Charlotte Henry

Digital fashion is a real and growing business. Vogue Business reported on the growing popularity of digital clothing lines, which are powered by 3D modeling. Scandinavian retailer Carlings released its first digital clothing collection in November 2018.  It included 19 limited-edition genderless, sizeless pieces that cost between €10 and €30. It sold out in a week.

The concept might seem outlandish, but gamers have been spending real money on digital fashion items for years. Glu Mobile’s Covet Fashion game lets players style models with digitally rendered designer clothing and accessories. It brought in $53.4 million in sales last year (a portion of which is from advertising)…But as people live and display more of their lives online — coupled with growing concerns about sustainability — digital clothing has the potential to expand well beyond gaming.

The heads of social media companies could become personally liable for harmful content that gets published on their platforms under new plans set to be proposed by the British government. The plan, leaked to the Guardian, is also set to call for a new regulator, annual “transparency reports” from social media companies and co-operation with law enforcement.

Under plans expected to be published on Monday, the government will legislate for a new statutory duty of care, to be policed by an independent regulator and likely to be funded through a levy on media companies. The regulator – likely initially to be Ofcom, but in the longer term a new body – will have the power to impose substantial fines against companies that breach their duty of care and to hold individual executives personally liable.

As part of its drive for better publicity, Facebook has been running a series of articles with British broadsheet newspaper The Daily Telegraph. The partnership was reported by Business Insider as something of an exposé. In fact, it looks to be a fairly standard, and clearly marked, sponsored content campaign. However, what struck me as interesting is how seriously Facebook is taking improving its PR. More conventional adverts have appeared in Britain too. After months of bad publicity, it is taking action to get its message across and try and reassure users.

The series — called “Being human in the information age” — has published 26 stories over the last month, to run in print and online, and is produced by Telegraph Spark, the newspaper’s sponsored content unit. “Fake news, cyberbullying, artificial intelligence — it seems like life in the internet age can be a scary place,” the articles say. “That’s why Telegraph Spark and Facebook have teamed up to show how Facebook and other social media platforms are harnessing the power of the internet to protect your personal data.”

Apple is planning to release a 5G iPhone in September 2020. However, its somewhat deteriorating relationship with chipmaker Intel is putting that at risk. Fast Company looked into the situation, and why Intel could decide Apple’s business is just not worth it.

In order to deliver big numbers of those modems in time for a September 2020 iPhone launch, Intel needs to deliver sample parts to Apple by early summer of this year, and then deliver a finished modem design in early 2020. Intel said in November that it expected to ship the 8160 5G modem in the second half of 2019. The company, responding to this story, pointed me to that same statement. “As we said in November 2018, Intel plans to support customer device launches in 2020 with its XMM 8160 5G multimode modem,” a company representative said in an email late Wednesday.

Following on from its teardown of the new iPad Mini, iFixit took its tools to the new iPad Air Wednesday. Essentially, the Air is just a bigger Mini and the teardown revealed many of the same features. Pleasingly, all the screws can again be removed with a single Phillips screwdriver. However, there is also lots of glue holding everything in place, making fixing it that bit more difficult. Like its smaller sibling, the iPad Air received a 2 out of 10 rating for repairability.

This new Air hails from the Pro line, inheriting its dimensions, a Smart connector, and a handful of other features from the 2017 10.5″ Pro….A single Phillips driver takes care of all the screws. Many components are modular and can be replaced independently, but the Lightning port is soldered to the logic board. Battery replacement is possible, but still unnecessarily difficult. Gobs of adhesive hold many parts and cables in place, complicating all repairs.

Fornite has racked up millions of players, and billions of dollars of profit. That is thanks in large part to how devoted players are to the game. It turns out though that the friend you joked is addicted to it might actually be. The Boston Globe spoke to psychologists and other health professionals who explained that Fortnite addiction is a real thing.

Parents worrying about kids spending too much time playing video games isn’t new. But a few significant factors have combined to make today’s games harder to stop playing….More insidious, game makers have taken a lesson from slot-machine designers and started employing a variable reward schedule, according to Ofir Turel, a professor of Information Systems and Decision Sciences at California State University Fullerton. In the case of “Fortnite,” the psychological manipulation combines with the game’s flashy colors, its many potential plots, and the element of social interaction to stimulate the brain and train it to “crave” more, he e-mailed the Globe.

iFixit‘s teardowns are always worth a read, and its look at the iPad Mini 5 is no different. It showed that the device’s battery flex connector is now adhered to the cover bracket. This means it automatically disconnects when the bracket is removed. This should help prevent damaging the backlighting when fixing the new iPad Mini. Amongst other things, the teardown also revealed an upgraded front-facing camera module and updated battery connectors.

A single Phillips driver takes care of all the screws. Many components are modular and can be replaced independently, but the Lightning port is soldered to the logic board. Battery replacement is possible, but still unnecessarily difficult. Gobs of adhesive hold many parts and cables in place, complicating all repairs. Removing the home button is tough, and will be required for display replacement if you want to keep Touch ID functionality.

While lawmakers in the UK and U.S. lament fake news, and Mark Zuckerberg promises Facebook will do better, Singapore is taking action. The government there is looking to impose serious fines and even 10-years imprisonment on those who spread fake news. While users may be pleased something is being done, Bloomberg News reported that tech firms raised some concerns.

The new measures will require online sites to show corrections to false or misleading claims and take down falsehoods, according to a bill put forward in Parliament on Monday by the government…The bill also intends to impose criminal sanctions — including fines of up to S$1 million ($740,000) and 10 years in prison — against those who spread an online falsehood with intent to prejudice the public interest, and those who make a bot to spread an online falsehood. The sanctions will also apply to anyone providing services for the purpose of spreading falsehoods in return for a reward.

I think there is much to learn from Marie Kondo. Her Netflix series was an absolute favorite, and her book, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, is a global bestseller. Indeed, her KonMari method is sneaking into various aspects of life.  Writing for The Next Web, Leona Henryson explained how relevant it is to UX design.

In her book, Kondo calls for questioning a thing’s purpose and establishing whether its purpose has been fulfilled since it has been bought. I feel it’s safe to say this inquisitive attitude towards an object’s place in the grand scheme of things is very similar to how UX designers make decisions. Excess is a problem in any interface out there, and a cluttered flow always damages the user experience…Kondo’s book teaches us to be straightforward about the purpose of certain things in our designs and to be brave about editing out the things our users won’t need.