Items tagged with Design
When people think about Unreal Engine, they probably picture some of the industry's hottest game titles that have been built around it. If you need a quick reminder, that list includes a couple of notable series: Gears of War, Batman: Arkham, Mass Effect, BioShock, Ark: Survival Evolved, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six series, not to mention Unreal Tournament - to name just a few. Regardless, what you might not know is that Unreal Engine can be used for much more than games, and that's a message that Epic is hoping to get out there. The company's major target right now is with architecture, because its engine is perfectly suited for that kind of use - especially...
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Unless you happen to hail from north of the border or otherwise follow the digital design industry, you probably have never heard of Teehan+Lax, one of Toronto's most successful digital design agencies. And it's a name you may soon forget, though three of its top partners are headed to Facebook in what's being described as a talent acquisition, not a takeover. That means Facebook has hired the three partners in question -- Jon Lax, Geoff Teehan, and David Gillis -- as opposed to buying out the company, which will reportedly shut its doors. Some other members of the senior designers at the firm have also joined the Facebook team, though the majority of employees will soon be looking for new work.A...
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People have long accused competitive notebook manufacturers for copying Apple's MacBook Air design in some way or another, oftentimes shamelessly so. HP's Envy line looks entirely too much like a MacBook Pro, for example. And with the swarm of Ultrabooks taking over, well, let's just say there's some design influence going on there, arguably. Now, a newly granted patent could put Apple back into the legal spotlight, as if its ongoing fights with Motorola and Samsung aren't galvanizing enough. Just this week, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted a superbly broad design patent to Apple, and the topic looks to be the MacBook Air's "wedge shape" form factor. Apple has received patents before...
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When your average technology company buys another, smaller technology company, it doesn't always make the news. Or if it does, it's just a blip on the entire tech news radar. But when Apple, Microsoft or Google buys a company, big or small, everyone takes a minute to evaluate the situation and give their take on things. That is what's happening this week after the world found a nugget of information tucked away within Apple's recent 8-K filing with the SEC. Liquidmetal is a small company that makes a tough, unique metal alloy that can be used in a variety of products, including personal consumer electronics. In years past, it was actually used in a few SanDisk products (amongst others). The metal...
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Art Lebedev. Ever heard of him, or his studio? No? That's a shame. Art's studio is one of the most impressive around, cranking out some of the most unique pieces of art/consumer electronics that the world has ever seen. Generally, the company comes up with more concepts than they could ever make into a reality, but some of their keyboards actually do hit the production line. A few years ago, the Optimus Maximus set the bar for what a sophisticated keyboard could be, offering up OLED keys with customizable graphics/macros and an insane $1000+ price tag. Needless to say, not too many were sold, but a new version is finally creeping onto the scene for those into buying the highest-end keyboards...
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PCs continue to get more powerful, and mobile smartphones continue to gain functionality that could have never been imagined just a few years ago. But little attention in the mainstream is paid to how we control all the gizmos that we encounter in our lives. The mouse and keyboard combo has been the go-to tandem for years now, and the touchpad has been another stereotypical choice for controlling a cursor when space came at a premium. Brain-control interfaces have been reserved for universities and labs, while anything more elaborate than a mere multi-touch display is seen as too wild for Joe Six Pack. Hopefully, the tide is turning. Over the past one or two years, we have seen engineers at TED...
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Anyone that considers themselves a sports fan will recognize that the MLB playoffs are in full swing, and we're guessing that the timing here is more than coincidental. Shortly after Dell rolled out a fleet of notebooks with 26 different design options, the company has now issued a slate of laptops with 30 Major League Baseball team logo options. Yup--you can snag an MLB notebook just in time to watch your favorite team get eliminated from World Series contention. Or win it, if you're lucky.Either way, the MLB logo notebooks include every single team in the major, and of course they're being offered through Dell's Design Studio. There's no mention of what these special edition machines will cost,...
