My Tech Fu

Trump has traded away our future for an obsolete past ... don't let him (added Epilogue Nov. 8, 2020)

2017-06-04T19:27:00.005-07:00

Like many of my fellow Americans, I was disappointed, if not surprised by President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord. This was an agreement adopted on December 12, 2015 to mitigate and combat the thread of global warning due to man-made emissions and included the biggest polluters China and the United States.

One marvels how a large, complex agreement involving the efforts of staff from close to two hundred (195) countries, over multiple years can be thrown aside so casually by someone who probably has not read the entire agreement, was probably briefed by biased lackeys with their own agenda (cough Scott cough Pruitt). I really feel for all the environmental agencies that worked hard for that agreement - they looked really proud in 2015, even though the goals were quite modest - baby steps. Nevertheless it was quite a feat to get both major polluters, United States and China, emerging countries and everyone to at least begin a coordinated assault on climate change.

Now there are some people who are happy we are not in this agreement - they argue that the restrictions were not fair, and some of our industries will suffer. This is true, if you are in the coal industry, global trends are against you. The consumer, given the choice, will want to support clean energy. I've been to Beijing where as soon as I step out of my hotel, my eyes start tearing up from chemical burns and I have to wear a filtered mask to walk around. I can't even see more than ten to twenty feet in front of me... and this is during the summer where we are supposed to have a bright blue sky. There's nothing like first hand experience of coughing up dark phlegm to let you know that this is not a sane way to live. Chinese leaders have realized that and that's why they are doing it for their own survival and well-being of its citizens - political points are bonus.

We've seen how even a small shift towards cleaner energy like natural gas, solar and windpower can shift the economic forces that affect the pricing power of oil. Those who choose to invest in renewables like more efficient solar energy have a nice upside in their future. Solar panel efficiency has begun to improve rapidly from 14% in 1960s to more than double that today. The chart below shows that just after 2015, the curve changes slope rapidly as new technologies and the power of competition drives the creation of higher rates of efficiency. New computer science technologies like deep learning, and ubiquitous sensing has made it feasible to analyze patterns on massive amounts of data on appliance usage, allowing improvements in energy efficiency and deployment. Since solar energy is transmitted from our sun directly, infrastructure can be decentralized and promises new innovations in its deployment. I think global agreements like the Paris Accord will only serve to drive these industries to greater progress and cost efficiency. Global industrial competition will fight for this market as demand grows due to every nation striving to meet their own targets. For clean energy, the potential keeps growing over time, while fossil fuels slowly deplete and diminish. One is the future, while the other is obsolete, polluting and non-renewable - a no brainer.

Solar panel efficiency over time (Courtesy: http://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-efficiency-cost-over-time/)

Tesla's solar roof

Clever and aesthetically-pleasing designs like Tesla's Solar Roof make solar power more appealing to homeowners. With good design, social barriers of acceptance such as neighborhood appeal fall away. With excellent design, a market emerges with strong demand. Tesla's creation of a new solar roof category has already inspired the creation of new startups like Forward Labs (who claim to make a more efficient solar roof), only further helping to drive down costs with competition.

The point is, it's painfully clear that embracing clean energies, even if you don't believe in climate change is a nice thing to aspire to, like physical exercise and eating good food. Sure, you could avoid this and still live to a ripe, old age, but I bet your enjoyment in those later years will not be as high if your health is terrible.

Let's suppose climate change is a hoax. Even if it was, there are still benefits for working towards cleaner energy solutions that lower carbon dioxide emissions. It's the equivalent of eating your fruit and vegetables. If your actions help stop climate change, that's icing on the cake. There's no long-term downside in this pursuit. Yes, there will be short term job loss, but the upside of these technologies is probably higher than the preserving the downside of older, obsolete practices. Now, suppose you didn't take any action because you believed climate change is a hoax - and it turns out you were wrong. Well, not only did you doom your own future and that of your progeny, but every other human on this planet as well. This is not a personal issue, it's global. The coal industries we are trying to protect produce diminishing gains over time as these markets shrink and only delays the difficult adjustment people will need to make to train and find replacement work. Coal mining is dangerous and causes many respiratory and health issues for its workers. We owe these people a better way to make a living.

I think there is enough global momentum that responsible corporate and individual US citizens will strive to develop smart policies and technologies to combat the threat of global warning. More specifically, getting back to the US withdrawal of the Paris Accord and the undermining of years of work by hundreds of professional policy makers, I tried to relate this to a smaller scale experience I had.

Being a software developer, I tend to architect systems that not only meet immediate needs, but try to anticipate future needs that inevitably arise as a software's role changes over time in its relationship to the needs of its users. Now this practice makes sense to me and probably many of you, but there are always counteracting force that pressure you to get things done quickly at the expense of future work because you created a sub-optimal solution. This is usually for a short-term win or meeting an arbtrarily deadline. In the software industry, we call this incurring technical debt. Those of us who have done many projects over time recognize when this is happening and we try our best to plan ahead to avoid it, as it usually means more work down the road and less agility when changes need to be made. So, even though a manager or CEO may direct us to achieve immediate goals, good engineers and designers are always working behind the scenes anticipating the next, logical extensions so we hit the ground running when we finally get the official go-ahead. That's a bit of the rugged individualism that Americans are often characterized or accused of having.

If you are a designer, engineer, scientist, activist, entrepreneur, Trump has just put the entire United States in a state of technical debt for the environment. This guy won't last long at the rate things are going for him. What's important is for us to be thinking ahead and past this temporary roadblock. Activists need to keep the pressure on progressive political leaders so that when the pendulum eventually swings them back to power, they are assertive enough to bring the US back into the Paris accord - I have a feeling the world won't have hard feelings. In the meantime, all of us in a position to build new energy-efficient and clean technologies, create designs that motivate people to environmentally-friendly behavior and invest in such efforts financially should forge on. Change the economics so that the short-sighted politicians realize they screwed up. Help make them do the mental acrobatics to come to the logical conclusion themselves. They are more likely to come back on side.

Whatever it takes, because the planet is at stake. This is a big picture problem. We are talking about the legacy of human civilization here and whether we have the ingenuity and global willpower to create a better solution. What gives me hope is that when it comes to technology, progress can be exponential rather than linear. Positive feedback feeds on itself, and momentum can quickly build onto greater progress.

Earlier, I bemoaned how our world can allow a single, ignorant man to potentially alter the course of history. I realize that's not the case. It is true only is if you let Trump think for you. Unfortunately, he has many followers who have decided to check-out their own agency and simply follow the script he's tweeting. In reality, our society is structured in a way that we can simply ignore his garbage and do what we think is right. Ignore the noise, and focus on the long-term goals - be patient and steadily strive on. Here's my favorite fortune cookie message I've kept with me since I first found it years ago:

Let's make Trump a tiny footnote in history, the last vestiges of an old way of thinking that threatened to cripple our planet before we woke ourselves up to the great opportunities that the Paris Accord gives us.

Epilogue: Nov. 8, 2020

On November 7, 2020, most media outlets have declared Joseph Biden to be the President-elect of the United States. The New York Times reported:
"In the first hours after he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, Mr. Biden has said, he will send a letter to the United Nations indicating that the country will rejoin the global effort to combat climate change, reversing Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord with more than 174 countries."

In the last few years, despite the continued assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, the inexorable push to adopt renewal energy taken on by other countries, including China have shown that progress can continue. Technology has allowed for the growing momentum of solar energy usage with improvements in battery designs for electric vehicles, and off-line storage of wind/solar energy power. Countries have realized that electric vehicles offer an opportunity to jump-start a new industry, and the automotive industry is undergoing a disruptive cycle, hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic and the aggressive innovation from Tesla. This has shown that if you keep on working on the problem, reducing the technical debt, arbitrary political decisions will give way to stronger, economic and pragmatic incentives.

Happy to see some nice closure to this story.

Star Trek Beyond and where we are now.....

2016-07-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

[http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/StarTrekBeyond-StarbaseYorktown-1.jpg]

Sorry, it's been a while since I posted anything - articles half-written, notes jotted down for future articles, but the urgency of now has been pulling me away from thinking about deeper, longer-term thoughts. Last year, I changed jobs from a nice, industrial R&D lab to a super secretive startup. I've been busy learning many new things, as well as trying to preserve and identify what my core values are as well. The kind of values that should stay with you for life, and not be subject to change from job to job. That's still a work in progress. Today, I wanted to reflect on some thoughts that were triggered by my recent viewing of Star Trek Beyond - which happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the celebrated science fiction franchise. Warning: there are some minor spoilers below, but nothing that reveals major plot points.

Like many people, I was hooked on Star Trek growing up. I actually at first ignored the TV series (the original one with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy) because of the cheesy effects, but in high school I started reading the James Blish novelizations of the series episodes. They were written as a volume of books which spanned the entire television run of three seasons.

James Blish: Star Trek novelizations

The interesting thing about these novelizations was that James Blish never saw the actual episodes on television while writing these stories. He adapted them directly from the scripts. Maybe it was that freedom from the constraints of television budgets, or the tendency for a reader's imagination to fill in the visual details of what he or she reads, but I grew to love the characters and the situations the crew of the USS Enterprise were getting themselves into.

I loved what I thought were the two strong messages that were injected into Star Trek - the wonderful promise of science and technology to solve problems, and that the diversity of people and cultures makes a strong combination of perspectives, knowledge and problem-solving ability. These thoughts were reignited when I was watching Star Trek Beyond today.

