Autodesk is doubling down on easy-to-use 3D design software after it announced the acquisition of Tinkercad for an undisclosed sum. The deal secures the long-term future of the Web-based 3D modeling tool less than one month after its founders announced plans to close it.

Tinkercad’s tag line is ‘mind to design in minutes’  and the browser-based 3D modeling removes technical barriers to allow anyone — designers and non-designers alike — to create prototype designs or professional-looking renders. The software takes a focus on helping to create ‘fun and meaningful’ things using 3D printers — which, of course, are a hotly talked about topic today.

Autodesk says it will add the service to its existing 123D family of apps and services which, like Tinkercad, are designed to remove hurdles that put non-techies off of using CAD software. It will also integrate elements of the Tinkercard technology across its 123D range, to help simply the services for users.

Last month, Tinkercad Founder and CEO Kai Backman revealed that the two-year-old service would close in a phased initiative culminating in a June 31 2013 switch off. The decision was made in order to focus engineering resources on Airstone, the company’s new interactive simulation product.

Now, the Autodesk deal, which is expected to close in 30 days, will keep the service open to its many users — which include corporates, academic — and end the freeze on the creation of new accounts. That’s an outcome that delights Backman:

We are excited to have reached an agreement with Autodesk that will provide a solid home and bright future for Tinkercad. We found in Autodesk a shared vision for empowering students, makers and designers with accessible and easy to use software, and with their global reach and expertise in democratizing design, we’re confident in their ability to introduce Tinkercad to new audiences around the world.

Autodesk VP of consumer products Samir Hanna also emphasized the synergy between the company and its incoming acquisition:

Tinkercad is a natural extension of the Autodesk 123D family as well as our other apps and services for consumers, as it is already used alongside Autodesk products. We look forward to welcoming the Tinkercad community to Autodesk and to continuing their mission of accessible 3D design for all.

Tinkercad raised $1 million in seed funding in November 2011.

Headline image via Thinkstock

As you may know, we’re big fans of single-purpose tools that make your life easier. This is especially true when it comes to design, because sometimes a simple, straight-forward solution can solve the worst headaches.

We’ve given plenty of attention to apps of this category in the past, highlighting services like SnapRuler, Sip and Icon Strike. Now, we’d like to draw your attention to Red Pen.

Red Pen is a super basic Web app that lets you upload a file and share it with clients and team members for feedback. Yes, we know, there are tons of solutions out there that make this process easy, including Layervault, Shipment, MockVault and even Creative Cloud. All of these services are worth a look, but if you’re searching for an extremely light-weight solution (with zero setup time) and don’t want to resort to emailing large files back and forth, you’ll want to check out Red Pen.

The site’s tagline — “effing fast feedback” — says it all. After uploading your file, share your short link with your client. All they’ll have to do is click your design and leave their thoughts, as shown in the image below.

Red Pen is free and you can give it a try via the link below.

➤ Red Pen

 For getting feedback on an entire site, be sure to take a peek at ZURB’s Bounce.

Image credit: Fang Guo

At Google I/O 2013 on Wednesday, Google announced its Cloud Messaging (GCM) service is now part of Google Play Services, and has gained three new features as part of a major upgrade: persistent connections, upstream messaging, and notification synchronization. The new GCM features will be rolling out progressively; developers can sign up today and also attend an I/O session specifically for the new features.

Persistent connections means developers can serve a large number of messages to many devices very quickly. Upstream messaging means developers can now send data in the other direction: from their apps to their servers. Last but not least, Google has launched a new GCM API synchronizes notifications for developers.

Google also revealed it is now delivering 200,000 GCM push messages every second, or 17 billion messages per day. Furthermore, the average latency is now 60ms, which is about 30 percent faster than when it launched a year ago.

For those who don’t know, GCM first arrived for Android last year at Google I/O. The service lets developers send data from their server to their users’ Android-powered device:

The GCM service handles all aspects of queuing of messages and delivery to the target Android application running on the target device. GCM is completely free no matter how big your messaging needs are, and there are no quotas.

Last week, Google decided to bring GCM to Chrome. The company didn’t mention this today, at least not yet.

Moving forward, it appears GCM will be pushed for both Android and Chrome. These new features announced today will presumably be available for both platforms – if not today, sometime in the near future. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

See also – Google announces Android Studio: An IDE built just for Android developers and Google announces 900 million Android activations, 48 billion apps downloaded

Top Image Credit: Wong Mei Teng

Design is emotion. A good UX designer must ask, “Does this radio button make you feel happy or sad?” In this video, Vooza designer Sarah Ebersol explains how to be a user interface artist and when to express emotions inside web forms. Watch her turn tragedy into beauty, via a web pulldown menu.

