Research, Technology, and Teamwork blog by Susie Wee

Welcome to Facebook, Batavia!

susie.wee — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:36:00 GMT

I've been living in Silicon Valley for the last 12 years, and I was in Boston for 10 years before that, but I spent the first 16 years of my life growing up in a small town in western New York called Batavia. According to Google Maps, it would take me 1 day and 16 hours to drive 2717 miles from my old hometown to my current hometown.

My parents still live in Batavia in the house where I grew up. My bedroom is still in tact with beaten up children's furniture, paint, and wallpaper I chose when I was about 5 years old (pearly white dresser, lime green walls, pastel-colored wallpaper with rainbows and houses).

Batavia is a town of less than 20,000 people located halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. It is about 30 miles away from Buffalo, and lucky us, it is probably the last town within Lake Erie's snowbelt. In other words, we get all the snow that Buffalo gets without the benefits of living in a big city. But the good thing is that we have awesome chicken wings, those that are known to the rest of the world as Buffalo wings. If you're ever driving on the New York State Thruway between Buffalo and Rochester, make sure to stop by Batavia and hit Pontillo's Pizzeria on Main Street to get some of the best pizza and wings you've ever had. And you can stop by Batavia Downs to bet on a few horse races. But don't drive too far and don't blink, because if you go about 1 or 2 miles away from the Thruway exit in any direction you'll be out of the main part of Batavia and you may be in the middle of a corn field. I kind of think of Batavia as middle America- a small town with a high school, a mall, a Dunkin Donuts, and a few pizza joints. Batavia's first and only Starbucks just opened a couple months ago. My mom goes there on Sunday morning with her friends, but they only get coffees, not cappuccinos and lattes. Overall, Batavia is a modest town with down-to-earth, friendly people and I think it was a great place to grow up.

I lost track of most of my friends from Batavia, but the funniest thing has been happening over the last few months. They are now coming out of the woodwork and we're getting back in touch. How? Batavia is now on Facebook!

I've been an active facebook user for a couple years. Many of my Silicon Valley friends are on Facebook. Lots of people at HP are on Facebook. I can take the credit/blame for getting many people to join. Many of my college friends are on Facebook (I went to a techie college). But I was quite surprised when I first started getting Facebook friend invites from my fellow Batavians.

I now get status updates from my high school and elementary school friends, my brother's friends, my sister's friends, my band friends, my soccer friends, people who I was a babysitter for, and people who I babysat. Most of us seemed to have turned into respectable adults. Some people are generous enough to share family pictures. I can poke them, I can leave a comment for them, or I can just passively watch them. The coolest thing is that I can become friends with them even if I don't have time to talk to them.

I often wonder how long different web sites will be around. I thought Facebook would come and go. But I have to say, now that middle America is getting onto Facebook, it will probably be around to stay.

Welcome to Facebook, Batavia!

A little July 4 post

susie.wee — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:33:00 GMT

I was in the Shanghai airport on the 4th of July to catch my flight back to San Francisco. I just finished a one-week business trip in Shanghai, so I was thinking quite a bit about how much China has changed and how bright China's future is. I was also feeling a bit patriotic since it was Independence Day in the USA. I was busily making my way towards the gate with all the regular airport hustle bustle when I caught this announcement: "Flight xxx from Shanghai to Moscow is now boarding". I stopped in my tracks. When I was a kid, I never imagined I would get to visit countries like China or Russia, and there I was in the Shanghai airport on July 4, 2008 where I just as easily could have boarded the flight to Russia as the flight to the US. The world is indeed becoming a small place!

Following from in front and Leading from behind

susie.wee — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:29:00 GMT

I had an interesting experience when going out to lunch with my team. They took me to one of their regular lunch spots where I had never been. I kind of vaguely knew where it was, but I didn’t know exactly where it was.

I had to drive separately to get back for a meeting, so we split up in the parking lot to get into our cars. For some reason I ended up getting into my car and out of the parking lot first. Since I vaguely knew where the restaurant was, I started heading in the general direction of the restaurant. But, since I didn’t exactly know where the restaurant was, I had to follow them. But, I was in front of them. So, I had to follow from in front.

So there began my little adventure. I kept going towards the general direction of the restaurant. But, I kept looking in my rear view mirror to see where they were going. I looked in the rear view mirror to see which lanes they were getting in, and then I switched into those same lanes, but did this many cars in front of them. I actually followed them from in front for about three turns… all the way into the parking lot of the restaurant. It worked perfectly! And, it was actually pretty fun!

So, why am I writing all this? Well, I thought it was pretty funny to follow from in front. And then I thought about how it applies to work. Sure, as a manager I’m the official leader of my organization. But, in many ways, my team members “lead from behind” while I lead by “following from in front”. I mean that I lead by getting the best ideas from my team and others around me and I use these ideas to help guide all of us forward. Now, I think I have a good idea of my own every now and then, but I’m also perfectly happy to push forward the great ideas that my team members have. Hey, a great idea is a great idea no matter where it comes from. And actually I’m kind of proud of my ability to pick out great ideas from my team.

