Claesson Koivisto Rune are architects of everything from prefabs to lamps. Can they solve a huge problem in Africa?
Read the rest of The Best Green Designs from ICFF 2013 Day Two
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Read the rest of The Best Green Designs from ICFF 2013 Day One!
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Post tags: "green furniture", design show, eco furniture, energy efficient lighting, green design, Green Design Events, green interiors, green lighting, green products, ICFF, icff 2013, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, new york design week, New York Design Week 2013, nydw, Recycled Materials, sustainable design, Sustainable Interiors
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When it was announced last fall that Newsweek, after nearly 80 years as a weekly news magazine, would ditch print and go all digital, it seemed to many like an ill omen--the first step toward an inevitable demise, sort of like when a network unceremoniously boots a faltering TV show to a Saturday night time slot. And indeed, the prospects for Newsweek's survival as a subscriber-supported, tablet-first magazine looked grim; consider the fate of News Corp’s much ballyhooed iPad-only mag The Daily, which was a complete and utter dud despite considerable resources and ringing endorsements from Apple itself.
Thankfully, that isn’t quite the path Newsweek is headed down today. Its new lease on life doesn’t just come in the form of a tablet app but a website, too, built with the help of Huge, the digital agency whose successes include the beloved HBO GO app and Google Think Insights. What they’ve managed to cook up for Newsweek is both compelling and, in terms of web publications, simply a little bit different from much else out there. The new Newsweek is a handsome digital experience that taps into the social and multimedia opportunities offered by the web, sure, but it’s also the rare website that shuns the Internet’s breakneck news cycle and sticks to the magazine’s original raison d’etre as a curated collection of relevant stories. And it’s going to do it at the same pace as its pulp predecessor: once a week, every week.
To readers who’ve grown accustomed to a constant flow of new stories from their favorite pubs--even the ones with staid print origins, like the New Yorker and the Atlantic--Newsweek's model of putting out new content every Wednesday, but only every Wednesday, might seem deliriously out of touch. But from the start, Newsweek and Huge were set on doing something different. And the throwback publishing schedule is just a part of that plan.
For the last few years, Newsweek's presence on the web has more or less been an unglamorous existence as a sub-section of The Daily Beast, the popular news site that merged with Newsweek in 2010. "It hasn’t really been able to breathe on its own," says Eric Moore, managing director at Huge NY. The new site gives it some room to breathe, certainly. But for Baba Shetty, Newsweek's CEO, the redesign was also a chance to do an entirely new type of web publication--something more like a magazine, really, than a traditional news site.
That meant staying true to Newsweek's original mission: giving readers a curated selection of stories from the week. In a digital media landscape dominated by speed and volume, Shetty hoped to preserve the idea of the "issue," he says, "and the coherence that brings to the reading experience."
"I think there’s actually a beautiful restraint with what Newsweek is," he explains. "We felt there was still a place in the media landscape for taking a step back, reflecting, and framing the week…this idea that there’s been a set of editorial decisions about what the most important things are to focus on."
But Shetty thought there was another way Newsweek could stand out from the pack, in addition to editorial outlook. The real opportunity, he thought, was in user experience.
"Most of professional media on the web has been crafted from a couple of conventions that work for the business but aren’t particularly good for the end user," he says. Here he’s talking about the irritating, pageview-grabbing tactics like splitting long articles up into a dozen smaller chunks, hiding visual content behind endless, slow-moving slideshows, and throwing any and all news against your screen in the hope that some of it will stick.
What it all amounted to, Shetty says, was "a tremendous white space in the market for an iconic media property that devotes itself to user-first publishing."
One way the new Newsweek, which launched last week in beta form, can be seen as a user-first product is simply in how nice it looks. The site is a highly visual affair, built for engagement and enjoyment, not pure news-dumping efficiency. Upon arrival, readers are greeted with a cover story, complete with Newsweek word mark, that stretches across the entire width of their screen. The rest of the week’s stories pour forth below, though they’re arranged by importance, not by chronology. As Megan Man, the Associate Creative Director at Huge who led the project, explains, "We definitely didn’t want to make another daily news website."
