Journal

It just might be, according to this clever series of tests, unless designers have a say.

The days of the majestic handwritten signature are pretty much done. The IRS encourages taxpayers to file their returns electronically, identifying themselves not with a pen but a special PIN. Credit card payments now involve a tap or a click as often as a hasty cursive scribble. It’s safe to say John Hancock wouldn’t have achieved epic status if he’d typed his name at the end of the Declaration of Independence—then hit send.

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We look at familiar logos like we look at faces. That’s depressing.

We perceive brands the same way we perceive other people’s faces. That’s the conclusion of a study by Anne Lange and Rainer Höger, which tested 18 well-known brand logos to see how trustworthy we find the companies behind them. The results were compared with a previous study doing the same thing for human faces, and the conclusion was startling.

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The horror maestro behind the very disturbing new film The Green Inferno talks about how intensity is what gets pulses pounding.

Something bad is going to happen. You know it’s coming—this is what you signed up for—you just don’t know how bad it’s going to be, or when it’s going to happen. Then it does happen, and it’s even more horrifying than you’d been bracing for . . . and it’s going to happen again and again.

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Nicky Case’s Neurotic Neurons is one of the best infographics we’ve ever seen, but it’s so much more than that.

Falling somewhere between an infographic, a web comic, and an animated TED talk, Neurotic Neurons, an interactive graphic by artist Nicky Case, is charming, educational, funny, sad, and strangely hopeful. It’s ostensibly an interactive explainer of how neurons works, but it’s so much more than that.

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NotDoba is an addictive little game that looks and sounds like a Saul Bass credit sequence come to life.

The legendary Saul Bass was one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century, lending his unique unique vision to everything from corporate logos to motion picture title sequences. About the only thing the man didn’t design during his career was video game. Now, thanks to NotDoba, you can now get an idea of what that would be like: it’s a fun, frantic indie game that plays like a Saul Bass title sequence brought to life.

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Beats joins the rugby scrum, AT&T and ESPN’s heartbreaking story, the Wall Street Journal gets into the cocaine business for Netflix.

This week Facebook introduced 360 video to the newsfeed and, obviously, there were a handful of impressive launch partners, including LeBron James, GoPro, Saturday Night Live, and Vice. But the one that likely drew the biggest nerdgasm was Star Wars’ 360-degree view look at the planet Jakku from the back of a speeder bike driven by Daisy Ridley’s Force Awakens character, Rey. It’s no contest.

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Available in a range of sizes, the Trinity wind turbine can charge your phone while camping or provide electricity for your entire home.

When we think about energy efficiency on the go, solar-powered gadgets are typically the first to jump to mind. Solar-powered lamps, digital cameras and phone chargers are all planet-friendly and functional. But a wind turbine? A bit tougher to lug around.

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The Federal Trade Commission is conducting an antitrust inquiry into Google’s Android practices, Bloomberg reports.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun an antitrust inquiry into the way Google bundles apps on smartphones running its Android mobile operating system, Bloomberg reported on Friday. Google is currently facing similar scrutiny in the European Union.

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A crack team of Villanova students are working to improve and encourage the Pontiff’s profile online.

On the evening of April 3, Melissa Connolly, a 21-year-old student from Villanova University, found herself atop the Palatine Hill outside the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, just a few steps away from the world’s biggest celebrity. Following the suggestions of the more experienced “paparazzi” around her, she positioned her camera. When the right moment arrived, with her target just 15 feet away—boom!—she got the shot she wanted. She quickly posted her picture of Pope Francis online—not on her personal Facebook page, but on the official Vatican Website, news.va.

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“We want to make it clear that the apps you can use through Internet.org are free, basic services,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook’s Internet.org program, intended to supply free Internet to people in developing countries, is renaming its app “Free Basics”—and allowing developers greater flexibility in creating apps for the platform.

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