David Demaree

Nikhyl Singhal: Hangouts, phone calls and Google Voice »

Singhal is a Google product manager working on Hangouts. He confirms via Google+ — which I believe is a website Google employees use primarily to talk about Google? — that the plan is for Hangouts to absorb Google Voice, the way it’s already absorbing Google Talk.

However, he also says something about “better integration” which would imply Voice will stay around as its own product that’s just, y’know, integrated with Hangouts. So it’s not so much that Hangouts is absorbing Voice as that it’s absorbing Gmail’s chat feature, and its ability to make and receive phone calls.

Gee, would sure be great if the people at Google could finish making a crazy new plan before they start implementing parts of it. Maybe then they could explain what the hell is going on.

Flickr Giving Everyone A Fucking Terabyte of Free Storage »

Hey, remember when we asked Marissa Mayer to make Flickr awesome again? They also totally cleaned up the site design/layout and launched an Android app.

This is a video for a Japanese-language version of “I Belong In Your Arms” by the Brooklyn-based, not-at-all-Japanese band Chairlift, and it is insane. I would draw your attention to:

The retro, VHS-style karaoke text overlay
Crazy-ass animated backgrounds
Every single facial expression the guitarist makes

They have another video, “Amanaemonesia”, that is just as bonkers, with another karaoke overlay (it may have even been filmed on analog video) and a creepy animated face.

However, the Japanese one is still better. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly a sincere effort to cater to a Japanese fanbase.

The Weight of the Web: Regarding the physicality of digital media and the spread of information »

Slides from the talk I just finished presenting at TYPO Berlin 2013. I was a ball of jet lag and nerves, but if the live-tweeting from @mfacomdes is at all representative, it would seem that I got across what I wanted to, and that the bits that were interesting and significant to me were to other people as well.

Vielen dank to everyone who watched it, to all my friends/colleagues who helped shape the talk over the last couple weeks, and of course to TYPO for having me.

For my trip to Berlin this week, I decided having a smartphone handy was valuable enough to actually pay AT&T’s insane international roaming charges. (Actually, it’s work who’s paying, but I signed up for some of their flat-rate roaming packages, so a week’s worth of European mobile access is only about as expensive as my entire monthly bill.)

Google Maps is (for obvious reasons) one of the services I’ve used most here, and also one that’s surprisingly light on data usage. Most of the map data I need for Berlin is basically cached within the Maps iOS app, and map updates, directions, and place info are so lightweight I’ve so far only burned through maybe a fifth of my 300 MB limit.

But it’s also helped that Google’s transit directions for Berlin are bullshit. This screenshot is maybe the craziest example. Despite there being a dozen train lines within walking distance of Potsdamer Platz, Google still thought the fastest way to the central part of Kreutzberg was to walk there.

One pattern I’ve noticed is that Maps seems not to know about the U-bahn trains. All the directions I’ve gotten will have me walk blocks out of my way to catch an S-bahn train or a bus, even if the place I’m going to is a straight shot on a U train. Granted the U-bahn is not as user-friendly as the S-bahn, but if Maps can understand NYC subways it can know that the fastest route from my hotel to Bonanza Coffee is the U2 train.

Just like Chrome is all about minimizing browser chrome and the [Chromebook] Pixel is all about not seeing any pixels at all, Blink will never support the blink tag.

Google product manager Alex Komoroske, interviewed in this New Yorker blog post about WebKit and Blink.

There is a saying amongst actors, said by Stella Adler or Uta Hagen or some other guru of the dramatic arts, “If you can live without [acting], you should.” I have found that I can live without it.

Former child actress Mara Wilson

This is how I feel about filmmaking, post-film school.

You won’t keep control of your time, unless you can say ‘no.’ You can’t let other people set your agenda in life.

Warren Buffett at a conference earlier this week. (via parislemon)

Every Adobe employee I saw seemed to be excited, happy, and on-board with the mission. I see that kind of energy at good startups and small studios. I never see it in big corporations. It sometimes seemed to me that Adobe hadn’t so much acquired Typekit as the reverse: that the people and thinking behind Typekit are now running Adobe (which is actually true), and that the mindset of some of the smartest consultants and designers in our industry is now driving a huge corporation.

Jeffrey Zeldman

Yep.

Type study: Hi-DPI web typography »

A little something I wrote for the Typekit blog, about high-density displays and their impact on readability.

You could call this a sort-of preview for my talk at TYPO Berlin 2013 Touch, coming two weeks from tomorrow.

When people lose their sense of control, such as when tasks are dictated to them, the brain’s emotional response center can actually cause a decrease in cognitive functioning. This perception of not being in control, whether real or imagined, would presumably lead to a drop in productivity. If a manager describes the long-term outcome he wants, rather than dictating specific actions, the employee can decide how to arrive there and preserve his perceived sense of control, cognitive function, and ultimately improve his productivity.

Jordan Cohen, Stop Telling Your Employees What To Do

As the world seems to be falling apart, and social media introduces a new level of cacophony of misinformation, speculation, and downright venomous bile — we should ask ourselves, is what I am about to say better than silence? Am I adding anything to what’s already being said? And possibly most importantly, is my desire to say it keeping me from listening to what is already being said. Because waiting for your turn to talk is not the same as listening.

Mike Monteiro

Hypercritical: The Lottery »

John Siracusa has changed his mind about whether Apple should switch to a lottery system for WWDC tickets; he now thinks they should.

But it’s his second point that’s the real long-term solution. The reason WWDC sells out in 90 fucking seconds is because it’s developers’ only reliable opportunity to talk to, and get help from, Apple engineers. While there is certainly a method to Apple’s total secrecy on new product development, there’s no outwardly obvious reason why they’re so opaque in how they support developers on their platform. Developer tech support, App Store review, even their process for reporting bugs in their APIs—all black boxes.

Apple don’t need radical transparency. What they may need are more developer events, like the regional tech talks they’ve done every few years. My only firsthand Apple developer experience was at a Chicago tech talks event in 2008, which was like a mini-WWDC. That was also the last event Apple like that in Chicago (or in the Midwest, if memory serves), which is a shame. Apple should do more of those, more regularly.

Why Nobody Can Copy Apple »

Short version: because they design products for only one kind of customer — consumers —whereas Google’s attention is split between advertisers and consumers, Samsung’s is split between carriers and consumers, and Microsoft’s is split between businesses, enterprises, OEMs, integration partners, and some absurd idea of what American teenagers (“consumers”) want.

I’d go further and say Apple designs products for people, and don’t acknowledge those distinctions or treat different kinds of markets or use cases as totally different when designing products.

If you want to see the future, don’t look at how people are using technology. Search out how they’re misusing it.

Quinn Norton