#HTE

Can’t Unsee is a web-based game that presents two choices of iOS interface designs, and asks the user a simple question: Which one is more correct? There are three rounds that ramp up in difficulty, asking you to pick between two mock-ups presented side by side that start out with design choices that seem obviously wrong, but then escalate to images that are nearly indistinguishable. Created by UX designer Alex Kotliarskyi, it’s a game of “spot the differences,” but only one of the choices is the right one.

Of course, what makes something good is subjective, but most of the answers are based on universally accepted design traits like even spacing between text blocks and consistent capitalization. Even for non-designers like me, the…

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If you’ve ever wanted to wear the ‘90s on your feet without having to resort to moon boots, the newest Jordan Why Not Zer0.2s might be your best (and safest) bet. The neon yellow and green colorway of the sneakers, which come from Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, is an ode to the Super Soaker water guns you briefly played with in the ‘90s before they inevitably started leaking from a hole in the cheap plastic.

As pointed out by The Source, the shoes are made to look like the classic Super Soaker 50 in its iconic packaging. They come in a purple cardboard box that echoes the original tagline, replacing “The most powerful watergun ever!” with “The most powerful point guard ever!” The shoes even come with white zip ties,…

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#HTE

If you’ve ever wanted to wear the ‘90s on your feet without having to resort to moon boots, the newest Jordan Why Not Zer0.2s might be your best (and safest) bet. The neon yellow and green colorway of the sneakers, which come from Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, is an ode to the Super Soaker water guns you briefly played with in the ‘90s before they inevitably started leaking from a hole in the cheap plastic.

As pointed out by The Source, the shoes are made to look like the classic Super Soaker 50 in its iconic packaging. They come in a purple cardboard box that echoes the original tagline, replacing “The most powerful watergun ever!” with “The most powerful point guard ever!” The shoes even come with white zip ties,…

Continue reading…

#HTE

Puma has announced its latest take on self-lacing shoes just a few weeks after Nike unveiled one of its own self-lacing models. The sneakers, called “Fi” for “Fit Intelligence,” are training shoes that can adapt to a wearer’s foot with the swipe of a module on top of the shoe’s tongue. A micromotor pulls a pair of blue cables that run through the sneaker, and tightness can be adjusted through a smartphone app or an Apple Watch.

The shoes are the successor to Puma’s first wirelessly connected self-lacing sneakers from 2016, the AutoDisc. They can be charged via a Qi wireless charging pad, and they last around five days. Like Nike’s self-lacing shoes, the Fi don’t have any tracking capabilities to do things like log steps or measure…

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Artists are supposed to be among the least likely to lose their jobs to automation, but what happens when AI-enabled features start painting, editing, and doing other parts of their jobs for them? AI tools are already starting to automate what used to be time-consuming manual processes — but the results may be good for artists’ creativity, rather than potential job killers.

Companies that make industry-standard creative tools like Adobe and Celsys have been adding AI features to their digital art software in recent years in the hopes that it’ll speed up workflows by eliminating drudge work, and give artists more time to experiment. From machine learning tools that help find specific video frames faster, to features that color in entire…

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#HTE

Artists are supposed to be among the least likely to lose their jobs to automation, but what happens when AI-enabled features start painting, editing, and doing other parts of their jobs for them? AI tools are already starting to automate what used to be time-consuming manual processes — but the results may be good for artists’ creativity, rather than potential job killers.

Companies that make industry-standard creative tools like Adobe and Celsys have been adding AI features to their digital art software in recent years in the hopes that it’ll speed up workflows by eliminating drudge work, and give artists more time to experiment. From machine learning tools that help find specific video frames faster, to features that color in entire…

Continue reading…

#HTE

In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly look at what some of those buttons and switches are like on devices old and new, and aims to appreciate how we interact with our devices on a physical, tactile level.

As a way to control video games, the touchpad on the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller is a failure.

Sony has long used the PlayStation controller as a place to innovate. Some of those ideas stuck, like rumble and dual analog sticks. Others, like the PS3’s disastrous “Sixaxis” motion controls, were bigger failures, used by launch titles and then quickly abandoned.

And while many of the additions Sony made with the…

Continue reading…

#HTE

In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly look at what some of those buttons and switches are like on devices old and new, and aims to appreciate how we interact with our devices on a physical, tactile level.

As a way to control video games, the touchpad on the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller is a failure.

Sony has long used the PlayStation controller as a place to innovate. Some of those ideas stuck, like rumble and dual analog sticks. Others, like the PS3’s disastrous “Sixaxis” motion controls, were bigger failures, used by launch titles and then quickly abandoned.

And while many of the additions Sony made with the…

Continue reading…

#HTE

Razer is making a pink laptop. Okay, technically, Razer is making a limited edition Razer Blade Stealth Quartz laptop, which happens to be pink. It’s on sale just in time for Valentine’s Day, and, in the words of Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, it will “steal hearts everywhere.” No matter what color you call it, it’s a big step forward for Razer, chromatically speaking.

This isn’t the first time Razer has made pink gear — the company released four Quartz products last year — but this year’s lineup is far more extensive. There’s a Basilisk mouse, Huntsman keyboard, Kraken headset, Seiren X microphone, and more that are joining the pink-hued lineup.

Razer isn’t…

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