We could all be pets in an elaborate alien zoo, claims Neil deGrasse Tyson

Intelligent alien life may have already found us and enslaved humanity in a giant zoo: planet Earth

By: James Temperton

Continue reading...

An urban agriculturalist says farming needs a rebrand

Caleb Haper discusses his work building "Food Computers" and more

Microsoft kills Xbox Fitness, will yank access to previously purchased content

Microsoft is killing Xbox Fitness -- without refunding any of the money people spent on the application, or providing any compensation for the loss of purchased content.

Twitter introduces Snapchat-style Stickers to tweets

By: Ruby Lott-Lavigna

Continue reading...

Microsoft confirms Surface 3 production will end this year, has no public plans for a follow-up

Microsoft's Surface 3 was the best of the company's three lower-end tablet devices, but Microsoft appears to be canceling the hardware with no plans to create a replacement. Intel's decision to cancel its tablet and smartphone products may be behind the move.

Client Experience Design

Let's be honest: We designers can be difficult to work with. We might come from a controversial company culture, work an unconventional schedule or get impatient whenever our Internet connection is slower than the speed of light. Would you be at ease with a service provider who matches this description?

When talking to potential clients, be aware that many will have never solicited a professional design service and likely have little understanding of the design process itself. Keep in mind, too, that some clients have had a poor experience in the past. For many clients, it can be an anxious jump into the deep unknown, a big financial investment steeped in risk.

The post Client Experience Design appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Alternative thinking on Brexit gains, Brexit losses and CNBC's booking schedule

“What a day.”

That's Crispen Odey, London-based hedge fund manager and the founding partner of Odey Asset Management, talking about the Brexit.

As The Wall Street Journal explains, Odey publicly backed Britain's departure from the European Union and that he “set up his $10 billion firm accordingly.”

Gravitational waves can reveal how black holes are 'born'

By: Victoria Woollaston

Continue reading...

Cannes 2016: Just 12 Lions equals tough year for Canada

After a stellar 2015, Canada's medal count dips in 2016. Judy John's suggestion to be better in 2017

Web Development Reading List #142: Contextual Identities, Form Hints, And ApplePay.js

Today will be a day in history regardless of what happens over the next weeks. The majority of people in the UK voted to leave the EU, and this made clear once again that many people in our society think the current situation is no longer acceptable. Unfortunately, we think blaming those people is the solution, but, as we see, it isn't. Instead, we should focus on teaching people about the root causes of problems, and we should retain from posting everything right away.

In other news, I'm back from vacation to bring you new articles to read. And I realized one thing: While mountaineering holds real risks and dangers, working on websites mostly does not. Of course, the security of our websites should be a top priority, but even if we fail, if a website is down for a few minutes, if we screwed up the layout on some devices, you won't be dead. We have the opportunity to improve our work by making mistakes and fixing them.

The post Web Development Reading List #142: Contextual Identities, Form Hints, And ApplePay.js appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Epsilon Theory: Waiting for Humpty Dumpty

Brexit is a Bear Stearns moment, not a Lehman moment. That's not to diminish what's happening (markets felt like death in March, 2008), but this isn't the event to make you run for the hills.

Alternative Thinking on Hedge Fund Rankings, Bill Ackman's Blues and Facebook Tyranny

The top 100 hedge funds averaged a return north of 10.5% in 2015, and the three-year average is a tad below 17%. Meanwhile, there are a lot of equity-long-short funds, indicating that good stock pickers are still around.

Bud Light psychs out EDM fans with social experiments

Millennial test subjects were given a chance to win tickets to Tomorrowland

Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston is 'Power Rangers' new Zordon

By: Matt Kamen

Continue reading...

Flat science budgets could kill the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest telescope

The Arecibo telescope has been a landmark observatory for 50 years, but limited funding could see the facility shut down in the near future.

Short-term signals in E-minis, crude and gold

The Cycle Projection Oscillator (CPO) is indicating some potential near-term opportunities in several markets.

Looking at a 240-minute chart of the E-mini S&P 500 shows potential weakness over the next couple of days (see chart).

The CPO is also projecting WTI Crude oil to slip over the next few days. WTI has recently dropped from overbought territory according to the CPO and is sitting near its 10- and 20-day moving average lines (see chart).

No more codes: How to authenticate your Google sign-in with just a tap

Multi-factor authentication is an important part of keeping your online accounts secure, but the process is notoriously cumbersome. Google is attempting to streamline the task by allowing you to authenticate with a tap on your smartphone.

Cannes 2016: FCB/Six offers an unofficial festival app

Cannes Meow focuses on catty comments, gossip and 'humanizing' data

Is it time to dump gold and buy platinum?

For a relatively safe investment, the market says investors should be selling gold and buying platinum. That can be done either by buying a platinum exchange-traded fund and selling a similar amount of a gold ETF or simply by trading gold coins for a greater number of platinum coins.

A Roadmap To Building A Delightful Onboarding Experience For Mobile App Users

When launching an app, you need to spend a lot of time and resources to attract users. You can pull people into your app using a variety of means, including advertising, referral programs, public relations and content marketing. But when people finally download an app, they sometimes feel abandoned. You must clearly show users why they need your app.