Early in the film, there's a beautiful and awe-inspiring sequence of the Starbase Yorktown where the Enterprise is docking for shore leave. It's a truly aspirational sequence both in the ambition of the technology being showcased, and in the integration of multiple alien cultures working together for something grand. There are cities built on an immense scale, conduits large enough for starships to pass through, and it's full of diverse lifeforms living together and enjoying the rich expanse of our galaxy. It's the ultimate fruit of technological and societal progress. It makes me want to live in that world.

Concept art for the Starbase Yorktown in Star Trek Beyond

The movie shows how the strength of the crew of the Enterprise really goes "beyond" the actual ship itself. In fact, it transcends it. It reminds us that technology is useless without a guiding philosophy for its responsible implementation and use. It also reminds us that to solve real, difficult problems - we need to consider a diversity of opinions and skill sets to solve things. You need a crew, with different personality traits - courage, caution, enthusiasm and reflection. You need to bring together people who are experts in medicine, science, engineering and politics.

Okay, back to the Now.

Today, I see as a society we have turned insular in our usage of technology - software is touted as a tool for enabling experiences, but there is something very distracting in the nature of our pursuit of it. We use software to entertain us with new ways of streaming content to us, virtual and augmented realities to enhance or escape from our physical world, but it feels sort of ephemeral to me. There feels no physical lasting impression that really projects our society forward - say into space or to improve the lives of everyone on this planet or accomplishments as a species. I'm thinking about big, physical technological wonders or feats like landing on the Moon, or airplanes flying across the oceans, or ending world hunger. Instead, everything new feels invisible - hidden so only the individual can experience it, or for those who can afford it or to enable interconnectivity of things to fulfill false and trivial needs like the Vessyl smart cup.

New graduates want to create startups to create apps. However, the apps are for things that maintain or enhance creature comforts: new ways to order food, to post videos about ourselves, to get other people to do things for us. Even when the goals are noble, creating an app to solve tough problems seems naive and simplistic. I remember listening to a presentation at a research conference where a team of researchers built some apps and gave tablets and smart devices to kids in Africa so that they could learn some new concepts to prepare them for the digital world. When asked about the current status of those students, we learned that the African villagers sold everything after the researchers left to raise money for their local community's livelihood. It feels that it's trendy to embrace software as the main tool to solve our problems, but the real work really takes more direct involvement - getting your hands dirty and maybe inventing some real physical technology to solve real problems, like providing clean, filtered drinking water.

In this year 2016, we see the dream of creating a harmonious world community under threat. Terrorism is undermining stability and the feeling of safety around the world. However, it feels like the response to this challenge is fragmented and not coordinated. As we saw with Brexit and Donald Trump's Wall proposal, we are more concerned with putting up our own security fences, and letting everyone else fend for themselves, as if life is a zero-sum game. Here in the US, we are truly shocked at the mass killings we have experienced domestically, yet when a bomb kills hundreds of people far away, the feeling of loss is not as personal. We don't seem to want to invest the effort to try and understand why these attacks are happening beyond simple answers such as "they hate us" or "they are disenfranchised." It's never that simple when someone is willing to kill themselves for what they believe in. I don't have any solutions - but I don't think our current approach will ever completely remove the problem.

It's an election year, and I recently heard the Republican nominee Donald Trump say:

"Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,"

I alone can fix it. The only thing I know from history is that it is easy for an individual to really mess things up fast, but it takes a strong team of people to succeed. Solving complex problems requires getting many people to work together and agree on a solution. Coming back to Star Trek, that's how things get done. Someone can help inspire, but if a bunch of people can't agree on the strategy and put their faith in a common goal, nothing will happen. Nothing.

I feel the message that Star Trek gives us needs to inspire us more than ever. Sure, it's great to have all these neat technologies like apps, social media and virtual realities. However, they need to be the means to a greater end. They should be tools to help us build stronger, tangible progress for our planet. We also need to do this with strong communities of people who can focus on ambitious goals worth striving for, and willing to do what it takes to get us closer to it every day. We can't afford to get disheartened at setbacks, and need to avoid the temptation of simplistic approaches for complex problems. We have to work the problem out together... struggle, fix, and repeat.

Apple Watch is making me watch

2014-09-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

On September 9, 2014, Tim Cook announced the new Apple Watch product line. Although I was at first impressed by the simple aesthetics of the watch, I also thought perhaps Samsung had already taken out the novelty factor of introducing a smart watch with its Gear line. After watching the keynote, I realized I was wrong. Not only did Apple really think carefully about the user interaction elements, but it also planned out carefully the systems that the watch will find itself in. It didn't just try to put an iPhone on your arm.

[credit: www.apple.com]

I like all the new ways of interacting with the watch and the way the watch interacts back with the wearer. From its linear actuators that tap your wrist, to the sensors that detect your arm movements, and heart rate. The heart rate can be used for affective computing, estimating your emotional state, such as your level of excitment. I enjoyed the fun elements of the design, to give emotional delight to the wearer - the enhanced 3D animated, customizable emoji, the quick new sketch instant messages, that show the actual sketch being created by the other party. The former literally animates text messaging threads while the latter creates a new intimate direct personal connection with your communication partner as the sketch personalizes your response in a very direct way compared to using a text message in standard fonts.

Animated Emoji

Sketch messaging

This watch elegantly combines several wearable devices, creating a simpler solution for getting many interesting jobs done - from goal-based fitness tracking to an easy payment system. With the growing number of security incidents due to stolen credit card numbers, I'm hoping that this will make things safer while reducing the bulkiness of my wallet. I can see merchants and banks happy to offload the responsibility of keeping credit card numbers on their own information systems. What makes the Apple Watch very promising is the approach that Apple took to thinking about all the interconnected subsystems that this watch will be a part of - commerce, fitness, and communication. App developers will probably think of some new ones in the process.

One danger might be the distraction caused by a compelling need to check watch notifications whenever they occur. I've seen that happen with colleagues who have the precursor to smart watehes - the Pebble Watch. In addition, if you wear the watch face on the outside of your forearm, people may catch a glimpse of private or other potentially embarrassing messages. I used to wear my watch on the inside of my arm to protect the outer surface from being scratched, but perhaps people might do this now for increased privacy as well.

We are starting to see the second coming of the personal area network that was touted as the next big trend when Bluetooth technology first emerged. Pairing up an easily accessible interface like the Apple Watch to more powerful computation and storage on the iPhone. We will begin to see a gradual evolution of the iPhone to a more distributed computing product. Eventually, we may only need to take the iPhone out of our pockets only for taking pictures. The phone may stay hidden most of the time and basically act as a local compute, storage, network and services server while user interface duties are handled by the watch.

Business disruption

This watch will be disruptive to many businesses - some old and some new. For payment schemes like Square , an extra card reader to attach to the phone is no longer needed. For very specialized fitness trackers like Fitbit, the need for a standalone specialized device will fall away to the multiple jobs fulfilled by the Apple Watch device. Not to mention, I really liked the design of the goal-based system on the new Apple Watch compared to the lack of immediate visual gratification for reaching rewards on the FitBit. The mechanic they use to motivate someone to engage in minimal levels of various behavioral activity metrics will likely compel people to be more active.

Most significantly, we will see the demise of the luxury watch business. Despite the bravado of the Swiss watch makers in the WSJ article: What does Switzerland's fabled watch industry make of the Apple Watch? Not much., This industry is in for a rude awakening. Disdainful comments from members such as Jean-Claude Biver ( a legendary Swiss watchmaker), “It looks a little cold, and lacks, for my taste, a bit of personality... This won't create another crisis for the Swiss watch industry.” remind me of similar reactions of the incumbent phone manufacturers to the iPhone when it first came out. Here's one from RIM's Jim Balsillie: ""It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers ... But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it."

I think what Biver doesn't understand is that software and the consequent user experience is starting to be what defines a product's personality - not just its external industrial design. Marc Andreessen provides other evidence of software's domination in his 2011 essay, "Why Software Is Eating the World". The external design is great for an initial visceral reaction for the observer, but longer-term emotional bonding with a product happens with usability and reflective design as described by Donald Norman in his 2005 book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.

The sketch messaging, customized Emoji and infinite personalization of the watch will trump any need to buy an existing luxurious image from an expensive watch. We are starting to see user experience trumping raw technical specifications happening in other industries too. For example in the automotive sector, people are less concerned about engine performance versus whether they can sync their phones and use their favorite map applications to their car. In fact, autonomous cars will only accelerate this trend as people no longer will care about actual driving performance rather than what they can do while they are riding in the car. Similarly, the need to fashion an expensive, ornamental watch merely serving as a status symbol should be overcome by the additional abilities opened up to the wearer.

I was looking at my Wall Street Journal magazine this weekend, and saw all the glossy ads for very expensive, very intricate-looking, designer, luxury watches. Your arm is a very valuable piece of real estate that can only hold one watch at a time. Are you going to pay thousands of dollars for essentially a piece of jewelry that tells the time, or will you pay for something that costs a fraction of that amount that is beautiful and simple in its own right, but can do so many more things. Most people will realize the absurdity and vanity of wearing a luxury watch when that arm real estate can enable you to have so much more new functionality in your lives that can enrich you on a more personal level.

This will be interesting to watch....

Should technology replace traditional safe practices with new behavior?

