TikTok on Thursday pushed back against U.S. government arguments that the popular social media platform is not shielded by the First Amendment, comparing its platform to prominent American media organizations owned by foreign entities.Last month, the Justice Department argued in a legal brief filed in a Washington federal appeals court that neither TikToks China-based parent company, ByteDance, nor the platforms global and U.S. arms TikTok Ltd. and TikTok Inc. were entitled to First Amendment protections because they are foreign organizations operating abroad or owned by one.TikTok attorneys have made the First Amendment a key part of their legal challenge to the federal law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or face a ban.On Thursday, they argued in a court document that TikToks U.S. arm doesnt forfeit its constitutional rights because it is owned by a foreign entity. They drew a parallel between TikTok and well-known news outlets such as Politico and Business Insider, both of which are owned by German publisher Axel Springer SE. They also cited Fortune, a business magazine owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon.Surely the American companies that publish Politico, Fortune, and Business Insider do not lose First Amendment protection because they have foreign ownership, the TikTok attorneys wrote, arguing that no precedent supports what they called the governments dramatic rewriting of what counts as protected speech.In a redacted court filing made last month, the Justice Department argued ByteDance and TikTok havent raised valid free speech claims in their challenge against the law, saying the measure addresses national security concerns about TikToks ownership without targeting protected speech.The Biden administration and TikTok had held talks in recent years aimed at resolving the governments concerns. But the two sides failed to reach a deal.TikTok said the government essentially walked away from the negotiating table after it proposed a 90-page agreement that detailed how the company planned to address concerns about the app while still maintaining ties with ByteDance.However, the Justice Department has said TikToks proposal failed to create sufficient separation between the companys U.S. operations and China and did not adequately address some of the governments concerns.The government has pointed to some data transfers between TikTok employees and ByteDance engineers in China as why it believed the proposal, called Project Texas, was not sufficient to guard against national security concerns. Federal officials have also argued that the size and scope of TikTok would have made it impossible to meaningfully enforce compliance with the proposal.TikTok attorneys said Thursday that some of what the government views as inadequacies of the agreement were never raised during the negotiations.Separately the DOJ on Thursday evening asked the court to submit evidence under seal, saying in a filing that the case contained information classified at Top Secret levels. TikTok has been opposing those requests.Oral arguments in the case are scheduled to begin on Sept. 16.Haleluya Hadero, AP Business Writer

