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The U.S. and China held a second day of talks Tuesday in London aimed at easing their trade dispute, after President Donald Trump said China is “not easy” but the U.S. was “doing well” at the negotiations.A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng met U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for several hours on Monday at Lancaster House, an ornate 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, and trade negotiator Li Chenggang are also in Beijing’s delegation.Lutnick said as he arrived Tuesday morning that the talks were “going well,” and he expected them to continue all day.Asked late Monday how the negotiations were going, Trump told reporters: “We are doing well with China. China’s not easy.”The two sides are trying to build on negotiations in Geneva last month that agreed to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100%-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession.Since the Geneva talks, the U.S. and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, visas for Chinese students at American universities and rare earth minerals that are vital to carmakers and other industries.Trump spoke at length with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by phone last Thursday in an attempt to put relations back on track. Trump announced on social media the following day that the trade talks would resume in London.China, the world’s biggest producer of rare earths, has signaled it may ease export restrictions it placed on the elements in April, alarming automakers around the world who rely on them. Beijing, in turn, wants the U.S. to lift restrictions on Chinese access to the technology used to make advanced semiconductors.Trump said that he wants to “open up China,” the world’s dominant manufacturer, to U.S. products.“If we don’t open up China, maybe we won’t do anything,” Trump said at the White House. “But we want to open up China.” Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this story. Jill Lawless, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
The hit 1962 song Up on the Roof reminds listeners that when the world is getting you down, at night the stars put on a show for free. While not expressly stated in Carole King and Gerry Goffins lyrics, it’s implied that the moon gets in on the action and romance as well. About once a month, the night sky takes things to the next level with a full moon. Junes offering, which is nicknamed the Strawberry Moon by the Old Farmers Almanac, is extra special for those in the Western Hemisphere because its peak will be at its lowest in almost 20 years thanks to a major lunar standstill. Lets break down the science of it all before we discuss how best to view the nighttime spectacular. Strawberry Moon: What’s in a name? The origin of the Strawberry Moon nickname comes from Native American culture and has nothing to do with the appearance of the full moon. The Algonquian, Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota people used the moniker because that’s when the delicious summertime fruit is ripening and ready to be picked. This year, because of the moons low position and the wildfires in Canada, the orb might actually have a pinkish tint. Why is the full moon so low this month? The Strawberry Moon is always low because of the time of year. The orb is always opposite the sun and Junes full moon takes place around the same time as the summer solstice, when the sun is at its highest point.This year it is even lower because of a recent major lunar standstill. The Earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the Earth, but in different planes. This 5 degree tilt impacts the appearance of the moon in the night sky. Every 18.6 years, this tilt goes through a cycle of change. When the moon is in the highest or lowest periods of this cycle, it is called a major lunar standstill. When is the best time to see the Strawberry Moon? The Strawberry Moon will reach peak illumination at 3:43 a.m. on Wednesday, June 11. If that seems too early, never fear, you can catch it this evening (Tuesday, June 10) and it will already appear full to the naked eye. Theres no need to lose any sleep. In fact, thanks to the moon illusionthe phenomenon that makes the orb seem bigger near the horizon because our brains compare it to nearby objects, such as trees and buildingsit is better to view it when it is rising: If you are in New York City, this takes place at 8:26 p.m ET Moon watchers in Los Angeles should look up at 8:05 p.m. PT. To find out when the moonrise occurs in your city, use this handy tool from TimeandDate. Once you know the optimal time, head up on a roof, preferably away from city lights and enjoy the show. Your cares might just drift right into space like King and Goffin promised.
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E-Commerce
Apple is calling it the biggest redesign in history. Starting this fall, iOS, MacOS, iPadOS, and WatchOS will all be unified under a single design paradigm for the first time: What Apple is calling Liquid Glass.Introduced this week at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Liquid Glass is a highly articulated reskin of iOS and its other software, intentionally launching with feature parity to not rock the boat and leaving hundreds of millions of customers unsure of how to use their phones. In the future, its more of a question mark. Its a UX framework that can be exactly as ambitious as Apple chooses to be.What is Liquid Glass?The basic idea behind Liquid Glass is this: Instead of the opaque windows and menu bars weve grown accustomed to for years, Apple products will be united through an amorphous glass-like interface. Everything from your app dock in iOS and MacOS, the play/pause controls of Apple Music, and the URL bar in Safari to the oversized digits telling time on your phone and the widgets on your desktop, will all be some level of clear.[Image: Apple]The most overt of the updates comes in the form of a new magnifier and slider, which now seem to pop off your screen and bend the text and images underneath like a water droplet. Most of the other updates are more subtle. Turn your phone in your hand, and the new glass app icons appear to catch light around the edges.