2014-08-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I was giving a talk on augmented reality at a local meetup called AutoHack. I talked about how augmented reality could be used to improve a driver's situation awareness. One of the attendees, Alison Chaiken, brought up the insightful question - I'm paraphrasing here: "If these new technologies allow you to monitor your surroundings while keeping your eyes on the road, won't it also make you use your car mirrors less often, increasing bad habits?"

It's a tough question.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Memphis_in_Front_of_Me,_Arkansas_in_Back_of_Me.jpg]

On the one hand, we have been so ingrained to glance at our car mirrors all the time to maintain awareness of our surroundings, that to suddenly stop doing that makes us wonder if we are degrading our driving skills. However, what if that behavior was due to a lack of better technology to get the job done. Put another way, we look at our mirrors for a reason - to better inform us of our surroundings in the car while driving.

However, if technology can offer us a better way of solving that problem, should we not embrace it? When I look at my rear view mirror, I have to glance through my entire interior cabin before looking out a relatively small window at the back. What if a camera was placed at the back that lets you see a clear wide field of view unobstructed by the interior contents of my car? In fact, rear view cameras are now very common and will soon be mandated to help prevent back-up collisions or accidents of backing over small children which cannot be seen through a rear view mirror. These cameras have image processing built-in to automatically adjust the exposure in low light conditions and increase the field of view from the back. In the future, one can imagine additional computer vision added for pedestrian detection or other obstacles. In fact, I often find myself staring at my rear-view camera exclusively when I back up. Compared to reaching your arm over the back and craning your neck, it's easier to glance at the rear-view camera from the front. I imagine for older drivers or those with less flexibility, it's also more comfortable and easier to see.

Shouldn't that be a good argument to ditch the old way of looking back to back up a car?

In the case of side mirrors, several car companies are petitioning NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to replace the side mirrors with cameras. Removing the side mirrors would reduce drag, improving fuel efficiency, as well as produce a more aesthetically pleasing vehicle. Removing the aerodynamic drag would also allow electric vehicles to increase their range with their current battery charge.

Our lab once studied expert drivers and we found that they constantly glance at the mirrors many more times than most drivers. Most drivers forget to look at their mirrors and tend to have a form of tunnel vision. Given the fact that most drivers currently do this, doesn't it make sense to introduce to them new technology which provides to them the essential job of giving them better situational awareness despite their current bad habits? This would make the roads safer for everyone. Many of the same expert drivers typically do not use the radio when driving. They explain that they are better able to hear cars on the road, and improves their awareness of the surroundings. For many people, not listening to music is a pretty big drawback, especially on mind-numbing commutes in slow traffic. If technology allows drivers to maintain good situation awareness and continue to enjoy music, is that a bad thing?

Finally, for those of us who learned to drive before Anti-locking braking system (ABS) were introduced in cars, we were taught to pump our brakes if our car ever went into a skid. If you do that with anti-locking brakes installed in the car, pumping the brakes would now be the dangerous thing to do because that would disengage the ABS. Yesterday's good habits now become dangerous ones.

Getting back to looking at mirrors. Currently they are the way for a driver to sample the environment, although they do cause you to momentarily look away from the road. Some people even have the bad habit of inadvertent steering if they aren't looking straight ahead. Another habit we have is checking our blind spot before changing lanes. If a car provides a driving aid that senses the blind spot area for you, should you still "double-check"? Do our old habits for safety become anachronistic and even inefficient quirks with the introduction of new driving technologies? This is a question that will begin to unfold as the car continues its rapid technological evolution.

Google Glass: Is it really augmented reality?

2013-05-05T23:09:00.002-07:00

As we move towards the inevitable release of Google Glass, we are starting to see more early reviews and pictures of people trying out the device. The Wall Street Journal even wrote an article on proper social etiquette for wearing these devices (Google Glass: An Etiquette Guide).


Image credit: Wall Street Journal

The mass media refers to Google Glass being an augmented reality device. Let's look at what augmented reality means from Wikipedia:

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

The key part of understanding this definition is what we mean by "augmented". If this means being aware of your physical location, and perhaps placing a local map or label of your current address, then one could argue that the glasses are adding some augmented information. For example, you can see nearby streets adjacent to your current location. The manner in which this information is displayed is as a 2-D overlay over your field of view.

Image credit: Google

The problem with displaying 2-D information over a moving 3-D world is that your brain has to interpret and reconcile the two different cognitive spaces. We are not as great as multi-tasking as we think we are. In fact, this PLOS one article postulates that multi-tasking behavior may be indicative of a person's reduced ability to focus or stay on a single task. Getting back to the 2-D overlay example in a 3-D live world, the brain may undergo cognitive dissonance in its interpretation of the visible field of view of the person. Cognitive dissonance, again from Wikipedia:

In modern psychology, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions.

Although this definition may refer to cognitions like beliefs - say supporting the preservation of the environment while driving a Hummer - it can also mean understanding what you are looking at. If you have two separate views overlayed on top of each other, the brain has to switch between the context of the 2-D overlay and the 3-D world and try to interpret and reconcile both cognitive spaces simultaneosly. In the former, a textual representation is shown which the brain must first interpret the meanings of the words, then relate the meaning to a person's context. In the latter, the person may need to be aware of their environment, avoiding obstacles while walking, or manipulating objects involved in a physical task being performed. The constant switching back and forth and trying to maintain both cognitive tasks can lead to headaches, and distraction, which in turn can lead to accidents. This is exemplified in the funny video re-enactment below.

On the other hand, we experience everyday situations where people have augmented our reality using non-virtual means - road signs, lane markings, street directions, advertising. We are bombarded by these visuals every day while walking and driving, and for the majority of the time, manage to avoid accidents.

Source: flickr.com, user: snorpy

Perhaps a better way for augmentation of physical environments is to display the text and information within the same 3-D cognitive space as the physical environment we are in. More technical definitions of augmented reality actually require that some form of 3-D registration is happening between the augmented graphics with the real world. This can be in the form of direct projection onto real surfaces, as in Patty Maes and Pranav Mistry's Six Sense personal projection AR, or in rendering the text in the correct 3-D perspective, consistent with depth cues of the viewer. In the mobile device domain, location-based information and road guides can be drawn in context with the actual environment, as seen in Mistral's vision for augmented reality.

This might lead to true augmented reality that doesn't leave one with a miserable headache afterwards. For this to happen, future generations of Google glass will require the ability for very fast computer vision in order to minimize the delay between the graphics display and your moving field of view as you move around your world.When that happens, these promising glasses will transition from being a simple head-mounted smart phone display to something that really augments your world

Credit: Six Sense (Maes and Mistry)

2013: The Year I Stopped Taking Myself Too Seriously

2013-03-05T00:09:00.003-08:00

At some point, you will ask yourself why do you do what you do. For researchers, this question is answered in the word itself - to research. However, this word is too vague. Researchers in science often have a question they want to answer like: "Why are frogs around the world dying out?" In the more applied sciences, the problem often turns to "How can I achieve this goal X with constraints Y?" Others, simply love the joy of creating something new that no one has ever experienced or seen before. I think the last motivation is my personal one. I haven't always been successful at it, but that's really what I like doing.

Creating things for yourself may be a form of self-fulfillment, but I suspect many people have a drive to share their ideas to a larger audience. For academics, this is in the form of publications such as in conference proceedings and journal articles. It takes a fair amount of effort to write papers for these venues - at least the good ones, and your work is often peer-reviewed to help strengthen and temper your work to a higher standard of quality and correctness. Over time, I discovered many other ways to also share my work with different audiences, whether it be other types of non-academic conferences, magazine articles, videos, demonstrations or entering design contests. In fact, some of these venues can reach an even wider audience.

This sounds like a fun job to have. You get to play with new technologies, invent cool stuff and keep on learning. Then, why does it feel so stressful sometimes? The reality is that in order to get paid for doing research, there are always expectations on your productivity. We are expected to publish, produce working demonstrations, review papers, and always at a steady pace, or an increasingly faster pace. The world being carved up the way it is, has competitive forces that keep the pressure on. At some point, as your projects grow in complexity and size, greater amounts of project management must be applied in order to keep things organized and on pace to completion.

Remember I earlier said, "play with new technologies"? I'm finding it harder to find the time to read at a leisurely pace, but instead dive into long, legalese-inoculated patents and papers only relevant to current projects. I used to like to look up papers in the university library stacks, and often skimmed through the table of contents or neighbouring volumes of the journal I was looking for, and accidentally discovering interesting work. Reading an entirely different paper, totally off-topic because it interested me.

When I get my monthly issue of Make Magazine , I always admire the makers who create fun gadgets for the fun of it, and have the purity of heart to share their knowledge. I need to figure out a way to bring that feeling back in my own work. Maybe the way to do this is to internalize my motivations more. Making explicit what my goals are and having personal criteria for their satisfaction might insulate me from the external pressures. It seems the activities of publishing, presenting, patenting are becoming the ends to a means, rather than the other way around. We are so hung up on counting publications, citation counts, patents filed that we can lose site of the actual work itself. It's easy to fall into this trap because for many researchers, this is how they are methodically evaluated - it's our stats card. Soon, there becomes the unhealthy focus on quantity over quality, on breadth versus depth, being first instead of being elegant.

When I was taking art studio classes in undergrad, I remember working on paintings obsessively until I felt it was done according to my standards. I feel it harder to maintain that philosophy in technical research. Phrases like minimal viable product, you aren't going to need it (YAGNI), and just do the essential stuff seem to rule the day. What about building a stable framework for longevity or elegance? What about aesthetics? Style? Completeness?

