An interesting post by Áine Pennello in CityLab discusses how disabled passengers may find seating on public transit. There is often not enough seating for everyone, so the matter of who sits becomes an important issue.
Timothy Revell reports on a system named "CarNote" that allows drivers to send each other messages while underway. The basic idea is that drivers can explain their behavior to others, thus reducing the risk of aggressive interactions, e.g., "road rage".
A recent article in the Toronto Star by Betsy Powell discusses controversies surrounding new colour schemes for Canadian police cars. A number of Canadian police forces have been changing from older schemes based on red, white, and blue to darker schemes based on grey, navy blue or black.
John Brownlee at FastCompany describes the "ultimate tuque", a version of the hat most associated with Canada. Designed by Toronto design firm Frontier, the tuque aims to get this iconic piece of headgear right.
In terms of function, the Frontier tuque is designed to address many common complaints about tuques, such as scratchy material, lack of warmth, retention of sweat, and being too tight. It may be the most technotonic tuque of all time!
Sean Captain at FastCompany reports that Duolingo—perhaps the world's best-known second-language learning app—is trying to remove the embarrassment of being a newbee in a second language.
The service has unveiled a set of chatbots that users can interact with in order to practice their French, German, or Spanish—with more languages to come. "Practice real Spanish conversations without blushing," is the assurance given to curious users.
Bugaboo is a Dutch company known mainly for its lines of up-market strollers. I use the Bugaboo Frog in class to illustrate the concept of technotonicity: How designs appeal to potential users.
In physical terms, the Frog is praised for its handling, so much so that some people reported that they took it out for a push just to enjoy the feeling of steering it!