David Lidsky's Blog, page 4870

Disney's Own Superheroes

Disney's purchase of Marvel Entertainment was perhaps its boldest act this year. From the creators of "Lost" to the wizards at Pixar, we've given a full Marvel treatment to those who have helped put Disney on our Most Innovative Companies list this year.

Apple Secures Nifty Near-Field Wireless Patent for iPhones

A recently revealed patent suggests Apple has exciting plans for its future iPhones and laptops centering on near-field communications. Soon just popping your iPhone near a MacBook may enable wireless syncing. And that's just the start.

Near-field communications themselves aren't new, but it would be for the Apple devices in question. The technology centers on extremely short-range wireless interactivity between two devices--you may have heard of the tech in uses like wireless credit-card...

The Future of the Internet, Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Report

Is anonymity online coming to an end? The pervasive attitude says yes.

The Pew Research Center teamed up with Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center to survey 895 experts on the future of the Internet--and at the forefront of the discussion is the sticky topic of anonymity. Experts were nearly split down the middle, with 55% agreeing that Internet users will be able to communicate anonymously and 41% agreeing that, by 2002, "anonymous online activity is sharply curtailed." Not only...

Toy of the Year Awards Favor Playthings That Make Kids Think

It's all about touch-sensitive Rubik's Cubes, coloring books that play songs, and robotic hamsters that squeak when you touch them.

A few years back, an article The Atlantic coined the term Baby Genius Edutainment Complex to describe Baby Einstein and other toys and educational products that prey on parental anxieties about their little ones growing up to score highly on the SAT, get into an Ivy, and land a great job. That market shows no signs of contracting if the 2010 Toy of the Year...

Four iPhone Apps to Shut Up Climate Change-Doubters

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If you've got a friend, relative, or famous radio personality who makes a point of doubting the effects or even the existence of climate change--especially if that person cites a snowstorm as evidence--we've got a few apps that'll learn 'em good, and then teach 'em how to make up for the damage they've done.

[image error]Skeptical Science: John Cook, creator of Skeptical Science, created this iPhone app as a handy go-to reference for deflecting questions (and embarrassing the questioner) on the subject of...

Bobble Aims to Become the Brita of Portable Water Bottles

Designed by Karim Rashid, it has a carbon filter to make tap water taste better, with the goal of encouraging consumers to stop buying bottled water.

Does Karim Rashid's love of brightly colored plastic know no bounds? With his latest product, Bobble, the quirky industrial designer brings yellow, red, and, of course, pink to the staid world of the portable plastic water bottle, along with his usual sleek, sinuous curves. (Rashid resorted to similar tactics with a self-warming baby bottle

Google Attacks Linked to Chinese Schools With Ties to Government, Search Competitors

The source of the attacks

on Google and other American corporations has been traced to two schools in China, both of which are heavily implied to be covers for the Chinese government and Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and Google's main competitor in that country. If you think that's nuts, keep reading, because it just gets nuttier.

The New York Times is reporting that the attacks, which began in December but were first reported by Google on January 12, have been traced to...

New Penny Designs Make No Cents

The humble penny falls victim to a series of bizarre redesigns.

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Let's be honest: American money isn't pretty. Our bills and coins are jumbles of incomprehensible symbols--every spot of ink has meaning, down to the number of spikes around the treasury seal, but it'd be a stretch to say they all cohere into a worthy whole. Michael Bierut calls our currency "a cake that has been decorated to within an inch of its life." What it lacks in aesthetics, though, U.S. currency makes up for in quirk...

Bobble Aims To Become The Brita of Portable Water Bottles

Designed by Karim Rashid, it has a carbon filter to make tap water taste better, with the goal of encouraging consumers to stop buying bottled water.

Does Karim Rashid's love of brightly colored plastic know no bounds? With his latest product, Bobble, the quirky industrial designer brings yellow, red, and, of course, pink to the staid world of the portable plastic water bottle, along with his usual sleek, sinuous curves. (Rashid resorted to similar tactics with a self-warming baby bottle

CubeTube Generates Power From Overhead Fluorescent Lights Powered by Your Will to Live

Good news for Vitamin D-deprived cube jockeys! Your dreams of sustainably generating your own power without setting foot outside might come true with the CubeTube, an indoor photovoltaic electricity generator that grabs the energy beaming down from the buzzing fluorescent lights above to power computer workstations.

The device easily clips on to cubicle walls, desktops, and windowsills. Its cylindrical shape allows it to use light coming from all directions--not just overhead. Workers can...