Our Glass Overlords Have Arrived
We ran into Floyd (@fteter) last night. His cyborg transformation is complete. Note the serious demeanor, with Glass power comes great responsibility, or something. Backstory, Anthony (@anthonyslai) finally got his Explorer Series Glass unit on Sunday. Funny story, its display had a few dead pixels, three actually. He counted. Google replaced the unit, so all’s [...]
Virtual Sleuthing with GeoGuessr
I don’t normally pay much attention to games, but after GeoGuessr showed up in both the Verge and Kottke.org, I took notice. It’s a very simple, but difficult game. GeoGuessr drops you into a random place that Google has mapped with Street View, but without any metadata, just the images Google captured. You can navigate around, using [...]
Thanks for Reading
This blog has been around for six years, and given how varied and banal a lot of what I write is, I’m stunned it’s lasted that long. While at Collaborate in April, John (@jpiwowar) mentioned something about the blog that resonated with me. He said he appreciated that I replied to his comments. That struck [...]
Experimenting on My Family
One of the aspects I like about my newish team, Applications User Experience, is access to real research. Through eye-tracking, the usability labs, ethnographic research, focus groups and a host of other tools, AUX collects data from real users to help us understand how to build better software. This is perfect for me, since I’ve [...]
WebKey: Manage Your Android Device from a Browser
I’ve been doing more tinkering with my development toy, the Nexus 7, and kudos to Anthony (@anthonyslai) for finding this gem. WebKey is an Android app and accompanying service that allows you to manage your device from a browser. WebKey (Play Store link) isn’t new. I found coverage from the Android Police and Lifehacker from a [...]
PBS Off Book on the Future of Wearable Computing
PBS Off Book has a short and interesting look into wearable computing. Check it out, h/t MAKE and Geekosystem: Aside from the recent, top-of-mind examples (Google Glass, Pebble), I’m amazed at how functional smart garments have become. Innovation has been happening in both the fashion and DIY circles, but since I don’t pay very close attention to those [...]
A Week-ish with Facebook Home
When Facebook launched Home earlier this month, it marked the first time in quite a while that I was excited to use Facebook. What excited me wasn’t using Facebook per se, but exploring the possibilities of moving beyond the app. Despite only being officially supported for a handful of phones, the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy [...]
A Challenge in Mexico
My trip to Guadalajara a month ago was dual-purpose. First, we’re hiring there, so we had interviews. Second, we were assisting with a hackathon. Since running the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge at OpenWorld last Fall, Noel (@noelportugal) and I have become “the hackathon guys,” which makes me think of this movie for some reason. [...]
MultiROM: Must-Have for Nexus 7 Tinkering
I have a new toy, a Nexus 7, which is why I ran across the device offline issue in Android 4.2.2. The N7 ships locked, which seems a bit odd, but no biggie. This will be a development device for me, and once I got it unlocked, the fun began with MultiROM, which allows the [...]
Android 4.2.2 and the Mystery of Device Offline
Here’s another installment in the never-ending documentation of stuff for posterity. This chapter concerns a change made to Android 4.2.2 that could cause you some headaches if you’re an Android developer, modder or hobbyist. Google added a whitelist for USB debugging in 4.2.2 which adds another layer of security to your phone, so now you [...]
Google Glass Details Emerge
As of last week, Anthony (@anthonyslai) didn’t mention that he had received a note yet from Google about the Glass Explorer program unit he had preordered. Even so, he was excited at the prospect of receiving it soon. He’ll be even more stoked now that details of the Glass API and device specs are hitting [...]
Firepad, Stash and Rich
Last week while I was traveling, I was reading a story from Wired about Firepad, a collaborative text editor that can be easily added to any web page to allow, well, collaboration. Think pair programming meets Google Docs. A couple sentences in, I notice a quote from none other than ‘Lab alumnus, old friend and [...]
Notes from Collaborate 13
Last week was a bit of a whirlwind. I spent Sunday through Wednesday in Denver attending Collaborate 13 and then jetted to the Bay Area to speak at a new hire bootcamp on Thursday. As always, Collaborate 13 was a great chance to catch up with people I only see a couple times a year, [...]
Happy Friday, Here Are Your Links
Not that it’s a tradition or anything, but here are some links to brighten your Friday. Or whatever day it happens to be when you see them. Google Glass SXSW video Google released the video of their Glass session at SXSW. Noel (@noelportugal) was in the room, and Anthony (@anthonyslai) has an Explorer set on [...]
Moving Beyond the App
Facebook introduced Facebook Home today, and unlike most Facebook news, I’m actually quite interested in this announcement. Setting aside the features, the shift away from apps to focus on a holistic user experience is one that I’ve been investigating for several months. From the Verge: But from a user experience standpoint, perhaps the most significant [...]
Find Me at Collaborate
I’ll be at Collaborate 13 this year. If you read here, you probably know what Collaborate is, but just in case, it’s a mega-conference co-organized by three Oracle users groups, the OAUG (@oaug1), IOUG (@ioug) and Quest (@questusergroup). If you’re not into acronyms, that’s Oracle Applications Users Group and International Oracle Users Group. Oh, and Quest is the international users group for [...]
Rebuilding My Macbook Pro
I’ve been quiet here lately. After the trip to Mexico, I took some time off to unwind and enjoy the family unit, and I decided to bite the bullet and do a clean install of OS X as the final attempt to resolve the wifi issues that have plagued me for 18 months. Prior to [...]
Hola Guadalajara
I’m drinking coffee in a Starbucks next door to an Applebee’s. Tough to tell that I’m in Guadalajara, Mexico. The AppsLab reunion tour is here looking for new band members. Did you know that Oracle has a 450-person development center here in GDL? Me neither until I joined Applications UX a few months ago. Mexico [...]
A Wake for Google Reader
By now, you’ve probably heard the news that Google will shut down Google Reader in July. This is extremely sad for me, since Reader is an essential tool that I use several times a day to keep up with hundreds of items. I’m not joking or exaggerating; I scan hundreds of items on a (mostly) [...]
Even More Links
News seems to come in inverse proportion to my level of busy, e.g. SXSW is happening now. Noel (@noelportugal) is attending, so here’s to hoping he brings back some content. Anyway, here are some stories that have caught my very limited attention lately. Ultan (@ultan) has a nice overview of Endeca Information Discovery, including its origins. [...]
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