Web design news

• Facebook Lite gets Dark Mode while the main app is still waiting

  14-02-2020 23:06
  
  Just about every major app is implementing some kind of Dark Mode these days, but there’s one notable omission: Facebook. We saw the company test a dark mode for Android in August and a dark desktop UI in October, but there’s been no permanent option yet. Now it seems the company is finally ready to join the slew of stealthy apps, as it’s begun rolling out dark mode to Facebook Lite, as spotted by Android Police. Though I’m not seeing it on my own device yet, the op
  
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• Report: Microsoft’s Surface Book 3 will arrive this spring

  14-02-2020 21:57
  
  Microsoft’s Surface Books are due for an update. Though the company announced a plethora of new devices at its event last October, we were a bit surprised to find there was no update to the Surface Book in sight – a product that was last updated in November of 2017. It seems we won’t have to wait too much longer: Brad Sams of Petri reports Microsoft will announce the Surface Book 3 at an event in NYC this spring. The company is also expected to announce the Surface Go 2,
  
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• Facebook changes its ad rules over Bloomberg’s cringey memes

  14-02-2020 21:19
  
  The Mike Bloomberg memes we’ve all seen on social media are a laugh for us, but they’re apparently giving Facebook something of a headache. The company revealed today it’s changing its rules on Instagram, and will require users to label these posts as sponsored. View this post on Instagram Great job Mike… (Yes this is really sponsored by @mikebloomberg) A post shared by Tank.Sinatra (@tank.sinatra) on Feb 12, 2020 at 5:32pm PST Facebook put out a statement to TechCrunch
  
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• What is Website Conversion? [+5 Ways to Improve Conversions]

  14-02-2020 20:45
  
  When you’re trying to grow your business online, you must monitor vital metrics to ensure your business is growing. One important metric is your website’s conversions. Conversions help you determine if you’re driving success with your digital marketing campaigns.
  So, what is website conversion? How can you improve your website conversion rate?Keep reading to learn more about website conversions and find five tips to improve your conversion rate! If you want to stay up to date o
  
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• Onboarding Email Newsletters: Best Practices and Examples

  14-02-2020 19:07 via designmodo.com
  
  https://designmodo.com/onboarding-emails/
  
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• Report: The PS5 is so expensive to make, Sony may sell it at a loss

  14-02-2020 19:03
  
  The new PlayStation appears to be giving Sony one heckuva headache, with components now allegedly forcing the price of the console up. Waiting on Microsoft to set a price on its own console isn’t helping, either. According to a report from Bloomberg, the PS5’s current unit cost is up to around $450, which would push the retail price of the console almost $100 more than its predecessor. The company is struggling to obtain enough DRAM and flash memory, already in high demand from smar
  
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• Facebook just released a Pinterest-style app called Hobbi

  14-02-2020 18:40
  
  Facebook doesn’t exactly need any more presence in the social media business, but that isn’t going to the stop the company from trying. As first reported by The Information, an experimental product team within Facebook recently released a Pinterest-style app called Hobbi. The app’s description – it’s currently only available for iOS devices – says it’s meant to “capture and organize your creative process,”and “save photos of
  
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• State of Oklahoma new visual identity

  14-02-2020 18:27 via branding.ok.gov
  https://branding.ok.gov/visual-identity/
  
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• Durex’s “sex positive” rebrand introduces One Night Sans typeface

  14-02-2020 18:16 via designweek.co.uk
  
  https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/10-16-february-2020/durex-rebrand-one-night-sans/
  
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• AI interviewer asks Billie Eilish the weirdest questions

  14-02-2020 17:38
  
  Billie Eilish has fielded countless interview questions during her meteoric rise to fame, but this week was the first time that they’ve been asked by a bot. Fresh from sweeping the boards at the 2020 Grammy Awards , the 18-year-old songstress sat down with the AI interviewer in a video for Vogue — and the bot proved a more original interlocutor than many of its human rivals. Its abstract questions provoked some surprising insights into the singer’s mind. Viewers
  
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• 20 Company Website Designs to Inspire Your Small Business

  14-02-2020 16:49
  
  As a small or midsize business (SMB), your company website is often the first touchpoint for potential clients — and you want it to make a great first impression.
  The secret to hitting home with your audience is to have a sophisticated and lively website design that’s aesthetically pleasing and provides great user experience (UX).
  Need some company website examples to inspire your design? We made this corporate website mood board just for you!With minimalist designs and fun interacti
  
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• Nope, I refuse to believe this leaked Pixel 5 prototype is real

  14-02-2020 16:30
  
  We might be months away from an official announcement, but we’ve already allegedly got our very first look at an early prototype of Google‘s upcoming Pixel 5 — and it’s… something. YouTube channel Front Page Tech has purportedly gotten a hold of an unreleased render of the Pixel 5 XL. The YouTuber says he has corroborated the authenticity of the image with at least two sources, one of whom he considers “extremely trustworthy.” Here’s what it look
  
