This is the third year I have written an article summarizing the state of technology. In 2014 I described the three historical epochs of consumer technology — the PC, the browser, and mobile — and the outline of the fourth, which I suggested was messaging; in 2015 I refined the fourth to be Facebook…

When it comes to setting strategy, which is more effective: one great thinker or a wise crowd? To find out, I turned to my ongoing Top Pricer Tournament, in which 884 people — managers, consultants, professors, students — make pricing strategy decisions for a generic business competing against other…

After a series of teaser ads, Microsoft is beginning in earnest an ad campaign to repair its image, including a spot with a diver in a shark cage. RELAX, computer users, after only two weeks Microsoft will stop teasing you as the company begins the next phase of an ambitious — and risky — $300…

In September 2005, Steve Jobs gave his advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, an assignment: Come up with a campaign that clearly demonstrates the Mac's superiority to the PC. There was no deadline. Seven months, dozens of tense meetings and countless discarded ideas later, the agency produced "Get a…

In September 2005, Steve Jobs gave his advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, an assignment: Come up with a campaign that clearly demonstrates the Mac's superiority to the PC. There was no deadline. Seven months, dozens of tense meetings and countless discarded ideas later, the agency produced "Get a…

PHOTOGRAPH BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY / THE NEW YORK TIMES / REDUX I was born in Chicago on December 30, 1946, within the vortex of a huge snowstorm. My father had to help the taxi-driver navigate Lake Shore Drive with the windows wide open, while my mother was in labor. I was a scrawny baby, and my…

Photo by Maggie Lee I've always considered myself to be mostly homosexual. Whenever I watched scrambled porn on my parents' pirated satellite dish as a child, my eyes would invariably dart toward the delectable mounds that hung from the fairer sex. Whenever I watched old movies, I longed to be the…

17 digital trends for 2017 by @FrojdAgency Upcoming SlideShare Loading in … 5 × 1 1 of 57 Email sent successfully! Embed Size (px) Start on Show related SlideShares at end WordPress Shortcode Link 4,072 views Published on This report sums up what we think will be the key digital trends in 2017 when…

Across battlegrounds, Democrats blame HQ’s stubborn commitment to a one-size-fits-all strategy. “They believed they were more experienced, which they were. They believed they were smarter, which they weren’t,” said one Democratic consultant. | Getty Everybody could see Hillary Clinton was cooked in…

Do Apple's AirPods sound great? Not really. But they're about way more than playing music. Let's just get all the fun comparisons out of the way up top. Wearing AirPods is like wearing a toothbrush in your ear. No, it's like your earbuds are melting down the side of your face. They look like tiny…

(Marz Jr.) Welcome to Rogue One Week ! With the release of Rogue One , set in the years before A New Hope , we finally get our first stand-alone Star Wars movie. This week we’ll be analyzing Rogue One and the greater Star Wars universe from every conceivable angle — the storytelling, the…

A close reading of the producer’s autobiography reveals surprising sources for his talent and his sound T he next time you think about how your boss is unqualified to do his job, remember this: Timbaland, superstar producer and former architect-in-chief of American pop and R&B, can’t read sheet…

CNBC reports — citing two analysts with the private, subscriber-only data provided by NPD — that sales of physical copies of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in November were down 50 percent compared to November 2015 for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. The game launched Nov. 4. Let's not get hot-takey yet,…

The Bechdel-Wallace Test was developed in 1985 by Alison Bechdel and Liz Wallace to see if a work of fiction featured at least two women talking about something other than a man. Looking at the 25 top-grossing films of 2016, decided to conduct the test to see if those movies passed. The test has…

We’ve all faced difficult challenges before. Part of being someone who is actively engaged with their creativity is finding smart solutions to whatever problems come our way. This is especially true when you own your business (full-time or side-hustle) and ultimately have to count on yourself to get…

This article originally appeared on VICE France. Note: This article contains images with full-frontal nudity. Alexandre Dupouy is a sex archaeologist. The French collector has spent his entire life collecting what he defines as "erotic and pornographic junk." His shop, the Tears of Eros —now open…

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada The very first time I experienced my version of perfection was when I met a gorgeous man in Monaco last year. He's young, a multimillionaire (I mean, you have to be to live in Monte-Carlo), and during our date at the Hermitage Hotel terrace he made a…

