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Technology

A collection of 30 posts

Google Authorship is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of search

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate a minute. Google has said it will “stop showing authorship in search results.” [https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JohnMueller/posts/HZf3KDP1Dm8]. It has not said that it will stop using what it has learned about authorship to impact rankings. Over the past few

Downstream: Living with Pebble

A few thoughts, in no particular order. * Forget ‘smartwatch’, Pebble is better described as a HUD on your wrist. You can ignore your phone, not worry about missing anything, not have to keep flicking the screen on in case you’ve got notifications. You can just get on with things

Twitter Cards are becoming the smallest unit of 'web'

My thoughts on Econsultancy: > Furthermore, because Twitter Cards can be based on existing metadata of websites, they can be simply generated at scale. For example, Amazon can immediately translate any product listing into an accompanying Card. At that stage, what’s to stop you making a page of the cards,

Listen up Apple: build a smart EarPod or someone else will (Wired UK)

By me at Wired: > The idea would take a key element of Apple’s heritage and sidestep the assumption that a wearable device has to rely on your sense of sight or touch. Apple has an opportunity to recall one of the strongest motifs of its iPod days and put

The only interesting things about the new iPhones/ iOS

Not interesting: * colours * cheap vs expensive * ‘flat’ design/ transparency/ parallax effects * 64 bit processor Interesting: TouchID + Bluetooth Low Energy (iBeacons [http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4718082/ios-7-ibeacons-could-solve-indoor-mapping-make-shopping-better] ) Apple just put a method in your pocket to verify your identity instantly with any device it can connect to through

Evernote Moleskine: a confused review

I like Evernote. But there’s only so far I think you can really love software. By contrast, my notebook is like a trusty familiar idea-steed. Yes, Idea-steed. From the ceremony of pinging away the elastic to leafing open a page, It even makes me love my favourite pen more

A different path to Inbox Zero

New Gmail got me thinking [https://medium.com/product-design/c356a2b806e2]: > Alongside archive/ action, now there’s a third, lower maintenance option: scan the subject lines. They say decreasing decision fatigue helps you concentrate on the things that matter — and I think the new Gmail represents a step in that direction.

A perfect journo email app

From my article on Medium: [https://medium.com/the-media-landscape/6d871c287663] > After years of working with journalists and writing myself, the challenge of composing emails that stand out in the right way has become something of an obsession. But I wonder, could you design an email client for journalists that did

Who will build Android for Dummies?

From my post on Medium: [https://medium.com/product-design/b73da88af6a6] > I like my new Android phone. It has power, it lets me have more control over the experience than my iPhone ever did and for a lot of people, it delivers in exactly the areas that iOS is increasingly frustrating

Holiday Homescreen

Holiday Homescreen

From my post on Medium: [https://medium.com/mobile-culture/9d242155ad60] > Even with a good regime of folders, the front page of my iPhone homescreen is almost like a rundown of responsibilities and considerations. Mailbox, Fantastical and Reminders. Feedly, Instapaper and Reddit. Vine, Instagram and Facebook. Tweetbot. There’s something about

Glass Half Empty

From my latest on Medium: [https://medium.com/the-world-according-to-glass/a848536efc15] > Smartphones rose to power because they took a device you always had with you and crammed it full of extra value. These portable computers used the ‘phone’ concept as a trojan horse at just the right time of mobile data,

Product satisfaction: It's all about the upgrades

There was a time when you had to invest in pricey new hardware if you wanted to have anything to look forward to in gadgets you’d bought. But these days everything from the smallest mobile app to film services like Netflix and console OSes continue to add value and

Beaten: Xbox Mini could give Apple TV a run for its money

Today, a lesson. Don’t leave blogs making predictions about tech in your drafts folder so long that the rumour mill of those ideas coming true catches up with you [http://t.co/ODNo441t]. Looks like Microsoft is considering the Xbox Mini that I’d been toying with in the

Who do you trust with your data?

Thanks to the cloud, there’s basically no reason to lose important data ever again. Photos, phone numbers, videos, music – not only can you now store it out there in the ether but, in doing so, you open it up to a whole new world of possibilities, collaboration and accessibility.

So Far With... iPad Mini

So Far With... iPad Mini

Having owned at least one of every generation of iPad so far, what is the iPad Mini like? * It’s smaller, obviously. But the only time it really feels it is when trying to enter text. You can manage quick notes if you use the ‘split keyboard’ trick and it’

MaxTB on Wired: Fitbit needs to watch its 'quantified' self

My latest for Wired UK, considering whether the iPod Nano could simply start to build in quantified self features and make life tough for Fitbit and co. There’s another device out there that sits in that price point and has already started ticking some of the boxes that would

Looking Beneath the Surface

Initial thoughts on the Microsoft Surface tablets, announced yesterday (read up at The Verge. [http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/18/3095683/microsoft-surface-tablet-versus-ipad-android] ) Warning: There are some generalisations ahead but I think they are ones we can all live with… #perksofnotbeingafulltimejourno MARKET Firstly: you aren’t going to buy a

Could OAPs be Apple's Secret Testing Team?

Saw the video below and had one of those massive “what if” moments – How ‘Steve Jobs’ would it be to test new Apple products on single, old-aged individuals who probably won’t spill the beans? Who else are you going to sit an iPad in front to do user experience

5 ways to turn distraction into inspiration

Despite everything else that has changed in the workplace over the years, the ability to have good ideas is still the differentiator that can launch your pitch, project or business onto another level. But with access to funnels of information that previous generations couldn’t imagine, today’s challenge has

Does the tech scene need more humanity?

An interesting Tweetversation has been going on between a couple of leading UK tech journos Chris Davies [http://twitter.com/c_davies] (from SlashGear [http://slashgear.com]) and Mic Wright [http://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy] ( freelancer [http://brokenbottleboy.tumblr.com/]for the likes of Wired [http://www.wired.co.uk/] & co.

Stop asking what social media is for

Recent releases of online tools have been plagued by the question: What’s it for? In the case of Buzz, it was criticised for trying to be Twitter. Considering the big question from Twitter luddites is “what’s it for?”, it’s a surprise this paradox didn’t cause a

Dell's Streaky Tablet Strategy

An unidentified non-Streaky Dell tabletDon’t get me wrong, Dell don’t exactly *need* a tablet PC right now. For a start, they don’t have the OS for it and in reality, the iPad is also too pricey for the mainstream Dell audience to shell out. They aren’t

Spot If I am right about the future of Spotify.

As usual, the writing of this post was accelerated due to current events, namely the excellent new version of Spotify’s iPhone app. But that’s not actually what I want to talk about today. In fact, there’s a much bigger picture here involving the brutally buzzwordised concept of

Apple's Razor Sharp New Direction

Apple's Razor Sharp New Direction

With the iPad, Apple has clearly slashed its usual profit margins and priced the device to sell. I think this marks a fascinating shift for the company toward the classic ‘razor blade [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebie_marketing]‘ strategy of providing a cheap platform to enable a steady revenue

Why the Nexus is not "just another Android phone"

[https://i0.wp.com/www.maxtb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/nexus-android.jpg?ssl=1] Okay, let’s make this clear: The Nexus [http://google.com/phone] is just another Android phone. However, it’s one that Google have thrown the full weight of their marketing effort behind. Bear in