David Lidsky's Blog, page 4887

The Future of Electric Cars, Summed Up in 10 Minutes

Treehugger points us to this fantastic video from Peter Sinclair that explains the history, challenges, and potential future of plug-in electric cars--all in 10 minutes. If you're a renewable energy or EV buff, the video won't tell you anything new, but it's a great intro to show anyone who wants to know how EVs and smart grids can successfully work in tandem. Sinclair has an optimistic take on our potential future, explaining at the end of the video that "if we make the right decisions, we...

Pogoplug: A Better Way to Connect Your Hard Drive to the Internet Cloud

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Photograph by Luke Perkins/Big Perm Studios

Finally, it's easy to connect your hard drive to the Internet cloud and do something fun, sexy, and extremely useful with it.

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The hard drive just got a lot more interesting. Cloud Engines' Pogoplug ($129) adds connectivity to transform any drive into a platform for multimedia Web sharing. And unlike previous attempts at the networked hard drive, Pogoplug makes it easy. "This thing was designed so it just works," says CEO Dan Putterman. Log in to your...

Back to the Future: The Interaction10 Conference Goes Old-School

[image error]Matt Cottam's "Heirloom Electronics"

This past weekend's sold-out Interaction10 conference was attended by an international community of experts in web, software, mobile device and service design. But rather than an emphasis on technology and interface design techniques, the zeitgeist was decidedly low-tech, with diverse speakers discussing topics including storytelling, drawing by hand and meaning in the context of design.

For a conference (thankfully) without a specified theme, there was an...

Outsourcing World Summit

Outsourcing means jobs go overseas, right? Not always. At this
Orlando summit, Monty Hamilton, CEO of Atlanta-based Rural Sourcing,
will explain how U.S. firms can save by moving work to the South. Rural
Sourcing has centers in Arkansas and North Carolina handling IT for
firms such as GlaxoSmithKline and Reynolds. It charges $50 an hour for
programming work -- only $15 more than a typical outfit in India.
"There are no language barriers," Hamilton says, "and we're not 11 time
zones away, so...

FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference

NASA reported last fall that the inadequately funded U.S.
space-flight program was on an "unsustainable trajectory." Perhaps
commercial space travel will pick up the slack. Many regulatory issues
remain unresolved -- passenger safety and traffic control are on the
agenda at this Arlington, Virginia, meeting -- but Richard Branson and
Elon Musk have invested in the sector, and civilians may soon be able
to jet away for the weekend: Galactic Suite claims its Earth-orbiting
"hotel" is on...

Hints for Better Living From Your Office Supplies (NOT Clippy!)

Who knew that paper clips and staples could teach such smart life lessons? Everyday objects you might find at your desk are the stars in Hints for Better Living, a short film by Los Angeles-based designer Mike Afsa, who also does work for companies like Chiat\Day and Quiksilver.

This is the second film by Afsa (see the first one here), who had a habit of playing with office supplies at his desk. He realized that the tools he used for graphic design could be used to spread a positive...

Skyonic Wants to Turn Factory Spew Into Baking Soda

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Once carbon dioxide emissions are removed from power and industrial plants, where should they go? Some people think they should be stuffed underground, others think they can turn them into plastic, and now a startup called Skyonic wants to turn the greenhouse gases into baking soda. CO2-based deodorant, here we come.

Skyonic recently received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for its SkyMine process, which removes SOX, NO2, mercury, and other heavy metals from industrial...

The Ford Transit Connect: NYC Taxi Cab of the Future?

The auto industry is fixated on Toyota's recall woes, but Ford snuck in this week with some interesting news of its own: the release of the compressed natural gas-powered Transit Connect. It might just be the NYC taxi cab of the future.

The vehicle, released this week along with an all-electric version of the car, looks like a standard Transit Connect--except with three more inches of leg room, an information and entertainment system in the back for passengers, and a fare-tracking system...

IDEA 2010: Women Rule

An unusually diverse group of men and women will judge this year's IDEA Awards, as the organization seeks to retool its mission. Not too late to enter: Deadline has been extended to Feb. 15.

A panel of 10 men and eight women has been chosen as the jury for the 2010 IDEA Awards, says John Barratt, president and CEO of Teague, and IDSA 2010 Jury Chair. Drawing from 38 countries, the IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) program, sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of...

Google Unveils Buzz, a Social Media App for Gmail (Facebook Status: Concerned)

Google, like someone arriving late to a party already drunk and boisterous but with a lot of party favors, is trying to grab some of that Web2.0 social glimmer by polishing up Gmail with Google Buzz. The app, which is integrated into Gmail, includes the best features of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other well-known social media offerings in a way that only Google could pull off. Buzz began rolling out to Gmail inboxes just minutes after a presentation at Google's headquarters today.

Buzz...