In a paper called “Can Moons Have Moons?”, a pair of astronomers says that some of the solar system’s moons, including ours, are large enough and far enough away from their host planets to have their own sizable moons.
We find that 10 km-scale submoons can only survive around large (1000 km-scale) moons on wide-separation orbits. Tidal dissipation destabilizes the orbits of submoons around moons that are small or too close to their host planet; this is the case for most of the Solar System’s moons. A handful of known moons are, however, capable of hosting long-lived submoons: Saturn’s moons Titan and Iapetus, Jupiter’s moon Callisto, and Earth’s Moon.
Moonmoon is an example of the linguistic process of reduplication, which is often deployed in English to make things more cute and whimsical. In the pure form of reduplication, you get words like bonbon, choo-choo, bye-bye, there there, and moonmoon but relaxing the rules a little to incorporate rhymes and near-rhymes yields hip-hop, zig-zag, fancy-shmancy, super-duper, pitter-patter, and okey-dokey. And with contrastive reduplication, in which a word repeats as a modifier to itself:
“It’s tuna salad, not salad-salad.”
“Does she like me or like-like me?”
“The party is fancy but not fancy-fancy.”
“The car isn’t mine-mine, it’s my mom’s.”
Fun! And astronomy should be fun too. Let’s definitely call them moonmoons.
Dying alone in Japan is so common that they have a term for it: kodokushi (“lonely death”). Miyu Kojima works for a company that cleans up apartments after people die and for awhile now, she’s been creating miniature replicas of some of the rooms that she’s cleaned. Note: some of these images might be a little disturbing.
Kojima has been working for the clean-up company for about 4 years and explains that she cleans on average 300 rooms per year. To preserve and document the scene, the company always takes photographs of the rooms in case relatives want to see them. However, Kojima noticed that the photographs really don’t capture the sadness of the incident. And while she had no formal art training, she decided to go to her local craft store and buy supplies, which she used to create her replicas. She sometimes uses color-copies of the photographs, which she then sculpts into miniature objects. Kojima says that she spends about 1 month on each replica.
We haven’t seen a ton of new Android TV boxes lately, but today that’s precisely what Xiaomi has unveiled.
The Xiaomi Mi Box S features Android TV based on Android 8.1. It offers 4K Ultra HD and HDR video along with Dolby and DTS audio support. Also built-in are both Google Assistant and Chromecast, and the included remote even offers an Assistant button to let you easily search for content or control your smart home devices using your voice.
Packed into Xiaomi’s new set-top box is a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor paired with a Mali-450 GPU and 2GB of RAM. There’s also 8GB of storage built into the Mi Box S along with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2. When it comes to ports, the Xiaomi Mi Box S offers HDMI 2.0a, USB 2.0, and audio out.
As mentioned before, it’s not often we see a new Android TV box, so it’s nice to see Xiaomi follow up 2016′s Mi Box with an updated model. If the Xiaomi Mi Box S interests you, you can pre-order one right now from Walmart for $59.99, and it’ll be available starting November 7th.
Google today revealed that it’s shutting down the consumer version of Google+. The service will wind down over the next 10 months, with the goal of finishing the shutdown by the end of August 2019. Users will be able to download and migrate their data. As for why it’s being shut down, Google says that Google+ has “low usage and engagement”, with 90 percent of G+ user sessions lasting less than five seconds.
A major security bug appears to also be to blame for the Google+ shutdown. Google said today that it found a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs that allowed developers access to profile data like full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places live, occupation, and relationship status. Info like phone numbers, email messages, timeline posts, and direct messages were not surfaced by this API.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, this bug existed from 2015 through March 2018, and Google confirms that it patched the bug in March 2018 after it discovered its existence. Before patching it, Google ran an analysis and found that up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were affected. The company does say that it found no evidence to show that any developer was aware of the bug or that any profile data was misued.
Interestingly, the aforementioned WSJ report says that Google’s legal and policy staff sent a memo to senior executives warning that disclosing the bug would probably result in “immediate regulatory interest”. Google CEO Sundar Pichai was allegedly briefed on the company’s plan not to notify users about the bug.
“Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice,” a Google spokesman told the WSJ, saying that the criteria include whether it could identify users to warn about the bug, whether there’s evidence of misuse, and whether there are any actions a developer or user could take in response to the bug. “None of those thresholds were met here,” he said.
Google+ may not be the biggest social network — far from it, according to Google — but there are some folks out there that use it, so the news of its shutdown is a bit disappointing for them. G+ did have some interesting ideas, like its concept of Circles for deciding who you share posts with. Now that G+ is shutting down, maybe we’ll see some of those ideas used in other social networks.
Google today also revealed some more steps that it’s taking to help protect user data. These include more granular Google Account permissions that’ll appear in their own individual dialog boxes and updating the User Data Policy for the consumer Gmail API to limit the apps that can seek permission to your consumer Gmail data. Google also says that it’s limiting apps’ ability to get your Call Log and SMS permissions on Android devices, allowing only an app that you’ve selected as your default calling and texting app to make these requests.
When my friends and I are getting ready to head out to dinner, there's always a moment when we stop to ask who is going to order our ride. Now, Google can take care of it. This week, we’re rolling out a new way to easily book ride services with your Google Assistant.
With your Android phone, iPhone, Google Home, or any smart speaker with the Assistant, start by saying, “Hey Google, book a ride to the Bluebird Cafe” or “Hey Google, get me a taxi to Denver International Airport.” You will then be given a list of popular ride services to select from, including Uber, Lyft, Ola, Grab, GO-JEK and many more, along with more information on estimated pricing and wait times from each service. If you only want ride options from a single provider, just include their name in your request, for example, “Hey Google, get me a Lyft ride to SFO.”
Then grab your phone and tap on your preferred ride service, and the app will open to let you confirm the booking. The feature will be available first in English and any country where one of our supported ride service partners operate. We plan to expand to more languages in the coming months.
If you’re in a hurry and your hands are all tied up, you’ll now be able to use the Assistant to see all your favorite ride services in one place and pick the one that works best for you.
In 2014, BBC aired a two-part documentary that featured intimate and close-up footage of dolphins using remote-controlled cameras disguised as sea creatures like turtles and fish. In one of the scenes, a group of adolescent dolphins captures a puffer fish and passes the ball-shaped little guy around. But as narrator David Tennant explains, what the dolphins really appear to be after is the toxin released by the puffer.
When attacked, puffer fish release a neurotoxin. In high doses, it can kill, but in small doses, it has a narcotic effect. It seems to be affecting the dolphins. They appear totally blissed out by the whole experience. And remarkably, all take turns in passing the puffer around.
Puff, puff, pass. Puff, puff, pass. Look at these blissed-out young’uns!
The dolphins were filmed gently playing with the puffer, passing it between each other for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, unlike the fish they had caught as prey which were swiftly torn apart.
Zoologist and series producer Rob Pilley said that it was the first time dolphins had been filmed behaving this way.
At one point the dolphins are seen floating just underneath the water’s surface, apparently mesmerised by their own reflections.
Everyone can benefit from hands-free support when using technology, but for the 62 million people in the U.S. with motor and mobility impairments, it can be a vital requirement. For Stefanie Putnam, a quadriplegic and a para-equestrian driver, tasks like taking photos, sending texts and composing emails could be daunting.
Stefanie was one of several people the Google Accessibility team worked with to test early prototypes of a feature which allowed people to control their Android device using voice-only commands. Her feedback—and that of other testers—was instructional in shaping a new product we’ve just released called Voice Access.
“After using this product for probably about 10 seconds, I think I’m falling in love with it,” said Stefanie. “You use your voice and you’re able to access the world. It has become a huge staple in my life.”
Stefanie Putnam testing Voice Access
Voice Access provides a hands-free experience for Android, letting people navigate through apps, compose and edit text, and talk to the Google Assistant. It provides more fine-grained controls than other voice commands you might use on your phone—for example, letting you use your voice to "click" buttons and controls within apps, or scroll and navigate app screens. And while there are great benefits for individuals with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, spinal cord injury and more, Voice Access can also provide value to people who don’t have a disability—people juggling with groceries or in the middle of cooking.