These realities will never really leave. I think overcoming them requires looking at them as checkpoints for the bigger internal vision I have for my work. I need to find the time and mindset to play with an idea in its different variations rather than focus on driving aggressively towards a result.
Overall, I think I need to stop taking myself too seriously. Have fun, play around with some ideas that may not always pan out. Take more risk. Try to make goals personal rather than driven by external factors. Enjoy the collaboration with my peers and the joy of creation once again.

Meta-Notes:
Image credit: http://www.andyhanselman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/question-mark.jpg

Education 2.0: Whoa

2013-01-29T23:17:00.004-08:00

One of the coolest concepts in the movie Matrix was when Neo had just finished jacking into a computer to download a complete set of martial arts lessons into his brain. Soon afterwards, he announced "I know kung fu.". I didn't quite get the same experience, but I routinely feel that smug satisfaction of injected knowledge after watching a 5 minute Youtube video to quickly learn a skill. I learnt how to make a balsamic vinegar reduction, do a proper tornado kick, learn a 3-D animation technique and many other neat things. That's the really sweet thing about Youtube - it's not just a repository of meme videos and pranks, but a treasure trove of people generous enough to share their know-how.

There are many activities and skills that cannot easily be learned by reading a book. Many of these involve some kind of sequential process of continuous motion - martial arts, soccer dribbling, sewing, and on and on. Video is the best way to learn this, short of having someone present demonstrating a task in front of you. I learned to build a cosplay-style outfits for my kids for Hallowe-en a few years ago just by watching avid cosplayers share their techniques on making patterns for 3-dimensional headpieces, a British seamstress teaching me proper sewing machine technique (don't forget the reverse stitch!) and US mid-western ladies teaching me how to efficiently thread a needle. Imagine being able to have the mix and match the expertise of all these different people and have access to them at your fingertips at any time of the day!

DIY Pokemon costumes

For some things, one viewing of a video is enough. I figured out how to make mochi from watching videos like this:

For other things, you still need to have plenty of practice. However, I can review these videos at my leisure and even reach out to the authors for clarification (I'm still working on the rainbow flick soccer move). I could potentially arrange a Skype call with someone for an interactive discussion. Amazing!

For those of us born before the internet, I think we can really appreciate these great times because we remember what it was like before.... Many things were probably taught only within close-knit groups and not really shared. You would have to read many books over and over or travel to learn from a specialist in person. Well, that's all changed.

From the casual to the academic, this trend of personalized, one on one learning is catching hold at all levels of the education system, from Kan's Academy to Udacity and Coursera. What's great about these websites is that they have an interactive element as well - you can take tests and be graded. You can also take them at your own pace and with your own style of learning. I remember the days in college when I was dead tired due to lack of sleep. I always ended up having to re-read my notes or textbooks. These sites let you do things on your own schedule in a similar way mobile phones let you move around and still stay in contact. Technology can be liberating.

Now if you are a student living around the world and would have to go through tremendous hurdles to attend a big American university, imagine the gift of being able to watch lectures given at these universities and even being graded by the professors. I think this is going to create vast new fountains of innovation around the world. It's a pity then that China still bans Youtube access. Imagine the benefit of all this vast knowledge to the people of that country. A person hungry for knowledge is probably not going to spend their internet time watching just Falun Gong videos. They are going to be learning something new to improve their lives in a practical way, and therefore the society around them.

If you are interested in hearing more about the disruptive possibilities within education, I encourage you to listen to Horace Dediu's podcast of The Critical Path #43 . Chris Anderson calls this learning-via-Youtube Crowd-Accelerated Innovation. I think there are still many important innovations to come in this area. For example, one important benefit of school is the face to face interaction with fellow students. This is missing right now. You could do Google hangouts or chat sessions, but it's not the same as working side by side with people, collaborating together over coffee, shirt sleeves rolled up at a table. This is an area where another popular internet trend, Meetups can possibly serve. Like-minded students in the same geographical area can meet together to form teams and work on projects. Feedback and social network mechanisms can be used to vouch for the reputation of people to help form compatible groups.

Finally, successful use of these education tools still lies with the student. You have to be self-disciplined to make things work - especially since your participation is voluntary. You can either learn something new or watch epic fails on Youtube - it's your choice.

Top Demo and Top Chef

2013-01-19T13:27:00.004-08:00

One of my favorite television shows is my guilty pleasure - Top Chef. On the surface, you may feel it's another reality television cooking show, but what I find intriguing is you have very talented, creative and skillful people competing with unexpected challenges thrown at them under very stressful situations. This is not unlike preparing a technology demo for a trade show, conference, lab visitors or to your internal upper-level management at your company.

In my job, I've had to do these kind of demos several times a year. These are not just toy demos, but high stakes - should we continue-or-kill-it type demos. The success of a demo can determine how much additional funding you can get, or dictate your research direction for the next several years. Stressful!

As a team leader, we obviously want to plan these things months in advance. Sometimes it is possible, but sometimes - being research - technical components are being developed, debugged and tested right till the end. They don't call it bleeding edge for nothing! Some people I know play it conservatively, only showing work that has been completed months before, or tailoring back the ambition of their demos. But where's the fun in that? Sometimes in competitive situations, it's important to get things out earlier than others, and being conservative can cost you. Wouldn't you regret hearing about another demo someone else showed that you actually had finished, but chose to show an earlier version instead? I get a personal pride trying to execute on a particular vision as close to the way I pictured it in my head. Just like a chef....

What is a demo?

Okay, so what exactly is a technology demonstration or 'demo'? Well, it's usually a demonstration of a proof of concept, where the presenter makes a pitch on the reason for starting the project, and proceeds to show a live demonstration of the technology in action. Powerpoints don't count - you can have tons of bullets showing your intentions and features of your tech, but seeing is believing. Videos don't count - they can be edited and faked. You could just record only the times when your demo is working. A demo is live and preferably has an interactive component to it, so that the audience can actually try it for themselves. The impressions they get from an outstanding demo, can lead to good word of mouth, nice reviews, or key decisions in your favor. A bad demo can leave a bad impression for a long time, or worse - mockery. That's why in January, tons of people are working like dogs to make a good impression at CES. That's why Steve Jobs was meticulous in his preparation for his legendary keynotes.

Demos are a bit of showmanship
There is a lot of careful planning required on how you will present your demo. You do want to leave a lasting impression, while minimzing the risk for disaster. You need to decide what's important in your demo and the message you are trying to get across. Don't focus on details that are not really that important. This is especially true with engineers who often fawn over the technical feats they had to overcome to get a certain result. Most people only care about the end result. If they want to learn more, they will ask questions. When presenting with a team of people, individual members may want to overhype their particular contributions but here the team leader needs to strike a balance and have a firm vision on the overall impression he or she wishes to leave on the audience. Letting someone dominate you demo can lead to the wrong message being sent, which may jeopardize the goals of your demo.

Practice, practice, practice!
Rehearsals are very important. So many times, I've seen situations where people assume that their stuff will just work, and on demo day - it magically doesn't. With modern technology, there are so many different components and interactions that even running things in a slightly different environment can lead to disastrous consequences. If you have an interactive demo, you have to test it with different people in different lighting conditions and noise levels. This is especially true if your demo has a computer vision or speech recognition component. I remember when we gave a demo at IROS 2011 with Asimo in San Francisco, we tried to duplicate the exact booth layout so we could decide where to put things. We isolated the network to make sure our demo would not be affected by external bandwidth issues. We were concerned that the plush carpeting might affect the balance calibration of the robot, so we set things up on a hard flat forceplate. You need to anticipate all the possible things that can go wrong. Eliminate the uncertainties to reduce the chance of risk.

Practices also let you iterate on your demo.You can see which parts seem dull or listless. You can edit and rearrange parts of your demo to keep a good energy level. You can identify risky portions and maybe redesign those parts to create less risky sections.

Team coordination
Depending on the scope and ambition of your demo, chances are you are not doing it alone. This requires proper delegation of tasks to all team members, and constant coordination and communication. Certain members have critical key pieces which you need to add support and help to. It's important that these key people stay healthy and not feel overwhelmed. The last thing you need is someone breaking down. Keep the humor and energy going, but not cheerleader rah-rah style - that can be really annoying especially if you are stessed. I find gallows humour sometimes works better. It's important here for everyone to be ego-less. Everyone needs to step up and help each other. This is not the time to say that a particular task is not your responsibility because it was not assigned to you. Step up and help each other! In the end, if the demo goes well, everyone wins. If things go bad, the leader gets it worse. It's tough, but that's the way it is. As a team leader, it's important to let your members have some freedom to express themselves, and not be too micro-managing. They need to also feel they are contributing creatively and not just following orders or executing someone's vision. I've seen in Top Chef where some people turn passive-aggressive and relinquish all responsibility, even sabotaging other dishes. It occurs in tech teams too. I think if you give a sense of ownership to a person's given tasks, you'll encourage them to do their best work.

Compromises
This is a case of don't make perfect the enemy of the good. Sometimes you have to take an objective look and see if your goals are still realistic. It's good to have a few fallback goals. It's also important that you listen to your bosses and their feedback. Ultimately, your boss's reputation is linked to your performance. If you try and go rogue, it could backfire badly and you'll get a reputation of not being a team player or capable of following instructions. If you do disagree with criticism on your demo contents, handle it with reasoned arguments and not emotion. This is especially important if a request is unrealistic due to lack of resources or time. One way is to calmly and methodically list out what needs to be done to point out how something cannot be accomplished without superhuman effort. In the past, I used to look at tackling these crazy challenges as points of pride (like in Top Chef). Ultimately, you will have to look into yourself and see if you can really pull off a difficult task, or if it's not worth working yourself to death. You need to look at the stakes. Also, in the long run, I find that if you are always responsive to unreasonable demands, it just encourages more of them in the future because people think you can do it all the time. It is more important to condition people to make these requests earlier when there is time to do a good job and execute without the panic of stressful conditions.

