The updated user interface will eschew the traditional sidebar for a series of boxes above the map, which will fill the entire screen after the update if the screenshots are to be believed. The interface is called “more immersive,” and suggests that those on mobile devices will find that it works better than the interface that is currently in place. The moved sidebar won’t be the only change users see, however.

According to the preview, the current interface is one that is focused on the navigational components of Maps, such as the sidebars and buttons and sliders. That design theory will change with the update, with the new redesigned interface instead featuring a focus on the map itself with the various elements building on top of it rather than taking up its valuable space.

Along with the design’s change in focus will be some visual changes, which includes updates to the service’s icons, text styles, and the colors of the map itself. When can users expect to see these changes in place? A date isn’t provided, but it is worth mentioning the I/O event is coming up, and we may very well see it rolling out then.

[via Google Operating System]

Over on Dribble.com, Mackey Saturday posted the redesigned Instagram logo late last week, along with a more detailed look at it in long-JPEG format and with a couple paragraph write up. Says the designer, who hails from Denver, he worked alongside Instagram’s team to make the redesign, which anyone who has used the app more than a few times will recognize instantly as being both very similar and uniquely different.

The goal, says Mackey Saturday, was to create a new logo that kept all the things familiar to the mega-popular photo app, but changing it in such a way that it becomes more refined and “durable,” and that likewise took the service’s brand to the next level, making expansion in the future possible. The original logo, according to the designer, was used to heavily inspire the new logo.

Not leaving it at just a few paragraphs, he also attached an image to the post that included several images connected together, including close-ups of the new Instagram logo in various states of creation, as well as a sketchbook with pencil sketches of the letters, and someone – the designer we presume – in front of a wall plastered with logo printouts.

[via Digital Trends]

Pinterest users who were around in its early days will recognize the “new” features that have been added (aka, brought back) in the latest update, including the “See it now” feature that takes a user directly to their pin after pinning it. Another feature the company said users wanted back was “Pinned from”, which showed who a pin was from, making it particularly easy to find others with like-minded tastes. The feature has been brought back.

Simple mentions have been re-introduced in this new update, allowing users to mention friends in a pin description via an “@” tag, which pulls up a list of individuals from which the user can select. Speaking of friends, users can now also see who among their Twitter followers and Facebook friends are using the social network, making it easier to connect and share.

Lest the entire update center around old features, the update also features some improvements, including more notifications thanks to a Recent Activity upgrade. The feature has been moved to the top right corner, and shows notifications for repins, likes, comments, follows, and mentions, as well as access to older notifications. There’s also an improved search that suggests keywords while a query is typed.

[via Pinterest]

According to Gruber, he has received two pieces of informatiom, the most interesting being about the design. Apple engineers who have permission to use the upcoming version of iOS in the public have polarized filters on their devices, which you’ve likely seen in action if you’ve ever used a computer at a public library or Internet cafe. These filters make it virtually impossible to see the display unless you’re looking straight at it.

That’s not all he has to say about the design aspect, however. He says that he has heard the same thing that has been said by Rene Ritchie, who commented in a conversation at Branch: “[Jony] Ive’s work is apparently making many people really happy, but will also apparently make rich-texture-loving designers sad.” Meaning if you’re fond of such design elements, you may end up a tad disappointed.

Speaking of those engineers, there’s reportedly some that have been taken from OS X 10.9 to work on iOS 7 instead, the reason being that it is reportedly behind schedule, and the extra work force is needed to get caught up. Thus, if all pans out to be true, there could possibly be an OS X delay in light of getting the newest iOS out and about.

[via Daring Fireball]

The redesign follows Microsoft’s so-called “content over chrome” optimization method that puts more focus on the functionality aspects of the service, with the service being touted as primarily focusing on appointments and events, the two biggest reasons one would use a calendar service. Adding, editing, and accessing information on the calendar has been expedited with the new design.

Users can now edit and add events via a single-click, applying events to multiple days simply by clicking and dragging them across the dates. Users are also freed from having to open a new page when adding tasks, instead doing it from the main Calendar interface. Dates can also be toggled between by clicking on them. In addition to the functionality changes, Calendar’s implementation across multiple Microsoft services has also been improved.

Publicly available dates and such from other accounts, such as friends’ birthdays on Facebook and LinkedIn, will be added to Calendar automatically when it is synced. Weather for selected locations, holidays, and more are also provided. Public calendars can be subscribed to, and there’s now support for importing calendar .ics files. In addition, Calendar’s privacy settings have also been optimized so that they are simple to change and update.

[via Outlook]

The leak received by Droid Life isn’t a full functioning service, and from what is seen it is not ready for consumers. These things indicate that it could be real, although a Play Store leak isn’t exactly common, making it hard to decide what to think of the matter. If it is real, however, the prospect is exciting, as the user interface shows a complete overhaul.

Colors, fonts – everything is different, offering simplicity and a clean design. Headers are larger, icons are larger, the content is front-and-center, and as Android Community notes, the apps are presented in a manner similar to Google Now cards in the “My Apps” section. Both artwork and magazine covers are larger as well, making them both easier to see and more visually appealing.