The inevitable transition from a take-make-waste society to a circular economy presents exciting and rewarding challenges for designers, writes Sarah Housley.It's getting harder for designers to sleep at night. As global warming starts to continuously exceed 1.5 degrees celsius, the industries that promote and enable consumerism including advertising and marketing, but also design face a clear choice: to radically reorient, or continue to be complicit in the triple planetary crisis.Design as we know it is doomed, but that's a good thing for designers. The job of making things has to change. Designers, as the problem-solvers (and question-askers) we are known to be, have a brilliant chance to design the changed systems we urgently need.Designing beyond the new can be empowering, exciting, and ultimately extremely rewardingIncreasingly, design will start not with the new, but with redesign and reuse, and its goal will be enabling and rewarding positive behavioural change, as opposed to selling a new product. This might feel scary, because it marks a major shift from how many designers were taught their craft and how they have worked previously.The blank canvas is famously the starting point for creativity, and raw materials still tend to be the starting point for prototyping and design development, rather than used or salvaged materials. Circular systems are challenging to work with; reprocessed materials can be inconsistent in quality, supply and behaviour.But designing beyond the new can be empowering, exciting, and ultimately extremely rewarding. It instantly addresses "eco-anxiety" and the nagging guilt that some designers are starting to feel.Read: FranklinTill shares nine principles for a shift to regenerative materialsA designer I know recently told me that towards the end of her former career in fast fashion, she was painfully aware that she "was just creating landfill". These same concerns increasingly apply to tech and interiors too, where low-quality items are produced with the expectation that they will be discarded within a few years.If we want to ensure that design itself will continue to be valued in the decades ahead, we need to develop skills of transition and transformation,of strategic reduction and design for repair and longevity. As a recent Design Council report pointed out, there's plenty of room to do so.Design schools will need to teach mindsets that decentre the new, and design media should be challenging itself to cover smart adaptations and well-designed systems with the same enthusiasm that it applies to covering a product launch. In this changed ecosystem, there are five broad and important areas in which designers will increasingly be able to specialise and innovate.Can the process of caring for an item be designed to be as pleasurable as using it?The first is smart subtraction. One of designers' key roles in this decade and beyond will be in taking things away, designing products to use fewer materials and coatings and be less intensive in their manufacturing. This subtraction extends to colour choices: a recent study found that red, green and blue plastics become brittle and fragment into microplastics more quickly than black, white and silver-coloured plastics, leading campaigners to urge manufacturers to move away from brighter colours.The second key area is maintenance, which will come to be as important as innovation. As people use items for longer, designers will start to extend the lifetime they plan for a product to be used for, and factor longer periods of use into design choices.This could mean product mock-ups that show the product not only at point-of-sale but 10 or 20 years into use, when its surfaces have begun to patinate beautifully. Designing for maintenance also impacts user experience: can the process of caring for an item be designed to be as pleasurable as using it?Read: Is a plastic-free future possible?Alongside subtraction and maintenance, the art of adaptation sensitively adding to and evolving existing products, services and structures will be a core design skill. Adaptive reuse requires first familiarising yourself with the history of an object, space or experience, so that you can thoughtfully respond to its context and culture of use as you evolve it into something else. This could mean designers taking on some of the mindset of a historian, archaeologist or archivist, and extending the ethnography, observation and co-design work they already do.Designers will have a crucial role to play in making reuse, rental and refurbishment mainstream. These are all growing areas, and increasingly businesses will be using these processes instead of designing and selling new products. All of these processes need to be designed, both in terms of the "reverse supply chain" the process of getting used products back from customers to be refurbished and sold again and in terms of the end user experience.We are living through the decisive decade, and designers have urgent decisions to makeThe touchpoints of repair and resale will need to be as well-designed as the process of buying something new in order to compete effectively with the convenience and dopamine rush of shopping. Sojo does this beautifully for fashion, while Nimble connects people with household goods that need fixing to nearby "repair artists".Finally, the art of designing for end-of-life processes is being explored by a handful of innovative thinkers, including And End, a design consultancy that "designs endings" for products. There is a huge amount of potential for designers to specialise at this point of the product cycle, reimagining the process of dismantling products and recycling components.Let's see designers-in-residence at recycling facilities, working out which materials have reuse potential and setting up symbiotic partnerships between industries. Or design team inspiration days that swap out a museum trip with a visit to a recycling centre or landfill site to watch and to witness, to set the context for their choices.Read: "Cutting out sustainability in the face of economic downturn is short-term and misguided"We are living through the decisive decade, and designers have urgent decisions to make. Our considerable skillsets can be transferred from enabling a take-make-waste culture to accelerating a reduce-redesign-reuse culture.That shift will generate a host of new creative challenges and possibilities. Design teams will face the task of retooling to work beyond the new, and of influencing the businesses they work within to adapt at the same speed. But once they do, they will have immediate impact and designers might be able to sleep better at night again.Sarah Housleyis a writer, researcher, consultant and speaker specialising in the future of design and ethical innovation. She is former head of consumer tech at trend forecasterWGSN.The photo shows a shelving unit made from aluminium smelting offcuts, designed by Studio ThusThat.Dezeen In DepthIf you enjoy reading Dezeen's interviews, opinions and features,subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.The post "Design as we know it is doomed, but that's a good thing for designers" appeared first on Dezeen.

Believe it or not, the seven segment display was actually invented in 1903. Early applications in signal panels used incandescent bulbs. It wasn't until the 1960s and '70s that seven segment displays really took off, with the advent of LEDs; it made possible Hewlett-Packard calculators, Texas Instruments alarm clocks and Casio digital watches. Though we now live in the age of pixels, we still see the seven segment display regularly, at the gas station.The seven segment display was originally designed to display Arabic numerals. It was never meant for the Chinese characters that represent numbers: ?????????????. However, Twitch gamer Pekerogu, who is learning Japanese and is a design enthusiast, wanted to see if he could create a segmented display that could handle the Chinese numerical characters. (Those same characters are used in Japanese.) After noodling around with it, he came up with this 38 segment display: This can handle the trickier characters: As well as some punctuation, symbols and characters:It can also do (very limited) kanji and katakana: Pekerogu calls his creation PEKSEG. He designed it purely for fun, and has made an SVG file of it freely available here, for those who want to mess around with it. He only asks that you credit him and the presentation video of it, which is below.

