While I was working at PARC in Palo Alto, I went to the monthly BayCHI meetings where they invite speakers from industry and academia to talk about their work. Now, that I'm back in Toronto, there is a TorCHI group. Tonight, Khai Truong who is Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Toronto is going to talk about Designing & Evaluating a Short-Term Audio-Based Reminder Application.
For those who don't know Khai, he was a PhD student under Gregory Abowd at Georgia Tech, who is one of the leading people that I know in the ubiquitous computing research area. University of Toronto is really lucky to have Khai to add to the Computer Science department! Also, Khai is on my PhD committee! Khai is a really great guy, and he's teaching a course this term in Topics in Ubiquitous Computing.
On Technorati: TorCHI
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Explaining RSS in a simple way
How many of you know what is RSS and do you use it to read blogs? RSS is the technical term for Really Simple Syndication, however to many, it's not really that simple. While I was reading AccordionGuy's blog (he really has lots of interesting things to say and it's written well), I saw a post that he wrote about how he wanted to write about explaining RSS to other non-technical people out there (from the Tucows blog) and how it saves a lot of your time to read blogs and news. He lamented about how he was beaten to that by this blogger who wrote about Explaining RSS the Oprah Way.
I like her explanation of RSS, as Ready for Some Stories.
On Technorati: RSS
I like her explanation of RSS, as Ready for Some Stories.
On Technorati: RSS
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Tracking blogs at U of T
Here's an interesting research project right in the heart of my university University of Toronto, called Blogscope. The database group is looking into indexing and searching blogs for correlations, as well as popularity and similarity curves.
On Technorati: Blogscope, track blogs
On Technorati: Blogscope, track blogs
U of T DCS colloquium series starts today
The U of T DCS colloquium series starts today. Today, the seminar is by Lilian Lee from Cornell on Sense and Sensibility: Automatically Analyzing Subject and
Sentiment.
Abstract:
This talk addresses issues in document classification, which
we construe broadly to mean the grouping together of texts that have
similar content. While this task is surely easier than explicitly
determining document content, it has great utility in practice and is
still plenty hard.
One problem currently attracting a great deal of attention is that of
classifying documents by their overall "sentiment": for example, one
might want to determine from its text alone whether a movie review is
"thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Sentiment analysis has empirically been
shown to be resistant to traditional text-categorization approaches,
and involves more subtlety than one might at first imagine. We
demonstrate that learning techniques can yield state-of-the-art
results even when no explicit linguistic information is used.
We also discuss the long-standing problem of representing topical
content. In particular, we present an analysis of the widely-used
SVD-based Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) algorithm; this analysis
motivates an intuitive generalization providing striking empirical
improvements over LSI.
Finding similarity between documents is a popular thing to do, so you can do clustering, and obtain knowledge from the content. This requires computing the term-document matrix. Text categorization based on topic is actually quite useful for blog posts, and determine from blog posts, the content of them. State-of-the-art methods using bag-of-words based feature vectors have proven less effective for sentiment classification. Doing content analysis of blogs will require use of text classification, but since blog posts deal with sentiment and emotion, therefore this is a problem with topic classification.
She proposes using sentiment summarization on reviews by breaking up the sentences, to determine which are subjective and which are objective, and incorporate relationships between them.
On Technorati: UT DCS Colloquium
Sentiment.
Abstract:
This talk addresses issues in document classification, which
we construe broadly to mean the grouping together of texts that have
similar content. While this task is surely easier than explicitly
determining document content, it has great utility in practice and is
still plenty hard.
One problem currently attracting a great deal of attention is that of
classifying documents by their overall "sentiment": for example, one
might want to determine from its text alone whether a movie review is
"thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Sentiment analysis has empirically been
shown to be resistant to traditional text-categorization approaches,
and involves more subtlety than one might at first imagine. We
demonstrate that learning techniques can yield state-of-the-art
results even when no explicit linguistic information is used.