Still, there’s no point in getting too excited about the leak yet, since there stands a chance this isn’t the real deal. If it is, Android users are in for a big change, however, and you can check out what some of those changes are over at Droid Life, where they give a run-down of alleged version 4. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

[via Android Community]

The stack of cards wasn’t the only element, of course, but it does provide an interesting visual for what was a fairly elaborate brainstorming process that went on behind the scenes. Facebook’s Jane Justice Leibrock posted a detailed write up about how the design process incorporated user feedback over at Facebook’s User Experience Lab.

According to the piece, the most common feedback Facebook users supplied was, “My feed is cluttered.” Thus the process began of determining what precisely this meant, something that is said to have involved methods from both anthropology and psychology. The meaning of “clutter,” as supplied by users, was deconstructed using the open-ended interview method, which revealed that the complaint of clutter involved posts more than design.

A look at the rote data, however, showed that this was also the content – page posts, songs listened to, games played, etc. – that users interacted with the most. This, then, necessitated a task to offer this content while separating it from the News Feed. This involved the “card sort” method, which was used to determine the splitting up and displaying of various feeds. The participants in the research were given a stack of cards that displayed recent content from their Facebook News Feed. These participants were tasked with sorting the cards, picking out the ones featuring content they were interested in.

These stories were then sorted into different categories based on why the participants liked them: funny, friend update, etc. While part of the results of this included obvious things, such as that Facebook users prefer content from close friends, a couple unexpected discoveries were also made: that people prefer content relevant to their interests, as well as a category for Facebook friends who aren’t close real life friends, but whose statuses they enjoyed seeing.

This information led to the redesign that Facebook users will see in the near future, which will hopefully prove more intuitive and less that what you see on the social network right now. You can get a run down of what to expect from our guide here.

[via Facebook]

With the One Channel design, users can designate a video as a channel trailer that will only be presented to individuals who aren’t subscribers. The trailer is a welcomed feature that allows users to showcase their best work, or to sticky a promotional video that encourages users to subscribe for more. In addition, channel art has been optimized to scale to screens of all sizes, preventing ugly channel designs. Links to both merchandise and social accounts are displayed.

Another welcomed feature is the ability to form playlists of one’s own content and other YouTube content. The playlists are prominently displayed for subscribers to view, providing an opportunity to sort one’s own content into groups, such as “My Best Videos,” and to create collections of relevant, funny, or otherwise enjoyable videos from other users. Ensuring maximum visibility, users are also taken to the complete channel upon clicking on it from the guide, rather than just being presented with the activity feed.

YouTube has provided several already-switched profiles that you can check out to get a feel for the new design, such as MysteryGuitarMan. Switching to the new look is as simple as following this link, then clicking the button asking if you want to switch. Are you using the new design? Let us know what you think in the comments!

[via YouTube]

The Blue Peter gold badge is a pin, or a button, if you like, that’s given by the program to people of particular influence on the design community. As it was given to Ive, so too did he reciprocate with a custom-made large version of the token back to the program. This extra-large Blue Peter badge was made of pure Aluminum – or Aluminium if you’re from that side of the sea.

Apple’s Chief Designer spoke up about how influential the Blue Peter program was on him as a child as well. He made it clear that he was particularly struck by the way the program took everyday objects and turned them into new, more useful inventions each time they appeared. Re-using objects otherwise seen as throwaway was also mentioned as being especially memorable by Ive.

You’ll also notice in the video that the host and Ive are using two iPad minis to work through the segment. It’s with these that they watch video presentations of the designs the children have made and make a point to tap through throughout the program. The whole Ive segment, too, takes place inside Apple’s own campus in Cupertino – fun stuff!

BONUS – extended edition!

The Ender’s Game movie will be released on November 1st, 2013, and all the way up until then we’re expecting tips and leaks like these to be spread across the internet like a fine fan-friendly butter. This is a great way to go about promoting the film especially since it’s the first time fans of the science fiction text will have ever seen an “official” set of graphics for their beloved story – not counting the comics, in this case. Each of these logos is officially licensed by the film studios and production companies involved.

The logos you’re seeing here play important bits of storyline in the book and what we expect the final storyline in the movie to show as well. With Ender starting with an extremely short stint in Rat Army, we’re seeing that and the army he eventually takes control of as well as another he was a part of – Dragon and Salamander! Asp – on the other hand – is included in “the Authorized Ender Companion” by Jake Black – a text you may own.

Have a peek at each of the logos above and below, clicking each of the images in the gallery below to see them full-size. Let us know if you’re pumped up about Ender’s Game and if you’re going to see the film when it’s out later this year – you know good and well that we’ll be covering this movie right through opening weekend!

Note also that the logos were distributed to Ender’s Game fansites as follows: Ender’s Ansible with Rat, Ender’s Game Fan Site with Asp, Ender News with Dragon, and EnderWiggin.net with Salamander. Gotta catch em all! You’ll be able to follow SlashGear’s coverage of Ender’s Game through the future inside our Summit Entertainment tag portal as well as our Entertainment tag portal – be there!

Thanks for the tip, Darian!

