Category: Design

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Force touch is the new multi-touch

When I first saw the video demonstrating Force Touch on one of Huawei’s new phones a few weeks ago, I found the feature pretty much useless. You have this amazing new sensor, and a scale application is the best you can do with it? Supposedly, the Chinese manufacturer has beaten Apple at introducing this new feature, but the fact is, Apple has done something completely different. The Force Touch 3D Touch - iOS integration has the potential to change the way we interact with our phones, in a similar way than multi-touch gestures did years ago.

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written 23:12 CET on chronolog
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Cool Slovenian brands, part 3: The rise of the Slovenian hardware startup

I've been writing about Slovenian startups for years now. In a post I published in the beginning of 2012, I've highlighted a few Slovenian companies there were able to gain global traction, and as you can see, all of them are focused on software. About a year later, I wrote on the topic again, and this time, the spotlight was on a new generation of companies, which were fueled by Kickstarter and the crowdfunding movement. These businesses were able to find their market with niche products that were interesting to the public mostly because of their innovative design. This year, I'll focus on the third generation of Slovenian technology startups, represented by companies that were able establish something that actually seems so logical today: the rise of the Slovenian hardware startup.

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written 9:55 CET on chronolog
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The end of recession or the coolest Slovenian billboard of 2014?

A few days ago, a billboard captured my attention. Actually, we're talking about many billboards, since this metallurgy company called Bučar put them all over Ljubljana. The weird thing is, they are using them to recruit new employees. Wait a minute, there's something wrong with this picture! While everybody is aggressively trying to sell us stuff we don't really need, these guys are actually looking for new workers with billboards? In a country with an unemployment rate of 13%? Is this thing for real?

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written 8:41 CET on chronolog
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Tablets were invented for recycling old PC games

Remember when we were playing really great games on our first home computers in the 80s and 90s? Good times. My gaming journey started with the Spectrum 48K (snowman FTW!), and slowly progressed to where we are now. Today's games truly are a piece of art, I have to give full credit to ventures such as Angry Birds and GTAs, but back then, everything was so much simpler, as if different rules applied. Games were there purely for the gameplay, and were awesome even if they came in 4-bit colors.

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written 22:15 CET on chronolog
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Apple is just messing with our minds

iOS 7 is all over the place. Some love the new look, others think it's childish and confusing. Some even say the flat look symbolizes Apple's capitulation, since they're abandoning the skeuomorphic paradigm they have been using for ages. The new icons are obviously the most controversial part of the released software, and they seem - yes - wrong and unfinished. But what if the unpolished icons are just a marketing trick, a temporary solution presented on purpose to annoy people, especially the designer community? Rumors have it, they were designed by their marketing team anyways.

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written 7:50 CET on chronolog
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Cool Slovenian brands, part 2: The stars of Kickstarter

Kickstarter got my attention back in 2010, when Diaspora successfully raised $50k. This is the amount they required to develop an open source alternative to Facebook, where people would have full control over their posts and multimedia. It was a good idea, but too complex to easily implement, and the guys never managed to make it fully work. But there are other projects who did manage go big, making Kickstarter and crowd-founding an everyday thing. Today, numerous ideas, products, and even movies are financed this way, while statistics tell an amazing story: in 2012, Kickstarter pledges topped $300 million.

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written 23:25 CET on chronolog
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Reinventing the blog, part 3: WTF did Pitchfork just do?

You know that feeling when you do a lot of research, and after you publish your results, you notice something else that should be included as well? Happens to me all the time. Immediately after creating the list of the most outstanding blogs, I noticed a few others that should be added to the directory. Shit happens. I also tried to identify the funky new UI elements these blogs use, which would help me understand the user experience requirements driving modern publishing trends. Felt pretty good about the conclusions, but only to find myself out of luck again. Turns out I missed something very important, something I noticed when I saw what Pitchfork does with their cover articles.

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written 21:24 CET on chronolog
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