Hasta La Ideas

Apple has teamed up with Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz to develop software for cars allowing iPhones to be connected up and controlled via a second screen in the entertainment system.

Using Apple‘s CarPlay software, drivers will be able to use Apple Maps as in-car navigation, as well as listen to music and watch films. Additionally, calls can be made through CarPlay, which will be controlled by the Siri voice recognition platform. It’s the first time Apple has developed software explicitly for use in cars.

The system was unveiled at this week’s Geneva Motor Show, held annually in the Swiss capital.

When users connect their iPhone 5, 5c, or 5s via a USB cable, apps found on the phone appear on the vehicle’s inbuilt screens. The phone can then be controlled through the car’s controls instead of the phone’s. Apple believe it will make cars smarter and safer to drive.

“CarPlay has been designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car,” said Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPhone and iOS product marketing at Apple.

CarPlay accesses recent destinations looked up on your iPhone, as well as those mentioned in emails and text messages. From there, it can anticipate where you’d like to go, and then provide turn-by-turn directions, live traffic information and estimated time of arrival.

“iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimised distraction,” continued Joswiak.

With its messaging service, texts will be read out via Siri, allowing the driver to reply using voice commands.

Car buyers are expected to be able to purchase vehicles equipped with Apple’s software later this year. The system will be compatible with new cars from Mercedes, Volvo and Ferrari. Honda, Hyundai and Jaguar are expected to add CarPlay-enabled cars to their ranges.

The move means developers will be able to build apps specifically for use in cars. A select number of third-party apps including Spotify, iHeartRadio and Beats Radio will be made available for the product’s launch.

The announcement by Apple brings them into direct competition with Google in the race to become the industry standard for in-car software systems. The search engine giant launched its own purpose-built Android-based car system initiative earlier this year called the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA).

Working alongside Audi, General Motors, Honda and Hyundai the OAA aims to enable developers to easily add car-specific modes to their apps.

Microsoft is also working on a similar system in partnership with Ford, making cars the latest battleground for IT giants looking to gain a foothold in a lucrative new market.

The post Apple unveils software for cars with Ferrari,
Volvo and Mercedes-Benz appeared first on Dezeen.

To talk the talk is easy, but to walk the talk is a different ball game. What I mean is that most software companies simply leverage big words to deliver their speech but little else to validate their claims. However with solidThinking you are assured that they deliver what the promise. For example, with the solidThinking Inspire, they promise to offer a common visual language for engineering and ID. This is what infant equipment manufacturer Evenflo have to say….

Andy Davis, the Senior Design Engineer, Computer Aided Engineering at Evenflo, Inc. has this to say, “solidThinking Inspire shows the essential material that cannot be removed from a design. This helps you understand your design earlier and can be used as a common language between departments.”

To give you a background, Evenflo’s products include car seats, strollers, high chairs, play yards and activity products to meet the needs of children from birth to the pre-school years. “Safety is the key consideration in the design process. Ease of use is also important but costs must be controlled,” says Andy.

The challenge here was to make child safety simple with innovative and easy-to-use products through a combination of engineering and industrial design. The solution came in the form of a process incorporating solidThinking Inspire to generate early concept designs and assist the product co-development by engineering and ID departments.

I am sure you are keen to know the results of this implementation. Well here they are:

• Inspire provides a new way to look at part design
• It offers a common visual language for engineering and ID showing where structure needs to be
• Easy integration with current design tools and processes
• The creation of a design that is 25% lighter and more cost effective than the part it replaced without compromising safety

To cut a long story short, the initial Inspire results showed potential for a 30% mass and material reduction. The result also enabled some less measurable benefits. Firstly the engineering design team was able to see load paths for the design in Inspire before exporting to Pro-E. The team was seeking to improve on the boxy appearance of the current part, and the Inspire results provided a place to start the conversation with ID to ensure the delivery of style and function.

“The initial Inspire results showed potential for a 30% mass and material reduction…after styling we were still able to achieve a 25% improvement.

To sum it up, with solidThinking Inspire you can co-create cost-effective solutions.

–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(The Evenflo Story With solidThinking Inspire was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. Inspire More Making
2. When Plants Inspire Lights
3. Amuen Encourages Our Ilk To Inspire And Be Inspired!

