#HTE

A surprising firsthand experience of Volvo’s new all-electric, fully autonomous concept car

Continue reading…

#HTE

“In our striving for efficiency, have we lost empathy for the traveler?” These words, from Volvo’s launch video for its new 360c fully autonomous concept car, hit home with me. I fly a lot, so I’m fully familiar with efficient but unsympathetic forms of travel, and Volvo’s idea is to help people like me through the design of its future cars. The Volvo 360c is, like most concepts of our time, all-electric, fully autonomous, and covered by a big sweeping glass dome. What distinguishes it, though, is Volvo’s vision of how it fits into the broader scheme of city infrastructure, short-haul flights, working commutes, and environmental concerns.

Volvo’s product strategy chief Marten Levenstam says this car is…

Continue reading…

#HTE

“In our striving for efficiency, have we lost empathy for the traveler?” These words, from Volvo’s launch video for its new 360c fully autonomous concept car, hit home with me. I fly a lot, so I’m fully familiar with efficient but unsympathetic forms of travel, and Volvo’s idea is to help people like me through the design of its future cars. The Volvo 360c is, like most concepts of our time, all-electric, fully autonomous, and covered by a big sweeping glass dome. What distinguishes it, though, is Volvo’s vision of how it fits into the broader scheme of city infrastructure, short-haul flights, working commutes, and environmental concerns.

Volvo’s product strategy chief Marten Levenstam says this car is…

Continue reading…

#HTE

The most interesting prototype at IFA this year was the Nubia Alpha, an Android-based device the company bills as a “wearable smartphone.” The Alpha tries to realize one of the enduring gadget dreams: having a smart device with a display that wraps around the user’s wrist. I checked it out at IFA in Berlin this past week, and, well, it’s still at the rough draft stage of development, but Nubia is confident it’ll have it ready to go on sale in China before the end of this year. If things work out, global distribution might also happen around the same time.

The demo units at IFA were behind glass, and it took a lot of cajoling to convince Nubia to even let me touch one. I was able to lay it on my wrist, but I wasn’t allowed to close it up…

Continue reading…

#HTE

The most interesting prototype at IFA this year was the Nubia Alpha, an Android-based device the company bills as a “wearable smartphone.” The Alpha tries to realize one of the enduring gadget dreams: having a smart device with a display that wraps around the user’s wrist. I checked it out at IFA in Berlin this past week, and, well, it’s still at the rough draft stage of development, but Nubia is confident it’ll have it ready to go on sale in China before the end of this year. If things work out, global distribution might also happen around the same time.

The demo units at IFA were behind glass, and it took a lot of cajoling to convince Nubia to even let me touch one. I was able to lay it on my wrist, but I wasn’t allowed to close it up…

Continue reading…

#HTE

I’m a geek about a whole bunch of things, though coffee isn’t one of them. But, boy, do passions run hot when coffee preparation becomes the subject of a discussion. Take this recent Kickstarter, called The Automatica, as a good example. What I see is a cute gadget with a really appealing promo video. Set to a minimalist soundtrack of guitar strumming and engine rumbling, the video treats us to a view of the Salt Lake City skyline at sunset before moving on to pleasing closeups of bubbles foaming up as the coffee is filtered through the machine. The narration is calming and friendly. I kind of want to hang out with the makers of this gadget, they seem like good, chilled-out people.

Coffee-loving gadget nerds, though, they…

Continue reading…

#HTE

I’m a geek about a whole bunch of things, though coffee isn’t one of them. But, boy, do passions run hot when coffee preparation becomes the subject of a discussion. Take this recent Kickstarter, called The Automatica, as a good example. What I see is a cute gadget with a really appealing promo video. Set to a minimalist soundtrack of guitar strumming and engine rumbling, the video treats us to a view of the Salt Lake City skyline at sunset before moving on to pleasing closeups of bubbles foaming up as the coffee is filtered through the machine. The narration is calming and friendly. I kind of want to hang out with the makers of this gadget, they seem like good, chilled-out people.

Coffee-loving gadget nerds, though, they…

Continue reading…

#HTE

Facebook is redesigning the navigation on its mobile app to prioritize the services you use most frequently.

The navigation bar, which spans the bottom of the screen on the iOS app and the top on Android, previously showed every user in the same country the same five icons. For example, in the US, it was the News Feed, notifications, menu, Watch, and Marketplace. According to CNET, with this update, everyone will still see the News Feed, notification, and menu icons, but the other slots will be replaced with icons for what you use the most, like links to your profile, friend requests, or groups. The app will shoot you an alert when one of these new shortcuts is added.

T…

Continue reading…

#HTE

Facebook is redesigning the navigation on its mobile app to prioritize the services you use most frequently.

The navigation bar, which spans the bottom of the screen on the iOS app and the top on Android, previously showed every user in the same country the same five icons. For example, in the US, it was the News Feed, notifications, menu, Watch, and Marketplace. According to CNET, with this update, everyone will still see the News Feed, notification, and menu icons, but the other slots will be replaced with icons for what you use the most, like links to your profile, friend requests, or groups. The app will shoot you an alert when one of these new shortcuts is added.

T…

Continue reading…

#HTE

Mozilla is redesigning the Firefox logo, with a little help from the rest of us.

This time around, though, the plan isn’t just to create one new icon for the flagship browser, but to design an entire series of icons to fit the brand’s different ventures — from mobile and VR browsers, to screenshot and file sharing tools. Mozilla’s already uploaded some possible takes, and now wants users to comment on its blog for feedback about what the icons should look like.

“As an icon, that fast fox with a flaming tail doesn’t offer enough design tools to represent this entire product family,” Mozilla designers wrote in a blog post. That means looking past recoloring the logo or making the fox sleeker: Mozilla is starting from square one with many…

Continue reading…