The gold Blue Peter badge, as it’s called, is a rarity in the history of the show – so to speak – having only been given out to the most honorable of guests over the program’s many years on the air. Right around 1,000 badges have been given out, according to the BBC, others having been handed to the likes of JK Rowling, Damian Hirst, and The Queen (of England, of course).

UPDATE: The full interview is now available for all to see!

Acting Editor of Blue Peter Ewan Vinnicombe spoke up on the event, saying that Ive “is an inspiration to children around the world.” The award was given on an episode of the show that will be broadcast on CBBC Saturday the 16th of February at 10AM GMT. In the episode, Ive conducts miniature reviews of product designs sent in to the show by Blue Peter audience members. He gives advice to the children who designed said products, and lets them know what they can do to make great products in the future as well.

Also during the show you’ll see Ive being interviewed by presenter Barney Harwood, who has Ive recalling the influence the program had on him when he was as child. Speaking about how “vividly” he remembers watching the show in his early years, Ive speaks about how he enjoyed the way the creators of the show “reused products that you though were no longer useful.” Fun stuff!

BONUS: Having been given a tip that he’d be getting a gold Blue Peter badge before going on the show, Ive came prepared. Having been handed an official badge, Ive gave Barney a giant aluminum (aka aluminium) badge in return – one that took 10 hours to craft!

Be sure to catch the program as you eat your cereal in your footie pajamas in the fabulous England morning and let us know how it goes! For those of you in the USA that’ll be asleep at that point, just bust out your typing fingers and have a search for it – the CBBC will certainly post it up sooner than later. Can’t wait!

This update from Adobe includes several feature updates for Adobe Edge Animate, Adobe Edge Code preview, and Adobe Dreamweaver as well. With Edge Animate you’ve got a whole new set of CSS-based features like filters, gradients, and font support more powerful than ever before. You’ll be able to preview Edge Web Fonts live, work with blur, grayscale, sepia, brightness, invert, hue-rotate, contrast, and saturate – each of these filters that have previously been unavailable in Edge Animate.

Dreamweaver’s update allows it to work better with the Adobe Edge Tools and Services family and allows use of the fluid grid layout – Edge Web Fonts are here, too! Adobe Edge Code’s update allows instant updates with Quick Edit and adds code hinting for CSS properties as well as HTML tags and attributes.

The big news is the availability of Adobe Edge Reflow for Adobe Creative Cloud members though, this service having been introduced a while ago and just now ready for action. With Adobe Edge Reflow you’ll be working with a lovely intuitive resizable design environment with the ability to show you how your designs will look on the web at any size. You’ll be able to instantly design with CSS-code backing, making what Adobe calls “high fidelity web designs” with the applications “native web surface.”

There’s an Edge Inspect extension included with Adobe Edge Reflow that allows you to preview your designs in your browser, and work on your layouts in real-time. CSS is extracted with any code editor you have on hand – Edge Code and Dreamweaver amongst them.

During the Preview period for Adobe Edge Reflow, Adobe is asking that users respond to the many ups and downs of using said service at the official Github for the project, that being https://github.com/edge-reflow/issues. Make sure to use it wisely! And continue down to the timeline below for more insight on Adobe products without a doubt – have fun!

In a guest post on VentureBeat, Reynolds discusses the good times that he’s had at Zynga, and reflects on the past at Big Huge Games, as well as co-founding Firaxis Games alongside Sid Meier. However, while we was grateful for the time spent at these studios, Reynolds says he ready to “shift into a different gear,” and is thinking about starting his own small game studio.

Reynolds says that this would give him the power to do things that he wasn’t able to do at Zynga or other past jobs. He says he misses “getting to write code personally and make fun with [his] own hands.” He even says he misses the days of “day-to-day panics of being somewhere small and new and vulnerable, and the excitement of owning a small company.”

Reynolds notes that he wants to take risks and do stuff that might not be up to snuff for a publicly-traded company like Zynga. Thus, Reynolds says that “starting a little studio with a few wingmen…is likely to be on the menu.” As far as what he plans to do at this studio, should he start it up, he notes that mobile strategy games are a big interest for him.

[via VentureBeat]

Image via Flickr

Regarding the changes to navigation, Pinterest is keeping its description short. The company only says that it’s made navigation more “intuitive” and faster to boot, showing off a half-image of the new interface. We can see a new drop-down menu split into plenty of different categories on the left of the page, so look forward to that once this new design lands later on down the road.

Pins are also getting something of an overhaul in this redesign, with Pinterest making them bigger in general. Users will also see more information related to the pin they’re viewing, as the new site will show related pins as well as additional ones from the same board. In other words, expect to lose track of time while browsing Pinterest more often than you already do.

There’s no word on when these new features will roll out for everyone, but for now, Pinterest is only going to be testing it with a small group of users. If you want to join this elite few, you can submit your information to Pinterest to be considered as a tester. The company seems to be keeping most things under wraps for the time being, so hopefully we hear a bit more about this redesign soon. Keep it here at SlashGear for more.

