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Still thinking about Google I/O…

Google presented “AI agents” capable of doing people’s work in countless scenarios, none of them very believable for real people. (Who needs AI to organize a neighborhood block party?) At TechCrunch, Sarah Perez writes a solid critique of this questionable utopia that Google is trying to sell us.

On my end, I think we’re living a “Groundhog Day” moment of that Google Now feature from ~2012, which would notify you via push notification that your flight’s gate had changed. As if that information wasn’t already on your face the whole time at the airport. For 15 years Google has been using different technologies, each increasingly complex and expensive, to try to solve problems that no human being has ever actually had.

Cool links of the week

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Singularity (6min31s). The new short film from Blender Studios, from the renowned open-source 3D editor. I thought it was pretty cool.

The AI Resist List (in English). A database of initiatives resisting the AI empire. Among the site’s creators is journalist Karen Hao, who is launching her latest book in Brazil, The AI Empire, published by Rocco.

Fits on a floppy. A manifesto for small software (in the sense of: taking up little memory space). The page itself includes a semi-hidden game where you have to click on flying floppy disks. For those under 30, “floppy disks” are the save buttons. Tip from Rafael.

Parallel Cities. Literally which cities are at the same latitude. A shout-out to folks in Pretoria (South Africa) and Windorah, latitude “neighbors” of Curitiba.

Hexagon world map. The map is dynamic and renders in just 10 KB of code.

Weather Replay. A weather forecast history for the whole world since the 1940s, based on data from the Copernicus Observatory of the European Union. (Works in Brazilian cities and any other country too.)

Where Now? A kind of “personal Foursquare,” this app marks the places of interest you’ve visited — and everything stays local. Markings can be manual or automatic. Free, for iOS.

Google wants to be the interface for the web

The opening of Google I/O this year (35-minute video recap) showed a Google less shy about transforming the web into raw material for its AIs.

Search will become (even more) a souped-up ChatGPT, and also the checkout counter for every online store, and YouTube will use video clips to create answer pages.

Notice that in all these announcements, Google/YouTube transforms itself into a curator and interface for web content, without attribution or with minimal credit given. You won’t visit websites anymore; you’ll visit Google — and you’ll stay there. On the flip side, whoever calls themselves a “content creator” is actually a content supplier for platforms. It’s always been that way for Meta (Instagram), TikTok, and YouTube; now it’s also the case for Google, even if unintentionally (myself included!).

All of this amounts to a complete betrayal of everything Google once stood for (and was) back then. Maybe people like this new incarnation because the web, poor thing, has long suffered from the pernicious incentives and destructive influence of Google itself, but nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

By the way: Manual do Usuário project offers an instance of SearxNG, a metasearch engine that displays ten (or more) blue links to actual websites. It’s free. Use it and spread the word.

Cool links

Editor’s note: Missing the daily links? They became “weekly links.” After a year, keeping up the daily pace started to take its toll. The longer gap between posts brings another advantage: a focus on cool links, leaving aside the news items — which I used to include in the daily posts to add more substance. After all, when I created this section the goal was to share and celebrate the good things that pop up on the web. Let’s get back to basics.

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Taken. This page lists and explains all the data that any website collects from your device the moment you access it.

Night and Day. A world map showing in real time where it is day and where it is night. There are controls to adjust the map in the upper right corner of the page.

Killed by Apple. It’s not just Google that has a killing streak with products and services. (Although Apple’s “lifespan” seems a bit longer on average.)

The Thirty Under Thirty Fraud Watch. A site that tracks and explains every Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree caught committing fraud. The list is long and includes superstars of the grift, such as Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes.

Email.md. A Markdown editor for generating responsive emails. Looks good! One of these days I’ll test it in the Manual newsletter.

Momotaro. A new pomodoro app, but with an adorable visual style. Free, for iOS.

Nothing has changed on Instagram; Meta has always read your DMs

Since May 8th, Instagram stopped offering the option of direct messages (DMs) with end-to-end encryption (e2ee). The announcement was made quietly on a page in Meta’s help documentation, which reflects the importance of this feature within Instagram — close to zero. In reporting the news, however, the media did a poor job, stretching the truth or even resorting to misinformation, inflaming public opinion for no good reason.

I am the first to criticize Meta, which is why we must be careful with our accusations, lest we weaken the real arguments against it and its practices.

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A screen addict on the couch

A few months ago, during a therapy session, I mentioned the possibility that I might be addicted to screens. The psychologist asked what I do when I’m not looking at them. I could only come up with a few things — all simple, some pathetic, like “washing dishes.”

She said it’s common for addicts, upon recognizing their addiction, to find themselves in an existential void. I think there’s no doubt that “washing dishes” is a sign of a huge void, right?

I realized this problem while reading these three paragraphs published by Dave Rupert:

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Links of the Day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Meta: New AI measures to identify teens. Meta will use AI to scan photos and videos and detect people’s height and bone structure in order to place teenagers in age-appropriate experiences. Meta says this isn’t facial recognition, as if analyzing bone structure were somehow better. The technology is coming to Brazil and EU, starting with Instagram.

iOS 26.5 RC hints at sideloading coming soon to Brazil (pt_BR), iHelp BR. Can’t wait!

Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model without consent. Worth noting if storage space is tight on your computer.

Artemis II photo timeline. They took all the official Artemis II photos and cross-referenced them with the mission’s event schedules to generate a timeline.

Artblock. An extension (Chromium and Firefox) that replaces ads with works of art and NASA photos. Brilliant! It’s not available in the extension stores yet, though.

Links of the Day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Xbox Mode begins rolling out to players on Windows 11 PCs today. This feature opens the Windows 11 gaming hub (renamed Xbox Mode): a full-screen interface to browse using joysticks.

Robot dogs with tech boss faces roam Berlin art exhibit. That’s awesome.

Bird Radio. A radio station featuring bird songs. Each “station” represents a part of the world. (Too bad the South American ones aren’t working.)

Cursor Camp. Neal Agarwal’s latest project is a camp for mouse cursors, full of Easter eggs and cool details. (Much) better from a computer or device with a mouse.

I endured the Apple Watch for four months

I consider myself a decisive person, though I do have my weaknesses. Major purchases, like electronic devices, are always a soap opera. The Apple Watch one lasted a few years.

At the end of 2025, a special episode aired with a major plot twist, typical of the best soap operas. Without giving it much thought, I looked for the cheapest Apple Watch Series 10 in stores. Then I bought it. My reasoning was to take advantage of the “off-season” between versions and the depreciation of the previous model — a good strategy this year, given that the newly released Series 11 brought almost no new features.

46mm case, rose gold color, white sport band. Bought. A few days later, the watch arrived at my house. With a different band — a purple sport loop. I ended up keeping it because the models with the band I’d ordered were out of stock. It was the off-season…

The soap opera reached its (possible?) final chapter — an abrupt one — on April 20th, four months after I started wearing an Apple Watch.

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