Conclusions
Well, it was nice to get this off my chest - I've been thinking of these lessons I've learned and the parallels with creative reality shows like Top Chef. It's not just about the demo, but the interactions with people in accomplishing the demo. Developing these skills will let you pull of better and more impressive demos in the long run and do it consistently. I hope some of this advice proves useful the next time you need to give a demo.

Acknowlegements
The logo at the top was created with Photoshop using clip art from http://www.alexpeattie.com/projects/justvector_icons. The font I used, Akzidenz Grotesk-bq-extra-bold-alt was obtained through fontscore.com.

First impressions of the Microsoft Surface

2013-01-13T23:07:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Surface with soft keyboard

Today I went to the local mall to check out the Surface, Microsoft's entry into the tablet wars. Although they were late to the market, falling behind Apple and Google, Microsoft is well-funded, is building a strong retail presence, and has a unique interface to its tablets - distinct from the icon grid layout we are used to. I saw the surface sitting there by itself on the large play table - which might not be a good sign.

The first thing I tried was checking the typing performance of the keyboard. I'm interested in getting a tablet to do lightweight note-taking, browsing, and content consumption (videos, books, music). I've used bluetooth wireless keyboards with iPads and Google's Nexus 7, but the pairing can be a hassle, as many times the bluetooth keyboard is not automatically linked to the tablet when I turn on my tablet or take it out of standby. I also don't like packing away a separate keyboard from my tablet. The integrated keyboard on the Surfaces looked promising. I started up MS Word (which was also nice to have on the tablet) and started typing. There was no lag, and the graphic trick of a smoothly flowing cursor as you type kind of added to the feeling of smoothness. I didn't like the tactile feedback of the keyboard, so I tried the clickety version, which was black:

Surface with the clickety keyboard.

The Best of Both Worlds
Typing on the keyboard felt nice and the feedback was nice. This looked promising! I liked the fact that the screen was touch as well, even while using the keyboard. It felt perfectly naturally to switch input modalities from keyboard to screen. The touchscreen replaced the need for the mouse, while the keyboard allowed efficient text input. My left hand naturally wrapped around the lower left corner to grip the tablet while my thumb tapped icons in the lower row.

Going Solo
The keyboard/tablet combo felt nice, but I wanted to try things with the keyboard detached - the naked tablet version. Holding the tablet in my hands, I didn't like the plastic-feeling housing and the sharp edges felt weird to me, and slightly uncomfortable compared to the rounded edges I'm used to with the iPad and Nexus 7.

A Bit Superficial
I liked the fact Microsoft chose to try a different visual design for the main interface than the standard grid like arrangement of icons we are used to with other tablets. I can see the dashboard aspect of their interface being useful as a kind of information center for various information. However, once you click on some apps, you get the feeling that the curtain is being raised to show the ugly desktop-like Microsoft experience we are used to. The tablet feeling seems only for the main page (which all the photos seem to show). If only they could figure out how to prolong that dashboard experience when actually using apps. Not sure what that would be like, or if it's possible. I think the worst offense was when a dialog window came up for me to connect to a network - it felt completely like old Windows, and not at all with the quick responsiveness and slickness that the interface seemed to promise. I felt the glossy, clean Metro look was a bit of a bait and switch, as it seems to be used mainly for navigation between apps in the operating system, but stops once you enter the app. I wanted a more comprehensive transformation of the user experience.

Conclusion
Well, those are my first impressions. In fairness, I may have missed a few things by not having the luxury of diving deep into the device. I'll probably postpone that Surface purchase for now.

Dear sons: Why I don't want you to play too many video games

2012-11-04T23:03:00.000-08:00

To my two dear sons:

You know I love you both, and sometimes I may seem mean when I tell you to shut off that IPad, or put away that DS. On those long car drives from Sunnyvale to San Francisco, you may think it unfair when I tell you to not bring that DS, or to not bring the DS with us to the restaurant when we have lunch. Well, I thought I would write down why I'm telling you to do this so you can read and re-read this again when you are angry at me.

I know I send mixed messages. I bought you FIFA 2012, all those cool Clone Wars games, and those fun Wii games. Sometimes, you come up to me and ask me to type in passwords so you can download the latest app your friends told you about, and I do it for you. Yes, I'm guilty of doing that. To put it frankly, it's not easy. This is all new territory for me.. and probably for all of our fellow humans. Games are so mobile now, you can take them anywhere with you. They are literally just in my pocket everywhere we go.

The graphics are so cool. 3-D, 2-D.. they are fast and responsive. The interfaces are so natural and easy. I can simply tilt my device, I can touch anywhere on the screen. Fully 3-D rendered graphics with motion captured characters and fancy special effects that definitely beat the Space Invaders game I played when I was a kid.

Games are social now. First multi-player, then social, so I can login with Facebook so all my friends can see that I got a trophy (virtual) or I have a true real high score that is the highest in the world (developed world, that is).

Games are so seductive and engaging. The cost of failure is minor. Just start up again. The games even give you the option to continue where you left off - no need to start all over again. So tempting to just try one more time, because you feel you are so close to getting to the next level. In fact, you know that if you keep on playing, eventually you'll just keep on growing powerful enough to get that next level. Persistence pays off.

When we go out to eat with friends or in a restaurant. I want you to learn to talk to people, to get to know them and find out their interests. If they bring video games, I want you to share the experience with them, and not hide your face away on a tiny screen. In the car, I want you to look outside and let your eye muscles be relaxed when you look at the beautiful trees and hills far away. When you look at a screen, your eye muscles have to work hard to stay focused on that screen, and as the car bumps around, your eyes have to work hard to stay on that screen. It's tiring and I don't want you to end up wearing glasses too early.

I know reading or drawing can seem so boring compared to these video games. You have to read things page by page. You can't skip or jump around. The story is already determined - there are no alternate endings, you can't have control. Well, I guess the point is that when you read someone else's words, a good writer will let you see what it's like to be in that person's mind while writing. You get to see new ideas, some simple, some very complicated, some strange, some dangerous, some exciting - all in the safety of your room. It's tiring to read the entire book in one go, so you can take a break and think about what happened. Reflect on the story, and also reflect on why you liked to read it. Play the best scenes in your head like a movie. Think about what might happen next. I hope you will eventually learn which authors surprise and excite you, so that you will seek out more of their work. You may see that some writers seem to be speaking to you directly and you will feel a personal connection or comfort in their words. You see, in video games, it's hard to get into the main character's head. You can control their body to kick, jump, shoot, but you can't get into a different person's ideas because you are controlling that person for the majority of the game.

I want you to draw, paint, and sketch. I want you to learn how to draw your own favorite characters, and make them do whatever you have in your mind. If you draw your favorite characters enough, you will eventually become familar with their every curve, body shape and profile. You will begin to appreciate someone elses good drawing and want to know how they did something so beautiful.

Video games only let you see what the programmers want you to see. It looks very nice, but you can't exercise your imagination in a way you can while drawing. I want you to learn to use color, shade by moving your pencil crayons in the same way, so that it looks like a masterpiece. I don't want you to rush the drawing - no scratchy coloring. I want you to learn that to make something look really nice, requires lots of practice, patience and hard work. I don't want you to settle for "good enough". I want you to settle for "that's exactly how I pictured it."

You may ask why I want you to have neater handwriting when you can just type the words in. Well, when you take the time to write your letters neatly, your fingers develop greater fine motor control. Your body learns to write well automatically eventually, and when you don't do it, you know it. I want you to know when your work is not good, so you can always seek to improve yourself. You see, sometimes people are too polite to tell you your work is not good. It's not in their best interest to tell you because they don't want you to make them mad or telling you is not that important to them. Why would they want to risk causing hurting you or getting you angry? You may say it's none of their business. However, if that happens, you will never know how to improve yourself. If you learn to know what is good writing or good art, you can learn how to improve yourself.

When you write your words, the act of drawing the strokes and turns of letters can help you remember and recognize that word. You will eventually learn to recognize if something doesn't look quite right - if it's spelled incorrectly. You may also find your memory of the word or its meaning, or things you read may come easier to you because you wrote it down. You may also learn go to choose your words carefully, because you don't want to re-write your sentences too often. You might think before you commit your words to paper or email (or twitter or IM).

I know it can seem so much fun to just press a button and see your favorite characters go through all these motions that you could never do in real life. No need to practice, just press a button. I don't want you to learn to press buttons and get instant reward by seeing a fancy animation play. I want you to learn how to actually create those animations, or motions so that you can learn to improve or refine them, and not just be happy with what the button gives you. I want to want to learn how to improve games, so one day you can invent a new game that is just the way you pictured it. Once you build that, I want you to want to start thinking about the next project that will be even more fun, or that will help you learn something new and exciting to prepare you to shape your own future.

Okay, I know I'm partly to blame by just telling you this, but not helping you enough. I want you to remind me when I'm impatient or seem absent-minded that you need my help to make you learn how to do something. I don't want you to feel you are bothering me or that I'm not interested in helping you because I'm too busy. Let's try and have fun together as we both try to learn more and be more creative.