The man himself, Esslinger, worked with Sony in the mid 1970s with their trinitron and wega ranges, moving up to Apple in the early 1980s. If you’ll remember from earlier this year when many early Apple designs were revealed during their legendary court case with Samsung, the idea that they’d replicate Sony designs was spoken of more than once. As it appears here, Esslinger had a problem with these requests for a Sony look for desktop computers, too. Esslinger stayed with Apple until 1990, where soon after Steve Jobs was cut from Apple, he broke his own contract and followed Jobs to NeXT.

Above you’ll see an early “Apple Snow White 2 macbook” from 1982 – not that every single image in this post comes courtesy of Esslinger and is via Designboom. The first image in this post goes by the name “Apple Snow White 1 Lisa Workstation” and is from 1982 as well – not the converting angle of the display and the lovely integration of the Apple logo rainbow colors in the side of the machine. Below this paragraph you’ll see the Apple “Baby Mac” from 1985 – rather sleek, isn’t it?

Above you’ll see a rather drab (by today’s standards) looking machine tagged with the name “Apple Snow White 1 Sony Style” from 1982. Of this design Esslinger writes, “Concept 1 was defined by ‘what sony would do if it built computers’. I didn’t like this idea, as it could create conflicts with Sony, but Steve insisted. He felt that sony’s simple cool design language should be a good benchmark, and Sony was the current pacesetter in making high-tech consumer products smarter, smaller and more portable.”

Below you’ll find two early masterpieces – one of them a tablet, the other a phone. Imagine that, the earliest iPad and the earliest iPhone, together under one roof. The first goes by the name “Apple Snow White 1 Tablet Mac” and is from 1982, the second is the “Apple Snow White 3 Macphone” from 1984. This was the same year that Apple burst forth with Macintosh and changed their destiny forever – imagine if they’d simply released a phone with a massive display instead?

The book Design Forward is available for sale in physical form right this minute all the way over in certain parts of Europe right this minute for right around 30 Euros. We’re crossing our fingers for the digital edition to make its way to the USA sooner than later – can’t wait! Hit the gallery below to see the cover of the book as well as larger versions of the photos you’re seeing above – hot stuff!

The report from Ubik let Rueters know that their client (Starck) had received only a partial payment for the final product, that being the finished yacht. Of the full 9 million Euro the group was supposed to receive, Ubik says Starck received just 6 million so far. It’s not clear at the moment if future payments were scheduled or if the entire affair was payed in cash: the contract, it seems, was extremely vague.

“The project has been going since 2007 and there had been a lot of detailed talk between Jobs and Starck. … These guys trusted each other, so there wasn’t a very detailed contract.” – Ubik lawyer Roelant Klaassen

At the moment there’s been no word from anyone in the Steve Jobs estate, and the superyacht itself is sitting in a port in Amsterdam. The impound was completed on Wedneday this week and the ship will remain locked up for the foreseeable future. Unless Starck’s camp gets what they believe they’re owed, of course.

For everyone that’s not been watching this superyacht unfold from design to execution, you’ll be fabulously amazed to know that the ship cost more than 100 million Euro to build from top to bottom (see the timeline of Steve Jobs yacht posts below for more details). This ship goes by the name Venus and is extremely minimalistic on the outside – while its insides are stacked to the brim with Apple computers and controls from the future. And you’ll never, ever get to take a ride on it.

According to the announcement, this change started last year with tablets, and was rolled out to smartphones a few weeks back. Now its being applied to the desktop search, providing “more breathing room, and more focus on the answers you’re looking for, whether from web results or from a feature like the Knowledge Graph.”

The navigational tools work the same way they did before, only arguably in an easier-to-utilize fashion. Clicking the “More” listing pulls down the drop-down menu with other Google offerings, such as Recipes, Books, and Places. You can also pull up search refining tools by clicking “Search tools,” allowing you to sift through searches by reading level, to see personal items related to the search term, such as Gmail messages, as well as related searches and other options.

The new layout is currently only available for users in the United States. According to the announcement over on Google’s Inside Search blog, the company plans to bring it to users in other languages and regions “as soon as we can.” Google is encouraging user opinions and feedback on the change over at it’s Google+ page.

[via Google]

Users will be getting a new homepage feed that looks quite similar to Pinterest, allowing them to see images of new items they may be interested in. eBay has also overhauled search results, and when users click on a item, they’ll be taken to a streamlined product page that puts all of the details about the item front and center. The checkout process has also been streamlined, and users will soon have enhanced profiles to take advantage of, which allows them to share their favorite items with other eBay shoppers.

This redesign won’t go live for a few more weeks, but eBay’s new logo is going live on the site today. Also available today is a brand new mobile app called eBay Now (iTunes), which lets users buy products and have them delivered the same day. That’s a big move for eBay, as it positions the auction site to better compete with Amazon. Sadly, eBay Now services are only available in San Francisco at the moment, but eBay says that it will be expanding into other markets shortly.

The times are changing, and eBay is showing us that its ready to change with them. The new eBay looks great, and we’re excited to see eBay Now expand into additional markets after this initial launch in San Francisco. It’s definitely a good time to be an eBay user, and this only seems like the beginning. Stay tuned.

