December 2011
1 post
More Google →
The Google Bar has one fundamental flaw: the “more” option. It’s just lazy IA. Might as well label it “crap I will rarely use”.
November 2011
1 post
More Smartness
Yesterday, Berg launched a teaser video about a mini-printer that would print a tailored feed of items you set on your smartphone. It’s a clever little device, looks awesome, but prints static feed info. It’s like a digital butler sending you a customized newspaper everyday. Then, talking about it with Teppo, I realized it could be so much more.
On this day and age, it baffles me...
October 2011
1 post
Cashback? Yes, please!
One of the things I miss most from living in the UK is what they called cashback. Whenever you went into a store (mostly supermarkets), when you went to pay with your card, they would ask you if you wanted cashback. Basically it’s another way to withdraw money without having to use a cash machine. You would say “30 pounds, please” and that would be added to your account. It was...
September 2011
1 post
Carousels are lazy
The national Portuguese TV Channels website, RTP, just relaunched their website today and as many news based websites, they make extensive use of carousel widgets. This kind of widget was created to present a series of related visual content, like a photo album, in a space-saving fashion. However, it is now often abused as a lazy way to relinquish editorial power. Say that you have three possible...
July 2011
8 posts
Font for people with dyslexia →
“The study at the University of Twente showed that people with dyslexia made fewer reading errors when they use the Dyslexia font compared to using standard font.”
Diogo, a Great Loss for the World
It’s a really sad day when a great friend dies. It’s even sadder when he was one of the driving forces for innovation, entrepreneurship and social change in the world. He died yesterday at 43 years old and at this age he did much more than many people do in their whole lifetimes.
Diogo Vasconcelos was a great man. He always tried to push things forward, establish the connections,...
The Anti-PowerPoint Party →
You know you’re deep into the silly season when you hear about an incoming Swiss political party solely focused on banning PowerPoint.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
First, a disclaimer: this post is mainly political and discusses the Portuguese and European economy, so if you’re not into that, feel free to skip ahead.
Yesterday, the Moody’s rating agency slashed the Portuguese rating by four points, leaving it at a “junk” level. It’s been a month since we had general elections and everyone is on board with the slashes and tax...
Google bid "pi" for Nortel patents and lost →
Looks like Google is geek at heart even when it comes to business. On the recent Nortel auction their bids were 1) Brun’s constant 2) Meissel-Mertens constant and 3) Pi.
The Dropbox Terms Kerfuffle
Seems like everybody got their panties in a twist the past few days, after Dropbox announced a revised Terms of Service. Everybody went berzerk when they read:
By submitting your stuff to the Services, you grant us (and those we work with to provide the Services) worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable rights to use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works (such as translations...
Why I think Google+ will fail
Let’s be clear about this upfront. These are my initial impressions with the service. It doesn’t mean that they can’t change midway along with the evolution of the service. But as it stands, the path I see ahead is not promising. Let me break it to you then:
Stream Stream has a pretty basic layout, very Facebook-esque and nothing to write home about. It’s competent and...