The hidden cost of new homes

A recent study in the UK found that homes built after 2009 had far less access to local green space than those built earlier. This can have devastating effects. The past 20 or so years of housing development in England and Wales has decimated community access to green space. That’s according to a new report from think tank the New Economics Foundation...

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This Japanese designer turned discarded fishing containers into groovy furniture

Japan’s declining fishing industry has left behind a constellation of discarded fishing containers. Now some of them have been reborn as chairs. In the 1980s, Japan led the world in the number of fish it caught every year, but the country’s fishing industry has been declining for over two decades. Overfishing, unsustainable practices, and contaminated...

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What will the ‘de-Arching’ of McDonald’s in Russia actually look like?

How do you draw the line between a business and its branding? In Russia, the fast-food chain formerly known as McDonald’s is about to find out. “Branded” is a new weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.Read Full Story

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Music festivals are a UX nightmare. Here’s how Snap and Live Nation are fixing them

Snap’s new lenses debut at the Electric Daisy Carnival, where they’ll provide maps, set lists, and directions to your friends in the crowd. The Electric Daisy Carnival is the largest electronic dance music festival in the U.S., welcoming 100,000 fans to Las Vegas to visit a psychedelic world, mostly after dark.Read Full Story

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Is fast fashion impossible to kill?

According to a new report from ThredUp, most shoppers don’t plan to scale back on fast fashion, despite many feeling guilty about it. In today’s age, socially conscious shopping is en vogue. You might’ve thought that harkened the death of fast fashion, as a new generation of consumers has begun to shun its wastefulness—embracing, in its place, secondhand...

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Floating solar farms could be worth $10 billion by 2030, but they have a dirty secret

A new farm in Portugal has a clever idea. Ever since the first solar power plant was built in the 1960s, solar arrays have become a familiar sight on mountains, in deserts, and even on rooftops. But in the past decade, a new breed of solar farms has been cropping up in large bodies of water.Read Full Story

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Biden green-lights a home-building boom. But there’s a catch

The Biden administration has a plan to fast-track housing construction. But much of it depends on Congress. The U.S. is at least 1.5 million houses in the hole. Demand for homes—especially affordably priced ones—has outstripped supply for years. The economic hit of the pandemic has only made things worse, pushing more people to the brink of eviction,...

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What a brain-controlled computer might feel like

A series of videos demonstrates an imperfect but optimistic future where we control everything with our brains. Imagine if you could control your iPhone with your mind. How would that actually work? Would sad emotions automatically pull up cute animal YouTube clips? Would you use your brain as a cursor to hit buttons? Would you type text messages by...

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From Severance to Tokyo Vice: It’s a golden age for title sequences

Move over, Saul Bass: With prestige TV booming, title sequences are better than ever. This spring marked the five year anniversary of Netflix introducing its Skip Intro button, a functionality that would be quickly copied by its competitors. With the volume of streaming television content, it can be hard to remember a time before the button. I remember...

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After smart homes and smart rings, meet Can Go, the world’s smartest cane

Developed with usability expert Don Norman, Can Go is designed to strip away the stigma of mobility aids. America is aging. Over 10,000 people are turning 65 every day, and by 2060, about one in four Americans will be older than that. This brings with it a slew of challenges, from affordable senior housing to abundant caregiving to efficient mobility...

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