All posts tagged: design

Behind The Scenes of Wildwood at The Design Museum in London

Behind The Scenes of Wildwood at The Design Museum in London

Published by Sam Flores

Beyond the emotional acuity, much of the film’s ambitious methods can feel like an anachronism in 2026. “So much technical knowhow, dexterity, storytelling, design and vision are required to make a cinematic masterpiece,” Knight told the gallery attendees.“So much” is right: the film pulled together more than 1,000 creatives and artists who collectively created over 140,000 puppet masks, more than 130 sets, on a 100,000 foot stage in Portland, Oregon. “Everything is fundamentally hands on,” Knight went on. “There are 2,775 shots, which by my calculation means it’s over 173,000 frames.” In a world where AI and algorithms are trumpeting our extinction on a daily basis, Wildwood kicks the conversation in entirely the other direction. “We have these big action sequences. We have these big aerial fights. We’ve got chase scenes. But the hardest stuff to do are the shots where characters are hardly doing anything,” says Brad Schiff, LAIKA’s head of animation. “There’s a lot of emotional intelligence to stop-motion animators.” And a lot of patience. On average, a full-day of shooting results in …

Windows 11’s minimalist design looks boring until you add back what Windows 7 got right.

Windows 11’s minimalist design looks boring until you add back what Windows 7 got right.

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Windows Vista is remembered as Microsoft’s greatest failure, but it introduced a feature and design that the tech giant still hasn’t topped, even after nearly 20 years. Ironically, one of Windows Vista’s features remains unmatched to this day. It took Windows 7 to give Aero a design theme that combines transparency and depth without disrupting the rest of the OS. Unfortunately, Microsoft dropped that aesthetic a long time ago. Fast-forward to Windows 11, and the minimalistic design looks boring and minimal, lacking the depth that made Aero so appealing. Fortunately, you can bring back the glassy, translucent theme in Windows 11, and dare I say, with a few tweaks, it looks even better than it ever has. Related 42 million people downloaded this free Windows 11 mod — I finally tried it, and now I get it One mod fixed everything I hated about 11. Recreate Aero Glass with DWMBlurGlass Install the tool and dial in blur, colors, and title bar effects to match Windows 7 DWMBlurGlass is a lightweight desktop utility that customizes how …

Casio’s Crystal G-Shock Is the Most Expensive Ever Made

Casio’s Crystal G-Shock Is the Most Expensive Ever Made

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The G-Shock development team responsible for the new collection tells WIRED the fundamental challenge was building a “near-unbreakable” watch using an inherently brittle material. Making watch cases from sapphire is not new in the high-end watch world, and many distinguished makers, including Richard Mille and Hublot, have released pieces made of the crystal. To make the sapphire case work for a G-Shock, however, Casio had to develop a brand-new, dedicated shock-resistant structure, with the Multi-Guard construction using virtually invisible seams, alongside a completely screwless assembly method to hit the required shock performance. To do this, the outer case assembly required the development of completely new, dedicated jigs and fixtures, a process apparently so demanding that only one person at Yamagata Casio (the primary “mother factory” for Casio) can currently perform it. All three new watches, along with the proper G-Shock resistance to knocks and drops, are water-resistant to 200 meters, solar-powered, and feature radio-controlled timekeeping, world time, stopwatch, countdown timer, five daily alarms, and a full-auto LED backlight. If the $80K G-Shock is too steep …

SPRIND and NADI launch €40m AI-Native Chip Design Challenge

SPRIND and NADI launch €40m AI-Native Chip Design Challenge

Published by Miika Tikkanen

German innovation organisation SPRIND and Dutch counterpart NADI are investing 40 million euro in small research teams accelerating chip design with AI. Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) and its Dutch counterpart, the National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (NADI), have announced their first partnership programme, where they will sponsor the development of chip design both supporting and incorporating AI. “The launch of NADI’s first programme is a huge statement of Europe’s intent to combine two of the continent’s greatest strengths: collaboration and innovation… We expect to see more nations commit to backing pan-European, radical breakthroughs. The need is great, and the model works,” said Jano Costard, Head of Challenges, SPRIND. “NADI’s mission is to catalyse breakthrough innovation in areas of significant societal and economic importance. We are excited to run our first Challenge together with SPRIND, on a topic that is strategically relevant for the Netherlands and Europe. SPRIND has been advising the Dutch government on how to set up NADI, and this collaboration is the next opportunity for us to learn from their …

Bentley Wants Its Torcal SUV to Break the Curse of the Luxury EV

Bentley Wants Its Torcal SUV to Break the Curse of the Luxury EV

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Then to address the sticky issue of driving sound for a pure EV, instead of creating a digital replica of combustion, Bentley decided to shun electronic imitation and recreate the rhythm of a Bentley V8 using real instruments (including drums, viola, and bass guitar) to create a soundscape that, like the glass animations, had subtle variations and tiny imperfections. Now, this sounds like it might be a terrible idea, but on the very limited demo WIRED heard, it’s actually remarkably convincing and will supposedly provide genuine aural feedback to the driver, rather than simply approximately imitating engine notes. Mercifully, for those not looking to keep things rooted in combustion, it can be turned off if you wish. Bentley even went as far as to record indicator sounds (a hammer striking a leather surface) and the digital assistant wake note (the sound of a crystal glass as you run your finger around the rim). Bentley has thrown in more tech as well: an augmented reality head-up display; a “Refresh” mode that uses light and air for …

