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If you're an Apple user, you've probably been prompted to update your operating system to version 11 the latest OS release, dubbed "Big Sur." As a mostly Apple-based team here at Archinect HQ, we were pleasantly surprised to see Archinect highlighted on the welcome screen after the update. As the... View full entry
There's a funny thing that tends to happen in schools of architecture and design firms among the younger practitioners and students. The growth of computational modes of design and the development of design software has produced a generation of creative people who increasingly rely on the use of a... View full entry
Larry Tesler, who passed away on Monday, might not be a household name like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but his contributions to making computers and mobile devices easier to use are the highlight of a long career influencing modern computing.
...Tesler worked with Tim Mott to create a word processor called Gypsy that is best known for coining the terms “cut,” “copy,” and “paste” when it comes to commands for removing, duplicating, or repositioning chunks of text.
— Gizmodo
After graduating with a degree in computer science from Stanford University, Tesler began working with the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973 until 1980. PARC is most famously known for developing the graphical user interface we all use in computers today. From 1980 to 1997, Tesler... View full entry
Amazon has increasingly turned to robots and automation technology to fetch products from the shelves of its warehouses to ship to customers. Now the company says it needs to help its workers adapt to the rapid change.
The e-commerce giant said on Thursday that it planned to spend $700 million to retrain a third of its workers in the United States, an acknowledgment that advances in technology are remaking the role of workers in nearly every industry.
— The New York Times
Amazon is planning to spend $700 million over the next five years retraining 100,000 human workers to help smooth a transition toward greater automation in its operations. “When automation comes in, it changes the nature of work but there are still pieces of work that will be done by... View full entry
Apple® today announced that Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, will depart the company as an employee later this year to form an independent design company which will count Apple among its primary clients. While he pursues personal projects, Ive in his new company will continue to work closely and on a range of projects with Apple. — Apple
Apple's long-running chief design office, Jony Ive, has announced plans to depart the company to open up his own design practice. Ive, the designer behind the iMac, iPhone, and iPod, among many other products, is perhaps the most influential industrial designer of his generation. Jony Ive and... View full entry
As paying a tribute to the legendary designers, the design addresses the ergonomics and style of a computer mouse from the perspective of designing furniture. — Shane Chen Design
Shane Chen, a Brooklyn-based industrial designer, took two classic designs (well, one classic and one classically ubiquitous) and mashed them up into this compelling concept for a computer mouse. View full entry
These exponential advances, most notably in forms of artificial intelligence, will prove daunting for as long as we continue to insist upon employment as our primary source of income. The White House, in a stunning report to Congress this week, put the probability at 83 percent that a worker making less than $20 an hour in 2010 will eventually lose his job to a machine. Even workers making as much as $40 an hour face odds of 31 percent. — bostonglobe.com
[...] Argonne scientists are taking on a challenge not usually associated with sophisticated computing: urban design. They say that for such large-scale developments, expert opinions, or even standard modeling, will no longer do. Instead, we need detailed simulations that will integrate immense amounts of data into one framework and project different scenarios for the designers to consider. Their initial prototype, called LakeSim, focuses on Chicago Lakeside. — nextcity.org
Sixteen-year-old Mason Dimock can focus intently on one subject, thinks visually and spatially, and is interested in technology — skills that have helped him land a summer job designing for a construction company.
He and nine other Salt Lake City teens were selected for a pilot project by NeuroVersity, a company that aims to give students with autism or similar disorders the training they’ll need for careers. The students work with 3-D imaging software called SketchUp Make, developed by Google.
— sltrib.com
As a revealing new exhibit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture shows, ambivalence about digital architecture was characteristic of most of the architects who pioneered it, including Peter Eisenman, Chuck Hoberman and Shoei Yoh. “The computer has become an opportunistic gadget for most of the profession,” Gehry tells the architect-cum-curator Greg Lynn in an interview for the exhibition catalogue. — forbes.com
Architectural practices and academic programs should rethink their wholesale replacement of teaching hand drawing and model making with computer skills alone. Digital tools can enhance the tactile interpretations of architectural concepts, and there should be room for teaching both when educating architects of the future. — nytimes.com
The NYT has published a few of the responses they're received about Michael Grave's recently published piece Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing. To read some of the comments from Archinect users, click here. View full entry
Charles and Ray Eames, designers of the classic Eames lounge chair and major contributors to 20th century architecture and furniture designs, also dabbled in the mediums of film and animation. The Information Machine, sponsored by IBM, attempted to explain how and why the computer revolution was occurring and how it benefited regular people who, at that time, may not have ever even seen one in person. — gizmodo.com
