Design

Canva acquires Affinity to fill the Adobe-sized holes in its design suite

by

Official figures for the deal have not been revealed, but Bloomberg reports that it’s valued at “several hundred million [British] pounds.” Nevertheless, the acquisition makes sense as the Australian-based company tries to attract more creative professionals. As of January this year, Canva’s design platform attracted around 170 million monthly global users. That’s a lot of … Read more

The Global Danger of Boring Buildings

by

We need to make the exterior parts of buildings that people focus on more interesting, so that people want to protect rather than replace them. But most people aren’t architects or city planners—they can’t change the designs of what’s being made. Indeed, we have a public who feel utterly powerless, and a construction industry that … Read more

OLED iPad Pro leak: Check out its new rumored design

by

After months of rumors, we may have just gotten our eyes (sort of) on Apple’s newest iPad Pro. The device showed up in some CAD (computer-aided design) drawings that popped up online, per MacRumors, which pointed out that these things tend to leak out of China-based actories from time to time. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, … Read more

A Discarded Plan to Build Underwater Cities Will Give Coral Reefs New Life

by

A combination of AI, a wild 1970s plan to build underwater cities, and a designer creating furniture on the seabed around the Bahamas might be the solution to the widespread destruction of coral reefs. It could even save the world from coastal erosion. Industrial designer Tom Dixon and technologist Suhair Khan, founder of AI incubator … Read more

Instant evolution: If AI can design a robot in 26 seconds, what else can it do?

by

Nortwestern University’s Prof. Sam Kriegman and his ‘insta robot’ Northwestern Univ. Sam Kriegman, a professor at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, is something of a local celebrity. He can often be found on television shows explaining the wonders of his new invention – an insta-robot. In one TV appearance, Kriegman places his insta-robot on his palm … Read more

The Apple Vision Pro Is Heavy. Here’s How to Fix That

by

In the two weeks it has spent on the faces of eager buyers, the Apple Vision Pro has been subjected to its share of criticism. As reported by The Verge and elsewhere, some customers are making a show of returning their Vision Pro headsets before Apple’s standard 14-day return window on new purchases closes. Some … Read more

This Is Why Tesla’s Stainless Steel Cybertrucks May Be Rusting

by

Tesla says it uses proprietary stainless steel (possibly from Outokumpu of Finland, Europe’s largest producer, which runs a plant in Calvert, Alabama). However, even proprietary stainless steels can stain, especially if any cheaper steel fittings beneath the Cybertruck’s panels react with the stainless product. There are five basic families of “stainless steel”: austenitic, ferritic, martensitic, … Read more

Safety by design | TechCrunch

by

Welcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Tech’s ability to reinvent the wheel has its downsides: It can mean ignoring blatant truths that others have already learned. But the good news … Read more

Chanel’s spring couture show is a button-inspired ballet on the Paris runway

by

PARIS — An air of surrealism enveloped Chanel’s Spring Couture show Tuesday as celebrity guests including Naomi Campbell and Kendrick Lamar faced a navigational challenge: walking past a towering pair of open metal scissors. That symbolic gateway set the stage for a theater-in-the-round showcase in Paris. The show’s spotlight was on a humble yet iconic … Read more