The Samsung Design Platform Aims For the Stars *snicker*

Yesterday Samsung launched "Make It Meaningful", a website that tailors itself to the industrial design end of their various product offerings. Filled with enough buzzwords to make your head spin–words like, "Feeling", "Balance", and "Simplicity"–the site is pretentious in a way that only Apple could appreciate... But here's the thing: Samsung, specifically their much lauded Galaxy line, is rarely on the forefront of design. In fact, their mobile presence has been criticized for years for being boring, unimaginative, and altogether forgettable. It's only when they draw on aesthetics popularized by other companies–companies like Apple–that people take notice. In the meantime, don't feed me this heavy-handed garbage about how the front of the phone is derived from nature and, in particular, the stars. Are you kidding me with this BS, Samsung? Samsung devices are beholden to the products and industrial design they imitate. Samsung isn't Braun and it won't ever be. I have my biases, but for you fans, watch and read Samsung fall all over themselves here.

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Want me to buy a Galaxy device? Come and get me when your TouchWiz UI doesn't look like something that looks or feels as cheesy as it sounds. Seriously: look at this mess. MY EYES, SAMSUNG.

Toyota Confirms Fuel Cell Launch for 2015. USA: "Someday, please."

Toyota confirmed today the oft-speculated launch of the their fuel cell hybrid will have a limited launch in 2015. The Toyota FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) will use a high-density fuel stack which Toyota claims will have the potential to cover 500 miles on a single tank of fuel. But don't get too excited. If history is anything to go by, Europe and Asia will get the goods long before we ever will. You can read up on all the details here.

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Wallpaper: Cave

This photo is incredible. The spacial relationships make everything more pronounced, notwithstanding the photo is beautiful to begin with. Download the high-res photo here.

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Shwood for Louisville Slugger

I have a soft spot in my heart for baseball. I don't pay attention much these days, but as a kid, memories of baseball carry all kinds of feels. In celebration of 130 years of at-bats, Shwood, known for their world-class wooden frames, is recycling old LS bats and creating frames from the reclaimed. Pretty cool. Check out the video here and purchase your sweet new specs here.

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Halt and Catch Fire

Television is clearly the medium of choice among discerning adults these days, with Sunday has becoming the de-facto event night over the last few years. With Mad Men coming to an end this "season" (spread over a greedy two years), AMC needs a new period drama to hang it's profits on. Halt and Catch Fire–the title being a play on old machine code that causes a computer to stop functioning—hints the show will follow the drama and nastiness that arose during the IBM-ruled computing world of the mid-80s. I, for one, think it looks pretty damn good. The drama begins June 1st on AMC. Click here for the first trailer.

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There's a Neue Comic Sans

If you hate Comic Sans–and why wouldn't anyone–there's now a sexier, cleaner version for you to get sick of all over again. Introducing Comic Neue, an updated spin on the infamous 90s typeface by Australian designer Craig Rozynski. Here's his description of the font...

"The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been beaten into shape while maintaining the honesty that made Comic Sans so popular. It's perfect as a display face, for marking up comments, and writing passive aggressive office memos."

While it does look much better than Comic Sans, I think we'll be the judge of that, Craig...thanks, though. For thoughts and more comments from the designer, read the write-up here. Start pissing off your co-workers with tacky signs by downloading the font here. Yeah, it's free!

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Sony Walkman TPS-L2

Though this might be an April Fools on the surface, this is actually a very good and in-depth review of the very first Walkman, the Sony TPS-L2. Notwithstanding the photos, it shows how far portable music has come in the last 30 years. Makes me pine for the days of yore. *sigh* You can read the review here.

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Gotta Cache 'em All!

Google, with their rich April Fools tradition, has struck again for 2014 with an augmented reality, geocache-ish playground to find Pokemon. More to the point...

[It] lets you go out into the world and catch "real" Pokémon through you phone's camera. That's the April Fool's joke. But since this is Google, it doesn't just end with the video - as of right now, Google Maps on Android and iOS is actually populated with Pokémon creatures all over the world. Zoom in to major cities and you'll see Nintendo's little critters hanging out on the standard map view (you have to zoom in really far). Some places, like the Google headquarters, also have pixelated buildings overlaid on the map.

