Features

You can always just turn on the Galaxy Buds Pro’s ambient mode manually by pressing and holding the touchpad on either earbud, but I liked the idea of mapping the touchpads to volume control instead. (I could go on about how wireless earbuds really need more than one point of input, but that’s a whole other story.) … [Read more...] about Samsung’s new earbuds have one feature that everyone should steal

Ceramic seating Speaking of ceramics, Yi Yin’s project, called C x 5, similarly takes one production line’s trash and turns it into treasure. Yin focuses specifically on industrial ceramics waste, which he says can top 22 billion tons globally, nearly half of which comes from China. His work is a small step toward mitigating the excess. He takes unwanted byproducts that others dump and makes designs of his own, giving a mosaic twist to outdoor furniture that’s also water and fireproof. … [Read more...] about Turning trash into treasure: London Design Biennale features gorgeous pieces made from waste

Last November, Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang of Reuters reported that Samsung might be adding S Pen support to the Galaxy S21 Ultra and then discontinuing the Galaxy Note line altogether. They said such a move would reflect shrinking demand for high-end phones during the pandemic. Samsung is not commenting on the future of the Galaxy Note. But for what it’s worth, the company takes issue with the idea that the market for top-of-the-line phones has collapsed; it says that the Galaxy Note20 Ultra, released last August during the pandemic, sold well. … [Read more...] about Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 smartphones bring high-end features down to earth

As far as working with such a setup goes, I’d recommend having your laptop on the desk in front of you and keeping correspondence stuff on the laptop screen: email, Slack, chat, and the like. Then use the big screen for productivity stuff: web, apps, presentations, and documents. The horizontal resolution you gain lets you keep multiple windows open and side by side at once, while the vertical resolution is great for displaying long web pages and documents. … [Read more...] about 7 daily productivity hacks to help you work smarter in 2021

But Hartl’s dystopian vision might not be that far off. Lower Manhattan became fortified after 9/11. One World Trade Center features bomb-proof concrete walls, and protective barricades are a common sight during daily life. Abroad, look no further than the U.S. embassy in London, and you’ll see it’s ensconced behind a semicircular pond (aka a moat). Terrorist attacks often lead to dramatic security measures. … [Read more...] about Designers reimagine the U.S. Capitol as a brutalist fortress