About Vooza: Vooza is a video comic strip that pokes fun at the startup world. It’s been buzzed about by David Karp, Dennis Crowley, Jason Fried, and other tech bigwigs. Join Vooza’s email list for exclusive VIP access to more Vooza.

You too can become a Google Glasshole.

While the rest of the world is trying to figure out whether Google’s wearable computing endeavour will be a hit (and change the world as we know it) before the company even gets seriously started with Glass – and often without properly field-testing the damn thing – others are finding ways to simply make their own head-mounted computing device.

Enter Chinese entrepreneur Sunny Gao, who has managed to 3D-print a fully functional Google Glass lookalike at a recent hackathon in Shanghai.

The 3D-printed specs run Android 4.0.4, have 16GB of storage and sport a 5-megapixel camera that is able to snap pictures and record 720p videos.

Like Google Glass, the glasses boast WiFi and Bluetooth support.

Just kidding – wink wink – they don’t really do anything but look flashy.

In fact, if you agree and you also want your own pair of phoney Google Glasses, Gao was so kind to release the SketchUp file for all to download.

Enjoy, but know Google has taken steps to patent Google Glass designs, so watch out (wink wink).

Dan Siroker is an ex-Googler who went on to oversee A/B testing on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign website. Through testing different versions of the homepage, A/B testing led to the campaign raising $57 million more than it would have done if the team had based their design solely on their assumptions of what would be popular.

Now Siroker runs Optimizely, a startup offering software to help with A/B testing. At The Next Web Conference Europe 2013, he took us through some of the many lessons learned from A/B testing both on the Obama campaign and by Optimizely’s customers.

Catch up with all our coverage from The Next Web Conference Europe 2013.

Anyone who’s tried their hand at designing a typeface will know it’s a wildly difficult process, and to actually come out at the end with something attractive takes an extreme amount of skill, taste and patience.

Type design isn’t for everyone, but typography is, and nearly every designer works with it every day. This is exactly why Type Release creator Sean Mitchell is here to share with you a list of 32 beautiful typefaces, all of which were released over the last month. See his findings from April, only on TNW:

Wordshape: Vaud

A neutral, yet formally nuanced grotesk typeface.

Latinotype: Trend Hand Made

A typeface made of layers, taking as a basis a sans and a slab font, Trend is trending.

Lineto: LL Circular

Strikes a balance between conceptual rigour, skilled workmanship and measured idiosyncrasy, resulting in a no-nonsense sans-serif text font with unmistakable character yet universal appeal.

HVD Fonts: Mikado

Intended to be used everywhere where a pleasant feeling should be conveyed.

Yellow Design Studio: Verb Condensed

A modestly condensed version of the original Verb family.

Virus Fonts: Doctrine

By blending elements of twentieth-century neo-grotesque, humanist and geometric styles, Doctrine is at once universal and idiosyncratic.

Emigre: Program

A type designer’s typeface. It’s about the craft of typeface design and the particular details and effects that type designers fret over when they design type.

Lost Type Co-op: Fairview

A condensed sans-serif, inspired by the industrial lettering of the 20th century.

Hiekka Graphics: Sini

A warm and delicious hand-lettered typeface in two styles, bold and ornaments.

Typesenses: Wishes Script

Offers a complete range of possibilities: frames, ribbons, hearts, flowers, ornaments, swashes, endings, ligatures and all the alternates you need.

Symbolset: Steedicons

A lively set designed by Kyle Steed with a personal hand-drawn style.

Positype: Shameless

Makes extensive use of Contextual alternates to create a proper ebb and flow from letter to letter.

Voltage LTD: Oaf

Painted on a wall by an eccentric Canadian with a paint roller. The result is an unusual combination of straight, evenly weighted strokes and rough, handmade charm.

Hipopotam Studio: Mr. Happy

A hand-drawn, layered, narrow typeface.

Resistenza: Sonica Brush

A handwritten font, designed with a japanese brush and sumi.

Fontsmith: FS Emeric

A font that is authoritative, but never sacrifices its humanity.

Mika Melvas: Riona Sans

It can be elegant and subtle, it can be strong and dynamic, friendly or powerful.

Hold Fast Foundry: Abolition

A condensed sans-serif display typeface thats got a knack for propaganda posters and industrial buildings.