Pretty damn awesome, Google. Click here to learn more and watch the video. It's super effective!

GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL!

You Too Can Own a Tech Relic of the 90s

Up for auction: You can buy the Toshiba Satellite Pro Bill Clinton himself used to write love letters to Monica Lewinski the very first presidential E-mail address. I guess that's kind of cool...?

If you're into historical odds 'n ends, this could be your lucky day. Current bidding is at a cool $11,000. Check it out here.

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Graphing TV

Ever wondered what the iMDB hive mind thinks of your favorite TV shows and how they rank when pitted against concurrent seasons? @oliviascarb13 pointed me toward a neat little tool that does just that. Simply type in the name of the TV show in question and the site will pull data from iMDB user ratings and plot them on a graph giving you a visual representation of all episodes across the lifespan of a TV show. I love that Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" is still ranked at a perfect 10.

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Muzei

I have this problem where I can never decide on a wallpaper for my phone. It's a constant struggle bordering on OCD. It might be OCD...I should check on the specifics...

Right, anyway...if you're a member of the Android Master Race and have problems deciding on a wallpaper, then you should absolutely check out Muzei. It's a recently launched live wallpaper app that cycles images every 12-24 hours based on a theme that you decide. There are dozens of plug-ins that you can add to the app to give your images some personal flair, such as my current go-to, Comic Cover. While it doesn't entirely kill the OCD of finding the "perfect" background, there is something to be said about an app doing the heavy lifting. Also, as I did just start using the app and it is a live wallpaper, I'll report back in a few days with battery stats if one of the five people that read this article are worried about anyone battery life. 

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King For A Day

If you enjoy reading, you're likely familiar with Stephen King, arguably the most successful and prolific American horror and fantasy author. "King for a Day" opened over the weekend and is an art show from the Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles that's billed as a "tribute to Stephen King's full body of collected works." The collection features dozens of pieces running the gamut of King's stories, from "It" to "The Dark Tower".

"King for a Day" will run through April 6th. You can see the full collection or works and purchase prints at the gallery's website.  All sales benefit The Haven Foundation: a non-profit organization that gives financial assistance to freelance artists who suffer a career-threatening disruption including illnesses or disabilities.

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PROTIP: Design Seeds

Finding the right color palette is a common struggle if you design for a living. If you do, you'rve likely already heard of Colour Lovers. Another recent up-and-comer is Design Seeds, and much like the aforementioned site, is primarily a palette site. However, what separate Design Seeds from other sites in the same ilk is that it creates palettes based on photographs. Why is this handy? Well, if, for example, you're putting together a mood board or some other visual reference for a project, Design Seeds can help you make sense of a photo by breaking it down into color values, invariably helping out your entire workflow. It's an extremely cool website and handy at that. Check it out here.

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Toothpaste Hacked

There's a book I own called "Darkside Zodiac" that claims you can tell a lot about a person by how they maintain their toothpaste. It's honestly a bit truer than it should be. Not to be deterred by superstitious nonsense, Nicole Pannuzzo, a senior at Arizona State University, has mocked up a tube that squeezes out every last ounce of gooey paste while helping to maintain a clean bath area. It's actually a pretty clever bit of industrial design. Read and see more about it here.

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VR Headsets and You (Looking Ridiculous)

Yesterday was a big day in the VR headset world. First, Sony took the sheets off it's long-rumored Morpheus headset for the PS4. According to Anton Mikhailov, senior engineer at SCEA R&D...

...Project Morpheus [is] highly adjustable, comfortable for prolonged use and supports custom headphones that can be plugged directly into the unit, he said — and that motion sickness is reduced, a common problem with VR. He said Sony is working toward a 1080p resolution display and 90 degree-plus field of view. Position and rotation head tracking has a 3 meter working volume and a full 360 degrees.

Not to be outdone, Oculus unveiled the second dev kit for the Oculus Rift, the headset to which all other headsets owe a great deal (including Sony's). Specs aren't available just yet, but if the 2012 debut is anything to go by, then V2 is probably going to be just as cool.

...so you're thinking, "Who cares...", and you might be justified in that, but one view of this video might have you thinking otherwise. Yeah...I got next.