Love,
Dad.

Alternative Universes are the New Time Travel

2012-09-09T00:11:00.005-07:00

Recently, I was watching online Bill Clinton's speech at the US National Democratic Convention, and he came up with this quote while criticizing the Republicans:

"Now, folks, in Tampa a few days ago, we heard a lot of talk all about how the president and the Democrats don’t really believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everybody to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy. This Republican narrative, this alternative universe says that every one of us in this room who amounts to anything, we’re all completely self-made. "

Okay, forgetting your political inclinations, I found it interesting he used the term alternative universe. It made me think that although this science fiction concept is not new, it has been gaining more mainstream popularity since the late 2000's. Alternative Universes are the new Time Travel - ie., the new, big, wonderful, mysterious high science concept of our decade. Back in the 1980's, it was all about time travel, with movies like Star Trek IV and the Back to the Future movie trilogy. In the 1970's it was space travel and aliens with Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Why now, alternative universes? I think we can explore several possible reasons.

It could be that people have just gotten really bored or tired of the previous concepts, because they have been explored to death - in time travel, you have all the possible scenarios visited and revisited.... changing your past to alter your future (various Star Trek Next Generation episodes), seeing yourself, escaping to the past, escaping to the future, trying to change your past, only not to change anything at all, touring around in the past (Dr. Who).

Perhaps the skepticism that these ideas are not possible is growing. We haven't been visited by any aliens or time travellers (that we know of). As the idea grows more remote in people's minds, they are no longer excited by its possibility. With new ideas of multi-universe extensions in string theory being proposed, it creates a potential scientific basis for the idea of alternate or parallel universes being possible, and therefore interesting for people to think about.

Writers and artists love the fun one can have with this idea. They can take the familiar, and twist it so it becomes strange but still with the advantages of the reader or audience knowing the background of characters or situations. It's fun to explore what if scenarios, and can even be a useful allegorical tool for
giving a message about our society. For example, there are some great works of fiction like Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle exploring a world where the Allies lost World War II. I recently read the first volume of The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra, where things get really weird in a universe where the original members of the Manhattan Project turn out to be a bunch of mad scientists freed of any ethical constraints.

Bad Einstein hurts Good Einstein in The Manhattan Projects Volume 1

image credit: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/

An interesting extension of the Alternate Universe idea is the Travelling Between Alternate Universe idea. For me, my first exposure to this was the classic Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror" where Captain Kirk accidentally travels to a sinister alternate universe where we meet the not-so-good bearded Spock.

"Mirror, Mirror" Star Trek 1967 (image credit: http://www.ovguide.com/)

More recently, this idea has been thoroughly explored in the Fringe television series, which has the juicy element of exploring alternate universes parallel to our world, our time. This allows us to relate even more to the possible differences that could have happened within our lifetime.

Fringe's Alternate New York City

(image credit: http://urbanismefictions.blogspot.com/2010/05/fringe-un-new-york-alternatif.html)

I wonder what will be the next Big Idea that will capture our imaginations? How long will we be intrigued by Alternative Universe stories? Well, there are an infinite number of them.

Scooped!

2012-08-18T13:48:00.001-07:00

Fashion Hazard App

Anyone who works in any creative pursuit, whether it be writing, visual arts, music or research will at some point experience being "scooped" of your ideas.
I don't mean someone stealing your ideas (although that can happen), but having someone come out with something that captures the essence of your idea. The execution being so similar, that if you were to come out with your idea, people would now accuse you of copying...

This happened to me August 16, 2012 (my wedding anniversary coincidentally).
My wife had lovingly placed a newspaper article on the dinner table showing that someone had taken a crazy idea I've been talking about for years and brought it to reality.

The Wall Street Journal article: "Fashion Action Struts Its Way Into Videogames" described a fashion-based game called Fashion Hazard where runway models seek to avoid obstacles and other fellow models down a runway. People who know me, way, way, back... actually around 2000 (12 whole years ago!) know I was pitching this idea called "Fashion Queen" or FQ for short (like the double entendre?), where models would strut down the runway elegantly avoiding other malicious models while staying on the runway looking cool and collected. I had some other game elements that aren't in Fashion Hazard (which I will still keep under wraps for now in case I do decide to come out with my now-Fashion-Hazard-killer). Now, Conde Nast didn't copy me.. in fact they were inspired by the Indiana Jones-inspired video game Temple Run. In fact, everything is inspired or is a reaction to something else in the creative pursuits. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's just that they came up with a similar concept and executed well on it - while I was dreaming my original idea away to oblivion.

Okay, the purpose of this article is not to highlight Fashion Hazard, but to talk about the more general experience of being scooped. This probably has happened to me about 3 or 4 times in the last decade or so, and I wanted to summarize some things I've learned:

1. Being scooped can be the consequence of procrastination: Being scooped for a creative person, is the ultimate cost of procrastinating on your ideas. Ideas are nothing without execution. It's easy to blab about this and that, but everyone knows the devil is in the details - fleshing out your ideas and thinking of how to handle all the special cases and complications that do not reveal themselves unless you think of things in detail. Sometimes though, the idea is not ready for prime time. When I first thought of FQ, the world was very different - there were only large console game manufacturers demanding tens of thousands of dollars for developer licenses for their consoles. Cloth simulation was still very computationally expensive. Now we have very fast graphics and iPhones with the Apps store providing efficient, low-cost ways to publish your games.

2. Being scooped can be the consequence of following different priorities: Okay, perhaps you aren't a lazy bum sitting on the sofa watching Lost reruns. You probably have other things you are busy with - other hobbies, family obligations, whatever. This is where you might feel not too bad being scooped, if that idea was a lower priority item in your life. However, I can tell you that when it happens, and people say what a cool idea that is, something inside you burns a bit knowing you had it in your grasp. It might make you want to re-evaluate things and wonder if I just sacrificed a bit more.... in the end, it's all about hard sacrifice. At least, that's what I hear from all those awardees given their acceptance speeches.

3. Passion is work, but try not to bring your work home: This is something else that always seems to get me. I work in an industrial research lab, and I work on cool projects. It's very hard for me not to take things home, whether it be some papers to read, or my laptop to work on some code, or polishing up presentations. The problem is that the time I spend at home doing these things, I could be working on My Big Idea. This is a hard one, if you really feel passion in your work (day job), one needs to decide if he or she should pursue their energies in those activities versus other off-work pursuits. On one side, you are working on a creative job that gives you opportunities to grow and explore. However, you might have equally interesting pursuits you want to follow - that don't have the urgency of work, because it's all up to you and there are no deadlines.

4. "I live for my kids now." As for balancing your own side projects and your family life,
there is a great TED talk by Larry Smith, called "Why you will fail to have a great career" that outlines some of the conflicts people face about this. For me, what might work is delegating more responsibilities to your kids instead of doing everything for them so you can free up time for yourself. You also want to be a good family member. No one has ever said on their death bed that they regret spending more time in the office.

5.Perfect is the enemy of the good. You can spend years twiddling around with refining ideas before you make that first big step of breaking ground on a project. Sometimes, it's better just to release something and refine as you go. This can work with software, but it can also backfire if you release something really crude - first impressions do count.

Okay, so far it looks like I only listed five big excuses for not delivering Fashion Queen. What are possible solutions? I can only hazard a few guesses and if you have ideas or comments on these, please give me your thoughts as feedback.

Another Story
Sometimes being scooped is just bad luck. My original PhD thesis focused on muscle models for animation. At the time, people were using computer graphics mainly for modeling cars and jets. Then, in the first year of my thesis (1993), a little movie called Jurassic Park came out which changed everybody's idea of what was possible with computer graphics. To make matters worse, they modeled dinosaurs, which was one of my original motivations for pursuing muscle models in the first place.


Scene from the first Jurassic Park movie.

I took comfort in that they still used non-anatomy inspired methods for modeling the dinosaurs. Then, in 1997, two papers at Siggraph introduced the idea of anatomy-based modeling in computer animation. I remember my advisor, Eugene Fiume, telling me not to worry about it, as it's more important to make sure your work is technically strong. He also told me that sometimes having a few papers out there, helps build acceptance of your ideas because it slowly becomes more familar territory. These are all true, and I took comfort in that. However, you also lose some of that first-mover advantage, that seminal-ness of the work. It can also be harder to get stuff into the same places because people can now say "I've seen this before". The work has got to be that much more advanced over the published stuff.

An important lesson I learned here is that the most ambitious dreams can benefit from a little help from your friends. These days, it's much harder to find those solo inventors. Even great technical ideas require a strong team to polish and present that work in its full potential and glory.

Going Forward

One way to find similar-minded people who share your dreams, and work together to achieve this. Startups are one way, but entail risks and long, long hours. Perhaps a more moderate approach where people who work, arrange to meet weekly after hours to work on their ideas. The other solution is something I know would work, but is also very hard to do: set strict personal rules on yourself to leave work at the office, studio or lab, and only pursue personal projects at home. The final solution is simply to adjust your priority list from time to time, and don't make urgent the enemy of important, and don't make perfect the enemy of the good.

If you've ever been scooped and wish to share or commiserate, please send me some feedback. I would love to know how you handled it.

The problem with the latest Legos

2012-04-02T23:28:00.002-07:00

As a father with two young boys who himself was raised by playing with legos, I really wanted to get my two sons into it. I remember using legos to build elaborate space stations. I built multi-coloured houses which eventually evolved into more monocolour designs. I remember my dad teaching me to stagger the bricks so that the walls become stronger.

