David Lidsky's Blog, page 4828

Sony Announces Its Wii-Baiting Motion Controller, the PlayStation Move

Sony showed off a brief tech demo of its motion controller back at last year's E3 (and discussed it with us just a few weeks ago), but a lot of the particulars were left unknown. Today, they demonstrated the newly-dubbed PlayStation Move, along with details like accessories, price, and release date. Sony's hoping the Move will attract buyers tempted by the Wii's motion-sensing gaming--but they've got a lot of ground to make up.

The basics are much like the Wii's motion controller, except...

Today in Most Innovative Companies

News of note from our Most Innovative Companies, including Apple, IBM, and Samsung.

Apple: If the iPhone's market share wasn't enough, even Steve Jobs' legal team is scaring away potential competitors now. Since Apple filed suit against HTC over alleged patent-infringment, analysts say that "top-tier smartphone makers" are now revising plans for mobile devices, out of fear of potential lawsuits and memorandum-spewing iPads.

IBM: More than 13 billion plastic bottles are disposed of each...

Missiles to Mammals: Old Nike Missile Base Now Home to Cutest Seals EVER

Noll & Tam Architects and Scott Dennis Architect turn a decommissioned missile silo into a marine mammal rehabilitation center.

It's one thing to turn an empty building over to plants--set up a couple veggie carts, like they did in Cleveland, or strap on a green roof. But what about turning it over to animals? And what if that building is a missile silo?

In one of the most unlikely architectural transformations I've seen, San Francisco studio Noll & Tam Architects and Scott Dennis Architect...

Failblog: France's Tough Piracy Law Makes Piracy Rates Go Up

Here's one of those fabulous stats that basically explodes an argument people thought was done and dusted: New data shows that online content piracy has risen in France despite the nation's super-tough three-strikes Net ban law.

France, among several controversial legal moves concerning Net technology, has been busy enacting some draconian Web piracy laws that almost rival the Big Brother-ish moves going on in the U.K. (which even the boss of the country's biggest telecoms network

Most Innovative Companies - Energy

Sponsored by

by Anya Kamenetz

Image courtesy of Vestas

1. First Solar

The "Google of solar" is the first renewable-energy company to be added to the S&P 500. Top 50 No. 6

2. PG&E

California's largest utility was the first company to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its opposition to climate-change...

IBM's Hottest New Cell Phone Market: Senior Citizens (and the Illiterate)

Among cell phone users in developed countries, IBM is betting the market with the biggest growth potential is...people over the age of 65?

It makes more sense than you'd think. According to , most of them already own cell phones, so it's not as if they're adverse to the technology. But unlike younger generations, who are seemingly targeted with a new cell phone gimmick every week, they're largely ignored on the marketing front--excepting a few efforts from Nokia and...

Porsche Confirms That It Plans to Build the 918 Plug-In Hybrid Spyder Supercar

Remember that sexy plug-in hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder supercar we drooled over last week? Apparently, we weren't the only ones with eyes for the car. Porsche received such a positive response to the Spyder concept at the Geneva Auto Show that the automaker now plans on mass producing it.

Porsche CEO Michael Macht confirmed the news to Autocar UK:

Porsche has yet to commit to producing the car - but speaking to Autocar, Macht admitted that the positive reaction to the 918 had already...

Smart Windows: Good for Seeing Through, Generating Electricity Too

Photovoltaic solar power may be the bees knees in green power cleverness, but you still have to work out how to mount the panels on your building. That's going to be much easier now a Dutch company has combined them with windows.

PV panels aren't exactly the most attractive of household additions, in their typical "we just bolted these suckers onto your shingles" installation (though they are much more visually attractive than the solar heating units the come with the ugly cylindrical water...

Canadian Chefs Predict Food Trends of the Future

Macrobiotic food, raw food, local food...the list of food trends that have popped up in restaurants in recent years is virtually endless. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) recently surveyed 400 chefs to find out what they think about the future of food, with some surprising (and not-so-surprising) results.

One big trend that chefs predict we'll see in the coming years: gluten-free food and beer. As awareness about gluten intolerance increases, gluten-free food has...

Why the End Times Might Reek of Methane

What does a climate change "tipping point" look like? We may be about to find out first hand.

Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas out there. Other substances, such as water vapor and nitrous oxide, also trap heat to varying degrees. Discussions about global warming focus on CO2 for a couple of key reasons: the first is that human activities have demonstrably increased carbon dioxide; the second is that the other gases tend to cycle out of the atmosphere pretty quickly. For the most...