Screenshots of voice commands used by Voice Access
When using Voice Access, you can compose and edit a text message hands free by saying “Ok Google,” and open your favorite app with the “open” command. Then, select the text field by speaking the number Voice Access displays next to it. After saying your message out loud, like “would you like to meet for lunch tomorrow?” you can edit the text using phrases like “replace tomorrow with Saturday” to change the day you want to meet. Speaking commands such as “delete the line” or “undo” will start over and when you’ve finished, you can say “stop listening.” There are many more examples of available commands on oursupport page.
Screenshot of an Android homepage using Voice Access
Feedback like Stefanie’s consistently shapes the future of Google’s products. You can help our Central Accessibility team build even more accessible products by signing up to participate in future user studies.
Today we’re announcing .page, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry.
A TLD is the last part of a domain name, like .com in “google.com” or .google in “blog.google” (the site you’re on right now). The .page TLD is a new opportunity for anyone to build an online presence. Whether you’re writing a blog, getting your business online, or promoting your latest project, .page makes it simple and more secure to get the word out about the unique things you do.
Check out 10 interesting things some people and businesses are already doing on .page:
Ellen.Page is the website of Academy Award®-nominated actress and producer Ellen Page that will spotlight LGBTQ culture and social causes.
Home.Page is a project by the digital media artist Aaron Koblin, who is creating a living collection of hand-drawn houses from people across the world. Enjoy free art daily and help bring real people home by supporting revolving bail.
ChristophNiemann.Page is the virtual exhibition space of illustrator, graphic designer, and author Christoph Niemann.
Web.Page is a collaboration between a group of designers and developers who will offer a monthly online magazine with design techniques, strategies, and inspiration.
CareerXO.Page by Geek Girl Careers is a personality assessment designed to help women find tech careers they love.
TurnThe.Page by Insurance Lounge offers advice about the transition from career to retirement.
WordAsImage.Page is a project by designer Ji Lee that explores the visualizations of words through typography.
Membrane.Page by Synder Filtration is an educational website about spiral-wound nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, and microfiltration membrane elements and systems.
TV.Page is a SaaS company that provides shoppable video technology for ecommerce, social media, and retail stores.
Navlekha.Page was created by Navlekhā, a Google initiative that helps Indian publishers get their content online with free authoring tools, guidance, and a .page domain for the first 3 years. Since the initiative debuted at Google for India, publishers are creating articles within minutes. And Navlekhā plans to bring 135,000 publishers online over the next 5 years.
Security is a top priority for Google Registry’s domains. To help keep your information safe, all .page websites require an SSL certificate, which helps keep connections to your domain secure and helps protect against things like ad malware and tracking injections. Both .page and .app, which we launched in May, will help move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future.
.page domains are available now through the Early Access Program. For an extra fee, you’ll have the chance to get the perfect .page domain name from participating registrar partners before standard registrations become available on October 9th. For more details about registering your domain, check out get.page. We’re looking forward to seeing what you’ll build on .page!
Like video games? If so, you’ll want to check out Google’s Project Stream.
Project Stream is a new effort by Google to stream high-quality video games to your Chrome browser. Google will test Project Stream starting on October 5th, letting participants play the new AAA title Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for free during the trial.
The Project Stream title will only be open to a limited number of participants. You’ll need a “reliable” internet connection — Google recommends at least 25Mbps — Google and Ubisoft accounts, and a desktop or laptop computer with Chrome version 69 or higher installed. The Project Stream test will work on Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, and Linux, and supports wired USB controllers and external mice.
If you’re interested in participating in the Project Stream test, you can apply right here. The trial is expected to run until mid-January.
Project Stream sounds like an interesting effort from Google. Typically with AAA games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, you need to either buy a physical copy and insert it into your gaming console whenever you want to play or download a digital copy with can be tens of gigabytes in size and take some time to download. Plus, gaming on the PC can require a powerful and expensive rig if you want high-quality graphics. Project Stream aims to get around all that by streaming a game to a browser.
What do you think of Project Stream? Are you going to apply to the test?