We’re all familiar with the concept of “Leading from behind”.

What do you think about the concept of “Following from in front”?

Have you followed from in front?

Toys in my sandbox: HP Touch, Mini, and Slim

susie.wee — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:13:00 GMT

One of the neat things about my new job is getting to play with, I mean, work with some cool products. Last week the HP Personal Systems Group (which I'm now in) had a big product launch in Berlin. I was happy when the launch date finally came, because I could finally talk openly about the products that I was playing with- oops!- I mean working with at work.

Before I introduce you to my new toys, let me wander into a little career advice since some readers told me that they missed this during my little blogging drought.

Back when I graduated from grad school and was looking for my first job (12 years ago!), one big thing I realized was that the company that you work for determines the kinds of projects that you can work on. In other words, your company sets the context for your work. This was very important from a research perspective, because your company's strategy determines which research problems are relevant or irrelevant, you should work on problems that relevant to your company, and thus this has a big influence on your research career. This not only applies to research, but is true for any field that you're in: research, engineering, design, business, marketing, sales, etc.

So, my two career tips from this little story are:

Work on areas that are relevant to your company and your company's strategy!
Work for a company that provides a context for the type of work that you believe in!

Note that this is related to Tip #10 in my Top 10 Career Tips:

Align your work with your passions and strengths. Define your career accordingly.

To say this in a more playful way, I have always viewed that your company is your sandbox, and your company's current and future products are the toys in your sandbox, and these toys are the ones you get to play with and build on to do your work.

Okay, enough of the career advice. Let me introduce you to some of the new toys in my sandbox: Touch, Mini, and Slim! (This is not supposed to be a sales pitch, but I have to say that I love these products, so apologies in advance if it sounds like one.)

Touch is the new HP TouchSmart PC. It's the second generation of the TouchSmart product. Touch has a 22" widescreen with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. All the computer guts are built into the touch monitor, so all you do is plug in power and an ethernet connection. It comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse. The first version was bigger and boxier, and this version is much more streamlined and sleek. It's neat to see the evolution of the product as we refine it through improvements in technology (e.g., touch sensor technology, display technology, etc.) and through user testing and feedback. It's a neat new device category that we're driving. So far the blog posts have been fun to read [1] and I can't wait to learn more from the new users of the product to get a well-rounded perspective. I'm really excited about the emergence and evolution of this category, and it will be neat to get more software developers going on this platform!

Mini is the new HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. It's so cute! (Sorry- I couldn't help myself.) It is less than 3 pounds and it has an 8.9 inch WXGA display. It comes with Linux or Vista. It has a cool aluminum case. When I first saw this model in an internal board meeting many months ago, I was immediately drawn to it. The first thing that came to my head is that this is just about to reach the size where I could put it in my purse and still have a fairly full computing experience (I say "fairly" because of the small display). It was slightly bigger than the purse that I had at the time, but I liked it so much that I was thinking that I would buy a slightly larger one so I could carry it around. This raises an interesting usage question that I'll have to write another post about: women like products that fit into their purse while men like products that fit in their pocket. So I wonder what will become of this new form factor of devices. Don't worry- it's not a women-only device. When we unboxed one in my lab the other day, all the men were equally excited about it and we all drooled equally! This is the product category of the Asus Eee PC and surely more competitors will emerge. An interesting this about this product category are the price points- baseline versions are at the sub-$500 level, which allows this fairly full computing experience to get to quite a few places.

Slim is the new ultra-thin notebook, the VooDoo Envy 133. It's 0.7 inches thick and is just over 3 pounds with a 13.3 inch display. It fully boots into Windows, but it has a quick boot Linux-based OS- another great topic for a future post! The upgraded version has a solid state drive for more money, of course. Unfortunately, I don't have one of these myself yet, but I have seen and touched them and they are pretty cool. My brother has been in the market for a laptop and I told him to hold off until this model came out. Bloggers [1,2] are comparing this to the MacAir, which is .76 inches in the center and tapers out on the edges. These thin and light notebooks with full-size displays are very interesting and they change your coffee shop, airplane, and over-the-shoulder carrying experience. I like the thought of tucking this away in my slim bag neatly lined up with a writing notebook and a few folders. Slim looks and feels very crisp and sleek- very much in the VooDoo spirit!

My team's job is to look at next-gen software experiences for these and other HP personal computing products. All I can say is I have a fun sandbox to play in!

It's neat to see these emerging product categories evolving. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these categories, so here are a few questions:

What do you think about these product categories (the good, the bad, and the ugly)?
How do you think these product categories will evolve?
How would you like to see these product categories evolve?
What kinds of experiences would you like to see on these products?

I'm back: From research to business

susie.wee — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:02:00 GMT

Sorry for my long break from blogging. Thanks to JCS for asking me to come back, as it was just the push I needed to get this post out. A few other readers have also noticed my absence from the blogosphere, thanks to all of you for your encouragement and support.

