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After acquiring the VoIP operator in July 2007 GrandCentral and if you thought you were going to let the service die, Google announced just over a week ago its relaunch through the Google Voice.

Like the first days of VoIP, many point to the service as a serious threat to the telecommunications industry and, new, to the VoIP industry itself (read, existing IP Voice Operators and Skype).

If Google searches revolutionized the Web, and GMail revolutionized free email, Google Voice can revolutionize the Voice world.

What's new with Google Voice?

No big news. Only the name “Google” and a “killer app”.

In my past VoIP times Netcall ), I have always argued that VoIP did not have a direct business model and that it would only be sustainable when associated with business with financial and market muscle that they saw in VoIP, and in general voice, a “commodity” and lever to bring added value to other services. At the time, this “muscle” was obvious in the world of telecommunications operators and in the need to create Triple Play packages (voice + video + Internet).

It is curious that after eBay’s inconsequential purchase of Skype, it is now a very consequent Google that more than “muscle” brings the focus on the user, patience and web vision to take real advantage of the convergence of voice and data services.

In conversation with two close friends, while discussing the course BySide and the success factors of the project, both mentioned that between everything, in 2 or 3 key moments, was important luck.

I am always shocked when I hear the reference to the “lucky factor” since my pragmatism and rationalism prevents me from even considering luck or bad luck as responsible for what we get (maybe this justifies never entering games of luck).

How many times in the most critical moments do important things happen to us? Lucky? Or just the extra effort and focus on making it happen?

If after eight or more months of work and persistence, we have reached a goal, we simply achieve a goal; if you want to: execute. Luck cannot be considered responsible. Otherwise, everything would be justifiable with luck and/or bad luck (the current economic crisis would have been a great misfortune, the result of also the gigantic misfortune of subprime in the USA).

Imagine the simple crossing of a street. Objective: to get to the other side. After looking both ways, we wait for the right moment, we cross. Halfway through to let a speeding car pass. Let's move on. We've reached the other side. Lucky? Or did we just... achieve the goal?

Lucky, it would be to close your eyes, run to the other side without seeing and achieving! But even then, I don't call it luck. I call it stupid.

Banking continues to represent one of the most striking examples of the difficulty of traditional sectors to gain an online dimension.

Despite the long journey that banking has taken online, when accessing public areas of most banks (national or international) is evident the confusion that still represents the management of (increasingly new) “new channels”. And this mess is as much bigger as it gets, or as much as trying to be, the bank in question.

If in the transactional aspect, associated with the private homebanking area, better or worse, despite several usability gaps, almost all meet the objective, in the public area usually there is chaos and antithesis of everything that today advocates in good marketing and sales practices.

The strange case of “Net Product”

If I have savings and because of fear of the capital market I do not want to apply them on a stock exchange but on a fixed-term deposit, when I consult on a bank’s website information about “deposits” what do I usually find?

Deposit products options tables!

Whenever I remember or find a theme I would like to write about, I try to point to later develop. Normally I end up giving up and never doing so, not only because of the usual and chronic lack of time, but especially when I find someone who has already addressed the issue.

In one of those basic, sudden revelations that make us feel completely stupid, I found myself realizing the ridiculous and the prepotence of it. As if there were 100% unique visions out there, without dyes or preservatives. Worse, as if some of these so-called “visions” were... mine.

The truth is that we rarely have a truly original and “only” idea. If in life we are the sum and interpretation of our experiences, in what we write this is equally evident. What makes us unique and original is the ability to connect the sum of all these experiences in an order and sequence that identifies us.

So I believe there is no plagiarism on the web! When we write, it is not negative to write about the very theme we read in the blog on the side. As long as we do so with our vision or interpretation, of course! As long as we're editors of ourselves.

A little reflection on the subject of previous post helps to understand what separates the US from the rest of the world in terms of innovation.

As I said, the “ Claytrons ” or “Catoms”, used in “programmable matter”, began to be developed by University of Carnegie Mellon’s With Intel and DARPA funds. Nothing less than the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer who, whether using PC or MAC, is almost certainly the computer processor supplier of your PC, and the U.S. Ministry of Defense's research agency that was only the main responsible for creating the... Internet.

If we think of Portugal, how many innovation projects do you know with help and funds from entities with enough muscle to ensure its presence is a guarantee of success?

Even though we are recognizably capable of inventing and doing, will we ever have support for an Intel and DARPA scale? It's just that it doesn't seem to... help. And this is one of the main mistakes of Globalisation: to believe that we are all now equally global.

Of course we're Global, but after all, some will always be more than others.

After the “Increased”, the “Synthetic Reality”!

In fact, the correct term would be “Programmable Materials” or “Claytrons”, which represents an emerging engineering area that studies the possibilities of using nanobots (in this case the “Claytronic” or “Catoms”) and which are used to create mechanisms or larger-scale machines. This “Programmable Materials” has the ability to communicate with each other, with computers, change colors and connect with each other by creating different forms. These forms allow, theoretically, to model any object, including human replicas that can be used in virtual meetings.

The “Claytrons” or “Catoms” began to be developed by the University of Carnegie Mellon’s, with Intel and DARPA funds. Nothing less than the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer who, using PCs or MAC, is almost certainly the computer processor supplier of your PC and an investigative agency of the Ministry of Defense that was only the main responsible for creating the... Internet.

Although the video still does not present a real Demo, it represents a possible Demo in the near future.

When you think you've seen everything and there's not much more to invent, believe me, you're wrong!

• • Alert: This post contains an increased reality!

Image not recoveredprintme2 Because an experience is worth more than 1000 images, this post starts with a mandatory demonstration! They just need:

– a webcam;

– download from this file (click on the next image);

– print the file;

Below, select “Start”, accept the webcam link and point the black square from the printed sheet to Webcam. Voila!

Note: On Mac, if you do not view the webcam image, you need to select the webcam manually (right click > settings > webcam icon > USB Cam);

(credits: Boffswana )

If you can't see it, try another computer or watch the last video of the Post.

If you've done it, you've just experienced an increased reality with you!

The Augmented Reality represents a form of interaction that mixes the real world with virtual elements, or virtual reality.

This is no new area (the first references date back to 1849 when Richard Wagner introduced the idea of creating "immersive" experiences using a darkened theater and surrounding the audience of sounds and images).

A good brand, a good idea, creativity and simplicity.

Although Google Video has not avenged, a simple and brutal action that has achieved the goal of getting the audience to interact. To see and see!

It's almost a year old, but as time goes by, this South Park episode is getting strangely more up-to-date.

O Last.FM, radio and online music community, is one of the services that best illustrates what the Internet is today and an idea that I have been defending for years: the release of the browser. 

This may appear in counter-cycle against the current current of cloud computing and browser applications but actually it is not. What I mean is that it is important to realize that on the Web desktop release should not mean an interface transfer to the browser but a total release of the Interface.

What Web 2.0 brought us was exactly this ability to abstract data and functionality. In doing so, the web interface becomes obvious but... it's not exclusive.

Last.FM, as a service and application, has everything: social network, web, non-web, desktop, mobile applications, interfaces for third party applications, “long tail” and more.