I love Twitter. It lets me stay in touch with friends and colleagues, replaces email and text chat in many situations, is a relaxing hangout and the end of the day, and is often a source of entertainment.

It can also be really annoying and a time waster.

Depending on whom you follow (or how many), the social media darling can introduce a lot of clutter into your digital life. Fortunately, you can take steps to make Twitter less annoying and more pleasant to use, and not be a total time suck.

1. Use an app. Many people use Twitter via a web browser at Twitter.com. Since I’m often using a browser for other things, I dislike jumping back and forth to that window whenever I want to attend to Twitter. So, I use a stand-alone app, which can be hidden, recalled, quit, or ignored as I like, without forcing me to keep a browser tab open. There are so very many apps available, I can’t even begin to list them here. Safe to say, if you use a Mac, Windows, iOS, or Android, you’ll find one to your liking after doing a Google search and reading reviews.
2. Mute and muffle. Depending on the app you use, you can choose to mute, muffle, or otherwise hide certain tweets from your timeline. You know those people who turn Twitter into a public chatroom with a hashtag like #AnnoyingChat? Mute that tag and you won’t see any of those tweets. You can also mute users (often temporarily), keywords and more. It’s a great way to de-clutter the stream.
3. Hide the stream entirely. I’m required to do some tweeting at my day job but I don’t always want to see what everyone else is saying. Fortunately there’s Wren for Mac, which lets me publish tweets without seeing anything that anyone else is sharing. Sorry, Windows users. I searched high and low for an equivalent for you but failed.
4. Pick a time of the day. Twitter is like potato chips: you can’t eat just one. If you tend to binge on the service, pick a time of day to use Twitter and stick to it. Set a timer and don’t let social media eat away at your productivity.
5. Disable notifications. Many mobile apps will pop up a message when you receive a reply or a mention on Twitter. Others also alert you when one of your tweets has been marked as a favorite by another user. That’s nice to know, but unless you really need that information, consider killing those notifications.
6. Use lists. Twitter introduced lists a while ago, and you really ought to use them. This feature lets you group users or messages by keyword, and see just the tweets that meet your criteria. This is a great idea if you need to use Twitter for work or just want to turn down the firehose of information a bit.
7. Don’t go #nuts with #hashtags. Hashtags are those brief bits of text preceded by the pound sign #. They let users group similar tweets or follow a given topic. Some people abuse their hashtag power and go way overboard, though. Don’t be one of those people.

Related to the last, if you have a hashtag abuser among your followers and you use Tweetbot for Mac, check out these instructions from Brett Kelly on how to automatically hide any tweet with more than two hashtags.

My last bit of advice on de-cluttering Twitter is the most powerful: walk away from Twitter. Yes, it’s a lot of fun and often informative but honestly, unless you have a real dependence on that information (work, etc.), take some time off and walk away. It’ll be fine. I #promise.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re already on Twitter, be sure to follow us at @unclutterer.

Let Unclutterer help you get your home or office organized. Subscribe to our helpful product shipments from Quarterly today.

My initiation into the design community began more as a content writer than as a design enthusiast. Typical design jargons like renders, 3D modeling and cropping were alien words for me. I guess I never fully understood how these words could become the differentiating factor between a good design and great design. In due course, I learnt my lesson and my respect for designers grew and I also learnt that solidThinking was not just constructive thinking but also a vital tool for designers.

In 2000, solidThinking became the first company to offer industrial designers NURBS-based 3D modeling software for both the OS X and Windows operating systems. User experience has certified that the community just loves them. No wonder they have such humungous support that is driven by the value of the software’s organic surfacing, construction history, and integrated rendering in a single package.

The latest release of the software, solidThinking Evolve 9.5, let’s users work in the most natural and unrestricted fashion yet, enabling faster creation of complex products. Apparently solidThinking Evolve features tools to simplify geometry creation and makes editing more intuitive. Even the unique ConstructionTree history feature is now stronger and more elegantly presented.

solidThinking Evolve offers ongoing support to users on OS X, and the company has also added a new 64-bit Windows version that maximizes efficiency in managing large files.

As an industrial designer, if you wish to develop forms faster, using either a Windows PC or Mac, then Evolve is the one for you. It captures an initial sketch, then allows exploration of styling alternatives and the visualization of products with high quality renderings generated in real time.