My silence does not mean I've been idle and it does not mean I've run dry on topics. In fact, it's been quite the opposite. My recent experiences over the last few months have given me plenty of reflections to write about, but very little time to write them! The biggest news I have to announce is that I changed jobs within HP. I moved out of the research lab and into the business.

I am now leading what I call the newest startup in HP--the HP Experience Software Business (ESB). ESB is within the Emerging Businesses unit in HP's Personal Systems Group. I coined the term "Experience Software" to refer to software that drives and is driven by the user experience. I have found that taking an experience-centered approach to software and business is as important as taking an experience-centered approach to design, research, and technology (which I've written about in the past). Putting the experience first is really a mindset that affects everything you do, ranging from deciding what feature you put in a product to asking your friends what they like or dislike about their coffee cup. I want to thank my experience-driven researchers in HP Labs for teaching me the importance of experience over the last few years- they knew the importance of this long before it became fashionable!

While I am no longer in HP Labs (after almost 12 years!), I am still very involved with the Labs. I am on one of the advisory boards that is responsible for approving, guiding, and reviewing the research projects. In fact, I rely on HP Labs research even more now than I did when I was a lab director there. I feel very fortunate to be able to work with the researchers- to get consulting advice in their areas of expertise, to listen to their newest and oldest ideas to inspire ideas for my new business, and hopefully to bring some of their great ideas to market!

I'll try to post more now that I have the monkey off my back regarding my silence in the blogosphere. I plan to keep my posts in the same flavor unless you suggest otherwise. (Any suggestions?) And, while I can't reveal everything we're doing, some posts will give hints about the areas that we're thinking about. In the mean time, please wish me luck with ESB!

p.s. We have a new blogging system that makes it easier to leave comments. Like any other blogger, I love to hear what my readers are thinking; so please feel free to leave comments.

Your computer: A platform, an appliance, or a browser?

susie.wee — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:21:00 GMT

I've been thinking about how different people use their computers. It occurs to me that there are at least three different ways that people use their computers: as a platform, as an appliance, or as a browser.

Some people use their computer as a platform. They get the computer with some base operating system and a handful of applications. Then, over time they continue to download and buy software to suit their needs and desires. Gamers certainly do this as they download and install new games. Photo and video buffs sometimes do this as they buy the newest multimedia editing software. As new software comes out, they buy or download it and get different uses out of their computers.

Some people use their computer as an appliance. They get the computer with an operating system and a handful of applications. Maybe they add a few more applications soon after original purchase. But once they get it set up, they pretty much use the computer "as is" for the rest of its lifetime. They may do a handful of things such as run a word processor, use email, and browse the web. I'm calling this an appliance because it's used in the same way again and again after the initial setup.

Some people use their computer primarily as a browser. Think about how much time you spend running applications on your computer (e.g., a word processor) vs. how much time you spend on services through your browser (e.g., in facebook, gmail, and flickr). Those who spend more than 80% of their time in the network are using it as a browser.

How do you use your computer?
What types of people use their computers in these different ways?
Do you agree with this classification? Is this set of modes complete or are their other major modes of use to add to the list?

Teamwork: Recovering from mistakes

susie.wee — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:23:00 GMT

I just played in two women's ice hockey tournaments in the last two weekends. We competed at a Women's C level in the first tournament (MLK tournament in San Jose) and at a B level in the second tournament (in Las Vegas!). Perhaps you can guess the result- we won the first tournament and we lost the second tournament.

Needless to say, two back-to-back weekends of hockey tournaments creates lots of good teamwork blog material. I'll just start with one for now: Teamwork is about recovering from mistakes.

Let's face it- everybody makes mistakes. In every second of every shift of a hockey game, you can do something brilliant, do something catastrophic, or do something somewhere in between. You will make mistakes. In fact, if you don't make mistakes then you may not be taking enough risks or working to the peak of your ability.

So, the question is what happens when you do make a mistake? Of course, you should get back into things and try to recover (it doesn't help to get down on yourself in the moment!). In addition, this is where teamwork comes in. When you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. Rather, it's an opportunity for your teammates to shine! If your teammate makes a mistake, then you have an opportunity to shine!

Here's an example: I was playing center. One of my defenders went into the offensive zone to make a play, so I covered back for her. Then there was a turnover. The other team got the puck and their forwards started skating towards our goal. Since I was covering for the defender, I started backing up to cover the play, while thinking hard about being in the right position to cover them. I was feeling pretty good and I was ready for the challenge of breaking up the play on this odd man rush. Then, out of the blue, my skate caught an edge and I fell backwards on the ice. My heart sunk. I thought "Oh $@#%%! They might score!". I turned over and saw the other team skating hard towards the net. Then, all of sudden, I saw a streak of my teammate's jersey. She was backchecking hard at full speed... she caught up to the player with the puck... took the puck away from her... and broke up the play! Yay- they didn't score! Meanwhile I got up and jumped back into the play and the game continued on.