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• Why Tinder’s new safety features won’t end harassment on the platform

  14-02-2020 15:48
  
  The dating app Tinder has faced increasing scrutiny over abusive interactions on the service. In November 2019, an Auckland man was convicted of murdering British woman Grace Millane after they met on Tinder. Incidents such as these have brought attention to the potential for serious violence facilitated by dating apps. Amid ongoing pressure to better protect its users, Tinder recently unveiled some new safety features. The US version of the app added a panic button that alerts law enforcement
  
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• These 15 matchmaking and social media startups want to change how we connect

  14-02-2020 15:41
  
  The first thing that comes to mind when we think of social platforms and matchmaking is usually dating apps, but the potential of matchmaking algorithms goes way beyond making personal connections. Sometimes all you’re looking for is a developer with the right tech skills to get your fantasy project off the ground, or someone who actually knows how to assemble Ikea furniture (without duct tape), or a dog walker/whisperer who knows how to handle a Pomeranian with a Napoleon complex. Social
  
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• Want to take your partner on a romantic EV road trip? Head to Norway

  14-02-2020 15:23
  
  Picture it now: It’s early in the evening, you’ve just picked up your sweetheart to surprise them with a romantic road trip in your brand new grass-friendly electric vehicle. But where should you go when you have to stop every 200-300 miles (483 km) to charge up? According to British car marketplace Carwow, you should head to the romance capitals of northern Europe, Norway and the Netherlands, obviously. [Read: Tesla nosedives in Norwegian consumer satisfaction rankings — but
  
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• Google’s new AI can intelligently crop videos for any screen size

  14-02-2020 14:43
  
  How many times have you seen a video being badly cropped when you watch it on a mobile device? It’s quite frustrating and annoying, and most of the time, there’s not much you can do about it. To address this problem, Google’s AI team has developed an open-source solution, Autoflip, that reframes the video that suits the target device or dimension (landscape, square, portrait, etc.).  Autoflip works in three stages: Shot (scene) detection, video content analysis,
  
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• How to read a best-selling book in 12 minutes

  14-02-2020 14:30
  
  Unless you’ve got super-speed, reading takes time. Fortunately, 12min has found a loophole in that process so you can down an entire book in just 12 minutes. We can get in on fast tracking your reading list with a lifetime 12min premium subscription, available now for only $39, 88 percent off, from TNW Deals.
  
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• Diagrams for Mac – Create beautiful, structured diagrams

  14-02-2020 14:02 via diagrams.app
  https://diagrams.app
  
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• This mini Street Fighter II arcade cabinet is retro gaming goals

  14-02-2020 14:00
  
  Now, you can relive those arcade glory days or check it out for the first time with the incredibly cool Street Fighter II: Champion Edition X RepliCade from New Wave Toys, currently $20 off, just $99 from TNW Deals.
  
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• Amazon stalls Microsoft’s $10B ‘war cloud’ contract with the US gov

  14-02-2020 13:35
  
  A US federal judge sided with Amazon on Thursday to temporarily block a $10 billion government contract awarded to its rival Microsoft, Financial Times reports. The ecommerce giant requested the Court of Federal Claims to impose an injunction on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which would see Microsoft build an enormous cloud environment for the Department of Defence. Amazon argued that beef between its CEO Jeff Bezos and president Donald Trump swayed Pentagon
  
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• Steam rolls out new feature to help you decide what game to play next

  14-02-2020 13:34
  
  Steam is making it easier for gamers to pick the next title they want to play. The Valve subsidiary has rolled out a new recommendation feature called Play Next, KotakuUK reports. It’s not quite like Store recommendations, which suggest what title you should buy next. Instead, Valve relies on a new algorithm that goes through your existing library, and picks a game you already own to play next. The new algorithm will suggest three titles at a time, but if you don’t like an
  
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• What’s venture capital and why does it matter for startups?

  14-02-2020 13:01
  
  The term ‘venture capital‘ is often thrown about in the tech startup world, but do you know what it means and how it works? Could you explain it to people at a dinner party? If the answer to these questions is ‘no,’ don’t worry because Growth Quarters has you covered. The first thing you need to know is that venture capital is a type of private equity — venture capital investors put peoples‘ money into a business and in so doing get a stake in the
  
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• Scientist trains AI to write messages of love on candy hearts

  14-02-2020 12:44
  
  A scientist has marked Valentine’s Day by teaching a neural network to compose romantic messages for candy hearts. Janelle Shane, who in her day job creates computer-controlled holograms for studying the brain, collected genuine messages printed on the heart-shaped sweets to use as training data. She then fed them to a neural network so that it could learn the patterns behind the words. The messages it produced ranged from the endearing “LOVE BUN” to t
  