When the Star Wars lego sets came out, I thought they were the coolest things. My kids love to watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars, so I would get them cool kits like the Droid Tri-Fighter below:

[credit: brickset.com]

However, I noticed something after they built them - they were never disassembled or modified or transformed into other creations. I don't blame them. These kits were made to contain just the right parts to build the model shown, with a few small extra pieces provided (those likely to get lost I suspect). Once you build the model, it does look so nice, that you don't want to take it apart. Okay, this wasn't really using lego as a construction toy, but more like a plastic model. Once you glue it together, paint it, you keep it for display and never want to take them apart again.

The first time we built these, when the time came to put the toys away, I would disassemble the models and combine them all into plastic storage boxes, hoping my kids might use them as raw material to build new things. Didn't happen much. Since these newer kits are made of so many specialized pieces, it's quite intimidating for them to try and build something new. Now we had huge boxes of scrambled up parts.

Being the mildly obsessive type, I spent a large portion of last year's spring break re-sorting all the different pieces and storing them in these plastic drawer storage bins used for tools and hardware like this one below.

What I noticed was that my sons would rarely grab stuff from the small drawers, but they did repeatedly go to the larger boxes I had that stored the basic 4x2 bricks below....

It made me think of one of the first sets my parents bought me when I was visiting London. It was a zoo set, which I remember building all the animals in the kit and then started making my own creations.

[credit: brickset.com]

If you look at this set, there are not many specialized pieces (maybe the tree, flag and people). However, everything else is made up of basic block parts, giving them this 3-D voxelized look. A modern day Duplo set for a zoo looks like this:

[credit: brickset.com]

Modern Lego Zoo Kit

The animals do look more stylized, but there is no creative input from the child when building the animals. They simply take them out of the bags and they're done! That's no fun..... that's instant gratification. To see why instant gratification can be bad, watch this TED talk.

The point I'm trying to make in a very roundabout way is that the older legos were not as specialized, and I think allowed more free associations to be formed because the affordances of the parts were not so well defined and suggestive. A brick can be a fence, a tower piece, an elephant's trunk or... a brick.
I think there is great value in these simple kits, and I hope I can continue to try figure out how to convey this joy of building (and rebuilding) to my sons.

Doing more with less... is this the better way to do research?

2012-01-30T21:59:00.000-08:00

Image credit: "David Defeats the Giant" by Robert Temple Ayres

Sometimes when I chat with fellow researchers, there is always this grumbling that "we need more resources" or "if only I had more interns" or "I need more equipment".

However, if we see many of the big disruptions in society, many of these were spawned from small startup companies where the initial idea may have been generated from only one or two people - think Google, Apple, Microsoft and on and on....

Horace Dediu on his blo g had an excellent article concluding with the compelling thesis that you cannot buy innovation. Percentage wise, Apple spends less of its budget than Microsoft, Google, Nokia and RIM as well as many other companies. Even though Google spends so much hiring smart people for R&D, they are still largely living off their original business model of keyword search based advertising. In fact, they had to copy other models like Facebook's social network, mobile advertisers, smart phones or acquire other startups from YouTube to Bumptop. Throwing darts baby... if every one of Google's hundred odd products were as disruptive as its first success, Google would dominate the stock market.

Horace believes that innovation may be the ability to focus, rather than spend more. Apple has fewer products, spends less percentagewise on R&D, yet has produced a string of disruptive products. The approach of focusing and going deep seems very promising.

If you have limited resources, the issue then becomes how can I make a creative solution given what I have now. Creativity loves constraint. Throwing money and resources at a problem often creates lack of disciplined thinking, as one is tempted to just throw darts and see what lands. If you have only a certain amount of money or time, you need to really think hard on what is feasible, and how to do something differently with what you have.

I've had colleagues argue with me that there's no way we can do this, or they get intimidated by the perceived amount of resources you would need to tackle a problem. It's almost as if they psyched themselves out by thinking that since they don't have that large size of a team, they should not attempt any "big boy" projects. Large teams come with their own problems - increased politics, the dreadful need for consensus and the greater overhead that comes with meetings.

I think a small, motivated and open group of people with focus can accomplish a surprising amount of work. I hope to prove this in practice with some projects I'm working on. We'll see ;)

Microsoft Stores: Co-opting Apple Style

2011-11-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

Last weekend (November 13, 2011), I went with my family to the local mall (Valley Fair in San Jose) to get some clothes for the kids. I was amused to see that the new Microsoft Store had opened right across from the existing Apple Store. This wasn't the first time Microsoft had tried opening its own stores. When I first arrived in San Francisco back in 2001, they had experimented with a Microsoft store in the Sony Metreon Center. It was a time of fading hope at the tail end of the dot-com boom. The Metreon was the ultimate urban playground/shopping center, with a Sony store, edgy books for metrosexuals, and lots of Japan pop culture retail.

Interestingly, the Microsoft store was placed in this context. At the time, it did have a bunch of urban-stylized PC peripherals, including those fancy hardshell ergo backpacks for putting your laptops in. As you can see from the picture below, the Microsoft style was similar to the Sony Style Store layouts (compare Figure 1 and 2) with items on walls and inside glass counters - traditional retail for consumer electronics at the time.

Figure 1: Microsoft store at Metreon (2001)
[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/will-clippy-be-a-greeter-at-microsofts-new-stores/]

Figure 2: Sony Style Store
[http://www.dualshockers.com/2011/03/30/sony-style-store-shows-off-latest-and-greatest-games/]

Okay, fast forward 10 years.... Apple Stores have revolutionized retail. The store's existence has allowed Apple to provide an end-to-end experience for its products, including very personalized technical support in the form of the Genius bar (which is shaped like a bar with stools - wish they had free expresso). The minimalism of the store provides a clean, open presentation of the products which are layed out carefully to encourage exploration of the devices. I even read in Steve Job's biography, about how he obsessively selected desired flooring and designed innovative spiral and glass staircases. Apple designers created a mock up of an entire store in a secret warehouse where they could iterate on the design until it felt just right. The point is, there was a ton of thought, design insight and conceptual planning and aesthetic vision in the creation of the Apple Store. The image below is the store front as of November 13, 2011 of the Apple Store in the Valley Fair Mail in San Jose.

Now let's take a look at the brand, new Microsoft store sitting right across from it...

I think it's pretty clear where Microsoft drew its inspiration from. From the spartan text-less logo centered at the store front, the large flat glass panels and solid simple store title panel with a spartan text-less logo centered at the top. Even the employees are dressed up in the casual solid colored T-shirts with lanyards. The glass countertops have been replaced with similar tables where people can fondle tech gadgets. The problem is, that these design elements were part of Apple's identity and now, Microsoft, is trying to co-opt that look for its own brand. On further examination, we see that they may have copied some parts superficially, but the essence is not captured, and in fact, typical Microsoft feature-creep has seeped into the store design.

1. Apple's original logo was multicolored like Microsoft's. However, over time, Steve Jobs gradually simplified the logo to a simple white logo. In an attempt to differentiate, Microsoft store employees have color coded T-shirts. At first I thought of Star Trek, where

all crew members were classified in different roles like command, medical and science, security (red shirts). Not sure if the additional colors will create expectations that different shirts represent different expertise... probably not. This is a small thing, but it is the first sign of Microsoft adding complexity to the original Apple design of simplicity.

2. The Guru Bar, which is an obvious homage to the Genius Bar. The problem is that since Apple has a fairly small set of products and well-defined software, it can afford to hire and train people who can really cover te usage of products well. For Microsoft products, there are many hardware manufacturers and some of the best application and productivity software, is made by 3rd party competitors to Microsoft. Will there be a potential confict of interest for Microsoft to suggest using, say, Photoshop over whatever their home-brewed software is called? Similarly for phones, there will be many different potential manufacturers of Windows 7 phones. Perhaps Microsoft will focus on Nokia phones because of their strategic agreements, but it will be very difficult to train people to be a "guru" on every phone manufacturer that offers Windows 7.

3. Microsoft got game! This is one big difference where Microsoft has an advantage over Apple. With the Xbox and Kinect, you do have nice in-store demos of kids waving their arms around playing some casual Kinect game. My kids love going into the Microsoft store because they can play console games on big screens. It remains to be seen if the store will become a free arcade for kids to hang out in and play Xbox games or if you will actually see people buying stuff at the stores. They did have a "family room" layout in the front of the store, complete with sofa, where people can watch their kids using the Kinect on the Xbox. At the back, they had a large display screen for game playing.

4. I did not see many people walking out with Microsoft bags of merchandise. Frankly, there are too many places where you can buy Microsoft-enabled goods that are at cheaper prices. Also, I'm sure Microsoft will want to feature their strategic partners over some lesser brands.

5. Beyond the X-box, Microsoft does not make many of its own hardware. Consequently, the visuals of the display tables show a heterogeneous assortment of gadgets without a common unifying aesthetic. In contrast at the Apple store, all devices exude a common DNA in design, making the whole store unified. In the Microsoft store, you have lipstick on a pig.

6. The wraparound banner screen: This is one neat feature of this store, there is a large band of flat screen displays encircling the store and producing a continuous wraparound display. It's quite impressive and it's neat how local PC display are embedded within this wall. This might be a bit distracting for the consumer if they spend their time looking at the wall and not the actual products. On the other hand, there is the potential for dynamic displays. I somehow think that if Steve Jobs were alive, he would have insisted that the display be an entire smooth display surface without any visible seams. We'll never know...