The site was designed to showcase Newsweek's long form content, a format that’s "not typically done well digitally," Man says. The story pages themselves are clean and visual-heavy, like the homepage, with full-width banners up top and dynamic "image windows" interspersed throughout. The text runs in a clean column on the left-center of the screen, rendered in a generous 21-point font. Ample images interject from the right side of the screen, breaking up the lengthy blocks of text but never distracting you from it. That, Man says, was particularly important.
"We’re telling a story with this page, and that’s not just through the words," she explains. "But the supporting content, and the images that help draw your eye down the page and keep you engaged, shouldn’t actually be interrupting what you’re there to do in the first place. Which is reading the article. Readability was always first in our minds."
Other clever details can be found throughout. There are some that draw from Newsweek's print past, like a table of contents that can be summoned from any page on the site. Features that are commonplace on today’s news sites, like social-media sharing tools, are still deployed in thoughtful new ways. Instead of just dropping the stock-sharing widgets on every story page, for example, Huge created a gorgeous full-screen pop-up that gives users massive, click-friendly buttons for sharing articles. The way these buttons are presented--not as third-party doodads but as part and parcel of the Newsweek product itself--are just the type of considered details that lend the overall experience a cohesive, magazine-style vibe.
The result of all that care is a series of long-form pieces that are bold and beautiful--similar to the types of immersive, digital-first experiences we’ve been seeing more and more of lately, like the New York Times' celebrated digital opus "Snow Fall," published last December. That article, an incredible account of a fatal avalanche at Tunnel Creek in Washington, was a stunning marriage of first-rate reporting and bespoke, multimedia-heavy presentation.
But Huge wasn’t just tasked with creating a one-off digital extravaganza. It had to come up with a design that would work week after week. And as remarkable as "Snow Fall" was, Man points out, it took 15 designers to complete. "We just don’t think that’s a sustainable model," she says.
What they did instead was create a template that can work every week, regardless of what the lead story is about, how long it is, or what kind of multimedia material comes along with it. "We wanted to make sure this was something that could be maintained without too much editorial effort," Man says, a directive that became the "highest priority" as they fleshed out the design.
That, of course, meant that some ideas had to be left on the cutting room floor. "There were lots of features we came up with," Moore, the Managing Director, notes. "We tried to select the best that also were scalable to use on a weekly basis." But they hope the final product is one that will prove both flexible and simple--a template that doesn’t actually look like a template, from the reader’s perspective. Essentially, the aim was to deliver some of the visual dazzle and polish of "Snow Fall" without relying on a team of designers to custom-tailor the product every week.
BIG BEAUTIFUL ADS, USED SPARINGLY
But a scalable, user-first experience is only part of the equation. Web publishing is linked inextricably with advertising, and Shetty thinks the redesign has a chance to push the envelope there, too.
All the content will be freely available to start, though eventually the plan is to introduce a pay wall and a encourage subscription for frequent readers. In the meantime, though, Shetty thinks the site’s approach to on-screen ads could break new ground. Instead of a standard display ad model, Newsweek's pursuing a sponsorship system, where a limited number of brands will get prominent placement on the site.
The ad units, which will debut next month, will be "big and beautiful and highly impactful," Shetty says, but "used sparingly." Individual stories will have no more than one unit; the home page will typically show two. More importantly, Shetty says they’ll be "in complete harmony with the rest of the design of the product." Essentially, the approach to ads is the same the redesign takes to the social sharing tools: they’re not foreign material to be awkwardly shoehorned in, but rather part of the product itself. "It’s not going to be the sea of rectangles you typically see," Shetty says. "It’s all part of one piece of thinking. If we had a conventional business model, we’d have to have a conventional site design."
Of course, ads are ads, and they’ll still ultimately be a distraction. But if Newsweek is going to survive, they’ll be a necessary one. On today’s fast-flowing, source-saturated web, it’s going to be hard to operate purely, or even partly, on a subscription-based model, even with big, pretty pictures, deft curation, and a user-friendly reading experience.