It combines the modeling freedom of organic surfaces and the control of parametric solids with a unique ConstructionTree history feature.

Essentially, if you are looking for freedom from the constraints of engineering-oriented CAD tools, while allowing the export of digital models required by others in the product development process, then think of Evolve as the tool for you.

solidThinking recently announced the release of solidThinking Inspire® 9.5 and if you want to know more about this software and details about upcoming events, connect with solidThinking through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(solidThinking Evolve® 9.5 – A New Level of Modeling Control was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. Sweet Dreams Are Meant To Evolve
2. On The Level
3. For Scenes Above And Below The Sea Level

I had an amazing college gig. My job was to deliver papers and envelopes to medical offices around town. I’d show up at work and pick up a van full of deliveries, and, when the van was empty, my work was done. Afterward, I would return the van and go back to my apartment. Guess how many times I thought about delivering papers between drop-off and the next morning?

Zero.

That was what David Allen would call a “widget-cranking job.” You show up to find a bunch of un-cranked widgets. Once they’re all cranked, you go home. The job description is cut and dry.

Today, my job is quite different. I write and edit articles. I produce one podcast and participate in another. I’m working on a book. I’ve also got the responsibilities of a husband, father, brother, and son. In comparison, my job requires more attention than driving a van around town while listening to music and drinking a soda.

A good number of jobs can be overwhelming. The good news is that any job can be a widget-cranking job. The trick is identifying the widgets and getting them in front of yourself in a timely manner and on a friendly, non-intimidating list.

How do you get almost any job into a widget-cranking job? Try these steps:

Identify the widgets

This is the most crucial and the most difficult step. It often takes more time and attention than you initially assume. I think a case study will be the best way to illustrate the process.

Next week, I’ll produce another episode of my podcast, Home Work. There’s a lot to be done each week, like think of a topic, communicate that idea to my co-host, conduct research once a topic has been agreed upon, share notes, confirm sponsorship details, ensure that my software and hardware works, and so on. It’s easy to look at that and think, “Where do I begin?”

To find the answer, I ask myself this question: “If I had nothing else to do in the world but work on the podcast, absolutely nothing at all, what could I do right now to make progress on it?” And by do I mean a concrete, observable action. Let’s say my answer comes back, “brainstorm topic ideas.” OK, great. What do I need to do that? Well, a piece of paper and a pencil.

OK, but bah! My beloved brainstorming notebook is out of scratch paper. I guess I need to get more. So, the next step on the project Produce the Podcast is “drive to Staples and buy my favorite notebook paper.”

That’s a widget. “Think of a good topic” is hard. “Buy paper” is easy.

From there, I continue to my next step, which is “brainstorm ideas.” Then, I identify two or three good ones for the podcast. Next, I need to “share list of good ideas with my co-host.” All of these actions are easily-cranked widgets. Put them on a list and you’re good to go.

To-do management apps

All you need to crank these widgets is a simple list. High-powered project management software is overkill here. Below are several examples of simple and effective task management applications that might work for you.

1. Remember the Milk. This handy little app is available for the iPhone and Android phones. It works with Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter, and has a nice web interface. It’s been around for a few years and works quite well.
2. Todo List. Todo List can be used entirely browser-based so it will work with just about any smartphone and any computer. You’ll also find apps for Android, the iPhone, Windows Phone, and the Mac OS. It features handy color coding and nearly infinite list sizes, so go nuts.
3. TeuxDeux. This app lets you sort tasks by day and can be used in a browser. An iPhone app is also available. This one is very nice-looking in addition to being useful.
4. To.DO. This a solution I’ve only recently started playing with. It’s available for Android, the iPhone, and Chrome. The Chrome browser plug-in is very nice. It syncs automatically with the smartphone apps and reminds you of what needs to be done.
5. Astrid. Astrid takes your to-do list a step further and makes it easy to share task lists with co-workers, family, and friends. It’s available for the iPhone and Android.

Crank widgets

Once you are clear as to what steps to take, work through your list of simple to-do items. As long as you stay current with your concrete actions, you’ll know exactly what you need to do. You can free your mind to think about non-work things during non-work time.

Need help getting organized? Buy the DRM-free audiobook version of Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week today for only $8.99.