Our health is the single most important investment we can make, but most people tend to take it for granted or are at a loss for what to do. Some pay no attention to the discomfort in their gut, simply attributing it to indigestion, while others belittle the stress and anxiety they feel each day, deciding to just tough it up. Others do take the effort to address these concerns but end up with solutions that are costly, uncomfortable, and worse, ineffective. Fortunately, that doesnt have to be the case, thanks to these innovative wearable devices that target the centers of physical and mental health, providing people with easy-to-use, portable, safe, and comfortable tools to enjoy a pain-free gut, a stress-free mind, and a happy, healthy life in j just weeks.Designer: KineonClick Here to Buy Now: $359 $998 (64% off). Hurry, only 20 left! Raised over $200,000.Its almost too easy to take the discomfort that we feel in our guts for granted, but that can actually affect not only our physical health but our mental state as well. If the brain is the control center of the body, the gut or gastrointestinal tract is the health hub and reflects the general state of the body. Gut problems are often a symptom of or lead to more serious health disorders, and these, in turn, also affect our mental well-being.Revitalize Gut Health With Red Light Laser TherapyHEAL+ is a non-invasive solution that makes sure that your gut is working properly in order to improve your overall health. The science behind HEAL+ is laser therapy, specifically low-level laser therapy or LLLT to reduce inflammation and pain that commonly occurs with gut-related disorders such as IBS, colitis, Crohns disease, and more. It also assists in recovery from long-COVID by boosting your immune system and improving your overall health. This non-invasive method regulates microbial balance in the gut which is necessary for proper digestion and enhanced immune functions. Going beyond your gut, HEAL+ also supercharges nitric oxide for improved blood circulation and enhances dopamine signaling in the brain to improve your mood, giving credence to the saying A Happy Gut Means a Happy Mind.Best of all, HEAL+ is not some complicated machine or nauseating drug but a wearable device you simply wrap around your waist. Attach the removable laser modules to the front of the waistband and youre good to go, enjoying the relief that HEAL+ brings to gut issues. Its easy to use and comfortable to wear, allowing you to bring this health-promoting device anywhere with you.Calm+ is a neck-worn device, easy to use and helps stack with daily habits. Ease the fight or flight state triggered by daily stress within just 15 minutes. Calm+ stimulates the Vagus nerve thats responsible for signaling the brain to release calming neurotransmitters like acetylcholine and serotonin, chemicals that are associated with calmness and relaxation. The device includes built-in sensors that will integrate optical heart measurements, allowing you to personalize the dosage to your own optimal outcomes.Together, HEAL+ and CALM+ help improve your physical and mental well-being through a combination of red light therapy and vagus nerve stimulation. Thanks to its compact and portable design, it can keep your gut healthy and your mind happy whenever and wherever you are. The Kineon App is your ultimate guide to wellness. Seamlessly schedule, track your progress, customize your programs, and get access to expert insights, anywhere, anytime. Say goodbye to gut ouchies and stress-induced headaches and live your healthiest and happiest life with the innovative HEAL+ and CALM+ wearables. Together with the wealth of information and community assistance through Kineons Pain to Possible Program, you can quickly embark on a journey to wellness and calm right now!Click Here to Buy Now: $359 $998 (64% off). Hurry, only 20 left! Raised over $200,000.The post Heal your gut and Calm your mind with this pair of innovative wearable devices first appeared on Yanko Design.

The problem first came to light when players began reporting that their names had been changed for no apparent reason.The latest Destiny 2 botch left a whole lot of players with generic 'Guardian' names.

The ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 and Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge are two top-spec laptops for creatives, and now more affordable with back-to-school savings.

Developer All Possible Futures has announced that The Plucky Squire will launch on September 17 for PC, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X|S. It'll also be included on PlayStation Plus for Extra and Premium tier subscribers.The Plucky Squire follows a young boy named Jot who can switch between his 2D storybook world and the outside 3D realm. Jot is kicked out of the storybook by Humgrump, who finds out he's destined to be its villain, in an attempt to rewrite the ending. Now Jot must venture between both planes in order to restore the book's original good ending.August's PlayStation Plus free games lineup includes Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, and Ender Lilies: quietus of the Knights. Premium and Extra subscribers also got a hefty August update with games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Wild Hearts, Cult of the Lamb, and Watch Dogs 2.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Amazon has marked down the Logitech G309 Lightspeed wireless gaming mouse first the first time since its release just a month or two ago. This first-ever discount drops the price to a slightly more manageable $71.99 from the original listing price of $79.99. Usually, new models are not going to be found at a discount, so this 10% off deal is an excellent opportunity to purchase a gaming mouse that is hot off the press.

