David Lidsky's Blog, page 4855

Nine Smart Ways to Showcase Your Creative Work

The new book "Flaunt" by UnderConsideration shows how to cohesively, succinctly and creatively showcase design work through an accessible, effective, and creative portfolio. Here are some highlights from the book's authors, Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio, and even some tips--free of charge!

Megacities Today, Rubble Tomorrow: Haiti as Architectural Wake-Up Call

A major disaster--and a few success stories--show architecture is the problem and the solution for earthquake-prone cities.

This week in The New York Times, Andrew Revkin published a wake-up call for megacities: Learn from Haiti; you might be next. And the problem is architecture. Earthquakes don't kill people, he says. Buildings do. "In recent earthquakes, buildings have acted as weapons of mass destruction," Roger Bilham, a seismologist who Revkin interviews, wrote in Nature. Most of the...

Facebook Patents News Feed, Social Net Confusion Ensues

You know that stream of friendship dates, comments, photos, and whatnot that constitutes your Facebook "news" feed? Facebook's apparently been granted a patent on the idea. But isn't it something that's been done before?

The patent application dates back to 2006, just before Facebook revealed its news feed/service, and it's simply a patent on the the notion of "displaying a news feed in a social network environment." The introductory text, credited to Mark Zuckerberg runs thus:

A method for...

"Feisty" Steve Jobs Ponders a $40B Shopping Spree at Apple Shareholder Meeting

Described as "feisty," Steve Jobs was on form yesterday at Apple's shareholder meeting--his first back since the recent health issues that forced him to step down temporarily as CEO. One, Infinite Loop, on the Apple Campus, was the venue, and the event kicked-off at 10 a.m. sharp. And the most interesting part of the show was trying to work out just what Apple is going to do with its gigantic cash reserves.

Amongst all the fabulous news--the company's $40 billion war chest, the expansion into...

Nintendo's Jumbo-Sized DSi XL Doubles as a Half-Assed Ebook Reader

Nintendo looks to have been channeling Apple with its new DSi XL portable gaming console. Both the XL and Apple's iPad are, for the most part, magnified versions of existing products (the DSi and the iPhone, respectively), and both have been criticized for that very reason. Why take a pocketable product and, without any major changes in hardware or software, make it bigger? After Nintendo's annoucement today in San Francisco, some have reported that the answer is the same: books. But that's...

Today in Most Innovative Companies

Daily news of note about our Most Innovative Companies, including Whole Foods, Walmart, Facebook, Zappos, and Nintendo

Zappos: The online shoe giant is trying to enter the video e-commerce game, hoping interactive videos of its products will spur sales. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Shoppers can click on items in the clips to see more information, including any current promotions and whether the product is in stock." Zappos is featuring Nike in its first roll out of videos...

Brand It. Brand It Good. Devo Crowdsources Its New Look [UPDATE]

The New Wave kings re-think those wild red hats in honor of their new album, the first in 20 years.

Are they not icons? They are Devo! So what's with the re-branding? If you caught Devo's performance at the Olympics on Monday, you might have noticed their new--gasp--white suits and blue hats, which the band passed out to the crowd. The band's first album in 20 years, Fresh, comes out in May, and they were hungry for a change. According to a bizarre, marketing-speak parody video on their...

Random House Gets Serious About Digital Content With Massive Reorganization

Random House today announced a huge reorganization aimed at moving the company from its analog roots to its possible digital future. Details as to how this will affect the many headed company's output for consumers aren't exactly clear, but there are some hints at intriguing new developments for digital publishing, including serialization, advertising, and subscriptions.

Following a huge surge in digital sales in the last half of 2009 (estimated at 400%) and the announcement of two huge new...

IBM Working on a Cure for Gridlock Headaches

Those of you who spend too large a proportion of your day on the road might like to hear about IBM's latest proposals for thinning out traffic gridlock. Using advanced analytics, the company's scientists are developing systems that will intuitively learn traffic patterns and behavior in an attempt to improve safety and route information for commuters and transport agencies.

IBM's General Manager of the Public Sector, Gerry Mooney is convinced that his firm can solve a problem that seems to...

It's Alive! Faulders Studio's Building Proposal Grows Its Own Facade

Geotube is a proposal for Dubai (natch) that self-generates a salt-based skin with seawater.

It's inevitable. We've been fighting the green revolution with buildings that act like animals and plants--take Enric Ruiz-Geli's Villa Nurbs, which squints its plastic bubble eyes in the sun, or Renzo Piano's Academy of Sciences, with a rolling green skin that breathes in the wind--and now here's a proposal for a building that grows on its own. Efficient, biomimetic design, or one step away from "I...