But whatever its own fate, Newsweek's redesign does give an enticing glimpse of what web publishing could look like going forward. It’s a bet that some readers won’t be satisfied by quick hits and listicles, and that a weekly dose of thoughtful editorial signal can find a foothold amidst a web full of noise. Is that naive? Maybe. But it’s certainly readable.
Check out the new Newsweek here.
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Tesla may have made a big splash by paying back its loans from the government, but buried in Tesla’s latest filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission is this hint of things to come:
Other factors that may influence the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, and specifically electric vehicles, include…our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future.
But it’s still unlikely that battery swapping will quickly take off in the U.S.
If the concept of battery swapping sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the main driver behind Better Place, an Israeli startup that dreamed of creating a global network of electric vehicle swapping stations that could switch out batteries in two minutes, no three-hour battery charging breaks required. These days, Better Place appears to be on the verge of death. Charismatic founder Shai Agassi stepped down in 2012, the company has sold just 750 cars in Israel (which was its launch market), and it has bled over $500 million. And yet, Tesla is at least intrigued by the idea.
Better Place is stumbling due to a variety of factors: other automakers wouldn’t build battery-swapping compatible vehicles (Sue Cischke, Ford’s vice president for Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, once told me that "For Ford, it doesn’t seem to be a solution that makes sense"), the model is hard to explain to customers, and in Israel, local officials haven’t been that supportive.
In its heyday, Better Place thought that China would be a big market because of its ambitious EV goals (5 million vehicles by 2020). Quartz believes that Tesla might be eyeing the same market for battery switching technology, both because of China’s goals and its ongoing debate over whether battery swapping should be a national standard.
But Tesla owners in the U.S. won’t be cruising up to battery swap stations anytime soon. Like Better Place, it’s unlikely that Tesla could convince other automakers to adopt a unified battery switching standard. And the U.S. is too big for this to work on any sort of country-wide scale without the kind of national standard proposed by China.
Electric vehicle charging stations aren’t nearly as ubiquitous as gas stations, and that’s with a number of different companies (including Tesla) installing them on streets and in parking lots. If Tesla is the only company installing battery swap stations in the U.S.--and they only work for Tesla batteries--they will inevitably be limited in scope (barring a future where we only drive Teslas).
But that doesn’t mean we won’t see any working battery swaps because Tesla might have the ability make it work on a small scale, something that wouldn’t work for Better Place’s business plan. Tesla’s Model S Supercharger network provides a model for how it might play out in a more limited way: after launching the network of quick-charge stations last September, the company has installed nine of them in California, New York City, Boston, and Washington D.C. There will be over 100 by 2015.
Unlike Better Place, to make battery swapping a success, Tesla doesn’t need the system to become the de facto method of EV charging in this country; it could just be a supplement to the EV maker’s existing network of charging stations--making it easier to own a Tesla, and more compelling to buy one.
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It's about time that we stopped wasting drinking water to flush away our waste; Allison Bailes did it and isn't complaining.
A Brooklyn-based design studio turns to digital animation to generate the patterns for these striking rugs made out of recycled carpet pieces.
Product news: twenty-six cable ties make up this pendant lamp that London studio Vitamin is exhibiting at Clerkenwell Design Week. (more...)
The Xbox One--Microsoft’s new console announced yesterday--will have eight times the graphical power of the last Xbox, connect to more than ten times the global servers to push content from the cloud, and deliver an Internet-integrated television experience that’s faster and more fluid than any other system we’ve seen.
But while these are all exciting ideas, they’re all just launch features of a next-generation game console. What will the Xbox One look like in, say, three to five years? Marc Whitten, Microsoft’s chief production officer of interactive entertainment, shared his vision for the future with us. And that future largely resides in a platform that his team has casually dubbed Home 2.0.
“I’m not saying it’s a good name,” Whitten laughs, indicating that it will most certainly change when the project goes public. But he imagines that Home 2.0 will allow the One to be more than an entertainment device for your living room. Rather, it could be your home’s gateway to the Internet of Things--the missing link for the inevitable future of interconnected lights, appliances, and more.
Home 2.0 may not be some official name, but the project is more than a hobby for Microsoft. Whitten points out that you can actually see its origins in Microsoft’s acquisition of id8 Group R2 Studios--specialists in home automation--earlier this year.