Hi people hope you having a good time.i am an indie game developer and my first beta build of my game it is a scary arcade game and now i need feedback and have no budget or way to test it and i will be grateful if you can test and send me your feedbacki hope this works don't want to quit:D thanks in advancedownload link (please support on market)https://com-abcdgames-eyesadventure.en.uptodown.com/androidor google Drive:https://drive.google.com/file/d/12yldwudWMoOd

Many of the Broken Sword fans that I meet today first discovered the series in 1996 when a demo of Broken Sword the Shadow of the Templars was included on the Official PlayStation magazines cover-mounted CD. I am thrilled that subsequent Broken Sword games have continued to be hugely popular on PlayStation platforms.A year or two ago, encouraged by enthusiastic fan communications which have continued over the thirty years since then, I decided that the time was right to undertake a substantially enhanced version of the game for PlayStation 5. We would redraw all the graphics in 4K over 50 times the resolution of the original PlayStation version, and I was determined to ensure that the adventure gameplay felt utterly contemporary for a modern PlayStation audience.Play VideoWith over 100 backgrounds, and 30,000 sprites (animation frames) creating this enhanced, or Reforged, version was always going to be a huge undertaking.The original backgrounds were hand drawn in pencil on A5 (or larger) sheets by extraordinarily talented layout artists who had worked for most of their lives at the Don Bluth animation studios in Dublin. I decided that the games canon should be those original pencil layouts, and where the game screens varied for whatever reasons, we would base the new high resolution art on the pencil layouts. This allowed us to digitally repaint over the original linework in 4K, which we had scanned at very high resolution, with confidence using the original game screens as reference.Three versions of the same Parisian Museum. This first shows the original hand drawn sketchView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageThis secondshows how the sphinx was replaced by thedigital colourist with a goddess to save time.View and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageAnd third, the original art restored by way of the 4K Reforged version.View and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageThis does mean that there have been some changes where the original digital colourist took shortcuts for example in a Parisian Museum, the layout artist had originally drawn a sphinx, but the colourist then chose to save time by using an image of a goddess probably adapted from a photograph. The high resolution game screen now includes a sphinx as originally intended. We did get caught out once or twice where we painted background elements from the original pencil layout, only to find that dialogue lines referred to a different image that had been changed by the digital painter. In 4K there is now scope for so much more detail, which makes the backgrounds feel really crisp and visually exciting, and enhances the gameplay experience as players can better see what is relevant for solving puzzles.View and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageCharacter animation sprites were redrawn, referencing the original character sheets to bring to life details that were just a mush of pixels in low resolution. Each sprite has taken our talented team of animators up to an hour to draw often needing to improve animations which looked fine in low resolution, but didnt look so good when viewed in high resolution. But its been absolutely worth it it is wonderful to see super smooth animations, with subtle facial animation and expressions which look to the quality of a great adult animation.View and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageView and download imageDownload the imagecloseCloseDownload this imageWe decided to undertake user testing early in development to determine how well the original point and click interface, and the whole user experience, would be received by a new generation of players. Whilst the reviews for the games both in the press and from users are consistently excellent, we found that some new players were confused by the interface, and found the gameplay frustrating when they got stuck. That caused us to take a radical rethink to our approach. Whilst the original Broken Sword had hugely innovated in the genre in the 90s (the control system used by most adventure developers is now named the Broken Sword interface because this is what they are copying), it quickly became clear that it was time to innovate again some younger players simply werent attracted to a gameplay experience that for many adventures simply hasnt significantly changed over 30 years. People play adventure games because they love solving puzzles which drive the story forward and we were determined to ensure that the gameplay experience delivered a wonderful feeling of achievement. So we reviewed videos and comments from those users, and re-designed elements that they got snagged on. We iterated and sent back out for testing numerous times, and found that each time the user scores climbed until we were receiving the high user scores that we had originally hoped for. Certainly the HUD and user experience now feels much more innovative and contemporary. All the time we very much kept in mind that many people love the original approach, so we offer the player a choice between the traditional approach and a new story mode.I hope that you enjoy this new version of the original game, Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars: Reforged. We have built on a game that was hugely popular when it was originally released in 1996, has retained a passionate following since that time, and can stake a claim to be one of the most popular adventure games of all time. I am very proud of our incredible team who have carried forward the passion and dedication to produce a game that delivers everything that the original did, and so much more, in 4K.