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• How to restore WhatsApp messages when you get a new phone AND a new number

  14-02-2020 12:19
  
  Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. I’ll spare you the exact details and reasons why, but I recently had to change my phone number. I also used the opportunity to get a new device. In the early days of smartphones, this was about as stress-inducing as consumer decisions could get. Upgrading your phone would require hours of reinstalling apps, upgrading firmware, and so on. Getting a
  
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• Instagram is testing a way to display posts in chronological order

  14-02-2020 11:39
  
  In 2016, Instagram began messing with users’ feeds, much to fans’ chagrin. The posts they would see from the accounts they followed weren’t in order of when they were posted, but in order of what the app’s algorithm determined to be worth looking at. Thankfully, there might be some respite. Reverse engineer extraordinaire, Jane Manchun Wong, tweeted about a feature currently being tested, that will allow you to see the latest posts you missed out on. Instagram
  
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• Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Man charged with operating $300M money-laundering Bitcoin ‘mixer’’

  14-02-2020 11:06
  
  Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Pasteur used to say: Bob’s your uncle! Bitcoin price We closed the day, February 13 2020, at a price of $10,214. That’s a minor 1.06 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$109.57. It was the lowest closing price in one day. We’re still 49 percent below Bitcoin&ls
  
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• 1 in 10 Americans admit to using ‘stalkerware’ to monitor their partners

  14-02-2020 10:59
  
  For the ongoing series, Code Word, we’re exploring if — and how — technology can protect individuals against sexual assault and harassment, and how it can help and support survivors. Despite what movies are letting us believe, spyware technology isn’t only used by hackers. In fact, stalkerware technology today, also known as “spouseware,” takes the form of apps or add-ons to a device that allows someone to remotely monitor another person’s activity. The
  
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• Google’s Area 120 is brining lightweight games to low-powered devices

  14-02-2020 08:28
  
  Google’s Area 120, the company’s workshop for experimental products, has launched a project to bring lightweight HTML5 games to low-powered devices using slow 2G or 3G connections. The project, called GameSnacks, hosts many simple games such as Tower and Road Fury. You can try some of these games on the project’s website as well. The Area 120 team says that on devices with RAM lower than 1GB and connection slower than 1Mbps, games often take over 10 seconds to open up. So
  
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• Google’s Area 120 is bringing lightweight games to low-powered devices

  14-02-2020 08:28
  
  Google’s Area 120, the company’s workshop for experimental products, has launched a project to bring lightweight HTML5 games to low-powered devices using slow 2G or 3G connections. The project, called GameSnacks, hosts many simple games such as Tower and Road Fury. You can try some of these games on the project’s website as well. The Area 120 team says that on devices with RAM lower than 1GB and connection slower than 1Mbps, games often take over 10 seconds to open up. So
  
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• Canon announces the EOS R5, fixing the original’s biggest problems

  14-02-2020 02:21
  
  When Canon announced the EOS R back in 2018, the company fully committed to mirrorless as the future, coming out with its first full-frame mirrorless body and announcing some excellent lenses for the system too. Unfortunately, the camera body itself lagged behind established competitors, lacking in-body image stabilization (AKA IBIS, available on every competitor), limited to slow capture rates (5fps with continuous autofocus), and cropping 4K video to a minuscule portion of the sensor. But tod
  
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• Half-Life: Alyx comes out on March 23. Here are all the compatible headsets.

  14-02-2020 02:01
  
  Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. It’s official, straight from the Valve Twitter account. Half-Life: Alyx is coming out on March 23. More than a decade after the last official installment of the series, we’ll finally get a sequel of sorts. But if you want to experience it, you’ll need the appropriate gear. Half-Life: Alyx, available March 23, 2020 https://t.co/NCOLWqSp3
  
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• A new approach to color (inspired by dark mode) in our design system

  14-02-2020 01:59 via dev.to
  
  https://dev.to/ynab/a-semantic-color-system-the-theory-hk7
  
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• How to save on business expenses as a SaaS company

  14-02-2020 00:46 via gosquared.com
  
  https://www.gosquared.com/blog/saas-expenses
  
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• Black History Month spotlight: advice from 10 accomplished black designers

  14-02-2020 00:39 via webflow.com
  
  https://webflow.com/blog/black-history-month-2020
  
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• The new Moto Razr might be the hardest phone to repair ever

  14-02-2020 00:37
  
  It turns out folding phones with bendy screens and complicated hinges are difficult to repair. Who’da thunk it? In fact, iFixit says the new Motorola Razr is the most difficult-to-repair phone that’s ever hit its desks. The device scores a 1 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scoreboard. The only product I can think of that’s scored worse is the original Surface Laptop, which scored a zero. (the most recent revision brought that score all the way back up to a 5). For co
  
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