Design news, culture, events and resources. A daily must-read for designers world wide.
Nendo Founder Oki Sato's Comic Strip is Hilarious
11 February 2026 @ 4:00 pm
Core77 Design Awards 2026: Montana Cherney on Design's Ripple Effects
11 February 2026 @ 3:19 pm
An Attractive, Functional Furniture Piece for Humans and Cats
11 February 2026 @ 3:00 pm
However, if you'd prefer to avoid the problem altogether, you could draw your cat away from the sofa with a scratching post. To prevent living room eyesores, cat furniture company Mau offers this Kona Scratcher, a bent plywood sidetable that conceals a scratching surface:A Smart Production Hack for Welding a Pegged Grid
11 February 2026 @ 2:00 pm
Because the company knows a thing or two about welding, they've come up with a production trick to cut the manufacturing time of these trolleys. Before welding the tubular pegs to the steel plate, they first run those parts through a laser cutter:Using Fusion? Apply for the 2026 Autodesk Fusion Prize
10 February 2026 @ 4:56 pm
Ronan Bouroullec's Cast Iron Trivet Necklace
10 February 2026 @ 4:00 pm
It's made of cast iron, but possesses a form that would have been unimaginable in cast iron's heyday, containing twenty spheres around its perimeter; the object's name is perhaps a wink at pearl necklaces.
Footwear Startup Aims to Produce Injury-Reducing Sneakers
10 February 2026 @ 3:00 pm
"Basketball shoes in the 90s were these big honking foam blocks," says company co-founder Ryan McDermott. If tripped up, the "high stack height…turned into a lever that would just twist your ankle over."Working with two industry veterans, designer Michael DiTullo and developer Drew Linth, the company came up with a "zero drop" design that keeps your heel at the same height off of the flRemedial Design: Apple TV's "I Couldn't Hear the Dialogue" Feature
10 February 2026 @ 2:00 pm
A Clever, Low-Tech, No-Robots Design for a Passive Tennis Partner
9 February 2026 @ 4:00 pm
Unlike the ball-volleying robots now on the market, Dimas' low-tech invention requires no electricity and no tennis court:Dimas sells the CourtSense for $295 Good Low-Tech Design: This Vet Care Meds Chart
9 February 2026 @ 3:00 pm
This time, however, this new vet handed me this simple chart:
This is a quick guide for how to reflash Fyme OS on Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition. Flyme is based on Android with some rede
Because I've received more than 50 emails about this, I though I'd make a post about it, to clear things up for everybody.
While Oracle Java 6 and 7 are not supported for quite a while, they were still available for download on Oracle's website until recently.
However, the binaries were removed about 10 days ago (?), so the Oracle Java (JDK) 6 and 7 installers ava
Ubuntu 17.04 has been released.
The new version brings updated applications and various under-the-hood improvements, along with bug fixes. As expected, Compiz and Unity have onl
MicroVision, a solid-state sensor technology company located in Redmond, Wash., says it has designed a solid-state automotive lidar sensor intended to reach production pricing below US $200. That’s less than half of typical prices now, and it’s not even the full extent of the company’s ambition. The company says its longer-term goal is $100 per unit. MicroVision’s claim, which, if realized, would place lidar within reach of
IEEE TryEngineering is celebrating 20 years of empowering educators with resources that introduce engineering to students at an early age. Launched in 2006 as a collaboration between IEEE, IBM, and the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), TryEngineering began with a clear goal: Make engineering accessible, understandable, and engaging for students and the teachers who support them.What started as an idea within IEEE
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNAEnjoy today’s videos! No system is immune to failure. The compromise between reducing failures and improving adaptability is a recurring problem in robotics.
MicroLEDs, with pixels just micrometers across, have long been a byword in the display world. Now, microLED-makers have begun shrinking their creations into the uncharted nano realm. In January, a startup named Polar Light Technologies unveiled prototype blue LEDs less than 500 nanometers across. This raises a tempting question: How far can LEDs shrink?We know the answer is, at least, considerably smaller. In the past year, two different research groups have demonstrated LED pixels at sizes of 100 nm or less.These are some of the smallest LE
As new consumer hardware and software capabilities have bumped up against medicine over the last few years, consumers and manufacturers alike have struggled with identifying the line between “wellness” products such as earbuds that can also amplify and clarify surrounding speakers’ voices and regulated medical devices such as conventional hearing aids. On January 6, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance documents clarifying how it interprets existing law for the review of wearable and AI-assisted devices. The first document, for general wellness, specifies that the FD
During times of political turmoil, history often gets rewritten, erased, or lost. That is what happened to the legacy of Jan Czochralski, a Polish chemist whose contributions to semiconductor manufacturing were expunged after World War II.In 1916 he invented a method for growing single crystals of semiconductors, metals, and synthetic gemstones. The process, now known as the Czochralski method, allows scientists to have more control over a semiconductor’s quality.After
This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company Parsity and delivered to your inbox for free!We’d like to introduce Brian Jenney, a senior software engineer and owner of Parsity, an online education platform that helps people break into AI and modern software roles through hands-on training. Brian will be sharing his advice on engineering careers with you in the comin
For a different perspective on AI companions, see our Q&A with Jaime Banks: How Do You Define an AI Companion?Novel technology is often a double-edged sword. New capabilities come with new risks, and artificial intelligence is certainly no exception.AI used for human companionship, for instance, promises an ever-present digital friend in an increasingly lonely world. Chatbots dedicated to providing social support have grown to host millions of users, and they’re now being embodied in physical companions. Researchers are just beginning to understand the nature of these interactions, but one essential question has already emerged: Do A
For a different perspective on AI companions, see our Q&A with Brad Knox: How Can AI Companions Be Helpful, not Harmful?AI models intended to provide companionship for humans are on the rise. People are already frequently developing relationships with chatbots, seeking not just a personal assistant but a source of emotional support.In response, apps dedicated to providing companionship (such as Character.ai or Replika) have recently grown to host millions of users. Some companies are now putting AI into
If it feels these days as if everything in technology is about AI, that’s because it is. And nowhere is that more true than in the market for computer memory. Demand, and profitability, for the type of DRAM used to feed GPUs and other accelerators in AI data centers is so huge that it’s diverting away supply of memory for other uses and causing prices to skyrocket. According to Counterpoint Research, DRAM prices have risen 80-90 precent so far this quarter.The largest AI hardware companies say they have secured their chips out as far as 2028, but that leaves everybody else—makers of PCs, consumer gizmos, and everything else that needs to temporaril