I'll admit it, I'm jealous: While Valleywag remains stuck with a logo that looks like an IBM monitor from 1982, io9, Gawker Media's newly launched sci-fi site, has gotten a wickedly cool illustration. The future is coming, and it is diabetically adorable. I quizzed site editor Annalee Newitz on the origins of the logo.

Valleyfag: Let me guess at your instructions to the designer for the io9 illustration: "Think Hello Kitty meets the Borg Queen." t3chn0ptimist69: hahaha we just said, "give us a cute gender-neutral thing with a brain implant" Eliza Gauger, the illustrator, is a genius

Like I said: Hello Kitty meets the Borg Queen. A supremely effective exploitation of the visual resonances of two pop-culture memes. I can only applaud. And, in a nod to my futurist colleagues, coin a new word: "cynesthetic."

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