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Dell and OPI Partner to Deliver a New Polished Laptop Collection Deal Adds 26 Exclusive Color Choices for Dell Inspiron Mini, Inspiron and Studio laptops with New OPI Partnership, Clever Names and Colorful Lids Deliver New Style to the PC, OPI Nail Polish Colors Now Exclusively Available on Dell Laptops Round Rock, Texas - 10 / 7 / 2009 - With colors like “I’m Not Really a Waitress,” “Big Apple Red,” “Strawberry Margarita,” “Rosy Future” and “Kyoto Pearl,” nail polish can say a lot about personal style. Now, those stylish colors and more will be available exclusively on Dell consumer laptops through a partnership with renowned nail lacquer experts OPI. The color palette is Dell’s most popular...
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We have no issues with companies setting high goals, but this one's amongst the tallest of tall orders that we've seen. Currently, Apple is atop its game. Never before has the company been so iconic and influential in society, and it's pretty much a given that Apple's media players are the ones to beat. Heck, even its smartphone is giving rivals from RIM, HTC and Palm a run for their money. That said, we still feel Asus' ambitions to "out-Apple Apple" aren't totally far-fetched. Just a few years ago, Asus was a name known only by PC enthusiasts. Mainstream consumers pointed their notebook purchases at Dell and HP, while Asus sat in the back corner struggling to be taken seriously. Now, it's a...
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Enjoy Extreme Cooling and 109% Performance with ASUS Designed Graphics CardsASUS Launches Self-designed Graphics Cards with Dark Knight Fansink and Luxurious Components Taipei, Taiwan, ASUS - In order to cater to users who require excellent graphical performance boosts and exceptional cooling from their graphic cards, ASUS, world-leading producer of top quality graphic solutions, has today introduced a range of self-designed version graphics cards comprising the latest EAH4870 DK and EN9800GTX+ DK Series. These ASUS designed graphics cards will come equipped with the Dark Knight Fansink that delivers extreme cooling and low noise-levels—greatly enhancing gaming enjoyment. The inclusion of...
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There's something about the machine. Some folks have a passion for things that fly, while others, an affinity for things that float. However, nearly everyone, young, old, male, female, can appreciate a seriously stylish ride. It's probably somewhere within those four wheels, that freedom speaks. Perhaps your inner child, in adolescent transition from being house-bound and ever-reliant on your parents, yearns for the excitement that only a new automobile can bring. From Little Red Corvette, to Mustang Sally, Little Deuce Coupe, Low Rider and Bitchin' Camaro, over the years folks have sung the praises of the automobile and there is little question, its appeal seems...
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VIA Announces Major Mini-Note Design Win for China Tsinghua TongFang - Taipei, Taiwan, 2 September 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the S1 imini Mini-Note Series from Tsinghua TongFang, Co. Ltd., a leading PC OEM based in Beijing. Easy to carry and use, the S1 imini has a maximum power consumption of just 15W, and its distinctive, lightweight design makes it perfect for today's digital lifestyle.Powered by the 1.6GHz VIA C7-M processor combined with the VIA VX700 chipset, and sporting a bright 10.2" screen, the S1 imini provides all the functionality of a standard notebook plus an array of special features, such as...
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According to retailer reports, an almost certain iPod line revamp is coming in September. That seems pretty likely, as Apple seems to favor September for iPod launches. At the same time, reports of actual iPod nano details have arisen. Mid-week reports arose of retailers such as Target showing current models of iPods as discontinued when scanned through their PDAs. Finally Lehman Brothers analyst Ben Reitzes restated his claim that the iPod Touch needs a repositioning (it clearly does, with the new subsidized iPhone 3G pricing): "We continue to believe Apple will need to reposition the iPod touch line in conjunction with its anticipated new product announcement in early to mid-September now that...
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Gadi Singer, Vice President of Intel’s Mobility Group, and Doug Davis, Vice President of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, held a conference call today to discuss a brand new product line from Intel targeted at security, storage, communications, and industrial applications, the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family. Although the Intel EP80579 branding will be new to most of you, the underlying technology is comprised of products that have a well established history at Intel. In fact, this line of products is based on the Pentium M processor core, as it has been in development for quite some time now. The Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family, however, is more than just a new...