[via eBay]

A couple weeks ago, Apple reported that the scratches that many owners are witnessing are actually from normal use and that owners shouldn’t be worried about it. However, a lot of iPhone users don’t take any kind of damage to their device lightly, and it was even discovered that some iPhone 5s were scratched and chipped right out of the box.

It’s said that Apple is slowing down production of the iPhone 5 in order to fix these issues. Foxconn has begun to enforce stricter inspection and benchmark regulations on the device to hopefully cut down on the number of scratched up units that leave the factory floor, but it’s costing Apple both time and money.

Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s during opening weekend, but the company said that the tally would have been higher if there weren’t supply constraints. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets have cut their projected sales estimates from 57 million to 49 million, which isn’t a huge loss, but the dearth of supplies and stricter regulations inevitably slow down production. Both Apple and Foxconn have declined to comment on the situation.

[via Bloomberg]

We’ve seen reports that some users have received brand new iPhone 5 smartphones with small scratches, scuffs, and dents on the aluminum right out of the box. That is a big problem especially if I just shelled out full retail cost. Not only that but the aluminum that covers the rear of the new iDevice appears to be extremely easy to scratch. While it makes drop protection solid, daily use you could see that iPhone 5 scratched up within a matter of days. Over at 9to5Mac they reached out to Apple regarding this new design and didn’t get a very good answer.

According to 9to5Mac, one user sent out an email to Apple’s Senior VP of Marketing Phil Schiller and the answer they got in return wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Instead of possibly suggesting a case, or addressing the situation he simply stated what you see above, and quoted below.

Any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal.”

Now obviously his answer is correct, as we’ve all probably scratched something aluminum. That isn’t the point though. The point is this is a growing concern among many users, as the device seems to scratch rather easy compared to previous models. The anonymous email user also asked for suggestions or plans to fix the issue, and that was pretty much ignored.

While we don’t particularly like Phil’s reply, at least he’s up and answering customers emails at 6:00 AM over in California. This poses a question. Would you rather have the iPhone 4/4S glass back that is durable yet shatters with drops? Or the iPhone 5 aluminum design that is much improved from drop protection, but might get scratched extremely quick?

Obviously, one of the biggest issue is that many people pledge money thinking they’re buying a product, when really they’re helping fund the development of that product, and that development process may end in failure. To counteract this notion that backers are buying a product, Kickstarter now requires that all projects have a “Risks and Challenges” page. It’s there that project creators have to talk about the risks associated with their project, letting potential backers better determine if the project in question will ever see the light of day.

The next new rules only apply to hardware and product design projects, but they’re big rules nonetheless. Staring immediately, product simulations are forbidden, meaning that creators can no long show video of what their product could potentially do. Instead, Kickstarter says that products “can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development.” Creators can no longer show renders of their product too, and have to show images of the current prototype instead. That one is pretty big, considering that all of the images we saw of OUYA during its Kickstarter campaign were renders.

Finally, hardware and product design Kickstarters can no longer offer multiple quantities of a reward. Kickstarter has put this rule in place to combat the implication that products seen on the site are “shrink-wrapped and ready to ship.” All of these rules have gone into effect already, so Kickstarter obviously wanted to get them on the books as fast as possible. Have a look at our timeline below for more posts on Kickstarter!

“HTC designed the Windows Phone 8X and 8S to blend the virtual and the physical utilizing a three dimensional, unibody-style based on the Windows Phone Live Tiles” the company said today. “These smartphones are perfectly sculpted with a dramatic taper making them feel thin in your hand.”

Inside, HTC’s engineers stacked up the various circuit boards and components in a multi-layered pyramid. It means there’s no camera bump around the lens on the back, for a start, while the Gorilla glass curves neatly into the plastic casing.

Iconic design behind the Windows Phone 8X and 8S by HTC:

We’ve got more on both phones in our 8X hands-on and our 8S hands-on, and buyers will be able to check the two handsets out for themselves when they hit shelves across the US, Europe and Asia in November.

HTC 8X and 8S hands-on:

[youtube mHM-5ptKLvU

The WSJ write-up pegs Whitman with a desire to have the design of HP’s machines rival that of Apple‘s. “I don’t think we kept up with the innovation,” she said. “The whole market has moved to something that is more beautiful.” That part is definitely true – lately we’ve seen the market leaning toward some incredibly sleek-looking Ultrabooks, which go for excellent design and speed over raw power.

When Whitman took over in September 2011, HP’s laptops were all designed by different teams, meaning that there wasn’t any one common theme that immediately told consumers “this is an HP machine.” In the time since, HP has doubled the size of its PC team, and appointed HP PC executive Stacy Wolff to devise a look and feel that all HP machines could share. We’ve seen the fruits of that labor with HP’s latest line up of machines, which includes the Envy X2, the Spectre XT, and the Envy One. All of them are sleek looking products, and it’s easy to see that HP was taking some design cues from Apple when it sat down at the drawing board.

“Apple taught us that design really matters,” Whitman said, continuing by claiming that the company has “made a lot of progress” with its latest machines. Though HP has undeniably come up with a common look for its new products, it will undoubtedly have some stiff competition from the other Windows 8 manufacturers out there, who are all touting some impressive laptops and all-in-one PCs of their own. Have a look at our story timeline below for more on HP’s recent exploits.