We also discuss the long-standing problem of representing topical
content. In particular, we present an analysis of the widely-used
SVD-based Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) algorithm; this analysis
motivates an intuitive generalization providing striking empirical
improvements over LSI.
Finding similarity between documents is a popular thing to do, so you can do clustering, and obtain knowledge from the content. This requires computing the term-document matrix. Text categorization based on topic is actually quite useful for blog posts, and determine from blog posts, the content of them. State-of-the-art methods using bag-of-words based feature vectors have proven less effective for sentiment classification. Doing content analysis of blogs will require use of text classification, but since blog posts deal with sentiment and emotion, therefore this is a problem with topic classification.
She proposes using sentiment summarization on reviews by breaking up the sentences, to determine which are subjective and which are objective, and incorporate relationships between them.
On Technorati: UT DCS Colloquium
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Blogs and community paper by Nancy White
Here's a paper by Nancy White on blogs and community which I came across from my Bloglines through reading a post by Lilia Efimova. She also has a podcast here, and will have a live gathering and communication online on September 26 at 2 pm AEST.
I'm going to have to read this paper, this will be train material. And see how this relates to my notion of blogging community.
On Technorati: blogging community
I'm going to have to read this paper, this will be train material. And see how this relates to my notion of blogging community.
On Technorati: blogging community
Yahoo the social networking giant?
Just read this post about the popular Facebook, the social networking site popular among university students (that was started by a university student), that wants to be sold to Yahoo. Yahoo is really serious in the social networking, witness they were on a shopping spree gobbling up del.icio.us, Flickr and Upcoming. And now Facebook. Yahoo is becoming the social networking giant, the "Microsoft" of social networking I guess. It's also interesting that Facebook is also in talks with Microsoft and Viacom to sell itself as well.
Microsoft is trying to build its social reputation and collaboration through Windows Live. Microsoft even has a Windows Live Labs as well, so you know they're serious about this stuff. They have beta version of Windows Live Mail, Live Search, Live Academic, Live Messenger, they're creating an integrated suite of web products. They're basically playing catch up to Yahoo and Google but knowing Microsoft and its history, Yahoo and Google and others need to be a step ahead of Microsoft otherwise Microsoft will steamroll them (think Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, Windows NT vs. Novell Netware, Lotus 1-2-3 vs. Excel, WordPerfect vs. Word, etc.).
On Technorati: Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google
Microsoft is trying to build its social reputation and collaboration through Windows Live. Microsoft even has a Windows Live Labs as well, so you know they're serious about this stuff. They have beta version of Windows Live Mail, Live Search, Live Academic, Live Messenger, they're creating an integrated suite of web products. They're basically playing catch up to Yahoo and Google but knowing Microsoft and its history, Yahoo and Google and others need to be a step ahead of Microsoft otherwise Microsoft will steamroll them (think Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, Windows NT vs. Novell Netware, Lotus 1-2-3 vs. Excel, WordPerfect vs. Word, etc.).
On Technorati: Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
55 Ways to have fun with Google
Want more Google? How about 55 ways?
This book, called 55 Ways To Have Fun with Google explains how. You can buy the book at lulu.com which will bind it for you, you can buy it from Amazon, or you can download the PDF from their web site. What's next? Google TV perhaps, all Google all the time.
On Technorati: Google
This book, called 55 Ways To Have Fun with Google explains how. You can buy the book at lulu.com which will bind it for you, you can buy it from Amazon, or you can download the PDF from their web site. What's next? Google TV perhaps, all Google all the time.
On Technorati: Google
Monday, September 18, 2006
Updated Apple iPod nanos
Apple has updated their Apple iPod nanos, which are now 2nd generation and come in 4GB, and 8GB models. The 4GB now come in 4 colours (green, pink, silver and blue) just like the iPod mini, but the 8GB comes in black. More from CNET.