Home automation, of course, is a rapidly evolving idea. As dumb objects in our homes become smart, the role of home automation will become one less of window-blind opening than domestic-life coordinating. “You need those [devices] in a central hub as an experience to bring all these things together,” Whitten explains.
If Home 2.0 combines id8’s existing platform expertise with the Xbox One’s promised “open” support of third-party apps (support that hasn’t been entirely clarified just yet, but seems more in line with the Windows 8 app model), it could end up with a variety of discrete apps that represent the myriad of digital devices in our lives, all juggled underneath the central Home 2.0 umbrella.
Why Microsoft Makes The Perfect Fit
As the dedicated homebound PC has melted away, the Xbox--tethered to your TV--will make a natural fit as a hub for these objects. A console lives predictably in one spot (unlike your laptop or your phone), it’s naturally fitted with the largest display you own (your TV), and as it’s always on--or at least one “Xbox On” verbal command away from being on--communicating with the system requires very little human commitment.
Microsoft, of course, isn’t the first to take interest in the “Internet of Things” market. Products like SmartThings are attempting to be our connected device platform for the future. But the advantages Microsoft has over most companies are, maybe a bit obviously, their supreme software and hardware expertise.
"There will never be one single protocol for connected devices," Whitten insists, citing that any such smart hub will need to speak a variety of languages. Say what you will about Microsoft, but few companies can rival its experience in pure interoperability. This is a company that has supported and networked with basically every piece of hardware under the sun for the last two decades.
And as for the issue of convincing the public to invest in such a futurist platform, “Games like Forza subsidize the experience,” he adds a few moments later, pointing out that the Xbox One will represent an embarrassment of riches in local processing, networking hardware, and cloud support. They’re the powerful by-products of the Xbox’s entertainment experience--or what I imagine as the digital equivalent of buying a Ferrari for cruising around on the weekends, but using its engine to run your washing machine during the week.
Aside from Kinect, Whitten teases a few developments that might solidify Home 2.0’s general usability. For one, SmartGlass--the Xbox-to-tablet/phone integration that came out this year--will receive a major overhaul. While no one has seen it in action yet, Whitten promises the new SmartGlass works much better than the laggy, unpredictable experience we’ve seen on the current generation of 360. And SmartGlass will allow you to control your Home 2.0 devices from a Windows, Android, or iOS device--pretty much any touch screen you have in your pocket.
Then, aside from Wi-Fi and maybe Bluetooth connectivity, Whitten alludes to a lot of potential in “advanced IR blasters” (that’s communication based on infrared, which is the same invisible light technology that lets your TV remote change the channel and the Kinect scan you in 3-D).
"I hate to use the word ‘blaster’ because it gives you a lousy image,” Whitten admits, no doubt referencing the unreliable universal remote adapters of yore. Then he shares an anecdote that when the Xbox team was first testing Kinect, the IR was so powerful that it was shutting off TVs from halfway across the office. I began to piece together the potential of Kinect (along with a few IR extenders, maybe) blanketing rooms with odorless data. And while line-of-sight limitations seem like more than a challenge to design Internet-connected devices around, I’m intrigued by the possibility. (Besides, IR has a fantastic benefit beyond all others: It requires extremely little power to operate.)
Home 2.0 Isn’t Today, But It May Be Tomorrow
So, no, Home 2.0 won’t be available at launch, and it won’t be called Home 2.0 when it inevitably arrives on the Xbox One a few years from today. But even still, Home 2.0 has the potential to prove that the One isn’t just another video game console or entertainment device, some stubborn antique in a world gone mobile. With Home 2.0, the Xbox One is slated to become our first, widespread anchor to the promised Internet of Things. (Though, sure, it’ll play Halo, too.)
And I can’t overstate its importance: As Google tracks and anticipates our needs through search and Android, and Apple leverages countless iOS devices to learn about all of us, Microsoft has spotted its advantage over both companies in one key spot: The living room, and every bit of our domestic lives, connected to it.
[Illustration: Kelly Rakowski/Co.Design]
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