Author: Connor Livingston

Google is trying to limit the damage done from the news that their former CEO and current Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt after they submitted a plan to the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell off around 42% of his stake in the search giant. At today’s current price of $785.37 per share, the 3.2 million shares he plans on selling over the next year would be worth around $2.5 billion. According to Reuters: The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt “individual asset diversification and liquidity,” allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact….

The term “solar sailing” was first coined by Arthur C. Clarke in the 1964 book “Sunjammer” but the roots of the concept can be traced back centuries. “Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes.” ~ Johannes Kepler, 17th century astronomer It’s the type of vision that spawns realities unimaginable to most, but it’s a vision that has come true in recent years and that will receive its biggest test as early as 2014, according to NASA. The sail utilizes the “currents” of the Sun’s energy to propel it through space much the…

Yahoo knew that when they brought Marissa Mayer over from Google to run their struggling company, that they would be getting a connection with their long-time adversary that could be good and bad. The good side of the relationship is starting to show as Yahoo announced a non-exclusive partnership to run Google ads on the Yahoo network. Mayer was the leader of the Adwords product for Google before being moved to a local-mobile over two years ago. She is considered one of the most influential people at Google in the development of the ad platform that accounts for over 90% of their revenue. By getting…

When Antrepo was looking at vintage 30 mm cameras from Japan’s dominant gadget days of the 70s and 80s, they noticed a common theme in the logos. They all seemed to use the same style for the typography – a line-based format with extended outline fonts. In a modern twist, they took 20 major brands of today and applied the same logo format. The results were nothing short of vintage epic. Check them out below or visit their Flickr page:  …

The idea of “going green” is to be friendlier to the environment, to utilize renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, and the control man-made emissions that prevent the harmful spread of waste into the environment. A group of scientists at Panasonic are developing artificial photosynthesis technology that can help towards all three green goals. The results are literally green. The concept is not a new one. Scientists have long wanted to reproduce the technique that plants use to survive and thrive, taking elements found on the earth and allowing them to react to sunlight in a way that duplicates…

Most people have heard of Iron Chef, the show that pits two master chefs and their teams against each other in a battle of culinary creativity. The get a secret ingredient at the beginning of the show and have one hour to serve up a sudden masterpiece to the judges. The Flickr version of this is Iron Builder which takes the rules of Iron Chef and spins them on their heads to fit in with LEGO creations. According to the Flickr page, here are the rules: The basic rules of the contest require that the two builder’s receive a batch of the ‘secret ingredient’ part. In this case, the Bionicle Tridax Pod Half. The…

Everyone who has seen the 1986 scifi classic Aliens likely remembers Ripley calling out to the alien queen, saying, “Get away from her you b!@%#.” Her confidence wasn’t based upon her own strengths – the alien is well suited to take on Vin Diesel, let alone a 120lb actress. She had a power loader, and soon we may have one, too. Activelink, a Panasonic subsidiary venture, is working on a “power amplification robot” that receives input from the operator through force sensors. If the operator lifts his or her leg, the sensors in the leg register the motion and duplicate it with the strength of motor-driven…

The digital devices and printing equipment of today are becoming masterful at presenting the world in full color. Retina displays make the colors pop. HD is being replaced with Super-HD (which will be replaced by Mega-HD, which will be replaced by Ultra-HD, which will…) and the magnificent presentations possible in the world of design have never been better. Even before the rise of graphic perfection, colors have played a major role in determining the way that designs are interpreted. In web design, for example, colors can transmit in a split second the mood and intention of a website before…

For RIM, you are what you eat. The latest twist for tumbling company Research in Motion, they’ve chosen to change their name and branding to reflect who they really are. Instead of being the once-proud RIM brand, they will be known simply as “BlackBerry” going forward. This is a good move. It focuses all attention on the one thing that has a chance of keeping everyone in the company employed: a successful BlackBerry 10 launch. This is their last chance. If they cannot recapture some of the market that they’ve been hemorrhaging for a while, particularly in the business sector, than they will not be…

The thinking that video games are just for kids has been long dispelled. Today, men and women of all ages are playing. Even the video game makers are catering their games to adults more than kids, knowing that it’s often easier to get someone to fork over $70 for a game if they’re the ones that are going to end up playing it. There has always been a line drawn for the elderly. You don’t see too many people cashing in their social security checks to grab the latest edition of Call of Duty, but it might just be a matter of exposure. A YouTube channel has been created called GrandpaPlaysGames in which the 84-year…