The wait is over, iPhone is here!

It's finally arrived, the moment we've all been waiting for. It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's the Apple iPhone! Here's the frenzy when the San Francisco Apple store opened its doors at 6 pm tonight to eagerly awaiting customers in line:



So I wonder what Americans will be playing with this weekend? And you know there's going to be lots of videos, commentary and blogs from those that just bought the iPhone, to see really the real scoop on the iPhone, and if it's really as good as what Apple and Steve Jobs says. It will work only work with the Apple MacOSX, Apple probably has something in the works to sync with Windows, just like they did when iPod first came out.

It will be interesting to see how iPhone will stack up in sales with the rest of the other phones. However, I think that Apple has a ways to go before they can significantly get a good share of the cell phone market. I still think it is too expensive. Well, time will tell sure enough.

On Technorati: iPhone, Apple

iPhone comes out today!

People are lining up left, right and center to get their hands on the Apple iPhone. According to this article, AT&T is limiting one iPhone per customer, whereas Apple is limiting two iPhones per customer. Some are buying the iPhone and then selling it up on eBay and taking the proceeds for charity, which I think is smart. David Clayman is just doing that and he's blogging his experience in lining up for the iPhone, he's #2 in line at Apple's SOHO location.

Here's the first 10 people lining up at Apple's SOHO location:



On Technorati: iPhone, camp, Apple iPhone

Communities and Technologies conference starts today

Today is the Communities and Technologies conference which is being held at Michigan State University.



There are some invited great speakers at the conference which I've come across in my literature review for my research. Marc Smith from Microsoft Research's Community Technologies Group is speaking about Illustrating Digital Traces: Visualizations of patterns generated by computer-mediated collective action systems. Marc's done a lot of work with visualizing communities and interaction in newsgroups with their NetScan project. Another speaker is Rob Malda and Jeff Bates from Slashdot who are talking about The Life, Times and Tribulations of Slashdot. Finally, the last speaker is Judith Donath from the Social Media Group at MIT, and she will be talking about Agents and Faces: The Reliability of Online Signals.

There are many workshops at the conference, one that really piques my interest is the Online Interaction Workshop being organized by Thomas Lento, Howard Welser, Eric Gleave and Marc Smith that deals with Studying Interaction in Online Communities: From Data Sources to Research Results. I'd be interested in the presentations and any workshop report that comes out of this.

There are also many papers as well which start tomorrow. Looking forward to the proceedings which I hope will be available on ACM or IEEE.

On Technorati: community, technology, conference

What is your wish this Canada Day?

This weekend is the July 1 Canada Day long weekend. CBC is holding a Great Canadian Wish list on Facebook asking Canadians what they wish for on Canada's birthday. The winning wish list will be announced by CBC.

The top 4 wishes on the list are:

1. Abolish abortion in Canada
2. I wish that Canada would remain pro-choice
3. For a spiritual revival in our nation
4. Restore traditional marriage

Vote for your favorite wish on Facebook! Please vote for #1, 3 and 4.

On Technorati: Facebook, Great Canadian Wish List, CBC

iPhone to come out in 3 days, people preparing

Well the Apple iPhone comes out in 3 days at 6 pm in AT&T stores in the US. Just a note and I just found this out now that Cingular Wireless that bought AT&T is now back to AT&T, the rebranding change just happened this year.



How many people will buy this phone? I just heard the This Week in Tech podcast with Leo Laporte saying that the marketing and advertising on the iPhone is similar to that of Windows 95 and the Sony PlayStation 3, but there are reports that sales may not be as anticipated. In my opinion the phone is pretty expensive about $500 US and Steve Jobs at the Apple WorldWide Developer's Conference (WWDC) announced no third-party development for the iPhone, development is done using the Safari web browser.

Anyways, stories are coming in about how people are preparing for the iPhone launch, this story from Engadget shows the first iPhone camper at the Manhattan New York Apple store.



I wonder how many eBay postings there will be to sell the iPhone over the weekend?

On Technorati: iPhone, Apple

Finally the transit smart card comes to GTA!

It was about time! Hong Kong has a very successful system called the Octopus card where you can use it to swipe at any transportation system (subway, bus, tram, train, ferry). Toronto and GTA needs something like that. I've been wanting something like this for a long time, so I don't have to carry a monthly GO student pass and tokens for the subway. Well, it looks like they are trialling the "Presto" smart card fare system.

Unfortunately, they are first trying this out in Mississauga for those riders that originate their trip from Cooksville or Meadowville stations and take Mississauga Transit shuttle routes, or transfer to Toronto Transit Commission vehicles outbound at Union Station. Apparently, it will come to Oakville in late 2008. I would love to try it now, I've been an avid supporter of having a smart card fare system for a long while. Toronto and the GTA needs to be more modernized and technologically competent. Otherwise, we risk losing our competitiveness to other cities.