Typonine: Audree

A type system with several hundred styles.

Domahoka: Uchronia

A classic serif titling face ideal for setting at large sizes; slightly condensed, light, with a very fine weight on its thinnest strokes.

Great Lakes Lettering: Icing

A delicate, handwritten font with a somewhat masculine feel which mimics the natural stroke of pointed pen calligraphy.

La Goupil: Naive Inline

A serif handwritten font, can be enhanced with a bicolor interior, ribbed or full.

Typofonderie: Mislab

A brighter and more legible slab serif than most, Mislab aptly combines the strength of a slab serif with the lightness of a sans-serif.

Lián Types: Bird Script

Characterized by quickness, lightness, and ease of movement.

Nootype: Selfica

The sans-serif version of the Selfico designed by Nico Inosanto.

Nina Stössinger: Sélavy

A dotted typeface loosely based on the 13 punched-out caps on Marcel Duchamp’s 1934 Green Box.

TipografiaRamis: Rams

Influenced by the geometric style of sans-serif faces of the 30s.

Autobahn: Morrissey

A tribute to the song “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths.

Canada Type: Albertan Pro

The first Jim Rimmer typeface to make the transition from metal to digital.

Nonpareille: Basetica Pro

Ironically recalls the “Swiss International Style” of the 50s and 60s.

Eager for more? Check out our lists for March, February, January and Winter ’12. They’re worth it — we promise. You can also take a peek at our dedicated Design & Dev channel.

It seems there’s an unlimited number of color picker apps there, and yet somehow it’s still difficult to find one that actually works. This problem is especially confusing when you consider how basic a color picking tool should be.

For designers, this essential tool should be minimalistic and omnipresent, yet out-of-the-way; that’s why we’re loving Sip, a $0.99 Mac app which appears to be the simplest color picker in existence.

On launch, Sip takes the form of a menu bar icon and stays out of your dock. As you might have expected, the app is shortcut driven — in fact you’ll only like this app if you’re a shortcut fiend.

Simply type control + option + p and a color picker will appear. Make a selection and the resulting color will be copied to your clipboard. To switch between previous colors type command + option + up/down arrows. To switch between color code formats (RGB, HEX, etc), type command + option + left/right arrows. That’s it.

We’ve covered a number of single-purpose design tools in the past, like SnapRuler for example, because sometimes a tiny, straightforward solution is all you need. Check out Sip via the link below and let us know what you think!

➤ Sip for Mac ($0.99) via One Thing Well

Image credit: Thinkstock

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The folks over at digital agency Simply Zesty have been thinking about what iOS 7, the upcoming new version of Apple’s mobile operating system, will – or should – look like based on the typical rumours and speculation that precede every major Apple event.

With Apple’s WWDC 2013 conference just around the corner, many have started postulating what the future has in store for both iOS and Mac OS X, but it’s always just a bit more tangible when it gets conceptualized in visual form – especially when it’s done by a professional designer.

Enter Simply Zesty’s Art Director, Philip Joyce, who has come up with a way to present what he thinks the next version of iOS should be like. As you may have heard, iOS 7 is expected to be a huge revamp on many levels, including a fresh UI with a very ‘flat’ design.

Bearing that in mind, here’s Simply Zesty’s pretty impressive conceptual take on the forthcoming iOS 7 (screenshots below):

As you can see, it features completely redesigned app icons, a brand new lock and a customizable, widget-rich home screen, and a fresh look for oft-used apps like Calendar, Music, Camera, Siri and Facebook.

I, for one, very much like the concept designs, particularly that of the Music application (see visuals and SlideShare presentation below).

What’s your opinion?

Top image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Popular app beta testing service TestFlight has announced that developers can now upload Android apps to its platform, and an Android SDK will launch next week for a small number of developers in private beta.

Previously, Android app support was only available to a select few. Over the last 45 days, Testflight shared that 5,000 developers were granted access to the new feature and 4,500 apps were uploaded. Those apps have since been “downloaded more than 50,000 times.”

As shown in the image below, Android support has been merged directly into the TestFlight service; there’s now one place to upload and manage Android and iOS apps.

Now open to all developers, TestFlight is looking to expand its dominance beyond the iOS development industry. Right now, Android developers can take advantage of “beta app management, distribution, tracking, and centralized feedback,” but features like crash reporting won’t be available until the Android SDK launches.

➤ TestFlight for iOS & Android

Image credit: Thinkstock / Jupiterimages