6 Questions to Help You Design Your Life

6 Questions to Help You Design Your Life

Published by Jenni Sidey

You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase, “Life is what you make it.” At first glance, it seems to be about responding to and accommodating the challenges and opportunities, problems and hardships that come with being alive. But you can also hear it as a call to be proactive—the making—where life is less a workaround and more like a lump of clay you can shape and mold as you see fit. Here are six questions and their challenges to help you design your life: 1. What do you want to invest your life doing? This is the question you likely struggled with in high school or at the start of college—essentially, what do you want to be when you grow up? The challenge is to think outside the box—not be constrained by family or cultural expectations—and tap into your potential: your talents and skills, passion, and sense of purpose. 2. What do you want your everyday life to be like? If the first question is about the big picture, this is about life in the details, the …

Beats 360 Deliver Customizability and a Revamped Over-Ear Headphone Design

Beats 360 Deliver Customizability and a Revamped Over-Ear Headphone Design

Published by Miika Tikkanen

After months of teases and leaks, Beats is officially announcing its new Beats 360 headphone today. Priced at $349.99, Beats 360 represents a rethinking of the Beats over-ear headphone design, with an emphasis on sound quality, comfort, and customizability. Beats 360 is not a replacement for the brand’s Studio Pro over-ear headphone, as the Studio Pro will remain part of the Beats lineup at a reduced price point of $299.99, down from the previous $349.99. Compared to Studio Pro, Beats 360 features a completely new acoustic architecture that delivers up to 1.75× more active noise cancellation and a 12dB increase in output while maintaining clarity across all frequencies with low distortion. In addition to active noise cancellation (ANC), which utilizes a system of eight microphones to analyze the acoustic environment inside and outside the headphone, Beats 360 also support Transparency mode to still allow you to hear the world around you, while turning off ANC and Transparency activates Adaptive EQ to continually tune acoustic performance. Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking is also supported, …

Inside the Closets of 13 Influential Men, from Lenny Kravitz to Yohji Yamamoto

Inside the Closets of 13 Influential Men, from Lenny Kravitz to Yohji Yamamoto

Published by Jenni Sidey

You once said you had over 500 suits. Is that still true in your new fashion era? I have more now. I’ve always enjoyed dressing up. Always. I’m not uncomfortable in a shirt and tie. I’m at my best in a shirt and tie. I love dressing up. That comes from my boyhood, going with my mother to church where you had to wear a suit. People ask me all the time, “Hey, man, ain’t you uncomfortable in a suit?” No, I’m at my most comfortable when I’m in a suit. I always loved dressing up, but what Elly [Karamoh, Harvey’s stylist] brought to me was the different things to wear: Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Kiton, Prada, Gucci, the newer Tom Ford. The looks had lots of different colors, because I was always a color-driven guy, but I lost that trying to dress for my talk show. How many closets do you have? I have two main closets. One closet is mostly stage clothes. It’s my man cave. [Editor’s note: Harvey has a three-story man cave …

He Won the Nobel Prize for Protein Design. Now He Uses AI to Create Molecules Not Found in Nature

He Won the Nobel Prize for Protein Design. Now He Uses AI to Create Molecules Not Found in Nature

Published by Miika Tikkanen

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. JORGE GARAY: AI BioDesign seeks to explore possible molecules and biological functions that have never existed in nature. Are there any particular risks involved in venturing into this uncharted territory? How can scientists anticipate those risks and what steps can they take to minimize them before a designed molecule leaves the lab? DAVID BAKER: What’s exciting about biology is that nature has explored only a fraction of what is physically and chemically possible, which opens a world of possibilities for what we could design. When we explore those possibilities, the primary risks are not much different than those associated with any new biological technology—unintended interactions with living systems, unexpected environmental effects, or misuse. The advantage we have today is that computational design allows us to evaluate many of these risks before a molecule is ever synthesized. We can screen designs computationally, test them extensively in contained laboratory settings, and subject them to increasingly realistic experimental validation before considering any real-world application. David Baker, winner of the …

Volvo teases its new vehicle design, including a surprise inside

Volvo teases its new vehicle design, including a surprise inside

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Volvo is going on the offensive with 13 new electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles coming by 2030. The upcoming models will feature a new design and revamped interior. Volvo bets on EVs and PHEVs to double market share “Our showrooms will look very different in 2030,” Volvo Cars president and CEO, Håkan Samuelsson, said during the company’s Strategy Update on Thursday. Volvo plans to launch 13 new vehicles by the end of the decade, as part of what it calls its “most ambitious global product push” in the Swedish automaker’s 99-year history. As Samuelsson said, Volvo’s upcoming vehicles will look and feel very different from its current models. For one, Volvo’s new strategy takes a two-pronged approach: seven custom-tailored vehicles for Western markets, including the US and Europe, and six for China. Volvo will offer a separate tech stack for Western markets and China. The US and Europe will use its HuginCore computing platform and SPA2 and SPA3 architectures. In China, Volvo will lean on Geely for shared platforms and a dedicated tech stack. (Source: …