Studies reveal that 90% of all downloaded apps are used only once and then eventually deleted by users. People often abandon apps because of a poorly designed interface or an overall negative experience. Instead of having their problem solved by the app, people get confused trying to wade through a jungle of screens, menus and buttons.

The post A Roadmap To Building A Delightful Onboarding Experience For Mobile App Users appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

In search of Finding Dory's brand storytelling secrets

Pixar offers some object lessons that creatives everywhere should appreciate

Cannes 2016: LG2 lone Canadian shop on Print & Publishing list

Agency's Quebec office shortlisted five times for two clients

The Fed giveth and the bullion banks taketh away

Janet Yellen just blew all remaining semblances of credibility believed to be still present at the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.

Shortcuts And Tips For Improving Your Productivity With Sublime Text

Sublime Text is, no doubt, one of the most powerful text editors out there. The number of satisfied users attests to that. If you explore it, you will eventually see how beautifully its powerful features are hidden behind a simple and elegant interface.

If you have been using Sublime Text for some time, now is the time to upgrade your arsenal with new ammunition. I'll be taking you through some of my favorite tips and tricks. Knowing them might just unleash your hidden powers as a programmer to the world.

The post Shortcuts And Tips For Improving Your Productivity With Sublime Text appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

CBC to broadcast The Tragically Hip's final show

Band set to kick off last tour after lead singer's terminal cancer diagnosis

New Bluetooth 5 spec will double speeds and quadruple range

The new Bluetooth 5 standard is expected to be released this year, with vastly improved range, performance, and total broadcast capability.

Cannes 2016: Marla Natoli on competing for creativity

AOL Canada's director of video and mobile recalls her first experience at the festival

Cossette opens healthcare practice

Cossette Health strives to help healthcare organizations thrive in disruptive climate

Designing Modular UI Systems Via Style Guide-Driven Development

Using a style guide to drive development is a practice that is gaining a lot of traction in front-end development - and for good reason. Developers will start in the style guide by adding new code or updating existing code, thereby contributing to a modular UI system that is later integrated in the application. But in order to implement a modular UI system, we must approach design in a modular way.

Modular design encourages us to think and design a UI and UX in patterns. For example, instead of designing a series of pages or views to enable a user to accomplish a task, we would start the design process by understanding how the UI system is structured and how its components can be used to create the user flow.

The post Designing Modular UI Systems Via Style Guide-Driven Development appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Rumors suggest AMD's Zen servers will pack 32 cores, serious heat

New rumors suggest that AMD's top-end Zen server chips will pack an enormous amount of potential performance, as AMD aims to regain lost market share in the server space.

The Story Behind The Ekaterinburg Metro Map

A large metropolitan underground train network might as well be a teleportation device: People don't care how it gets them from A to B, just that it does. In London, Paris and Moscow, the map of the metro does not show surface geography, because there is not much empty space on the sheet.

Designing a city's metro map is quite a challenging task, even when there is just one line. Last year, my colleague Pasha Omelekhin and I were thrilled to work on the redesign of the metro map for Ekaterinburg, Russia. We had fun (he designed, I directed). In this article, we'll cover our design process. It's going to be detailed, so, depending on your interests, this might be very boring or very exciting. Still, we've left out so much. We hope this helps in case you have to work on a similar project.

The post The Story Behind The Ekaterinburg Metro Map appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

How To Roll Out New Features Without Hurting Loyal Users

“Be agile; release early; release often.” We know the drill. But is it strategically wise to keep rolling out features often? Especially once a product you're building reaches a certain size, you probably don't want to risk the integrity of your application with every new minor release.

The worst thing that can happen to your product is that loyal users, customers who have been using that one little feature consistently over the years, suddenly aren't able to use it in the same convenient way. The change might empower users more, but the experience becomes less straightforward.

The post How To Roll Out New Features Without Hurting Loyal Users appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

E3 2016: Microsoft's Project Scorpio promises 4K gaming and VR support

Project Scorpio aims at delivering enough horsepower to support 4K gaming and virtual reality while maintaining compatibility for the entire catalog of Xbox One releases.

ET deals: Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series quad-core gaming laptop for $750

If you're looking for a reasonably priced gaming laptop that can handle new releases, take a look at the 15.6-inch Inspiron 15 7000 series from Dell. With a new quad-core Skylake processor, a graphics card with some decent horsepower, and a solid state hybrid drive, this laptop can hold its own at any LAN party. And thanks to today's coupon code, you can save a total of 16% off the sticker price.

Gold is the watchman warning of stormy economic seas ahead

A massive "financial blip" is on the radar screen, headed directly for your position. It's not the government coming to help you. But it is mostly the result of their formulated policies which have stood proverbial common sense on its head.

Sony confirms upgraded PlayStation 4, but won't show new console at E3

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 is coming, but the console won't be on display at E3 this year.

Names for four new superheavy elements formally proposed

Spoiler: we are not calling any of them "Elementy McElementface."