David Lidsky's Blog, page 4856

Uncommon Indicator: Editors of Semi-Obscure Literary Journal Still Pulling Big Book Advances

This may be the uncommonest indicator ever. Or of this blog, at any rate. While publishing in general is not experiencing its happiest moment, the editors of the well-regarded, Brooklyn-based literary journal n+1 are at least making a go of it.

Earlier this month Senior Writer Elif Batuman published a book about Russian literature, life, the universe and everything that The New York Times found delightful. Now comes news that Executive Editor Chad Harbach has sold his first novel, The Art...

LVMH and Nowness.com Offer the Luxury Education Kanye University Lacks

Nowness.com, a digital magazine created by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, wants to teach you how to live a life of luxury. Relax. The site, at least, is free.

In a time when luxury sales are not exactly on the up and up, Nowness stands as a way for brands to connect with consumers--past, present, and future (they hope). The site, which has been running in teaser mode and will go into full launch today, serves as LVMH's answer to last year's closure of online store eLuxury.com, which was...

We Shall Overcome... Dropped Calls, Students Protest AT&T Network Coverage

There was a time when student protests in the U.S. meant something, when the iconic sit-ins, occupations and banner-waving could've impacted the world. Now Santa Clara U students have a new cause: AT&T's coverage. What?

AT&T's spotty network coverage and high data drop-out rate is the stuff of (recent) legend, and even lawsuits and public company-to-company slanging matches. The reasons behind it are clear--partly a lack of foresight and continued investment in improving infrastructure by...

Architecture Goes to the Opera

The Swiss architects bring their rough-edged, aggressive style to the Met as set designers for Attila.

Herzog and de Meuron might be rock stars abroad--their just-opened VitraHaus museum for the furniture company's Weil am Rhein, Germany campus is astonishing (thanks, in part, to Iwan Baan's insanely good photographs). But here in the States, they've had a rough few years. After their success with 40 Bond, their follow-up, 56 Leonard, stalled and their plan for the Parrish Art Museum had to...

PayPal Launches Apps Store, Wants to Send Your Wallet to the Cloud

PayPal, one of the more sedentary companies on the Web, announced something rather odd today: it's opening up an Apps store for developers to showcase their products on. And, funnily enough, the idea makes one think that the online payment system is going back to its roots: it was originally conceived as a payments system for Palm Pilots.

The idea, according to Osama Bedier, VP of PayPal's Platform Business Unit and Emerging Technologies, is to make PayPal a way for paying for ordinary...

Palm Expects 2010 Revenue to Be "Well Below" Forecast--Beginning of the End?

I blame the iPhone. The original smartphone company now helmed, ironically enough, by ex-Apple man Jon Rubenstein, has revised its guidance for 2010. A statement issued by the Sunnyvale company reckons that Q3 of 2010 will harvest revenues of between $285 and $310 on a non-GAAP basis, and blames it on "slower than expected consumer adoption of the company's products." Its original forecast had the whole year's revenue at between $1.6 and $1.8 billion.

Rubenstein tried to put a positive spin...

Walmart Plans to Cut 20 Million Metric Tons of Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Supply Chain

Walmart continues to impress us with its sustainable initiatives--just take a look at our slideshow listing 11 ways that the company is changing retail for good. The retail behemoth's latest innovation is a big one: a plan to cut 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015.

It won't be an easy task. Walmart has over 100,000 suppliers with a combined footprint that is much larger than the company's operational carbon footprint...

IBM Traffic Gridlock Analytics

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...

Apple's Supplier Responsibility Report Finds Underage Workers, Falsified Documents, More

Apple upset shareholders last month when it refused to create a comprehensive sustainability report, but the company has earned back some of its green points with its 2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report (PDF) detailing efforts to make sure that business partners are offering safe working conditions and using environmentally friendly processes. According to the fourth annual report, Apple's suppliers are generally following the company's code of conduct--with a few exceptions.

Can Dell's Tablet Rival Apple's iPad?

Though HP's tablet was highly featured in Microsoft's recent Windows 7 launch, Dell is also keen to get in on the new tablet PC market, and recently has been pushing its iPad competitor. Which begs the question, can it kick it?

According to Dell's general manager of tablet devices Neeraj Choubey, speaking to Wired, the upcoming Mini 5 tablet (still a tentative name) is a gizmo "optimized for media consumption" which makes it seem pitched at exactly the same market that Apple's targeting...