At the start of the video, VP of Hardware R&D Byeongkuk Lee says “We understand that the emotional satisfaction of the user is much more important than trying to emphasize the technology.” That much is definitely true – while most readers of SlashGear probably consider hardware to be more important, many mainstream consumers are on the lookout for a phone with a design that speaks to them, with hardware second on the list of smartphone priorities. That being the case, Samsung naturally put a lot of work into making the phone look sleek, detailing the involved process of just getting the battery case to look good.

The user interface is where Samsung tried to replicate nature. There are plenty of design choices based around the idea of water, but this video gives us a closer look at the process that went into getting those features on the Galaxy S III. For instance, those water droplets you hear when using the dialer aren’t actually water drops at all – the sound you’re hearing is actually orange juice drops falling into a small glass, because Samsung discovered that “liquids with a higher viscosity” were better for recording and simulating the sound of a water drop.

There are more examples of how Samsung attempted the connect the Galaxy S III to nature, but we’ll let you watch the video posted above to find out the rest. It’s a fascinating video, as it provides an all-too-rare look at the work that goes into designing the devices we use every single day. After you’re done watching the video, be sure to have a look at our Samsung Galaxy S III review to find out what we think of the device. Enjoy!

With the new logo, Microsoft takes their lovely equilateral square grid and flattens it out, letting you know that they’re not messing around with frills here in 2012. The logo that came before this one had a faux-3D effect to it with the same flag, extra shadows, and a logotype addition below – and sometimes beside – with italics and a chip taken out of the mark. It was a very well-traveled mess.

Back when it was introduced, of course, it was a masterpiece. With a bit of help from Neatorama you’ll see that the first Micro-Soft logo had them working in the Atari age with lots and lots of lines. Another iteration that existed for just about 12 years had the company keeping with the strange love of shutter-lines in the center O and cutting out the junk in the rest of the now-lovely simple letters.

Then came the italics and the chip – the chip was added by designer Scott Baker who has been reported quite a few times as having added it so it would look like Pac-man. We’ve since evolved way, way past simple silly cuts such as that. Microsoft’s new design will look like a “I could have done that with Photoshop” sort of situation, but it’s no joke.

Machines are getting more and more complex as they’re getting smaller, more portable, and more powerful. We do not see the complexities, we only see the simplicity and the effortless implementation that manufacturers and developers across the board are pushing as their representation to the world. We have as few steps as we’ve ever had now between our wallet and the final product.

Watch the company evolve now perfectly in-sync with their renewed brand power. We’re glad to see this legend in the software business keep up with the times behind the scenes as well as on the surface.

Samsung’s lawyers then attempted to demonstrate that the iPhone’s design wasn’t original, showing various pieces of prior art, including several patents and LG’s Prada phone, all of which came before the release of the iPhone. After that, Samsung moved on to the design of the iPad, playing a video to the jury of Roger Fidler, who created several prototypes for tablets. Although they were mockups and not working devices, some features were reminiscent of the iPad, including a large touchscreen, a rectangular shape with rounded corners, and an all black bezel.

The electronics manufacturer then addressed Apple’s design patents, saying that they should be invalidated due to prior art, and that the elements that have been patented covered functions rather than ornamental design. Samsung’s lawyers argued that two iPhone design patents were invalid, saying that a Japanese patent “renders both of these designs obvious.” Samsung looks to be sticking to its original argument that Apple is essentially trying to patent a rectangular display with rounded corners.

Apple’s counterargument to the claims boiled down to the fact that there are alternative designs that Samsung could have used for its phones. Apple cited one of Sony’s tablets, saying that while it has a rectangular display and rounded corners, it doesn’t look like the iPad nor does it infringe on Apple’s design patents. Apple also introduced the design of the Nokia Lumia 800 and GzOne phone from Casio, again suggesting that there were alternative designs that Samsung could have pursued.

Creator information, locations and categories are now easier to spot, with short descriptions for projects added to pages. Launch dates and funding deadline dates were added to the shortened descriptions and the entire left column has been widened to accommodate larger videos. Other design enhancements include a centered title and creator name, along with some subtle changes to fonts and spacing.

The changes don’t really come as much of a surprise considering that so many popular projects have been reaching goals faster than ever before, including the Ouya game console, which just blew past $5 million this week. The changes are live and can be viewed now across all Kickstarter project pages.

[via Kickstarter]

We’ve featured Kim’s design work before, including his Butterfly smartphone concept all the way back in 2007, and his widely-shared HTC 1 Android phone concept of 2010. “The Next Microsoft” is arguably his best work yet, however, ditching even the 2012 logo refresh for something we could easily see appearing on the front of packaging and in adverts.

Under Kim’s strategy, Windows Phone would be moved in under Surface branding, with a choice of Surface Tablet or Surface Phone. Windows RT would be renamed “Metro” to better differentiate it from Windows 8 Pro, branded simply “Windows”, and the Metro UI itself would be cleaned up with some improved color schemes and more intuitive interfaces for things like Wallet.