There were many surprising pieces of Trump-related news on Monday, from Donald Trump’s fight with the F-35 to his allies’ fight with the intelligence community over Russian hacking. Equally or more consequential, though less surprising, was a pair of quiet statements he made later in the day. First,…

Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman, was recently caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone in his home country—an offense that would typically come with a fine of a couple hundred dollars, at most, in the U.S. But after Finnish police pulled Kuisla over , they pinged a…

When most travelers plan a trip to Africa, they dream of gazing at free-roaming lions, elephants, buffaloes, leopards, and rhinoceroses—the “Big Five.” And while a safari in Africa can be a trip of a lifetime, it certainly is not the only way to explore this incredibly multifaceted continent.…

A couple of weeks ago I came across this tweet from Luke Wroblewski: Do people understand the "hamburger" icon used for mobile navigation menus? http://t.co/obXN4Ut26A — Luke Wroblewski (@lukew) February 6, 2014 It asks a the simple question about people’s general understanding of the hamburger icon…

The reaction to Donald Trump’s comments about Russian interference in the election might actually be an encouraging sign for our system of checks and balances. Photograph by Drew Angerer / Getty For any would-be authoritarian strongman, a lesson of history is that you can't do it by yourself. To…

A few years ago, Emma Coats took to Twitter to share 22 rules she learned about storytelling during her time as a Pixar storyboard artist. The rules are “a mix of things learned from directors and coworkers at Pixar, listening to writers and directors talk about their craft, and via trial and error…

"White does not mean racist." Tomi Lahren’s face appears twice its normal size on a massive editing screen. On a dark Dallas soundstage, Lahren is recording one of her signature "Final Thoughts" monologues, the closing segment of her daily television show, Tomi . Her glossy lips twist into a…

(Comedy Central) Wednesday night’s sit-down between Daily Show host Trevor Noah and Facebook phenomenon Tomi Lahren was a 26-minute Venn diagram where the circles never touched. You couldn’t come up with a better visual metaphor for our two Americas if you read a thousand literary dispatches from a…

Last night, I swiped my iPhone awake during a commercial. I had no particular destination in mind; it was an absent-minded liminal shift between two of the many screens that constantly, quietly invite me to interact. Without being even cognizant of what I was doing, I tapped the beachy neon hue of…

Vincent Connare designed the ubiquitous, bubbly Comic Sans typeface, but he sympathizes with the world-wide movement to ban it. Vincent Connare Mr. Connare has looked on, alternately amused and mortified, as Comic Sans has spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp. 15 years ago to…

Luis Abreu has an interesting breakdown of basement menus in his recent post: Why and How to avoid Hamburger Menus . It has some great points and is certainly worth a read, but it got me thinking about when to break the “rules” of UI design. During the course of my design critique of Glassboard for…

It’s human nature to hate things that remind us of how dumb we used to be; Like teenagers who can’t stand their baby pictures, we prefer to ignore the proof of our humble beginnings. The same goes for artifacts of computing history—for proof, just look at the rage directed at relics of those early…

The hamburger icon is a classic. Even if you don't know it by that name, its three black bars are as familiar as your mouse's cursor—a constant companion on your cyber journey since the day you got your first computer. But who designed this icon? The hamburger is one of those UI features that's so…

“Good design makes a product understandable” – Dieter Rams Good navigation should do at least three things well: (1) it should allow the user to navigate; (2) it should serve as wayfinding, letting the user know where they are; and (3) it should help the user understand what the product is capable…

We now have data that suggests Sidebar menus—sometimes called Hamburger Menus/Basements—might be causing more harm than good. Here’s some public data: Side drawer navigation could be costing you half your user engagement Mobile Menu AB Tested Hamburger vs Menu: The Final AB Test One thing to have in…

Three weeks ago the Metropolitan Museum of Art—known colloquially and now formally as “the Met”—unveiled a new logo and identity system designed by the international firm Wolff Olins . The response from critics was swift and fierce. Influential typographer Erik Spiekermann harped on the logo’s…

(Comedy Central) This was not a five-minute charisma re-up, carefully orchestrated down to the slow jam. This was not an absurdist tableau in which all parties were in on the joke. In fact, Trevor Noah’s Monday-night interview with President Obama didn’t fit with any of the pre-established templates…

Aid workers and activists inside embattled east Aleppo have pleaded for the international community to save them from what they say are arbitrary executions of non-combatants by Syrian government forces as the regime finally closes in on the rebel enclave. The White Helmets civil defence and rescue…