David Lidsky's Blog, page 4813

TSA Leading Charge to Co-opt Blogging, Twitter for The Man?

Twitter and blogs started as way to give voice to the little guys. Now the big guys are using the same tools to criticize the critics.

Twitter's been a breath of fresh air in the social networking space, seeming a free and relatively user-centric system, with the patriarchal Corporate and Governmental "Man" conspicuous for his absence. But is the TSA trying to change this?

Recently we, and many other media outlets, covered the news piece about the TSA's dubious behavior regarding the

GM to Use Augmented Reality Tech for Safer Driving

Working in conjunction with Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Southern California, General Motors has been playing around with using augmented reality to give drivers an easier ride in tough conditions. The idea is reminiscent of the technology that sports broadcasters use during match analysis, when scribbles appear automagically to show that the Chicago Bears' defense is utterly pants (or something, American Football isn't my sport, I'm afraid) but about a million times more useful.

Microsoft Immediately Stumbles in Quest for Well-Designed Phone Apps

The newly released app-design guide reveals a lot more about Microsoft than they probably intended.

With the recent release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft appears to be getting serious about design. They've overhauled the mobile OS completely, in favor of a minimalist aesthetic and an efficient no-nonsense UI. And they're hoping to improve the most glaring failure of their previous phone OS's: Hideous 3rd-party apps. But how?

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The first step in that change has been...

SunChips Rolls Out First 100% Compostable Chip Bag (Vermiculture Worms Sold Separately)

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Chalk up SunChips bags as another addition to the compost pile. Frito-Lay recently started selling SunChips in a 100% compostable bag that breaks down completely after just 14 weeks in a hot compost bin.

The new SunChip bag's outer layer is made with polyactic acid (PLA), a compostable, plant based renewable material. By Earth Day (April 22), all North American SunChips bags will feature the compostable packaging, which is expected to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

There's just one...

Making Strategy Simple

How do you talk about your business's strategy so that your employees
get it? Well, you've probably heard the phrase "Keep it simple, stupid."
And often the subtext of that is: "Keep it simple, because your people
are stupid." But the point of simplicity isn't to dumb things down.
You're not trying to solve a comprehension problem. You're trying to
solve a problem called decision paralysis.

[twistage bf7bacef10a39:]

Decision paralysis is a finding from psychology that says that the more...

What Business Card? Just Scan My QR Code

Everywhere you look at the South by Southwest conference this week, you see QR codes. The square "quick response" codes turn URLs, vCards, or any kind of text into a jumble of pixels that you can scan onto your smartphone instantaneously, no typing required. At SXSW, QR codes appeared on flyers, postcards, business cards, t-shirts, stickers, and swag. Organizers of the Austin gathering for film, music, and Web geeks even included a QR code on every registrant's badge to cut down on paper...

WANTED: LG X300 Netbook With Nigh Invincible Gorilla Glass Screen

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LG, though not normally known in North America for their PCs, has put together a damn fine-looking one: the X300 netbook, featuring a near-invincible Gorilla glass screen.

The X300 is more a netbook than a full-fledged laptop: it's equipped with an 11.6-inch screen, a 2.0 GHz Intel Atom processor, 2 GB of memory, up to 128 GB SSD, embedded 3G modem, and Windows 7 Home Premium. Those are relatively typical netbook specs, though certainly one of the better-specced ones out there. It's the...

Apple Patent Beams Up Pico Projectors Into All Your Future Apple Gear

Apple patent-watching is sometimes surprising, sometimes bemusing, but a newly-revealed patent for built-in projectors into Apple gizmos should be filed in the awesome category--imagine the future iPhone and iPad designs!

Apple began patenting built-in pico projector ideas back in mid-2009, but its research and development teams have clearly taken this tech to heart since the new patent application is way more advanced. It talks both about including projector tech in different Apple gizmos...

Toshiba Snuffs Out Old Light Bulb Production, Embraces the Shiny LED Future

Toshiba hauled the gate shut for the final time on its incandescent light bulb factory today--ending a production run that dates back to 1890. The reason? The eco-unfriendly, inefficient, thermo-luminescent tech has had its day.

Toshiba's history in light bulb making dates back to the Tokyo-based Hakunetsu-sha company, which churned out just 10 bulbs per day at first. Through various business incorporations, and advances in technology, Toshiba's bulb production soared to 78 million bulbs...

Frank Gehry Mellows Out With Wood-Paneled Theater Design

The notoriously metallic starchitect goes back to his roots with a cheap, plywood design for the Signature Theater Company. Don't worry--it still looks wild.

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I don't know what it is with architects and theater design these days (please, God, don't tell me something about "building-as-performance"), but I like it. Add to the pile (Herzog and de Meuron at the Met, REX/OMA in Dallas, Jean Nouvel in Copenhagen) Frank Gehry's home for the Signature Theatre Company.

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The Signature was supposed to...