The day is coming when the ‘file’ as we know it will be a thing of the past for most computer users.   The process is already well under way:  use Google docs?  Under the File menu is a “See revision history” option.  Dropbox?  There’s a “Previous versions” option for every file up there.  Even the WordPress blogging platform (into which I’m typing right now) retains each intermediate version of every post I write (including manually saved versions and versions automatically saved by WordPress).

Versioning – For software developers, the ability to code without fear of overwriting a teammate’s work from last week (or last month) is critical – as is the ability to step back through each previous version of the code when tracking down bugs.  For these reasons, simply working on flat files – even if there’s a backup – is not an option.  Instead, versioning tools such as GIT and SVN have been developed, and are second nature to anyone writing code in a professional or team situation.

What’s interesting is that now similar technology is moving into the consumer space.

And it’s not just a ‘cloud thing’, either – Apple’s local backup solution ‘Time Machine’ has been around for a few years now, and in fact is more of a versioning tool than a traditional backup solution.  The new Lion OSX release takes things a step further – the operating systems is continually taking snapshots in the background of every open document as you work, and each of these snapshot is available as a separate revision. In other words, Lion (like Google Docs and WordPress) will even do the saving for you!

It won’t be long before the idea of the file (and of having to explicitly hit ‘save’) are – like the CD,  the 200GB external hard drive, and (maybe) the United States’ AAA bond rating – relics of the past.

When was the last time you donated money to a good cause – using your very cell phone that is?

No, this is not about poll voting for one’s favorite America Idol performer, or buying another app.

This is about wielding one’s smartphone to part ways with some of your hard-earned money purely with philanthropic intent.

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Buenos Aires has become a tourist hotspot in the recent years.  Some say it is the Paris of South America, something the locals do not like to hear – and actually, something which is also not true at all.
Buenos Aires is a City you cannot compare with anything you know, because it is a mix of a lot of influences.  Of course there are European and US influences, but there’s also a flavor of the real South America! Truly amazing and fascinating.  The Portenos (how the people of Buenos Aires call themselves) are a very modern, open crowd – they’re among South America’s “early adopters” (this is also due to their strong ties to Europe).  Every Porteno I met in has been to Europe several times, and I believe knows more places there then I do.

And as first adopters who care about their tourists and are proud of their city, they’ve introduced a nice little idea.  In Buenos Aires you can “like” and “friend” nearly every major place of interest on Facebook (and also find a lot of information about the places, of course).

And that’s not all – at every one of these places there are signs advertising the Facebook URL. If I were Facebook, I would say “thank you/muchas gracias” for this “official” advertising (which comes free of charge, I suppose).

Here you can see some examples – try them out.

• http://www.facebook.com/plazadorrego
• http://www.facebook.com/plazadelarepublica

PS: By the way, in Buenos Aires all of the street signs are “sponsored” by companies like Nokia or major Argentinian mobile network operators like Claro (they put just the logos on the street signs, which I suppose is NOT for free).

Since I’ve already been on a Google+ few weeks now (I had an invitation to try out the service the day before it launched – one of the small perks of writing a tech blog), and since I’ve already received an email invitation to try out the next brand new web service (the US rollout of Spotify),  I guess it’s about time I shared my impressions of Google’s planned Facebook-killer.

During the first day or two of Google+, you really had to “know a guy who knows a guy” to get an account, but if the recent escalation in the number of friends and family showing up there is any indication, they’re scaling up the service more aggressively than they did with Gmail a few years ago.

Although they’re keeping quiet about the numbers, some recent independent research estimates that about 20 million people have signed up as of this past weekend.  Just to put that in context, Facebook claims over 750 million active users.  On the surface, that would seem to represent some pretty substantial  inertia in Facebook’s favor – but the tipping point syndrome can be pretty brutal in the social networking world (imagine a cocktail party in which each guest can anonymously and painlessly bail out of if it turns out the cool kids are heading on over to the party down the street).

This point  is not lost on Facebook – in fact, Mark Zuckerberg is “keeping his enemies close” via a Google+ account of his own that’s ended up in over a quarter of a million Google+ user’s Circles – but has yet to contain a single post.

After playing around with it a bit, I think Google+ can objectively be said to have the edge over Facebook in terms of simplicity and transparency – and on a more subjective level, I believe there are a few other things to like about Google+, as well…

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There is a prejudice about the Chinese, that they will fake nearly anything.


I will start with a non-tech story a friend of mine from Shanghai told me: a colleague of his bought a Audi A6 in China for a really good price – a “lucky punch”, a bargain.  This made him happy.  A view months later there was a problem with the motor, and as the guy isn’t a great mechanic he took the car to the nearest Audi garage.  A day later the garage rang him up and asked him where he bought the car.  He told them he bought it in Shanghai, but not from an official Audi dealer.  The garage employee responded: “Hm… , well, OK, that maybe explains something, because actually your car is not a real Audi….”   Hard to believe?
I thought this was really priceless, that even German cars are now being faked (‘knocked off‘) in China.

Coming to another kind of fake:  five years ago I have been to one of the official tourist knock off markets in China that specialized in garments, handbags and watches.  I’ve since been told that this market was closed down due to the pressure from all the luxury brands on the Chinese (by the way, I have never seen a bigger Louis Vuitton store than in Shanghai) – so I really thought that the times of these markets were over.  Well, as it always happens in China: if something closes, it remains for this for some weeks and then it pops up in another side of the city…  and now, voilà, it’s not only cloths, shoes, and handbags – the new thing is, they even fake electronics nowadays.  Clearly, the iPhone is the #1 knock off you see everywhere.  And they even have a faked the software on it, the icons look pretty similar and it works more or less.   But if that’s  not enough, all forms of iPods of course, iPads (yes, 1 and 2) and Blackberry knock-offs are available too.   Sure, you’ll see all of our iconic Asian status symbols there!

But see yourself on the pictures (sorry I forgot to take one of the iPhone display showing the operating system).

Facebook yesterday announced it is adding Skype video chat to its growing list of features.

This is not a trivial matter.

With its Skype video chat announcement, Facebook merges social with communication. If done right, that’s a tremendously powerful combination.

For one, think of Facebook as your white pages on steroids; a single globally connected super-large phonebook stuffed with detailed profiles, likes and dislikes, photos, links, messaging – the works!

Now add video chat to the mix. Is this the genesis of Facebook Telecom?

Not quite. But at closer look, the social network giant might just have the wherewithal to grow into the first global social IP carrier.

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There’s a new social networking service in town. It’s called Google+/Google Plus. The beta isn’t fully open to the public yet.

There’s a lot of nerdy/media-y navel-gazing going on there right now.

There will be advantages to businesses, political organizations and non-profits down the road.

There are some features “stolen” from other social networks; others are brand new. Users will like some things and hate others.

The end.