When text is rendered by a computer, sometimes characters are displayed as “tofu”. They are little boxes to indicate your device doesn’t have a font to display the text. Google has been developing a font family called Noto, which aims to support all languages with a harmonious look and feel. Noto is Google’s answer to tofu. The name noto is to convey the idea that Google’s goal is to see “no more tofu”. Noto has multiple styles and weights, and is freely available to all. The comprehensive set of fonts and tools used in our development is available in our GitHub repositories.

by Justine Alford photo credit: Yvonne Felix, screenshot from YouTube There’s no shortage of heartwarming videos on YouTube, and this is no exception. …

You can’t expect negotiations with French to be like negotiations with Americans, and the same holds true for cultures around the world. — (complete images at the end of the article) British linguist Richard D. Lewis charted communication patterns as well as leadership styles and cultural identities in his book, “When Cultures Collide,” now in a 2005 third edition. …

The first factor that needs to be considered in the design of a space suit is “what will the suit be used for?” — There is no universal suit. The suits are designed for particular mission needs. For example, technically the Russian Sokol suit is a space suit, but it is not designed for use outside. Its mission is to protect the cosmonauts from the vacuum should their Soyuz capsule depressurize. The Sokol’s mission…

January 29, 2015 | by Kathryn Lagrue — photo credit: Immune responses. Faces by Shutterstock The extent to which our personalities determine aspects of our lives and health has increasingly been the subject of research over the last few years. There was the suggestion, for example, that being a morning person or a night owl might reveal a…

Getty Images The landscape of interaction design is a mess. But messes have a way of also bringing about opportunities, don’t they? Examples abound of inappropriate and unnecessary technology masquerading as innovation. Look at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show from last month; it featured a bewildering array of innovation box-checking…

photo credit: TeaDranks / Reddit Where in the world did Australia go?! A new cartogram by Redditer TeaDranks rescales the world’s countries according to population size instead of geographic area. Reconstructing maps based on different variables can be a powerful tool for understanding the world we live in. In this…

by Timon Singh, 11/13/14 If you live in Germany, a new company can now offer you free heating and water if you get one of their data centers installed in your office. It’s so simple, it’s genius. The company, Cloud&Heat, places servers in premises such as your office, where they…

See how they add unique personality to these stunning spaces from our archives. Curated by Architectural Digest CONTEMPORARY LIVING ROOM BY DANIEL ROMUALDEZ In a Los Angeles den, the table and daybed are both by Jacques Adnet; the painting is by McDermott & McGough, the throw pillows are made of…