OraNA :: Oracle News Aggregator

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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. (more...)

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 (more...)

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, (more...)

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 (more...)

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, (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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 (more...)

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) (more...)