Essentially people, all of us when we go to design something we often go out and do it and will make one or we’ll have three designs and…then we run out of time or money or patience and we say good enough. The computer doesn’t get bored in that same way. It doesn’t run out of time so you can literally test millions of versions and get a much better answer.  So really what we are doing is automating the building of these prototypes.     — MarketPlace

Software companies don’t usually go around buying architecture and design firms, but The Living isn’t your typical beards-and-Blue-Bottle band of architects. The 7-person shop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard was acquired earlier this year for a small, undisclosed price by design and engineering software maker Autodesk. The reason: The Living’s expertise in blending all that’s new in materials, 3-D printing and more arcane new fields such as biological manufacturing and algorithmic design. — forbes.com

Our next Just Launched competition is Autodesk's "Transformation 2030: A Student Design Challenge", in collaboration with Architecture 2030 and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS). The Challenge gives architecture and engineering students the chance to use their skills to help transform Hunts Point in New York City's South Bronx, a community that has been dealing with high unemployment rates and has over half of its residents living under the poverty line. — bustler.net

Carl Bass, who’s helmed the $2 billion corporation since 2006, admits that the delineation between building virtual and physical products is eroding, and that has created opportunities for companies who have traditionally focused on developing and selling software.

“It used to be that it was this unwritten rule that software companies don’t do hardware, and vice versa,” he says, “but I think the rules are changing…. It totally would be fun. I personally would love it.” — wired.com

Autodesk is known for architectural and design software, but in recent years has started offering products aimed at ordinary consumers. Besides $60m for Socialcam, which makes video authoring and publishing software, Autodesk paid $32 million for Instructables... And it purchased a company called Pixlr, which is an online photo editor, for an undisclosed sum. Autodesk also developed consumer software for drawing and painting online, which it calls SketchBook. — bits.blogs.nytimes.com