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Those of us anticipating MacBook Pro upgrades have had precious little to get excited about lately, but rumors of a redesign continue unabated, and the most interesting among them is the idea of a new OLED touch bar at the top of the keyboard. We saw it conceptualized by a fan this week, and it looked both fun and functional. As it turns out, though, that concept isn’t all that new, since another Mac fan had expressed it in a video almost two years ago.

Łukasz Majer got in touch with me this week to show me a video he’d sent to Apple back in September of 2014, showing off the exact same touch-sensitive display above the keyboard that is now making the rumor rounds. He’s uploaded a fresh version of it, omitting the personal details he’d…

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Martin Hajek makes a habit of creating super realistic 3D renders of rumored gadgets or cool concepts, and his latest is quite a beauty. Recreating the OLED touch bar that has been reported as part of an upcoming MacBook Pro overhaul, Hajek imagines a laptop that inches an extra bit closer to Apple’s mobile iOS devices.

The touch bar in Hajek’s mockup can take over the computer’s status bar duties, or serve as a download progress indicator, a media control, or even a cool Siri visualizer. And if the old top row of shortcuts and F keys is more to your liking, it can obviously still do that too. None of this is yet real, but looking at the versatility and simplicity of the idea, there’s little reason for why Apple (or any of its PC-making…

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Lenovo’s Tech World 2016 event is going on right now, where the company’s new flagship Moto Z smartphone is expected to be announced. But before it gets to its concrete product launches, Lenovo took a moment to tease a pair of tantalizing prototypes: a phone that bends around your wrist and a tablet that folds in half. The phone is very much in keeping with all the other bendable “wrist phone” concepts we’ve seen, snapping around the wrist like a weirdly enormous and awkward bracelet. The cool thing is that the screen, at least, does work, judging from Lenovo’s quick demo.

The accompanying tablet can best be described as a reverse Courier. Rather than folding inward like a book, it folds out, giving the user two displays when folded:…

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Material Design is supposed to be the visual template that unifies Google’s products, but it’s taken a while to reach every part of the tech company’s kingdom — especially the larger products. We saw a Material Design overhaul of YouTube last month, and it seems the company is also testing the updated look on its desktop search. Engadget first spotted the change, and various users on Twitter and Reddit have also reported glimpsing the provisional update.

It’s not a massive difference compared to the current look of Google’s desktop searches, and the main visual change is new segmented search results placed in white cards on a grey background. There are a few other minor tweaks, including changing the settings icon from a cog to three…

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Last year, Adidas unveiled a prototype 3D-printed sneaker made from recycled plastic ocean waste. The design was a collaboration with Parley for the Oceans, an organization that raises awareness about the environmental destruction of the oceans. Now, Adidas and Parley have launched a competition to give 50 fans the chance to win a pair of the limited edition shoes. The design of the sneakers, says Adidas, the sole doesn’t appear to be 3D-printed any more, and while the original prototypes were too stiff to run in, the new shoes are supposed to be as functional as any other sold by the company.

the recycled fishing nets had to be washed in a laundromart

The sneakers’ uppers are made entirely from recycled ocean waste, including PET from…

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After months of hard (?) work, the non-profit organization that oversees emoji has finalized the list of new smiley faces, animals, foods, and symbols that’ll soon make it onto our phones. There are 72 new emoji in total, including seven faces, seven people, seven gestures, 12 sports symbols and athletes, 13 animals, 18 food items, and one wilted rose.

Though the emoji were finalized today, they likely won’t begin rolling out until later this year or even sometime next year. This is just the technical approval — companies like Apple and Google now have to build the emoji into their operating systems and roll those updates out to their phones and tablets. That usually takes a little bit longer. For instance, Google is still in the…

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On July 14th, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made history. It was the first vehicle ever to visit and study Pluto up close — and nearly a year later, the mission is still providing amazing details about the dwarf planet. During its flyby, the probe came within 7,750 miles of Pluto’s surface, gathering data about the tiny world and snapping detailed images along the way. And the spacecraft has been sending back all that data piece by piece over the past year, slowly crafting an intricate portrait of Pluto as a unique and active world.

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“I was one of those kids that would wake up every Saturday morning early to watch old Looney Tunes cartoons on TV,” says artist Nicole Gustafsson. “I would just stare at the backgrounds while the episode played.”

Inspired by the likes of Tom and Jerry, Wile E. Coyote, and other works by famed animator Chuck Jones, Gustafsson started drawing from a very early age. “I’ve been creating art since I was a kid and never really stopped,” she says. Encouraged by her parents, Gustafsson went on to become a full-time illustrator, creating magical, colorful pieces for galleries like Mondo and Gallery 1988. Her later inspirations include the Japanese woodblock print style known as ukiyo-e — “It was an instant love,” she says of the distinct style —…

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Are you intrigued by the idea of using Darth Vader’s melted helmet as an extremely imposing paperweight? Is your barren mantle crying out for a lightsaber hilt centerpiece? Do you have several thousand dollars lying around for discretionary purchases in the near future? If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you should check out Disney and Lucasfilm's new line of Star Wars collectibles. Branded the “Ultimate Studio Edition,” these replicas of props from The Force Awakens — helmets from Vader, Kylo Ren, and Poe Dameron, and weaponry from the movie’s heroes — are built within the same shop that produced the actual movie’s equipment.

They’re working from the original designs

They’re all stunning and hyper-detailed, and they…

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Even by its own high standards, Asus outdid expectations with its Computex presser today. Not only did it announce a completely ridiculous home assistant robot and a thinner-than-a-MacBook laptop, but it also laid claim to having the first aluminum unibody phone free of unsightly antenna lines. Study the square-jawed ZenFone 3 Deluxe as closely as you wish; you won’t find its matte rear disturbed by the practicalities of obtaining a wireless signal. Asus has somehow worked around the iPhone’s most glaring aesthetic shortcoming, beating competitors like HTC, Huawei, and Meizu in producing a “full-metal” phone with completely discreet antennas. LG might dispute that claim with its G5 and its disguised antennas, but the G5 has a detachable…

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