Even though you knew going into Jurassic Park that they had somehow brought dinosaurs back to life, you don’t actually see any of the prehistoric creatures until the “Welcome to Jurassic Park” reveal more than 20 minutes into the film. The scene features a Brachiosaurus eating from a tall tree and many dinosaurs flocked around a watering hole. William Hirsch edited that scene, digitally removing the dinosaurs so that Dr. Sattler, Dr. Malcolm, and the others are gawking in wonder at empty forests and a lonely lake.
Trees and lakes are pretty amazing though…we just don’t notice that often. I imagine if you took someone who grew up in the Arctic or in a desert without access to any media or photography and plopped them without explanation on a tropical island, they would flip out.
Color fonts are poised to take over the graphic design world in 2018, but what exactly are they, and how can you use them?
Here we’ll sift through the tech jargon and get to the simple truth of color fonts. This unashamedly in-your-face trend promises to put the fun back into typography. A must-know for web and graphic designers alike, this nifty new technology will have a transformative effect on digital and print design for years to come. So don’t get left behind, and read on!
If you want to use highly detailed type on a design, you have to use a vector or raster image of a letter or group of letters. Whether created from scratch by typography artists or downloaded from a stock site, these images are time-consuming to make and don’t have the functionality or flexibility of a font file.
At least that was the case until now. Color fonts, sometimes referred to as chromatic fonts, represent the next evolutionary step for typography, incorporating details like color, gradients, and textures into a font file, in either vector or bitmap format. Vector details look clear and sharp however large they are scaled, while bitmap color fonts can look pixelated or blurry when scaled to a size greater than their intended maximum size.
Each color font is made up of a ‘fallback’ core, which is the standard OpenType vector font, plus additional data tagged on which is rendered in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format. Amongst font developers, color fonts are referred to as OpenType-SVG fonts.
This Adobe Typekit color font, Trajan Color Concept, combines the standard Trajan font with gradients, colors and shadowing for an ornate metallic effect.
If you’re looking at the font on a browser which supports color fonts, you’ll be able to see the colorful version. If not, you’ll see the fallback version. This is important to make a mental note of, before you dive into converting all fonts on your website to color fonts. As color fonts are relatively new, most browser versions are currently unable to support the technology. Skip to ‘How Can I Use Them’, below, to find out more.
Hmm, So Why Would I Want to Use Them?
Remember the thrill of using WordArt to embellish your PowerPoint presentations back at school? While your teacher may have been less thrilled, there’s just something downright fun about adding a maximalist flourish to text. Color fonts are basically like WordArt for the internet age, adding extra oomph to any design.
This isn’t a trend that minimalist fans will wholeheartedly embrace, but it’s certainly refreshing after decades of clean, Swiss School-inspired design. Color fonts sit at the opposite end of the spectrum to Scandi cleanliness, instead taking their cues from emojis, retro type styles, and app design.
Color fonts tread a shaky line between good and bad taste, but somehow they feel exactly spot on for right now. They're making their appearance alongside a revival for all things retro in design, as well as a new maximalist mood across all design fields, from fashion to interiors. Color fonts don’t take themselves too seriously and are instantly engaging, and that’s what makes them particularly attractive to designers and marketers looking to entice the fickle, tech-obsessed millennial market.
Above all, color fonts are fun! While early color fonts have been designed with websites and apps primarily in mind, they also have the potential to offer something youthful and fresh to print design too. You can’t use a color font without cracking a smile, which is perhaps what designers and consumers are craving in these politically and socially uncertain times.
OK, So Where Can I Use Them?
Because color fonts are such a new technology, many browsers, devices and software programs are yet to catch up. You might not be able to view color fonts on some browsers—you'll only be able to view the standard OpenType version instead.
However, this is likely to change very soon. OpenType-SVG fonts have been declared an industry standard for color fonts, which means that browsers and software will probably update rapidly to facilitate them. You can currently view color fonts on more recent versions of Firefox (from version 26) and Microsoft Edge (from version 38 on Windows 10).
As for using color fonts on design software, Adobe is ahead of the curve, with designers able to view and apply color fonts using the newest incarnations of Illustrator (CC 2018), Photoshop (CC 2017), and InDesign (CC 2018).