I was really proud of my teammate who totally rocked and saved the team from my mistake! Also, I think that even if my teammate didn't break up the play, there was a really good chance that my goalie would have saved the day since she was also playing a great game! Of course, I'll try to make fewer mistakes and stay on my skates next time :), but it's great to know that I can count on my teammates in times of trouble.

This is just one split-second example of a teammate covering for another teammate's mistake. In a fast-paced sports game, mistakes and recoveries happen all the time- even every few seconds. Sometimes it's blatant and sometimes it's subtle. The main thing is that it's all about teamwork- you work to the very best of your ability for your team, and if you or a teammate happen to make a mistake, you get out there to help recover from it and drive forward to create the next great play.

An added bonus is that by knowing that I have great teammates who can recover from mistakes, I know that I can take bigger chances on high-risk, high-reward plays. And, I hope my teammates know that they can do the same since I'll be covering for them.

Another added bonus is that every time the team makes and recovers from a mistake, the team grows stronger! It makes teammates appreciative of each other, trust each other, rely on each other, and gain confidence that they can get through even tougher situations together.

The example that I gave was a very blatant and visible mistake and recovery that happened on the ice. Note that mistakes and recoveries happen off the ice as well- in between shifts, in between games, and in between tournaments. In addition, mistakes and recoveries happen in work and in life, and teamwork can help with the recovery. Do you have any great mistake and recovery stories in sports or at work or in life?

Feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

Desktop vs. notebook: It's all about the display

susie.wee — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:17:00 GMT

I thought I had it all figured out. I'm doing a house remodel (wish me luck!), and I thought I didn't need to set up a computer area. After all, notebook computers are awesome. I bought my sister an entertainment notebook computer over the holiday break and it is impressive. I have a small mobile notebook/tablet PC for work since I travel so much. I use my notebook all over the house- at the dining table, on the couch, on a desk, on the floor, and in the bed. And, when I'm out and about I use my little iPAQ handheld to stay connected (actually, I use my iPAQ all over the house too). So, I thought I wouldn't set up a dedicated computer area, but instead I would set up little charging areas around the house for all my portable devices.

This morning I had a change of heart. I stopped by Fry's Electronics and I saw a desktop computer with a 30" LCD display, all on sale for $2000 (yes, it was an HP, but this is an experience discussion, not a sales pitch). The 30" display was impressive, and seeing it really made me rethink how I will use my computer. All I can say is: Wow- I need it. :)

I think I will set it up in my living room so that it doubles between a full-fledged work area and a secondary entertainment area. TVs are getting bigger, so it doesn't quite serve as the primary entertainment area. But, since the TV is often sought/fought after, having a secondary entertainment area nearby would be useful.

The other thing I saw at Fry's was our extreme multimedia entertainment notebook with a 20" display (HP Pavilion HDX). To be honest, at 15.5 pounds I don't think I'll be carrying it with me all around the house, but it sure is impressive on the multimedia front. This would also be a candidate for a combined work/secondary entertainment area.

So, I guess I'll have to re-think my design and put in a computer area after all.

Much discussion to date about the choice between desktops vs. notebooks [1,2,3] has been around the style of computing experience people want. In the years ahead, I think this decision will be based on the style of display experience people want.

Does having an affordable, sleek 30" display change your view of how you would use your computer? If so, how? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Please feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

A cute workshop

susie.wee — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:11:00 GMT

I came across an announcement for the following workshop: Workshop on Designing Cute Interactive Media in conjunction with the ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

ACM is the premier professional research society for computer scientists. I think it is quite a statement that the broader research community is recognizing design, experience, and human emotion as bona fide research topics. Cuteness is being recognized as research by the research community!

In my mind, user adoption is the ultimate indicator of a technology's success, and adoption is driven by having a great user experience. The research discussed in workshops like these will help us understand and eventually formalize the coupling of experience and technology. Understanding how to provoke human emotions like cuteness will help identify new research directions and drive technology adoption.

Congratulations to the researchers who were pushing these ideas in their work before it reached broader acceptance! For example, 2007 was the 25th anniversary of CHI. Clearly your efforts are paying off!

What do you think? Is studying "cuteness" research?

Feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

Learning as a New Year's Resolution

susie.wee — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:00 GMT

It's the time of year to reflect on the year behind and think about the year ahead. As I reflect on the last year, I realize that my most valuable accomplishments were not necessarily the accomplishments themselves, but the learnings that were behind them since it is those learnings that you carry with you into the new year and for the rest of your life. So, here's a little tip for setting goals and resolutions that will last you a lifetime.

For example, you could set a New Year's resolution like "lose 10 pounds" and you could accomplish it. But, perhaps a more valuable lifetime accomplishment is "learn how to lose 10 pounds". You could set out to "run a marathon" or you could "learn how to train for marathons". You could set out to "write a significant paper" or you could "learn how to write significant papers".

Of course, you do want the tangible goals and results to go along with your learnings, so I'm not suggesting you do away with them. Rather, I'm suggesting a two-part resolution. For example:

Lose 10 pounds. Learn how to lose 10 pounds.
Run a half-marathon. Learn how to train for half-marathons.
Write a significant paper. Learn how to write significant papers.
Make an impactful invention. Learn how to make impactful inventions.
Manage your finances. Learn how to manage your finances.

