design

Top Samsung designer: We didn't copy Apple

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In an effort to rebut allegations that it copied the design of Apple's iOS home screen, icons, and other visual features, Samsung brought out one of the people in charge of designing the software in its phones.

Jeeyuen Wang, Samsung's senior designer, testified this afternoon with the help of an interpreter, and flat out told the court that the company did not copy Apple's designs.

Samsung brought out Wang to counter copycat claims made by Apple earlier in the trial that put the Samsung's iconography and features side by side. That offense … Read more

Smartphones with unique designs (roundup)

Phone-makers use every trick in the book to differentiate their phones on store shelves, from bright colors to unusual proportions, textures, and materials.

Here are five smartphones that turn heads for striking shapes, aggressive style, and distinct physical features that you just don't see every day.

Nokia 808 PureView (unlocked), June 2012 You can't expect to slip a camera module as large as the 808 PureView's 41-megapixel shooter into a smartphone chassis without a little give. The trade-off is a thicker middle and a huge hump at one end of the phone that makes for some potentially … Read more

Key Samsung designer barred from testifying in Apple case

Samsung Electronics won't be able to use the testimony of one of its key designers in its case against Apple, according to a court document filed and signed by Federal Judge Lucy Koh yesterday.

Hyong Shin Park, who was the lead designer for Samsung's F700 phone, will be barred from testifying, as the court sided with Apple's request to keep her from the courtroom.

Park has said that Samsung's phones were inspired by a "bowl of water" and not the iPhone. Apple argued that her project, the F700, isn't in the list of … Read more

Mission impossible: Design great-sounding, affordable speakers

Andrew Jones has a degree in physics, but his real passion is speaker design. He worked as a research engineer for KEF, Infinity and now with Pioneer, and he's chiefly responsible for their ultra high-end TAD Reference line of speakers that sell for upwards of $80,000! So a few years ago when I first heard that Jones was working on a line of superaffordable speakers for Pioneer, I didn't believe it. I said, "You mean that Andrew Jones? No way." Well, it was that Mr. Jones, and the speakers were astonishingly good. The now-discontinued 5.1-channel, … Read more

Facebook's design manager leaves for the Designer Fund

Facebook heavyweight Ben Blumenfeld is stepping down from the social network, according to a blog post he wrote today. Blumenfeld was the company's design manager and had been at Facebook since 2007. He is leaving to co-direct the Designer Fund.

This news comes as three high-level managers and directors left the company last week, including the director of platform partnerships Ethan Beard, platform marketing director Katie Mitic, and mobile platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus.

Blumenfeld was tasked with making Facebook's platform more accessible. "We were building great products, but not doing a great job of guiding people … Read more

Angry Birds tangible slingshot controller lets you get hands-on

It's the app game that won't go away. Angry Birds Space is still sitting pretty on the App Store's top paid apps chart, but how many times can you pull back a virtual slingshot before you start pining for something more?

Students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have given Angry Birds a whole new dimension with the creation of a physical slingshot controller for the desktop version of the game. … Read more

Microsoft bulking up on staff for next-gen Surface devices

Microsoft is bulking up design teams for next-gen Surface devices, despite the pleas of PC partners like Acer.

Acer recently asked Microsoft to reconsider its Surface strategy, but Redmond seems to be doing just the opposite, as dozens of job postings on its career page attest. Some of the job postings seem to imply that Surface products are the true expressions of Microsoft's vision.

"The Surface Team focuses on building devices that fully express the Windows vision," a few of the job listings say.

And that's the whole point of Surface, isn't it? Microsoft needed … Read more

Apple design expert calls Samsung a copycat

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple is once again turning to designers to help make its case that Samsung lifted its smartphone and tablet designs, this time going to a company outsider to prove its point.

In testimony today, Peter Bressler -- a former president of the Industrial Designers Society and the founder and board chair of product design firm Bresslergroup -- said numerous Samsung designs infringed on Apple's patented designs.

"My opinion (is) that there are a number of Samsung phones and two Samsung tablets that are substantially the same as the design in those (Apple) patents," … Read more

Solar Bag concept purifies water as you walk

More than a billion people around the world lack access to safe drinking water, and some 300 million of them are in Africa. Industrial design students Ryan Lynch and Marcus Triest have an interesting approach to tackling the problem in sub-Saharan African with his Solar Bag.

This design concept is both a shoulder bag-style container to transport water from a distant source, as well as a tool to purify it.

The container is made of polyethylene, which allows UV rays to pass through the clear outer layer and kill most of the bacteria in the water. It's similar to … Read more