Geez, I should have waited, now my iPod mini which I bought last year, I wish I had waited for either the iPod nano or the iPod video. I thought a 6GB iPod mini would be enough, but it looks like not. Well, you never can keep up with technology. You buy one thing, the next minute or second, it's obsolete.
On Technorati: iPod nano
Geez, I should have waited, now my iPod mini which I bought last year, I wish I had waited for either the iPod nano or the iPod video. I thought a 6GB iPod mini would be enough, but it looks like not. Well, you never can keep up with technology. You buy one thing, the next minute or second, it's obsolete.
On Technorati: iPod nano
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Finally uploaded rest of Copenhagen photos
I've finally uploaded the rest of the Copenhagen photos from the Hypertext trip on Flickr. I've found out now that Flickr only allows you to view your most recent 200 photos, and not all your photos, unless you upgrade. That's really stupid, you should be able to view all your photos no matter what. I can see doing an upgrade if you need more space for your photos. Hey, Sony Imagestation provides unlimited space for photos, and I use that, because I like the permissions settings on it. If Sony Imagestation had tags like Flickr, I would totally use Imagestation, as a matter of fact a lot of my photos are on Imagestation, I just use Flickr because I like the tagging, but I still think Imagestation for viewing photos and manipulating them is much better. I like the Imagestation Express upload software where you upload the folder where your photos are, you can set the captions and edit the photos, and then once done, you can upload them and create the online album name.
On Technorati: copenhagen, Flickr, Sony Imagestation
On Technorati: copenhagen, Flickr, Sony Imagestation
Marketing my blog and CASCON 2006 workshop
Here's a great way for marketing my blog, thanks to AccordionGuy who posted it on his blog, and now I've taken the same idea as well.
Check out this same marketing gig for the CASCON 2006 conference, which my supervisor Mark Chignell and myself are organizing another workshop called Social Computing: Best Practices, part of the 1st Working Conference on Social Computing and Business, which is on Wednesday, October 18 in the Hilton Suites hotel in Markham.
It's not too late to register, so register to CASCON and sign up for our workshop! And the conference is free! Yes, free, what better way to enjoy yourself and be immersed in the latest research and technology from industry and academia, and also get free food? Go, register for our workshop now! Not later, otherwise you'll forget. We have Barry Wellman from Sociology from the University of Toronto speaking at the workshop. For those who don't know Barry, he is the one that started the INSNA, International Network for Social Network Analysis.
On Technorati: cascon2006, GadgetMan, SNA
Check out this same marketing gig for the CASCON 2006 conference, which my supervisor Mark Chignell and myself are organizing another workshop called Social Computing: Best Practices, part of the 1st Working Conference on Social Computing and Business, which is on Wednesday, October 18 in the Hilton Suites hotel in Markham.
It's not too late to register, so register to CASCON and sign up for our workshop! And the conference is free! Yes, free, what better way to enjoy yourself and be immersed in the latest research and technology from industry and academia, and also get free food? Go, register for our workshop now! Not later, otherwise you'll forget. We have Barry Wellman from Sociology from the University of Toronto speaking at the workshop. For those who don't know Barry, he is the one that started the INSNA, International Network for Social Network Analysis.
On Technorati: cascon2006, GadgetMan, SNA
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod: Zune
I was wondering when Microsoft would have an answer to combat the dominance of Apple's iPod. Here's their answer, it's the Microsoft Zune.
Zune? What? Whoever in marketing thought of that name? What does it mean? Microsoft did a promoting marketing site to entice users. Get it? Coming Zune as in coming soon. But when you go to that web site, it just looks like some kind of game, they don't really tell you what's it about. You know it's from Micrsoft if you click on the Terms of Use. So apparently, Zune is just the player which is like an iPod but can do more like Wi-Fi and wireless networking. More info can be found on Microsoft's Presspass web site. The player apparently will connect on a PC to a software that guess what resembles like iTunes for syncing and downloading music and media. It's meant to enable sharing, community and is part of Microsoft's Connected Entertainment vision, basically, extend the life of a PC and sell more PCs since PCs form the brain of the entire network and digital devices are just peripherals. In other words, Microsoft wants you to buy a PC so you can then buy their digital devices, extend the network into your home, which means having to install Microsoft software, and hence Microsoft controls your life (if it hasn't already).