“I decided that Microsoft needs to be a brand that represents the future” Kim says of the project. “Be slightly aggressive unlike Apple and Google’s friendly marketing. Promise to deliver the future today. Be almost science fiction.”

Microsoft has shown a new, rather more dynamic side with Surface, even if it has potentially damaged its relationships with OEMs. Now, it could do a lot worse than give Kim a call and chat future brand strategy.

[via Kote Pacheco]

In fact, Pininfarina was the first to open a wind tunnel in Italy for use in coachwork design, the facility beginning testing back in 1972. He went on to run the family car design firm, lending his pen not only to Ferrari but to Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Mitsubishi, among others.

Along the way, as well as production models, Pininfarina took on special commissions for expensive one-off cars, concepts and prototypes. The 2006 Ferrari P4/5, for instance, rebodied an already outlandish Enzo with a custom shell, and cost around $4m in total to complete. In 2008, meanwhile, the company revealed an electric car, the Pininfarina B0 concept, which managed a 0-62mph dash in just over 6s.

Cars, though, were only some of the vehicles to benefit from Pininfarina’s hand. The company worked on several high-speed train designs, as well as domestic appliances and even the 2006 Winter Olympics torch.

There have also been some tweaks made to tabs and the general user interface. Instead of the lone Back button on the current version of Firefox, you’ll now find both Forward and Back. The physical size of tabs has also been reduced, allowing for more to be crammed onto the bar before you run out of real estate.

Start Page and Bookmarks can still be found on the right hand side of the browser, but are now part of the background instead of being boxed into traditional buttons. It’s definitely a more appealing and cleaner interface than previous versions of the browser, although Chrome’s influence seems clear.

If you want to test out the nightly for yourself, Caschys Blog has the portable version available for download. As is often the case, there will probably still be lingering bugs, so maybe hold off on using it as your daily browser.

[Thanks, Sascha!]

The printer is designed for rapid prototyping solutions for designers and engineers who need to print real representations of virtual objects they design. The company says the new 3-D printer slips into its existing line starting at $19,900. These things aren’t something you’ll buy to put on your desk to play with.

Among the seven materials of the printer can use is a clear transparent material called Objet VeroClear. The high-temperature material is heat resistant and intended for static functional testing. Another material is a propylene-like white material for simulated snap together parts called Objet durusWhite. There also for other rigid, opaque materials that come in black, white, gray, and blue colors. The new printer has a build tray measuring 300 x 200 x 150 mm allow for various shapes and sizes of parts to be printed.

To be fair, Adobe’s security bulletin doesn’t say that the security flaw will never be patched. But it does recommend ”best security practices” for those who can’t upgrade, or don’t wish to. That rather implies that the company doesn’t intend to fix the problem any time soon, if ever. Adobe classifies the security flaw as Critical, or in their words, “A vulnerability, which, if exploited would allow malicious native-code to execute, potentially without a user being aware.”

Most paid software is expected to be supported well after the replacement is available, for stability and security if not for actual features. And with software as expensive as Photoshop (about $700 street for the standard version, $200 for an upgrade) sometimes even professional photographers and graphic designers wait through several versions before upgrading. The sky-high price of Photoshop is probably a large part of the reason that CS5 owners are already up in arms. Adobe has made no statement about the security patch thus far.

[via Slashdot]

Apple hasn’t specified the categories yet for the awards, giving only three main criteria. First is that the app must be well-designed, meaning that it is inviting, engaging, easy to use, intuitive, and compelling. The second is that the app must be state of the art, taking advantage of the latest hardware and OS releases to offer rich functionality, high performance, and extensive system integration. Third is that the app should be innovative.

The app must be available on the App Store or the Mac App Store by May 1, 2012 to qualify. Apps don’t necessarily have to be nominated in order to win an Apple Design Award and neither does the number of nominations decide the winner. The winning apps will be announced at this year’s WWDC 2012, which is taking place in June. For more details, visit the Apple Design Awards page.

[via Ars Technica]

Power wheelchairs are common today and they move forward and backwards typically using a joystick for control, but can’t move diagonally. Current modern chairs need to spin in order to allow the person using the chair to go left or right. Masaharu Komori, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Kyoto University, designed a new wheelchair that has rollers within traditional wheels. When the chair user wants to go forward or backwards, the larger wheels spin like a traditional wheelchair for motivation.

However, when the user wants to go diagonally, 32 smaller rollers inside those traditional larger wheels activate and allow the user to move left or right without needing the space to spin the chair. The user can also move diagonally and in that instance the larger wheels and the rollers work in conjunction. The prototype vehicle cost over $36,000 to produce. Professor Komori plans to work on the device and has an eventual target price of $12,000 putting it roughly on par with modern power wheelchairs.

[via Physorg]

How big, exactly? 45-feet long with a 24-foot wingspan, and the whole thing weighing around 800 pounds. The team at the Pima Air & Space Museum were inspired to build the plane after a 12-year old Tuscon boy won a local paper airplane competition, with his creation reaching the greatest distance before plummeting to the ground.

Naturally, it took more than a simple flick of the wrist to launch this particular plane. It was moved into the Arizona desert, then hoisted into the air by a helicopter before being released. The plane managed to reach an altitude of 2,703 feet, and top speed hit 98 miles per hour.

