Hill University (not the similarly named, sports-centric larger university in South Orange, New Jersey) are a damned lucky bunch--or someone has a pretty spot on sense of humor. The "iPad Initiative" begins in Fall 2010, with the simple and enticing slogan "An iPad for Everyone."

While not technically falling on April 1, this does reek of shenanigans. Let's just put that out there. But such incentives are not unheard of--remember Duke and Drexel Universities' free iPods for...

LEGO Table Could Transform Boring Board Room Meetings

Looking for a way to spice up office meetings? Consider hiring ABGC Architecture and Design to build a LEGO table like this one, which was commissioned by Dublin ad agency Boys and Girls. Inhabitat reports that the table was made with 22,742 LEGO bricks snapped together the old-fashioned way--no glue necessary. The whole thing was placed atop a stainless steel base and...

Today in Most Innovative Companies

News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including Nike, Hulu, Google, and IBM.

Nike: Relax, Cleveland Cavs fans. LeBron is likely staying. The all-star will become a free agent in July, around the same time his seven-year contract with Nike will expire. LeBron has reportedly worked out a new multi-million dollar deal with the shoe-and-apparel giant, but according to sources, the contract does not include incentives or bonuses for playing in cities with larger markets, like New York...

Volkswagen Unveils Its First Hybrid

Fast Company talks with VW's chiefs of engineering and design about the 2011 Touareg Hybrid.

Today at the New York International Auto Show, Volkswagen unveiled its very first venture into hybrid technology: The 2011 Touareg Hybrid, set to debut this fall at a price around $100,000.

Shiny and relatively svelte for an SUV, the new model will be a test bed for hybrid technology that'll appear next year in the ultra-luxe Porsche Cayenne Hybrid, as well as Volkwagen hybrids of the future. It's...

Waste Oil-Coated Smart Roof Could Save Energy

One of the simplest climate change geoengineering solutions we've seen is the white roof, which naturally reflects sunlight back into space and keeps buildings cool. Energy Secretary Steven Chu even went so far as to say recently that slathering our pavements and roofs in white paint might offset 44 billion tons of CO2, or the equivalent of taking all vehicles off the planet's roads for 11 years. But a research and development company called United Environment and Energy thinks there is a...

Made To Stick: Snapple, the KKK, and Making Ideas Credible

[transcript of video:]How do you get people to believe your ideas? Well, there's something we can learn from really sleazy ideas that catch on. For years, Snapple struggled to fight rumors that it supported the KKK. The idea was completely absurd—as one of the founders of Snapple said, "How could 3 Jewish boys from Brooklyn support the KKK?"But the rumor kept spreading because it had some "evidence" on its side. People would say, "Look at the label—there's an old wooden slave ship on the...