This also allows you to set long-term goals and resolutions, while giving you a path to get there. This suggests a three-part resolution. For example:

Long-term goal: Become a manager. Learning goal: Learn how to manage people. This year's goal: Manage an intern.

Okay... You try it! Feel free to share some of your learning resolutions here!

Best wishes for a Happy 2008!

Feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

Smile!

susie.wee — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:58:00 GMT

Just a quick light post. I ran my second race last weekend, though race is an awfully generous word to use. It was a 17km trail run at Huddart Park in Woodside as part of the Pacific Coast Trail Runs series. Since I was well trained by my bully friend, I knew to strike a pose for the photographer at the top of the hill. This means smiling no matter how miserable you are. So, I gathered my buddies into a smiling group pose and the photographer graciously smiled at us and took our picture. Much to our surprise, we ended up on a real trail running blog. It turns out that the "photographer" was Scott Dunlap, the real triathlete, ultra marathoner, and trail runner who writes the ultimate trail running blog. He came out to take pictures of the all the runners racing on the trail near his house. I guess good things happen when you smile!

(Actually, these were very genuine smiles since we just finished the big hairy climb uphill and we were about to embark on our 5 mile downhill to the finish line!)

Your task for the day: Smile! :)

The Life of a Packet for Mobile & Media Experiences (Packet Video 2007 Keynote)

susie.wee — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:02:00 GMT

I gave a keynote talk to kickstart the Packet Video 2007 Workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland. The audience was great, and the talk seemed to generate lots of discussion during the Q&A and for the remainder for the workshop. Here's a recap.

Abstract

Mobile & media experiences connect people with each other, with information, and with their environment. Media is increasingly being delivered in packets over networks. This raises a number of questions for today's networks:

How can we transport media packets?

How can we adapt media packets for diverse clients?

How can we protect media packets?
A number of emerging applications will impact future directions for packet networks. We also discuss the following questions:

What impact do globally distributed, immersive media environments have on media packet delivery systems?

What role does context play in next-generation mobile media experiences?
We consider these questions from the perspective of a user and the perspective of a packet.

Coupling experience and technology

I began by stressing the importance of coupling experience and technology. Rather than developing technology in a box, it is important to first consider the desired user experience and then develop the technologies that impact it. The most important factor for deciding whether a technology gets transferred to product is not how good the technology is, but rather how it impacts the user experience. I have been passionate about this theme for quite some time, and as time passes my passion for this only grows stronger.

The rest of my talk cycled between the following experiences and technologies.

Mobile & Media Experiences

Experience #1: Mobile, Diverse, Interactive: Diverse mobile video clients, desktop video, living room video
Experience #2: Immersive, Conversational, Worldwide: Halo collaboration experience, Panoply immersive gaming experience
Experience #3: Pervasive, Personalized, Context-aware: Mediascapes context-aware multimedia experience

Packet Technologies

Packet labeling & metadata
Transcoding & Processing in the network
Scalable Streaming
Secure Scalable Streaming
Multiple Distortion Measures
Public & private domains
Sensing context in the network

The first five technologies were discussed in the context of Experience #1. The last two were discussed with Experience #2 and #3.

Experience #1: Mobile, Diverse, Interactive

Packet labeling & metadata: The main point is that we live in a distributed networked world where media packets will traverse distributed network elements with multiple owners and administrative domains and be processed by devices and equipment made by different manufacturers. In this highly distributed world, one important thing that we can do is smartly label our packets in hopes that over time the smart network elements along the way will use these labels to improve the overall quality of the user experience. The key design principle is to design packet labels that are 1) specific enough to be useful and 2) general enough to be understood.

Example packet labels and metadata include:

Importance: Distortion values
Time requirements: Time stamps
Content type: Video, audio, text, data
Scalability: Is it truncatable?
Media attributes: spatial region, resolution, color; audio channel
Dropability: Can it be dropped? e.g., Drop video for audio-only session.
Processibility: Is it transcodable? Can it be processed?
Security: What are the rights and privacy implications of the media?

The research challenges are designing and standardizing the labels with the design principle above, and then developing algorithms that use these labels for delivering improved mobile media experiences. These algorithms should be evaluated for their performance gains with respect to the label overhead.

Transcoding & Processing in the network

I discussed the experience of delivering media to and from users over any network and on any device. This motivates the technology of performing transcoding operations in the network. In 3G networks, the streaming, recording, and transcoding capabilities can be performed by the IMS Multimedia Resource Function (MRF), which serves and receives the media packets to and from the handsets. Dynamic transcoding can be used to adapt the video for the target client device (e.g., to lower the resolution) and for the network (e.g., to seamlessly handoff media between 3G and 2.5G networks during a mobile media session).

The research challenge that lies ahead is designing and developing transcoding algorithms in a manner that is computationally efficient so that a single transcoding node (e.g., IMS MRF) can process many streams at once to serve multiple clients at one time.