Some type designers are also experimenting with animated versions of color fonts. Gilbert, a color font created by Fontself, is usable in Adobe After Effects.
Gilbert, a color font available in static and animated versions
These animated styles represent an exciting new development for more accessible animation—expect to see them everywhere across social media, GIFs and videos very soon.
Where Can I Find Color Fonts?
Color fonts are few and far between at the moment, but more are being released all the time as the trend gains traction. Adobe has a dedicated color font Typekit, where it details the newest color fonts available for download for web and print. One of its most notable launches is the color font version of Emoji One, which makes integrating colorful emoji graphics into your designs super easy with the Glyphs panel to hand.
Some font designers use a dedicated platform to launch their color font creations. Bixa Color is a retro-inspired collaborative effort by NovoTypo and Roel Nieskens.
Want to have a go at creating your own color font? Fontself is the color font designer’s go-to tool. Take a look at the dedicated page for Gilbert, which was created using Fontself, to source some inspiration on the possibilities.
I’m a Color Font Convert! But How Should I Use Them?
If you’ve been bitten by the color font bug, it can be tempting to throw out all your old fonts and go a bit crazy. Before you create designs which resemble a bad acid trip, take into consideration these tips and pointers for making the most of this new typography trend.
As with standard fonts, some are notably better than others. Just because you can use a color font doesn’t mean you necessarily should. Hold out for a few months and you’ll have access to a much broader selection of color fonts, helping you create more thoughtfully crafted designs.
Be mindful of the limitations of color fonts. If you have your heart set on a bitmap font, it’s advisable not to use this at a larger scale than was intended by the font designer. So, for example, a bitmap color font might look great on a printed flyer set to the right size, but it might look much less polished on a responsive web design that involves scaling content to a large size on desktops.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that color fonts are heavier than their OpenType relatives, due to the extra amount of data they carry. They aren’t always huge (for example, the Bixa Color font carries an extra 30kB on top of the regular font file size), but it can affect the loading time of websites and apps. By all means use your color fonts with abandon, but don’t allow liberal use to affect the user’s experience of your design.
If you want to use color fonts for web design, you should also take into account the possibility that it may be a long time before most visitors will be able to view the fonts as you intended. It may be many months or years before individuals choose to update or switch browsers, and most will not be aware of the pressing need to do this in relation to color font viewing. With this in mind, you need to make sure that your font looks as good in its ‘fallback’ format as it does in color.
Because color fonts are overtly loud and garish, they can push a design into distasteful territory. For some designs, particularly apps aimed at a younger market, this can be a bonus! Adobe’s color font Typekit page instantly provokes that love-it-or-hate-it reaction to excessive web design. Other designers might prefer to balance a color font with more pared-back type or black-and-white images on the rest of the layout, or use a color font as the sole focus of an otherwise clean and simple design.
Pairing color fonts with cleaner elements on your designs will help layouts feel more balanced, as demonstrated in this example using the Popsky color font, designed by Igor Petrovic.
If you’re still unsure about how to use color fonts in your designs, it’s a good tip to remind yourself of the purpose of your design. Are you looking to target a market which is hyper trend-aware, like tech-savvy millennials? Then using color fonts freely will result in an engaging and youthful design. Do you simply want to use color fonts to add a point of difference to your design? Using them sparingly will give you a more professional and polished result.
Conclusion
Color fonts may be the latest ‘it’ trend in graphic design, but it looks as if they’re here to stay, for the foreseeable future at least. They represent a break with conventional font technology, making more detailed type, and even animated text, much more accessible for designers and non-designers alike.
With color fonts still in their infancy, there is a limited range of fonts available for download, which makes their current use for designers a little limited. However, this is an exciting time for budding font designers. If you’re looking for a new type challenge, creating your own color font from scratch could be both creatively and financially rewarding.
Want to dip a toe into type design? These tutorials will guide you through the basics of creating your own fonts from scratch:
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Creating fonts has never been so easy as with Fontself—a powerful extension for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Learn how to make color fonts with Fontself!
