For a global society highly dependent on complex technical, economic, and political systems, we manage to carry on our daily routines largely unaware of the hard and soft infrastructure—from pipes to policies—on which these systems rest. That is, until unexpected events, so-called black swans, illuminate the previously hidden pieces and surprise or unsettle us by their presence and function.
Airports are not enjoyable places to be. Long distance travel is not a tonne of fun. Badly designed boarding passes are annoying. Seriously annoying. The boarding pass is essential for air travel but when badly designed, must be one of the most counter-productive items an airline could issue. I think they cause headaches for airline and airport staff and travellers alike. Travellers are often stressed, emotional, groggy, jet lagged or a toxic mix of all four. The thought of having to decode a rubix-cube-puzzle of crucial information in that state makes me want to just give up.
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Lately I’ve been thinking about the multitasking experience on Android and I feel like there’s still a lot to improve. I love how the thumbnails come up, but in 4.2.2 they made it so that the current app joined the list of “Recent Apps”. This looks great on phones and small-sized tablets, but it looks really bad on large tablets (ie. Nexus 10) in landscape mode. Here’s how to make it better. More »
If you’ve ever been so embroiled in a chat or sharing splurge that you’ve been told to “take it off of Twitter,” you now can — sort of. Twitter co-creators Biz Stone and Ev Williams have launched Branch and Medium, two companion services that (naturally) use a Twitter sign-in but narrow the focus to just a few subjects. As the name suggests, Branch lets especially vocal Twitter users invite others into conversations that don’t clutter everyone’s feeds or cut replies off at the 140-character limit. Medium? Think of it as Pinterest turned publishing platform: members can publish either a static collection of favorite articles and media, for reading and rating, or leave it open for more collaborative efforts. There’s no rush to open the floodgates to the invitation-only portals, though. Stone and Williams see the quietness of their new services as an antidote to the madness of regular social streams, and we can’t help but sympathize.
Filed under: Internet
Twitter founders create Branch and Medium to keep the conversations, collections flowing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There is no shortage of platforms to post your ideas, photos, videos—whatever—online, but today we got another high-profile one. Medium announced itself with a lofty manifesto about publishing and media. But, um, what makes it different and why should anybody use it? More »
Evan Williams and Biz Stone, founders of Twitter who are most probably more famous amongst the tech community as @ev and @biz, have recently introduced Branch and Medium, two new websites which intend to complement the Twitter ecosystem. Williams and Stone were careful enough to make sure that Medium and Branch will not offer a repeat of Twitter in any way, but they do hope that the Internet savvy community will be able to have Branch and Medium work alongside Twitter, keeping their fingers crossed that the two new websites will end up as indispensable in the long run. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: App.net achieves $500,000 target plays role of Twitter rival, iCloud account of Mat Honan hacked,
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