Scalable Streaming

This brings us to a technology called scalable streaming that makes transcoding much more efficient by leveraging scalable coding methods. In essence, if scalable coding methods are used, then we can form scalable packets that pack scalable data, for example low, medium, and high resolution data, into the packet in a manner that allows it to be transcoded by simply truncating the packet. Furthermore, the scalable media packets can have packet labels that contain image metadata and truncation points that can be used by a scalable packet transcoder. The scalable packet transcoder is quite simple- it performs transcoding by simply reading the packet label and then truncating the packet as needed.

Research opportunities arise if the packet labels contain the distortion value of the particular media packet. If distortion values are included in the label, then they can be used as hints for rate-distortion optimized streaming algorithms and rate-distortion optimized transcoding algorithms to improve the quality of the user experience.

Secure Scalable Streaming

Another desired experience includes serving diverse clients while having end-to-end security. End-to-end security means that the media is protected in a manner that only allows the sender and allowed receivers to access the media, while delivering, storing, and transcoding the media packet over the network in a way that does not require decryption. It turns out that this can be achieved by using the same method as scalable streaming, where scalable packets are formed by leveraging scalable coding, and then coupling the packet formation with the encryption process. Specifically, encryption is applied to the packet in a manner that allows the packet transcoding operation to still occur by simple packet truncation. This can also leverage secure scalable image coding standards such as the newly created JPSEC standard for security of JPEG-2000 imagery.

Secure Scalable Streaming was published in ICASSP 2001 by Susie Wee and John Apostolopoulos.

Multiple Distortion Measures

I then described a new technology area that we are studying called Multiple Distortion Measures (MDM). This begins with the following observation: Consider a set of scalable media packets. Generally speaking, the best ordering of the packets is determined by the profit-to-size ratio (or distortion-to-size ratio, in tech terms, delta d over delta r). Surprisingly, we observed that the best ordering for low resolution display is NOT equal to the best ordering for high resolution display. The question that arises is how different are they?

I showed a graph from our ICASSP 2007 paper that shows the PSNR vs. Rate plot for the low resolution reconstructed image with packets ordered in the low-res optimal order and with packets in the high-res optimal order. It turns out that there are differences in performance of up to 4 dB. The graph aso showed the PSNR vs. Rate plot for the high resolution reconstructed image with packets ordered in the high-res optimal order and the low-res optimal order. It turns out that these can have differences of over 1 dB.

This raised a lot of interest from the crowd. I think we'll have lots of people researching MDMs in the years ahead.

This raises the idea of labeling scalable media packets with multiple distortion measures, specifically, with the distortion value of the packet with respect to the low resolution image, the medium resolution image, and the high resolution image. If the packet contains this information, then streaming algorithms can be developed to optimize the media delivery experience to users with diverse client devices.

Multiple Distortion Measures was published in ICASSP 2007 by Carri Chan, Susie Wee, and John Apostolopoulos.

The Future

The last part of the keynote focussed on experiences #2 and #3 to look at the impact of emerging applications on future packet networks.

Experience #2: Immersive, Conversational, and Worldwide

Delivering immersive, high-quality, worldwide experiences has a number of challenges for today's networks. The main problem is that network intelligence exists, but only in spots. For example:

QoS exists in spots, but is not guaranteed from beginning to end.
IPv6 exists in spots, but it is often tunneled over IPv4 and so is not available from beginning to end.
Significant congestion can occur in peering points between administrative domains, and it is very common for packets to traverse administrative domains many times in a single session.
Due to the sheer number of IP addressses, packets in countries such as India may go through many network address translations (NATs) before being delivered to the recipient.

Public & private domains

As a result, proprietary networks are being built to deliver guaranteed experiences. HP's Halo immersive collaboration experience is built on a proprietary network for that very reason.

In the long run, the right answer is to build out networks that contain IPv6 and QoS. However, until that occurs, there is likely to be a co-existence of public and proprietary networks.

This raises research opportunities of developing protocols and algorithms that improve media delivery over co-existing public and proprietary networks. This also motivates the need to develop packet labels that contain information that can be used by smarter network elements that understand them. And, this once again raises the design principle of designing the labels so that they are specific enough to be useful but general enough to be widely understood.

Experience #3: Pervasive, Personalized, Context-aware

Finally, I described Mediascapes as an example of pervasive, context-aware multimedia experiences. The main essence of Mediascapes is that it uses sensors to trigger multimedia experiences tied to your physical and personal context.

Sensing context in the network

This raises the question of using sensors to sense your context and getting the sensed context into packets that can be used by different applications and services. In the web world, the sensors may exist as GPS sensors, environmental sensors, or personal sensors. In the operator world the sensors may come through carrier-grade network elements as in IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architectures. For example, IMS context can include location, presence, group lists, and subscriber info.

