MacBook Air delays are turning Apple’s everyday laptop into a planning issue for buyers counting on quick delivery.
The post MacBook Air Delays Could Complicate Laptop Rollouts appeared first on TechRepublic.
ZHA has collaborated with Spanish design brand Nagami to create the Echo Chair, a 3D-printed seat made from recycled plastic waste. Formerly known as Zaha Hadid Architects, the studio developed the chair through parametric design and large-scale additive manufacturing. Its form is fluid and sculptural, with an arched backrest that extends towards the floor and a seat that curves upwards at the sides.
The two parts look separate at first, but they are printed as one continuous piece. Both surfaces grow from the same structural edge and share the same underlying geometry. One becomes the seat, while the other rises to form the backrest and support.
This continuous construction gives the chair a clear sense of logic. The shape is doing several jobs at once: supporting the body, holding the structure together, and defining the overall visual character.
The Echo Chair was developed through an iterative research process at ZHA Lab and manufactured by Nagami, a brand known for its work in large-format 3D printing. The studios used recycled PETG sourced from industrial waste, including single-use medical plastics.
As the chair is printed layer by layer, the process leaves a ribbed texture across its surface. Those lines have been kept visible rather than hidden or polished away. That decision gives the chair much of its character. The texture follows the curves closely and makes the manufacturing process easy to read. It also gives the recycled plastic a more tactile, less generic appearance.
There is something useful in that honesty. The material is not being forced to look like timber, stone or metal. It keeps the visual qualities created by the printing process and uses them as part of the design. The surface does still reference natural materials in a subtle way. Its layered finish recalls mineral formations and carved stone, which helps the chair feel less industrial when placed in an interior.
ZHA and Nagami developed four colourways for the chair: white, black, a white-to-translucent gradient and a caramel tone made using a bio-based cork composite. The colour choices help shift the mood of the design. White makes the form feel lighter and more architectural, while black gives it a stronger, more graphic presence. The translucent version draws attention to the printing layers, and the caramel finish adds warmth to what could otherwise feel like a very technical object.
The caramel version is especially successful because it softens the synthetic quality of the plastic. It feels easier to imagine in a home, hotel lobby or lounge space, rather than only in a gallery or design exhibition. According to ZHA project design director Sebastian Andia, the goal was to turn an abundant and overlooked material into something people would genuinely want to live with. That idea matters because recycled material alone is rarely enough to make a product successful. People still need to like the object, find it comfortable and see a place for it in their environment.
The Echo Chair handles this well. Its sustainable story supports the design, rather than becoming the whole design. The seat’s raised sides create a more enclosed sitting position, while the curved backrest gives the chair a supportive and almost cocooned feel. The shape is expressive, but it still looks usable. Its scale and neutral colour options also make it easier to place than the form might suggest. It has enough presence to work as a statement piece, yet it does not depend on bright colour or decoration to stand out.
The 3D-printing process allows the chair to be produced without visible joints or separate components. This gives it a seamless appearance and keeps the connection between the digital model and final object very direct.
That connection is one of the strongest parts of the project. The manufacturing process does not sit behind the design. It shapes the design. The ribs, curves and continuous structure all come from the same production method. Each part of the chair feels related because it has been developed through the same system.
The Echo Chair continues ZHA and Nagami’s existing collaboration. Nagami launched its first collection of 3D-printed chairs in 2018, which included two designs by the architecture studio. Their latest project shows how much more refined large-scale 3D printing has become. The chair feels less like a technical experiment and more like a finished product with a clear place in contemporary interiors.
The Echo Chair is currently on display as part of London Creates at The Truman Brewery. What makes the chair interesting is the way it brings together material, form and manufacturing without overcomplicating the idea. Recycled plastic is treated as a starting point for the design, rather than something that needs to be disguised.
The post The Echo Chair Makes 3D Printing Feel Refined first appeared on Yanko Design.
Jonas Eschenburg se tape un petit délire cet été, en portant Command & Conquer sur Atari ST, et il vient de s'occuper des cinématiques du jeu, le tout sur une machine équipée d'un Motorola 68000 cadencé à 8 MHz. Le même garçon avait déjà fait tourner Doom dessus.
Le décalage vaut le détour. Command & Conquer sort en 1995 sur PC, en VGA 256 couleurs, soit dix ans après l'Atari ST, qui affiche lui 16 couleurs en 320 par 200 points.
Envoyer les pixels bruts à l'écran est hors de question sur ce genre de matériel. La machine n'a ni le débit de lecture ni la puissance de calcul pour ça.
Eschenburg a donc écrit son propre codec, baptisé STV, adapté du format VQA que Westwood utilisait à l'époque pour ses vidéos. Le principe repose sur un codebook, autrement dit un dictionnaire de petits carrés de pixels : au lieu de transmettre chaque image entière, le fichier envoie surtout des numéros qui pointent vers des motifs déjà connus du lecteur.
L'astuce est en réalité ailleurs. Les blocs sont découpés pour tomber pile sur l'organisation mémoire de l'Atari, qui range ses couleurs en plans séparés plutôt qu'en pixels contigus, ce qui permet au processeur de recopier les motifs sans passer son temps à réorganiser les bits.
La palette et le dictionnaire se mettent à jour en continu pendant la lecture, et pas une fois pour toutes au début du fichier. Ça évite le gros pâté de blocs baveux qu'on attendrait d'une compression aussi agressive.
Le tout fonctionne sur un 8 MHz d'origine. Sans accélérateur. A priori, aucun jeu Atari ST n'avait affiché de vidéo plein écran avant celui-là.
Le jeu, lui, reste beaucoup plus poussif pour le moment : quelques images par seconde en 16 couleurs, correct seulement à partir d'un Falcon, et il réclame 4 Mo de mémoire. Autour du codec, Eschenburg a publié une dizaine d'utilitaires, dont un encodeur pour fabriquer les fichiers STV et un lecteur natif pour les regarder sur la machine.
Tout est sous licence GPL sur GitHub, le portage se récupère sur itch.io, et il faut fournir ses propres fichiers du jeu d'origine puisque le projet n'a rien à voir avec EA.
Détail amusant, le son ne sort que sur STe et Falcon. Sur un ST de base, les cinématiques défilent en silence complet. La question étant maintenant de savoir si tout ça ne m'a pas donné envie de rejouer à Command and Conquer, pour ressortir mon premier pseudo de game : Moissonneuse killer (vraiment).
Source : Hackaday
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