Conclusions

It somehow doesn't feel fair that one company's hard work and innovation can be ripped off so blatantly. I would have liked to see Microsoft innovate a bit more to provide a different, but equally cool alternative to the Apple store concept. On the other hand, retail trends are constantly changing, and Microsoft is simply adopting proven best practices in their strategy going forward.

Overall, I do wish Microsoft the best with their new retail initiative. I think it's very cool that people now flock to these new brands of computers stores and they've become a fun place to visit. I've been saddened by the loss of retail book stores in our malls, as they were one of the places where I would visit while my wife was out shopping for clothes. These computers stores have not replaced that for me, but they do allow you to browse online and hopefully, they will continue to evolve and innovate into compelling destinations for people to visit.

Update from December 23, 2012:
Well, in a case of full circle, the Sony store at the Stanford Mall here in Palo Alto, has also undergone their own retail renovation, adopting the same minimalist, storefront design and exploration table scheme which is now becoming common to all mobile consumer electronic gadget retailers. Apple has re-invented and now established the new model for shopping for these products. The tables seem to allow people to congregate around a common area, making the gadget exploration a shared experience. Since these gadgets, with internet connectivity, have become general purpose tools, more is needed to play with the devices in order to assess and experience the wide range of activities one may wish to do with them.

Designer Research

2011-11-12T00:16:00.000-08:00

[Sam Ilić 2009]

Since the beginning of 2011, I've been reading about design and its role not just in product design, but in finding solutions to everyday problems one encounters in life. For example, as a soccer coach, I need to design drills for my players on how to improve their play or induce desirable behaviors for team play. What appeals to me about design is the necessity to have a broader interest in many different areas of expertise, as well as deep knowledge within a few specialities.

After reading Warren Berger's book, CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How it Can Spark Creativity and Innovation, it made me realize that I should have gone into design (or at least learned to do more of it). I love the way it combines the aesthetics of form with practical functionality. Another way to see it is the elegance of style with efficiency of purpose.

As a researcher, embracing a design philosphy allows one to open up the mind to all methods and techniques, avoid dogma and old, reliable choices. Nothing becomes sacred... and it's okay to choose a simple method if it gets the job done. Design-thinking also relies on building a strong vision to give focus and priority to all the many issues that come up when trying to solve a problem for a specific goal. It prevents you from adding too many assumptions that can dumb down your solution. For example, I recently had to work on a face tracking project where things would only work if a person stayed in a certain limited area. Things went crazy if you didn't. One guy on my team told me: "well, we can just tell people not to move out of the area". The problem with this is that from the user experience perspective, people will move around and we can't afford things to go crazy. We need more robust solutions.

Other times, people will try to make tons of excuses as to why the true solution is not feasible or important. They try to make a problem easier to solve, out of convenience. However, in these cases, it's important to reflect back on your original goal and see if removing that aspect of the problem compromises the vision in any way. If it does, then it's worth fighting to maintain those aspects that represent strong values to the vision.

The worst thing is the researcher who follows the maxim: "If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." You know the type. The one who has a favorite technique they use, and try to apply it to every single problem they see... even if it's not the most effective solution. The person just wants to get another paper showing that their method can be used for that problem - albeit suboptimally.

Design forces you to get out of your comfort zone. It makes you have to learn new areas in order to apply those new methods to your problem. Some people try to go very deep in one domain to create a legacy of work. I think I will only do that if my problems necessitate it. It can be hard moving into a new area though. Not only do you have to rapidly read and learn the area, as a researcher, you are expecting to start contributing new information to that area too.

As an industrial researcher, I believe that design-drive researcher or designer research will serve me well as it helps to ensure that my work is relevant to my targeted users and that I will always have a ready answer for "why are you doing this?".

Evernotes is Awesome!

2011-09-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, I have been using an application called Evernote (www.evernote.com) to keep all my notes. I'm often working on many different projects at once, and if you are like me, they are evenly mixed between personal and work-related topics. The relevant information for a project could be transcribed from notes scribbled down on scrap pieces of paper, to URL links, to photos for inspiration, like this image I scanned from a Wired magazine article:

[Jason Levesque: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/st_bestfalls/]

I like keeping little scraps of information that interest me, and I may draw upon at some later point to help me out with a project or begin a new one. I used to do this with a series of meticulously kept notebooks, complete with a custom-made "table of contents" after I finished each book. I put observations in this notebook as well as technical derivations, and in the end, it was completely useless. The problem was it was very hard to find things and I was forced to enter things chronologically without any easy way to make cross-references , organize things in categories, or include non-visual media such as sounds.

I started using a PC program called AZZ Cardfile, which was wonderful for solving all these problems, but everything was stored on a local database on my computer, which made it vulnerable to data loss in case my hard drive crashed. Also, there was no direct way of synchronizing and replicating this database over different computers. Hence... Evernote.

With this software, I was able to access notes over multiple platforms (Mac, Linux, Ipad, Iphone, Windows....) and easily search and share data with friends or colleagues. It's simply great for organzing your life digitally and provides multiple ways to get physical stuff in digital form (scanning, audio clips, etc.). After using it, I've found my desktop (both physical and computer) to be less cluttered. They even provide a developer API so I can write custom software to access this vast digital memory in the Cloud.

Imagine, I can now have access to any recipe, photo, audio note, pdf article I every chose to store away anywhere I go. That is amazing and empowering.

Google+ and Facebook: The Social Curtain is Drawn

2011-07-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

When I first heard about Google+, I thought, "Okay, Google's having another go at this social network thing... it'll probably last a few months". However, some colleagues at work started raving about its simplicity. Next thing I know within a few weeks, my inbox starts getting filled with notifications of some of my friends and colleagues adding me to their circles at a pretty fast pace (about 20 emails over the last few days). People are saying the ability to group people into circles is very nice. This "Circle" concept lets you differentiate your friends into various subcategories (that in itself is a weird thing to do when you think of it). Think of circles like venn diagrams, organizing friends into different sets (like family or enemies). A person can belong to one or more groups, like frenemies. Or you can think of this like those awkward dance circles that appear at some clubs or wedding parties, where every member of the circle faces inward to look at the guy in the middle moonwalking, while ignoring other dance circles around them.

Now I don't mean to dump on the current Google+ initiative, because I think it's good that Facebook has some competition to keep it innovative (just like when Firefox started producing a decent alternative to Microsoft's Explorer several years ago). But this time, things are a bit different. The way the Social Network companies want to work is to build these walled gardens to make you spend all your time on those sites (to attract advertisers). They are very nice at giving you tons of free storage to put your videos, pictures and even provide their own email-like services. The problem is that they also do not make it so easy to transfer all your stuff to another site. Why should they? If they did, it would be easy to switch and they can lose customers to newer competitors with superior technology and interfaces very quickly.

Competition can be good at increasing diversity, but what we really have here is a kind of dangerous situation where web companies are trying to compete on where you will spend your time in which walled garden. It's just like deciding if you should spend your bucks at DisneyLand, LegoLand or Universal Studios.

So what we are beginning to experience is the start of a great Social Curtain, that simultaneously divides and blinds you from the activities of friends on different social networks. The situation forces you into deciding where you should spend your time and that creates an unwanted partition in your network of friends. If you are like me, do you stay on Facebook where you have an already established network (including members like your mom and dad who may be reluctant to shift to the next newest thing) OR do you join the latest new hangout - the latest Studio 54 because you don't want to miss out on what some of your friends on Google+ might be posting. Now you might even be forced to spend time on both sites, and that is out of the question for many people who just don't have the time to stay glued to a monitor screen all day.

The strength of social networks are the interconnections - the network itself. The more they grow, the more powerful and convenient they are. Google is trying to force us to duplicate these networks and add new uncertainty on which network to access. It's going to separate the net into Facebook and Google+ users.

Is there another way?

There are many similarities between Google+ and Facebook - contacts, messaging, pictures, videos and various personal information fields like hobbies, etc. The things that are unique are the various applications, user interface details and ways to organize friends. Why can't all the common areas be stored in separate cloud service (like those offered by Google, Apple, Amazon, Evernotes) and let ALL social networking sites have access to this Cloud-based data through industry agreed standard interfaces. People will have tighter control of their own data. Companies can still innovate by differentiating themselves with applications and user interface designs. Changing different social networking services would be easy because you simply start using the new service by linking it to your personal cloud service. Switching back is equally easy because you simply log back into your old service and keep the same links to the common storage area accessible by both services. There would be no need to duplicate data on both networking sites.

Facebook may not go for this because they would not want to lose control over the vast warehouse of personal data they've accumulated. However, I think Google could do this because they are still early in the game and have a better track record with software openness, as seen with Android (at least in its early days).

Let's see if things get wider apart or if the big players decide to play nice and share more.

The Tech Fu Manifesto

2011-02-21T11:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
After several attempts at starting a blog, and watching numerous skill-based reality shows like Top Chef and Project Runway, I've learned the need to edit and focus.

This blog will focus on my observations on science and technology. There are many, many blogs with this topic, so here's the direction I want to take this:

1. I want to discuss the linkages and implications of technology on our lives - from the mainstream to the esoteric.

2. I want to analyze common perceptions of various technology and poke holes in them whenever I feel they are misguided or just plain wrong.

3. I want to inject some skeptism in the merits of one particular technology and explore alternatives whether they are tech-based or not.

Okay, see you soon.
Victor.