After I graduated, in mid-2008, I had to take a hard decision: Should I follow an academic career, or a professional one?

It's difficult do decide on either side, since on one hand I like innovating and creating new stuff (instead of risk having a dull job of merely implementing ideas and concepts that have already been proved), but on the other hand, I like to work on things that have a practical application, things that people do use (instead of theoretical concepts that only influence people's lives indirectly, or at all).

After talking to several people, I figured that: 1) it might be possible to achieve both, and 2) I didn't have a basis to decide that right now. So rather than trying to weigh all pros and cons, I decided to go on and try out both approaches and then decide.

Therefore, I started studying for a master's degree at Universidade do Minho (and I'm enjoying it tremendously!), on which I'll have to work on a thesis in the 2009/10 period -- I'm excited about that.

In this summer, I started working under a research scholarchip, in an Augmented Reality project for the Computer Graphics Center (CCG) in Guimarães. I also have been doing some freelance work, on web development. I've learned a lot about web standards, accessibility, and web technologies in general in the last few months.

As of general interests for the future, I've always been very interested in stuff like Virtual Reality, holograms, brain-computer interfaces, and other innovative human-computer interaction paradigms that everyday are getting closer to becoming commercially viable applications. I believe these are exciting fields, where both research and industry can join forces to produce great results.

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