Want to see the behemoth take flight? Check out the video below.

[via Ubergizmo]

The DeltaWing is a joint project undertaken by Ben Bowlby, a former Lola design chief, and Chip Ganassi Racing. Apparently, the team working on the car pitched it as the future of IndyCar, but the racing organization didn’t feel the same way calling the car too radical. Since that initial pitch, the project has been joined by Nissan and Michelin, with Nissan providing the engine, and Michelin providing the rubber. The car weighs a scant 1300 pounds with a full fuel tank fuel and driver. It’s also said to have a 50% reduction in aerodynamic drag and is expected to compete well against more powerful competition in endurance racing.

The engine inside the funky looking car is a Nissan unit that comes out of the Juke DIG-T from Japan. In the Nissan production vehicle, the turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine has scant 180 hp. However, for DeltaWing duty, that engine is tweaked to produce 300 hp. The engine is mounted behind the driver and powers the rear wheels. You may be wondering about the narrower front end than seems stable for racing car. The designers say that with the driver and the engine further back in the chassis, the front wheels can be thin since they carry much less weight. Check out the video to see some major arse hauling of the vehicle in testing.

[via Wired]

“We struggle with the right words to describe the design process at Apple  but it is very much about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers. If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. To solve and address those requires a remarkable focus. There’s a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you don’t see those in combination very often” Jonathan Ive, senior vice-president of industrial design, Apple

Ive joined Apple’s design team in the early nineties, ascending to his current role in 1997. Along the way he became a personal friend of founder Steve Jobs, who made sure that, even after his death, the central role of design would remain present at Apple. Ive is said to have “more operation power” than anyone else at the company, bar CEO Tim Cook.

In return, Ive has helped create some of the cleanest and most iconic consumer electronics of recent years, distilling Apple’s overall ethos into a cohesive range of products. The designer argues that “fanatical attention to detail and coming across a problem and being determined to solve it is critically important.”

It’s that combination which Ive – with no small amount of bias, of course – accuses rivals of missing out on. ”Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals” Ive explains. “A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.”

Somehow, the car-hating designer managed to get this EV, called the V+ Volteis, on display at the Geneva Auto Show, and it will sell for about $40,000. It makes the Toyota Prius look badass by comparison. The seats are nothing but a metal frame wrapped in that plastic strap stuff from 80s lawn chairs. You get seatbelts, but no air bag.

There is no trunk, but you do get a wicker basket up front, which looks plenty big to carry your shame. The roof is made from some sort fabric. Apparently, the car will be sold through 15 different stores in France and eventually sold in other major cities around the world. The designer hopes that people needing green transportation for vacation homes will buy and hotels on islands might use the vehicles as runabouts for guests. Maybe that’s why it reminds me of Tatu’s car from fantasy Island. De Lame! De Lame!

[via WSJ]

The University of Utah has created a new prototype video game controller, which is similar to the traditional game pad that PS3 or Xbox gamers are used to playing with. The difference is that the university researchers have placed a small red knob in the center of the traditional thumb sticks that are able to pull against the user offering force feedback sensations on the game pad. Traditionally game pads only offer vibrating feedback.

The researchers tested multiple layouts for the controller and found gamers could easily interpret the direction of the small tugs provided by the little red eraser-sized tactors in the center of the normal thumb sticks. According to the designers, a gamer using this controller for shooter game would be able to feel the thumb sticks push on one side and pull on the other as their game character crawls on the ground. That would be very interesting. It would certainly add a new dimension to gaming with a game pad. The controller designers hope to bring the technology to commercial game pads in the future.

[via Physorg]

The Intuos5 features a slim-profile in a professional matte black and soft-touch finish that’s both modern and durable. It has ergonomics in mind with an ambidextrous design that makes it easily adjustable for right- or left-hand users. At the core of Wacom’s graphics tablet is its Intuos5 Grip Pen, which registers 2,048 levels of pen pressure and up to 60 degrees of tilt. This precision and sensitivity makes it feel the same as working with traditional tools such as markers, pens, and brushes, giving users more creative effects when used with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and other similar graphics software.

The addition of multi-touch gestures support helps to further streamline workflows by making it easy to zoom, scroll, pan, and rotate content, all directly on the tablet instead of switching back and forth from a mouse or other input device. The Intuos 5 can recognize standard Windows and Mac gestures as well as custom gestures created through Wacom’s software.

There are also customizable ExpressKeys on the Intuos5 along with one Touch Ring and a four-function toggle that allow users to create custom shortcut keys for commonly used functions to reduce the need to go back to the keyboard, improving productivity. And with the purchase of a separate Wireless Accessory kit, which includes a rechargeable battery, RF module, and USB receiver, the Intuos5 can be converted to a wireless tablet for even more comfort and convenience.

Wacom’s Intuos 5 graphics tablets are available now and come in three sizes with the Small priced at $229.95, Medium at $349.95, and the Large at $469.95. A cheaper pen-only version of the Small tablet will also be offered, but pricing on that has not been confirmed yet.