[Image: Apple]Students of design will know that this is not the first time a big company has introduced transparency as a UX modalitynor even the first time that Apple has done so. The idea traces back to at least 2000 on Apple desktops with its Aqua interface. Aqua was like a digital manifestation of Apples semi-transparent computers at the time (ooh those candy colored iMacs). Apple guru John Gruber reminded me at WWDC that the processor-intensive transparency chugged slowly on those computers for years until they were smoothed out. Microsoft introduced the idea in Windows Vista not long thereafter. And since, it seems that every big tech company from Google (with its interface-as-real-object Material Design standards) to Meta (with its cutting edge augmented reality Orion glasses) has at least flirted with the idea of transparent interfaces.Most recently, Apple used light-catching transparency for the menus of Vision Pro as a means to merge the UI with the environment. Apple confirms that Vision Pro was the inspiration behind extending that metaphor across its devices.[Image: Apple]Trying Liquid GlassIts hard not to acknowledge a certain dichotomy behind the interface. On one hand, it calls attention to itself with gee-whiz animations. (And gosh, its magnifier really is one of the singularly best-rendered UI elements Ive ever seenso much so that it dwarfs the articulation of the rest of the UI.) On the other, its all just glass, so its inherently about disappearing to make way for the other stuff you see: namely your photos, wallpapers, and whatever other media youre pulling up on your screen. Apple has leaned into more customized UI for years. Now, its trying to be the lens through which you view the world.[Image: Apple]I was able to see Liquid Glass working across several devices. For the most part, the glass looks good. However, there are times that a glass menu bar feels muddled with color-heavy medialike that cover art in your Apple Music library. Often, but not always, Apple adjusts to such issues by cross fading the glass between a light mode and dark mode, much like a transition lens. That can feel like a solution to its own problem. But in other momentslike the airier keyboard spanning across the iPad screenits refreshing to get some of your screen back as youre literally less boxed in.Its why I think the most earnest assessment of the updates may have come from Craig Federighi, SVP of software engineering at Apple, when he said during the WWDC keynote that transparency gives the sensation of making your screen appear larger. It does. It basically allows any UI tidbit to feel more like the dynamic island on the top of your iPhone. Instead of cutting your screen off in a straight line, it floats as a little bubble that can grow larger or smaller as you need it. Safari now has a full bleed edge-to-edge web browser with a floating clear URL bar. In this sense, the update feels like a lot of work to give your phone a tiny bit more not-so-functional real estate. But once you see a bigger screen, its hard to accept a smaller one. Its a major reason that, practicality be damned, our phones keep getting bigger. If Apple UI can squeeze another 1 milimeter out of your screen size through software, I imagine that it will feel claustrophobic to go back.[Image: Apple]Where will Liquid Glass take us? The problem with Liquid Glass today is that, beyond a few minor UI tricks, it doesnt do anything new. The public is waiting for Apple to articulate how AI will add meaning in our livesand instead we got a buncha glass. Functionally speaking, Liquid Glass is less significant than the new desktop-inspired windows on iPadOS, which ostensibly turns the iPad into a Mac. I suspect he last major update to the iPhone design language (when iOS 7 shifted to airy sans serifs from its skeuomorphic roots) will feel like a bigger design jump to most people who can remember.One lauded designer friend calls the design update masturbation, while another dubbed it as superficial with no thought. A techie friend dubbed the whole event the worst WWDC ever. To be fair, Liquid Glass really is a mostly superficial update. Theres no significant new functionality added. Its a luxe reskin. Apple says thats by designthat its meant to feel new but familiar, to ease the countless customers across the globe into a new design language without disrupting day-to-day life.No, thats not the most reassuring sentiment from the greatest consumer hardware company in historythat its taking something of a slow and steady evolution to design more akin to auto manufacturing than OS design. However, I can get behind Liquid Glass version one as craft for crafts sake: the height of making a UI feel one with its environment. [Image: Apple]Ill admit some disappointment that Liquid Glasss specular (shiny) effects on the corner of app icons and other UI elements dont actually react to light. These effects are pulled from the turn of your accelerometer rather than reacting to the real lighting sources in your environment. I get that most people probably cant tell, though I suspect their limbic systems could note a difference. And I get that my alternative may be a ridiculous ask that would take even more processing power (and battery life) from your phone. But its also the very premise behind visionOSan operating system that responds to your lighting environment to feel like one and the same thing. Part of me feels like, okay Apple, if were doing thisreally doing this visionOS and reactive glass is the future of everything ideathen lets use real physics. Lets push the boundaries of tangibility to new heights. Make it all real.That high bar aside, where I agree with Apple is what this enables in terms of longer-term strategy. Liquid Glass is a metaphor that feels primed for any permutation of AI or mixed reality that they might build in the future. Its easy to imagine Liquid Glass for something as radical as generative interfaces. In this sense, its a remarkable hedged bet that sets a foundation for a lot of possibilities over the next decade. And in the meantime, all of us simpletons in the flyover states will just feel like their phones just got a teeny bit bigger.I truthfully dont think we can judge Liquid Glass today, and to some extent, I dont know that we can this fall when it arrives on our devices. Its a material metaphor that Apple has introduced but not really tappedand looking at ambitions from competitors like Meta, it may be a UI approach that Apple cant even own. Well only know in two to five years if, in this impossibly exciting era, the wonder glass takes us somewhere new.And in that regard, its an apt metaphor for Apple, too.
Category:
E-Commerce
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