David Lidsky's Blog, page 4819

Doritos Viralocity Ads Push the Boundaries of Cheesy Good Taste

Thought a goat cheese variation was as extreme as Doritos would get? Think again--the snack giant (specifically, its Canadian counterpart) continues to make each new commercial more eye-popping and provocative than the last. Some are successfully clever ("Taste-Test Whistle-Blower") while others fall into the just-plain-wrong category, like "Hot Sexy Dorito Lady," (below), in which a certain body part--not the one you are lead to believe--is inexplicably used to promote something delicious...

Twitter Announces @Anywhere at SXSW

In what was likely the most horrifically devastating keynote presentation in SXSW history--people were comparing it to the great Sarah Lacy-Mark Zuckerberg fiasco of 2008, but, hey, at least that was entertaining--moderator and Harvard Business School blogger Umair Haque talked about his vacation, his blog, and generally himself, as he purportedly interviewed Twitter founder Evan Williams, who was so bored he checked his watch at one point, giving the slowly draining ballroom its sole...

ChatRoulette's Andrey Ternovskiy Is the New Bubble Boy

On Friday, the NYT had a revealing Q&A with the founder of ChatRoulette , Andrey Ternovskiy. The 17-year-old was over in the U.S. to talk to developers and potential investors about how to evolve his site, which he developed over three days in his bedroom. His responses to Nick Bilton's questions--specifically when asked if he was talking to investors*--brought back memories of the first Dotcom bubble, when the Nasdaq peaked at 5,048.62, on March 10, 2000 (almost 10 years ago to the date)...

Herbal Essences to Finally Cut Down on Cancer-Causing Chemical

Unlike many shampoos and conditioners, the Herbal Essences brand doesn't contain parabens--a class of chemicals thought to cause breast cancer and estrogenic activity. But apparently the popular brand contains high levels of another carcinogenic chemical: 1,4-dioxane. Herbal Essences contains so much dioxane, in fact, that it should carry a warning label required for cancer-causing chemicals under California's Proposition 65. Proctor & Gamble is well-aware of its transgressions and is...

Apple Dreams of a Sci-Fi Future: Hires Wearable Computing Scientist

Apple's done something weird, and yet nerdishly cool at the same time: It's hired a Senior Prototype Scientist with expertise in wearable computing. Knowing Apple's innovative heritage this gives us happy Tron-imagining shivers.

The chap in question is engineer/physicist Richard DeVaul, a PhD-touting graduate of Texas A&M University and MIT. His LinkedIn profile gave the game away. Among his stated business credentials like "leadership for early stage companies," "tech startup CTO" and...

Bhagwan Chowdhry's FAB Campaign Aims to Put $100 in Bank Account for Every Baby

Bhagwan Chowdhry, a Professor of Finance at UCLA's Anderson School, outlines his organization's mission to give every newborn in the world access to financial legitimacy. The most stunning part of the FinancialAccess@Birth (FAB) campaign isn't the remarkable impact that participants would get from a mere $100 starting balance or even the GNP metrics envisioned to fund this campaign, its the idea that this could help erase poverty. Here's the organization's plan in full.

The FAB Campaign, by...

Watch Out, Tesla: Nissan Has 56,000 Pre-orders for the Leaf EV

Its time for Tesla to watch its back. The electric vehicle startup has generated considerable excitement for the sort-of-affordable ($50,000) Model S EV sedan, scheduled to be released in 2012, but Nissan already has over 56,000 pre-orders for the 2012 Leaf EV--a $25,000 model that will have the advantage of being the first entry level-priced EV on the market.

The Leaf has some impressive stats: 100 miles on a charge with a top speed of at least 76 mph. The vehicle can be charged up to
80...

A Plea From Couch Potatoes Everywhere: TV Service Providers, Stop Screwing Up TV!

I subscribe to Verizon FiOS and have no complaints on the service itself. However, their forays into social media drive me absolutely nuts! Verizon, like other TV service providers, are experimenting with widgets. Widgets are bite-sized pieces of information you can access with your remote to get up-to-date traffic, weather, sports scores, and recently, access your Facebook and Twitter accounts. So far so good.

The other day I decided to pull up the screen for Facebook and started to type...

Strata Tower: The First Building With Wind Turbines Incorporated Into Its Design

Plenty of buildings around the world have wind turbines perched on their roofs at this point, but the Strata tower in London's Elephant and Castle area is set to become the first to incorporate turbines into its original design. When completed in July, developers hope that the 42-floor, 408-unit apartment building will generate 8% of its electricity from the turbines.

The $19.7 million skyscraper, nicknamed "The Razor" for obvious reasons, will feature three 19 kilowatt turbines on its...

Five Ways for Twitter's Advertising to Not Suck

Twitter is apparently due to bring an end to years of speculation about its money-earning plans by announcing an advertising platform today. Here's our guess, before the news presumably hits this afternoon, on how Twitter Ads should work.

Twitter Ads Must Not Intrude

One of the joys of using Twitter compared to other social networking/life-casting services (and here I'm really imagining the ocular-assault of a typical MySpace page) is its absolute simplicity. This starts with the short...