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Back in February of this year, NVIDIA announced their APX 2500 application processor. In the official announcement, NVIDIA described the product as a "breakthrough applications processor that enables intuitive 3D user interfaces and engaging high-definition video on connected Windows Mobile phones." -- a tall order to be sure. At the time, we got a chance to play with the APX 2500 development platform and saw the unit's UI first hand. We even saw Quake III running on the device, which brought back memories of the thousands of timedemo runs we've endured over the years, while producing numerous, CPU, GPU, and motherboard related articles. Although NVIDIA didn't...
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The UMPC market is hot right now, thanks to innovations from numerous companies including Intel, VIA, Asus, HP, and many others. VIA in particular has been focused on the low power, ultra mobile segment, as is evidenced by the company's current C7M and upcoming Isaiah processors, and their NanoBook UMD reference design. And today, VIA is announcing a new addition to their portfolio of UMPC reference designs, dubbed the OpenBook. The VIA OpenBook is a 240mm(W) x 175mm(D) x 36.2mm(H) mini-note style UMPC that weighs in at a svelte 2.2lbs (1kg). The unit offers up to 3 hours of battery life through the use of a 4-cell 2600mA lithium-ion battery, and it sports an 8.9” (1024 x 600)...
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It's true. There is at least one feature in Windows Vista that was implemented on time, to spec, and fully functional when Vista was initially released: User Account Control (UAC).In a Thursday presentation at RSA 2008 in San Francisco, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft who was part of the team that developed UAC, admitted that Microsoft's strategy with UAC was to irritate users and ISVs in order to get them to change their behavior."The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I'm serious," said Cross. Well, we have to admit, Microsoft succeeded. Of course, as Microsoft said, the idea was to get users to change their behavior. For many, what this...
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Only two years ago Apple unveiled their new lineup of Intel-powered laptops, but for the most part the biggest changes were internal. The new laptops bore a strong exterior resemblance to their G4-powered predecessors, but all of that could be nearly at an end. Rumor has it that the next updates to Apple’s portables are going to see some major styling changes."Of the two, the 13-inch consumer MacBooks will undergo the most significant metamorphosis, shedding their plastic enclosures for ones constructed from more eco-friendly materials such as aircraft-grade aluminum and stainless steel, people familiar with the matter say.The move, which makes good on a promise by company chief executive Steve...
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Intel Endorses Industry Specification to Simplify Blade Server Design SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 30, 2007 – Intel Corporation joined more than 40 server technology providers today in support of the new Server Systems Infrastructure (SSI) industry specification for modular server platforms. The Modular Server Specifications simplify and lower the cost of product development by providing design guidance that enables server builders to develop compliant and interoperable building blocks at the blade, chassis and manageability software level. The Modular...
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VIA to Define Mobility 2.0 with Revolutionary New VIA NanoBook UMD Reference Design Provides rich computing, Internet, and multimedia experience in a light, ultra portable notebook delivering up to five hours of battery life Taipei, Taiwan, 05 June 2007 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and device platform solutions, will unveil the new VIA NanoBook UMD (Ultra Mobile Device) Reference Design at VTF2007 on 6 June 2007 in Taipei. Designed to meet the needs of today's Mobility 2.0 lifestyle, the VIA NanoBook packs the performance, connectivity and functionality of a notebook PC into a sleek and light...
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Technology Review has a fascinating analysis of the institutional attitude at Apple that generates products that win awards for design and become industry icons. It seems to begin and end with Steve Jobs' absolute commitment to sleek design and limited, intuitive functionality. One direct result of that sharpened focus is Apple's unique ability to create simple products. Though the idea of a simple high-tech device seems counterintuitive (why not offer more functionality if you can?), it's worked for Apple. "The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics," says Norman, "is keeping features out." Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and...
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Intel Puts Vote To The People In Computer Design Challenge PC Design People's Choice Awards Runs Parallel to $1 Million Industry Competition for Stylish Computers Built with Intel Core 2 Duo Processors SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 19, 2007 - From today through April 19, people can visit www.intelchallenge.com and vote for their favorite concept PC design. Voters get to choose from designs submitted by companies competing for $1 million in the industry Intel Core Processor Challenge. A group of computer and design experts will award the winners in April, but consumers can now pick their favorite designs in a separate online People's Choice Award contest that also features a random $100 certificate...
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