From the Gizmodo web site, Microsoft is not trying to beat Apple at its own game, it's putting in features that the iPod doesn't have like ad-hoc networking and buffered internet video. It will be interesting to see what the battery life is in this device, and how consumers will react to this. Apparently, it will be available at Christmas in the States, but no word about if it will be coming to Canada, although I think it will be. So Microsoft will start to control your home, with Windows Media Center and XBox360 for gaming, Zune for mobile music and video, Windows Smartphone PC for cell phone, and UltraMobile PC for small mobile computer so instead of reading the newspaper while you're in the loo, you can check your e-mail and the catch up the latest news using the UltraMobile PC. Remember, the iLoo that Microsoft somehow announced in the UK?
Check out Technorati for more news on the Zune. So, what's the battery life on this thing, knowing that Microsoft mobile devices don't have much battery from past experience. The answer I got is about 12 hours with no wireless on for playing music according to Engadget, which is less than that of the iPod.
On Technorati: zune
Zune? What? Whoever in marketing thought of that name? What does it mean? Microsoft did a promoting marketing site to entice users. Get it? Coming Zune as in coming soon. But when you go to that web site, it just looks like some kind of game, they don't really tell you what's it about. You know it's from Micrsoft if you click on the Terms of Use. So apparently, Zune is just the player which is like an iPod but can do more like Wi-Fi and wireless networking. More info can be found on Microsoft's Presspass web site. The player apparently will connect on a PC to a software that guess what resembles like iTunes for syncing and downloading music and media. It's meant to enable sharing, community and is part of Microsoft's Connected Entertainment vision, basically, extend the life of a PC and sell more PCs since PCs form the brain of the entire network and digital devices are just peripherals. In other words, Microsoft wants you to buy a PC so you can then buy their digital devices, extend the network into your home, which means having to install Microsoft software, and hence Microsoft controls your life (if it hasn't already).
From the Gizmodo web site, Microsoft is not trying to beat Apple at its own game, it's putting in features that the iPod doesn't have like ad-hoc networking and buffered internet video. It will be interesting to see what the battery life is in this device, and how consumers will react to this. Apparently, it will be available at Christmas in the States, but no word about if it will be coming to Canada, although I think it will be. So Microsoft will start to control your home, with Windows Media Center and XBox360 for gaming, Zune for mobile music and video, Windows Smartphone PC for cell phone, and UltraMobile PC for small mobile computer so instead of reading the newspaper while you're in the loo, you can check your e-mail and the catch up the latest news using the UltraMobile PC. Remember, the iLoo that Microsoft somehow announced in the UK?
Check out Technorati for more news on the Zune. So, what's the battery life on this thing, knowing that Microsoft mobile devices don't have much battery from past experience. The answer I got is about 12 hours with no wireless on for playing music according to Engadget, which is less than that of the iPod.
On Technorati: zune
Friday, September 08, 2006
Blackberry Pearl
Well, it was finally about time for RIM! I was wondering when RIM would come out with a multimedia integrated smart phone that could play video, have a camera, include Bluetooth, etc. According to reviews from CNET, it's not a revolutionary device, although it looks very sleek and since it's RIM, it will appeal to the business users. It doesn't have integrated Wi-Fi, which may steer business users from getting this, when they could go with other Pocket PC or Smartphone PC Microsoft smartphones. Of course, Microsoft smartphones crash though, and since RIM has a reputation for being good as a business product (witness the success of the Blackberry from its incarnation), it's very tempting against other well established players in the market. It's going to be an interesting showdown for the business user and regular user, going to probably confuse people more than simplify with all the dizzying types of devices out there.
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