The key is to have the sensors provide context that is wrapped into packets in a manner that they can be easiliy used by applications and services. This raises the challenge of creating a semantic representation for sensed context. Again, like the packet labels, this must be designed in a manner that is both specific enough to be useful but general enough to be widely understood.

Acknowledgments

I'd like to take a moment to give special thanks to thank John Apostolopoulos, Carri Chan, Steve Froelich, Dave Penkler, Qibin Sun, and Zhishou Zhang for their contributions to various parts of this work!

Final note and questions

The audience was great and the talk seemed to generate lots of discussion throughout the workshop.

This was a fun topic to put together for the keynote and I'd like to develop it further. I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on any aspects of this.

What are your thoughts and comments on the life of a packet?
Did you attend the workshop and keynote? If so, what did you think?
I'd like to develop this further. Do you have any suggestions for improvements?

Please feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

Bully friends

susie.wee — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:38:00 GMT

In a prior post I wrote about the deceitful group that was tricking me into running up hills for long distances. The status of that is that I continue to fall for their trickery and deceit every Saturday morning (which doesn't bode well for me). I guess you could call them trickster friends. But, this post is not about them. Rather, this post is about another personality type I call the bully friend. A bully friend is someone who bullies you into doing things you would not normally do, and makes you grow as a result. For example, a bully friend of mine somehow bullied me into running my first running race last weekend- the US Half marathon in San Francisco.

Warning: This post will meander a bit between a work post and a personal post.

My college freshman roommate, Julie Ask, registered me for the US Half marathon for my birthday. (Hint for identifying bullies: Is that really a birthday gift?!?) She's always been a bully that way, roping me into all sorts of things, so it's hard to tell if she's really a friend. Yet, we've remained "friends" for 21 years. Fortunately, she got me ready for the race. She sent me to the running store to get properly fitted for shoes, and I learned that my shoes were two sizes too small- ouch! She bought me some Gu to keep me energized throughout the race. She bought me some Glide to protect my skin. She got me some hair bands to tie up my hair. She bought me a race belt to hold my number. And, she had a carbo-loading pasta party the evening before the race so that I would eat properly and at the right time. Basically, she exhausted any excuse I could think of to get out of the half marathon. I guess that's what bully friends are for.

Julie wisely said that our goal was not to finish, but to finish healthy. Like the deceitful Saturday morning trail runners, I think she's trying to trick me into running another race some day. So, she set us a modest goal of finishing in 2:15-2:30. We ran with Julie's brother and another friend, and the four of us decided to stay together for the race.

On race day, she picked me up in a cab from my sister's apartment in SF. We got to the starting line early and stretched out. We had our first Gu 15 minutes before the race started. At 7:00, bang, we were off. Out of the gate, lots of people ran past us. Julie wisely said that our strategy was to let people pass us at the beginning, but then to pass them at the end. So, we were patient and kept a comfortable pace.

The sun was shining when the race started. The view of the Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz, and all of SF was beautiful in the morning sunlight and throughout the race. We started at Aquatic park and had the excitement of the race crowd. We ran across Chrissy field and had a beautiful view of Alcatraz and the Bay. We did a couple loopty loops in Golden Gate park. We ran across the Golden Gate bridge and had beautiful views all around. On the far end of the bridge, we ran down to the ocean and climbed back up the hill to get to the other side of the bridge. We ran back over the Golden Gate bridge and saw boats and their wakes in the water below. Thanks to Julie's experience of knowing where the camera men would be, we struck a hang-loose group pose for the camera man as we passed him on the bridge. We ran back along Chrissy field where Julie's brother's wife met us at mile 10 and handed us the most delicious Twizzlers you ever tasted! Then, we went over the baby hill at Fort Mason and crossed the finish line in Aquatic park. We finished comfortably at 2:19 according to plan. Since this is my first race, I was told I get to call this a personal record.

We walked every water station and we Gu'ed every 45 minutes, i.e., we did whatever Julie told us to. For some reason I kept floating forward and thank goodness Julie kept reeling me back. As a result, we were all pretty comfortable for all 13.1 miles. I usually get sore around mile 9. But, thanks to Julie's pacing, the trail running, and my new shoes, I was pretty comfortable until the last baby hill at Fort Mason. Julie's strategy worked… people passed us at the start but we mostly passed others in the 2nd half of the race. Our loved ones met us at the finish line. We achieved Julie's goal of finishing healthy.

Let me show off about my bully friend a bit more. By day, Julie is a vice president and research director at JupiterResearch. She is their analyst in charge of wireless and mobility and she has a great blog. In addition, she is a Toyota sponsored endurance athlete as part of their viral marketing campaign to push Toyota hybrids, think renewable energy -- environmental-friendly cars -- endurance athletes. She does all sorts of crazy events, like triathalons, half marathons, soccer, ice hockey, and swimming (I'm getting tired typing them!). When she does her races, she wears her Toyota sportswear to represent the brand and she posts a little story about the race. Her bullying certainly pre-dates the Toyota sponsorship, but as you can tell she's a great representative for them. I'm just lucky to have her as a bully friend.

So, why did I write this story on my work blog? Because it shows another example of how teamwork can be used to help individuals stretch and grow to achieve things that they never thought they could. Julie had a plan and I grew as a result. She pushed me hard enough to take me beyond where I would have gone on my own, but she pushed gently enough to make sure I finished healthy so that I'd do it again. Julie achieved her goal of delivering me back to my loved ones in a healthy state. I achieved her goal of completing my first half marathon with a healthy finish. At the end of the race, she gave me permission to run faster next time (actually, she said she would give me a longer leash).

Are you lucky enough to have a bully friend?
Are you a bully friend to someone else?
Have you used the bully method to help someone grow at work? (I also call it the tough love method.)

Please feel free to leave a URL with your comments.

Idea request: The Life of a Packet

susie.wee — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:53:00 GMT

I'll be giving a keynote talk at the Packet Video Workshop in Lausanne on Nov 12-13, 2007. The title of my talk is "The Life of a Packet". More specifically, I will be focusing on "The life of a media packet" and "the life of a packet as it relates to mobile & media experiences".

I have my ideas on what to talk about, but I'd love to hear your ideas as well.

What would you expect/want to be covered in this talk?
What would you expect/want to learn from this talk?

Thanks in advance for your inputs!

UPDATE!

It's been quiet... so I'll frame this up a little more. Here is the talk abstract. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Life of a Packet for Delivering Mobile & Media Experiences

People are mobile, and people interact through sight and sound. Multimedia communication can be used to provide mobile & media experiences that connect people with each other and with their environments. In these systems, media is delivered in packets. The use of media packets raises a number of questions that the research community and industry ha ve been tackling for decades.

How should media packets be transported across a packet network?
How can one deliver and adapt media packets for diverse media clients?
How does one protect media packets in a packet network?
What impact do globally distributed, immersive media environments have on media packet delivery systems?
What role does context play in next-generation mobile media experiences?

In this talk, we will consider these questions from the perspective of a user experience and from the perspective of a media packet.

One more update: Here is a link to the post that describes my keynote talk.

Little surprises

susie.wee — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:28:00 GMT

As you may know from a previous post, my newest hobby is trail running with a group of great people. We go every Saturday morning at 7am. It's earlier than I like to wake up, but once I get a little coffee in me and start driving over, I start looking forward seeing my new buddies and catching up. Well, this Saturday morning I was running a little late. I drove over to the trailhead and got there at 7:10. I was looking forward to seeing everyone, but I pulled up and noone was there. Darn, I missed them! Unfortunately, the trail splits in many different directions at this particular trail head, so I had no idea which way they went. I was disappointed, but then started running up one of the trails alone.

Well, I think trail running with a group is really fun, but I have to admit that pounding my way up a hill by myself is not nearly as fun. So there I was, running up the hill, step by step, slowly making my way to the top. I was hoping to bump into them, but it was quiet and they were nowhere to be seen. I continued uphill for a few more miles and still didn't see them. I took my best guess and went along a route where I thought we might intersect, but I made my way around and I was still alone. I got to a point where I realized we should have passed by now. So, I finally gave up and accepted that I missed them. Oh well!

Since I was at the top of the hill, I decided to make the most of it and run over to another vista point so that I could at least get a great view of the bay. I turned up the trail and pounded along step by step. All of a sudden there were a few runners coming towards me on the trail. We started to gasp hello at each other (as trail runners do when they pass each other) and... SURPRISE... it was them! I was surprised! They were surprised! It was such a spontaneous surprise that we had big smiles and high-fived each other. What a treat! After our happy reunion, we ran the second half of our trail run together and made our way back. (Actually, we had a nice little adventure on our way back, but that would qualify for a personal post).

Well, as you can guess, I'm writing this in my work blog because it got me thinking about analogies to work. Can you think of situations where you are heads down into your work, pounding away on something for hours, days, or weeks. You're working hard, engrossed in a problem or project, just working away. You get so immersed and focused that you start to lose track of what's going on around you. You might even be stuck in a rut and not realize it. Think about the impact of a nice little surprise! Maybe someone brings you a cookie. Maybe someone takes you out for a cup of coffee. Maybe someone simply takes a minute to stop by and and ask how you're doing. Maybe someone finds an excuse to have a little celebration for you. All of a sudden you have a little surprise that pulls you out of a rut and brings a smile to your face. Then, you can get back to what you were doing with a renewed energy and perspective. Wow- the impact of a little surprise!

In my little story, the surprise was serendipitous. But, a little surprise can be just as impactful when someone plans it, especially when it has a personal touch.

I've been the lucky receiver of a few little surprises from friends and colleagues in the last couple weeks. Thank you! I've been the giver of a couple little surprises, too.

Have you had an experience where you had a little surprise- serendipitous or planned- that pulled you out of a rut?
Have you ever given someone a little surprise to help pull them out of a rut?

Here's a little homework assignment for this week: Find someone who might be stuck in a rut, and give them a nice little surprise! Then, come back and tell me about it.

Feel free to leave a URL with your comments.