David Lidsky's Blog, page 4795

Wall Street Journal to Hit iPad Screens, But It'll Cost You

A bastion of old-media newspaper publishing cozying up to the big bad digital publishing-business-overturning newbie Apple? Well, kinda: The Wall Street Journal's revealed its iPad subscription plans and profiled Apple's board of directors.

We knew there was going to be an iPad (or at least tablet PC) version of the WSJ on its way at some point, even before News Corp supremo Rupert Murdoch said so. The WSJ already has a strong online presence, and while it seems slightly odd that it would...

Windfall for Europe as GE Invests $450 Million in Offshore Turbines

Four European countries are to benefit from GE's announcement this morning that it is to invest 340 million euros in the offshore wind business, which will include manufacturing, engineering and service facilities. The company is taking its next-gen, gearboxless, 4-megawatt Direct Drive Wind Turbine to the continent's shores. This is not the first sniff of the old continent's airs that GE's turbines have had: a test site has been operating in Norway for over five years.

As well as the...

China's Second Largest Mobile Network Drops Google Search Engine on Its Cellphones

The slow drip of the Google backlash has started, it seems. China Unicom, the country's second largest cellphone operator behind China Mobile, is to remove the search engine from its Android smartphones. The cellphone provider, which has suffered a 73% drop in profits, due to its customers' reluctance to use its 3G network, following massive investment in it, will leave the choice of search engines to handset manufacturers.

Earlier this week the network provider was forced to drop a brace of...

CBS.com: First Big Network to Embrace the iPad's HTML5 Video Mojo?

Whatever you may think about the Apple-Adobe battle over Flash on the iPad, it's clear that Apple's not going to move on the matter. And now CBS.com is trialling Web videos in iPad-friendly HTML5 format.

The guys at TheOtherMac blog noted this first, and then MacRumors did some digging, and found out exactly what's going on. Basically CBS's Web site suddenly gained a few "iPad - test" video links among its more usual Flash-based online content. Clicking on these using a "normal" device like a...

The Hidden Cost of Living in the Suburbs: Transportation

Some of the cost benefits of living in a city are obvious--walkability, easy access to public transportation-- but the high price of housing and other amenities often overshadow any benefits. But GOOD points us to a tool from creative think tank CNT showing that it's actually more expensive to live in many suburbs and exurbs once transportation costs are taken into account.

CNT's tool analyzes 337 metro areas covering 161,000 neighborhoods and 80% of the U.S. population. The overwhelming...

How to Avoid Getting Gmail's New Suspicious Account Activity Alert

Your credit card company calls you when unusual transactions get posted to your account, and now Google does the same in Gmail. A new security feature alerts you when it detects "suspicious activity" in your Gmail account based on the IP addresses accessing it.

For example, if you've usually got a few Gmail sessions open from IP addresses in the U.S.--one from your mobile device, one from your computer at home, and one from your computer at work--and someone in Poland logs in, you'll see...

GoDaddy Will Stop Registering Chinese Domain Names Due to China's Intense Creepiness

GoDaddy says Google was not a motivating factor in their similar decision to pull out of China, saying they'd been agonizing over the problems long before Google's squabble with the censorship-happy country began. Instead, they say that China's increased surveillance, censorship, and monitoring of users motivated the choice.

Back in late 2009, the Washington Post reports, China started requiring insane amounts of information from new registrants of websites, a color, head-and-shoulders...

US Army Visits Apple HQ to Discuss Uses for the iPad (Other Than Saving the Publishing Industry)

The Army uses Apple products for a host of reasons. They're durable, easy to use in the field, tough to hack, and readily available (unlike many specialized computer hardware items). They've been known to use iPods Touch as simple translation tools (they can translate and say "get down!" in Arabic--useful in our worldwide exportation of freedom!). So what went on in Cupertino?

From the military's site:

Apple officials gave the Army group tours of its laboratories and other
facilities and...

Police Arrest Frenchman Responsible for Hacking Twitter Accounts of Obama and Others

The man, using the name "Hacker Croll," sent a zip file of 310 internal documents to the tech site, which caused an ethical journalistic dilemma: the files were illegally accessed, but could legally be published--what to do? In the end, TechCrunch published some of the less-personal items, including bits about Twitter's financial situation.

But Twitter wasn't the only target of Hacker Croll; he also gained access to the Twitter account of celebrities and other prominent figures, including...

A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution

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From Left: Angel Taylor, 6, Jose Becerra, 7, and Julissa Munoz, 6. | Photograph by Danielle Levitt

As smartphones and handheld computers move into classrooms worldwide, we may be witnessing the start of an educational revolution. How technology could unleash childhood creativity -- and transform the role of the teacher.

Gemma and Eliana Singer are big iPhone fans. They love to explore the latest games, flip through photos, and watch YouTube videos while waiting at a restaurant, having their...