Windows 8.1 just got an update
Who Designed the Hamburger Icon?
Posted in: Today's ChiliThe hamburger icon is a classic. Even if you don’t know it by that name, its three black bars are as familiar as your mouse’s cursor—a constant companion on your cyber journey since the day you got your first computer. But who designed this icon?
Texting while driving accounts for more and more accidents every year, but there’s no clear solution in sight (unless you think these new SMS rest stops
In the early days, Twitter was famous for its dead simple design: a box, some text, a button. But over the years, it’s gotten busier with the hashtags and the @ mentions and the retweets. Some might say say too busy. So why not just start over and rebuild this thing from the ground up?
Comparing books to ebooks is like comparing mechanical watches to digital watches, or manual cars to automatic cars. No one doubts the convenience, reach, and flexibility of the ebook format, but it will never convincingly replicate the experience of a paper book—nor does it need to. Ebooks are a fundamentally new medium, stuck in an awkward growing stage. More »
Lately I’ve been thinking about the multitasking experience on Android and I feel like there’s still a lot to improve. I love how the thumbnails come up, but in 4.2.2 they made it so that the current app joined the list of “Recent Apps”. This looks great on phones and small-sized tablets, but it looks really bad on large tablets (ie. Nexus 10) in landscape mode. Here’s how to make it better. More »
The New York Times is previewing a new cleaner website design that will roll out slowly in the coming months. The centerpiece of the redesign is the article view, which as you can see in the slider comparison above is completely different. More »
Facebook showed us its new News Feed yesterday. It’s as pretty as anyone could have hoped, and a wonderful update to the design. But lost in the big images and new feeds was a pretty major change that actually started weeks ago: The first thing you look at on Facebook’s page has moved. More »
Bringing iPhone Safari Up to Speed
Posted in: Today's Chili Safari is technically a platform on its own, separate from the App Store. Until the day that Gatekeeper comes to iOS, it will continue to be the most open way for users to access information on Apple’s mobile devices. But besides iCloud Tabs and Reading List, Mobile Safari has remained basically unchanged since its unveiling, in 2007. More »
UIU Android launcher targets non-techie users with easy cloud management (video)
Posted in: Today's ChiliEmblaze Mobile’s First Else may be no more, but its legacy lives on. During MWC we caught up with the company’s ex-CEO, Amir Kupervas, who started a company called UIU in June 2011 — only a month after his departure and almost a year after the tantalizing First Else got canned. Over at UIU, Kupervas and UX strategist Itay Levin (who also took part in the First Else project) have a more humble ambition: to offer an Android launcher and an accompanying cloud management platform that are simple enough for non-techie users. “In the US, smartphones generate twice as much the amount of calls to the customer centers than the featurephones,” said Kupervas. “There’s a lot of hustle and a lot of confusion on how to work these guys. People are struggling with them, even existing users.”
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile