David Lidsky's Blog, page 4850

GM Teams Up With Apriso, HP for Chevy Volt Battery Assembly Operations

The vehicle assembly process is a tricky thing--just ask Toyota, which has had to deal with massive brake recalls over the past few weeks. Things get even more complicated when you add expensive and rapidly-changing electric vehicle batteries into the mix. For its part, GM has turned to enterprise software from Apriso to make sure that the Chevrolet Volt battery assembly process goes smoothly.

Apriso's FlexNet software, set to be implemented by HP at the Volt battery assembly plant...

Fear Not These Murals: Brian Rea's Art Is What Keeps Him Up at Night

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What's your worst fear? Ignorance? Credit cards? Smallpox? Illustrator Brian Rea has collected so many fears over the years that they fill up a 7-meter-by-3.5-meter wall. An exhibition entitled Murals that opened at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona last week gave Rea a chance to not only face, but also trace, his worst fears.

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Rea keeps many lists. During his last year in New York (2008) he began taking inventory of the things he and other people around him were worried about. "After...

Inspired Ethonomics: London's Transportation Transformation for the 2012 Olympics

Congestion pricing has been a huge success in London--reducing traffic and making money for the city. What's more, it challenges the notion that cities should be designed around cars rather than people. But as we'll learn in this episode of e2, congestion pricing is the core of a much more sweeping vision that could transform London into a transit-efficient and pedestrian-friendly megacity in time for the 2012 Olympic games.

Transcript:

Ricky Burdett (Chief Design Advisor, Olympic Delivery...

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

The geeks shall inherit the sports. Statistical analysis has reshaped how teams in every sport evaluate talent and call plays. But as once-vanguard stats such as baseball's on-base percentage go mainstream (thanks, Moneyball), the box scores of the future will be debated -- and analyzed -- at this Cambridge, Massachusetts, meeting. So what goes in it? One top contender is the UZR (ultimate zone rating), a defensive metric developed by Mitchel Lichtman to gauge how well a fielder saves runs...

The 82nd Academy Awards

The Oscars may seem as if they're all about who gets to hoist those 8.5-pound statuettes, but the designers whose gowns are worn to the ceremony are the night's other big winners, raking in millions in PR and buzz. (We're still talking about that vintage Valentino Julia Roberts wore in 2001, when she won for that dress and maybe for Erin Brockovich.) Red-carpet faves like Oscar de la Renta and Elie Saab no doubt will appear, but the happiest designer this year will be an unknown. In the...

The Ask

"New technology, new markets, global interconnectivity, doesn't matter," veteran fixer Leo Moss says to neophyte Milo Burke in this darkly comic novel by Sam Lipsyte. "It's still the rulers and the ruled." Lipsyte considers "late capitalism" through Burke -- a college development officer -- and his relationship with new-media titan Purdy Stuart, who makes the book sing. "Do you realize that one day we'll be heating our houses with trout?" Stuart tells Burke. "Is that one of the ideas at the...

Can Brands Launch Sustainable Campaigns Without Being Accused of Greenwashing?

It's not easy being green--especially if you're a company. Consumers in the United States have cooled on sustainable brands, due primarily to the economy. Most want to do the right thing, but marketers were slow to demonstrate the economic value of some green brands.

And consumers have also become much more savvy about knowing what brands really are green and which ones aren't. So if a company suddenly launches its first sustainable campaign, people get suspicious.

Believable brand...

Sony's Response to Game System Failure: "Do Not Use Your PS3 System"

Since Sunday afternoon, PlayStation 3 consoles have been unable to log on to the PlayStation Network and unable to play certain games following a flawed software update. Newer PS3 "Slim" models are unaffected. But with over 20 million older "fat" versions susceptible, what is Sony's advice? "We advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies and not being able to restore certain data."

According to Sony...

Looking for Quick Cash, Sotheby's Raids Design School for Young Talent

Hoping to find new growth and fresh hype, the famed auction house hopes to propel young Dutch designers into the ranks of international stardom.

For the global auction-giant Sotheby's, contemporary art markets have dwindled in the current recession. But they're still looking for young talent, which can be bought low and sold high. So they're turning to design schools. This May, Sotheby's is teaming up with the Design Academy of Eindhoven, to sell the works of top students from the 2009...

Browser Wars: Google Chrome Wins a Round, at Everyone Else's Expense

The Net browser wars have just taken an interesting turn: For the month of February, Google's Chrome was the only one to demonstrate a growth in market share. It was a tiny change, but a strangely interesting one. What's Chrome's secret?

The market percentages for browsers in February 2010, according to Net Applications analytics run as follows:

Chrome: 5.61%, up 0.39% from JanuaryIE: 61.58%, down 0.54%Firefox: 24.23%, down 0.2%Safari: 4.45%, down 0.08%Opera: 2.35%, down 0.03%

Now, Net...