Another thing that Toronto and the GTA needs is a good transit web site that tells you if you're starting from your origin and you want to go to your destination, what transit routes you need to take. San Francisco and the Bay area has the 511 system, and when I was there last summer, I loved it! It told me which route to take and what time the bus or train would come so I could plan my trip. Extremely useful and something really needed in the GTA.

On Technorati: GTA, Toronto transit

U of T looking to hire Social Media Officer

I just read this job posting from David Crow's blog. It looks like U of T is going Web 2.0 by looking for a Social Media Officer. Details of the job are available here. Apparently it involves incorporating Web 2.0 concepts and social media technologies to communicate U of T to faculty and students. It's about time that U of T became more creative and technology innovators and motivators like other universities like University of Waterloo and Stanford. This is really great news. I wonder if this job initiative came from the several talks that KMDI has had on Web 2.0 this year and last year.

U of T needs to strengthen their web presence and make it more social. I'm beginning to see that with podcasts and forums to engage students in university life. It looks like we're seeing a U of T 2.0.

On another front, does this mean that companies will have a new title like Social Media Officer? We already have Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), technology evangelist, chief internet officer (which is Vint Cerf's role at Google), chief software architect (which Bill Gates used to be at Microsoft). Because of the technology push, will we see new titles like Social Media Officer, perhaps Chief Geek Officer, Chief Social Officer, Chief Blogging Officer (which was kind of Robert Scoble's role before he left Microsoft to go to PodTech), Chief Podcasting Officer, Chief Video Officer, etc....?

On Technorati: social media, U of T, Web 2.0

Best 100 Web 2.0 sites

According to Webware, these are the top 100 Web 2.0 web sites as voted by the community of Webware users.

Let's see if the ones I use are on the list.

For browsing, I use primarily Firefox, not very often IE (unless for some reason I can't run the site in Firefox and I HAVE to resort to using IE). I also use My Yahoo that's where I store by bookmarks using My Yahoo Web 2.0 beta. That's pretty much about it, the rest on the list I don't use.

For communications, for e-mail I use Google GMail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. For messenging, I use Windows Live Messenger and sometimes Yahoo Messenger, I used to use Trillian a while ago but I don't really use any more because it doesn't support some of the native functions that the IM clients have (like sharing and transferring files). Though, I've never tried the new Trillian, so it might have been fixed now. For voice, I almost exclusively use Skype. Meebo, I've tried it but I wasn't successful to connect Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger contacts and I kind of gave up on that service.

For community, I primarily use Facebook and also Digg, sometimes occasionally Friendster (although not very much anymore). I use a lot of LinkedIn and I have a MySpace account but I really never use it.

For data, I primarily use Google, sometimes Windows Live search and Yahoo search but almost Google. I also use YouSendIt for sending files greater than 10 MB. I sometimes use BitTorrent but not as much.

For entertainment, I don't use any of those tools mentioned in the Webware top 10 list.

For media, I use Flickr and YouTube, sometimes a little bit of Yahoo Video if I want to view video that is within a Yahoo news link. I use Microsoft Soapbox for viewing videos and also Sony Imagestation for uploading photos, but I don't see that in the Webware list.

For mobile, I don't use any of the mobile apps on my cell phone because they cost money! And I'm already paying enough with the voice plan I have now so I see no need for paying for more.

For productivity and commerce, I use craigslist to look for any items on sale or if I want to put up something for sale, sometimes eBay, but mostly Google calendar and now exclusively Google Docs and Spreadsheets (which work great for sharing documents with a team).

For publishing, I use Blogger (as I'm writing this blog entry now in), WordPress (for my research lab's blogs), and Feedburner for making feeds. I also use WikiMedia for making wikis but I don't see that in the list.

For reference, I use Google Maps almost exclusively to find a place or how to get to somewhere, and WikiPedia as my online encyclopedia. I've tried Yahoo Local before but not too often now.

So, what do all of you use for the categories mentioned above, do you use the ones that are on the Webware 100 list?

On Technorati: Webware, Web 2.0

Judea Pearl lecture at U of T today

Today, there is a talk jointly organized between the departments of Computer Science, Economics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Public Health Sciences and Statistics, by Judea Pearl who is a professor of Department of Computer Science at UCLA. Professor Pearl just was awarded an honorary doctorate degree at University of Toronto today. He is the father of journalist Daniel Pearl. His talk today is about the Mathematics of Causal Inference. He says that the explanation of causal inference is actually really simple and common sense.

Causal analysis deals with changes (dynamics) whereas probability and statistics deal with static relations. Causal and statistical concepts do not mix. Statistical concepts can be computed given the joint probability distribution. For example, regression and association/independence are statistical concepts. Statistical assumptions and data and causal assumptions combine to form causal conclusions. Causal assumptions cannot be expressed in the mathematical language of standard statistics. Causality then needs special mathematics. In high school algebra, we weren't allowed to wipe out equations, but in causality, you need to wipe out equations. Professor Pearl just mentioned that Computer Science is the science of daydreaming (amid smiles and laughter in the audience).

To make causality mathematical, we need to introduce counterfactuals.

Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPhone: Ofone

Whenever one company has a product, Microsoft has to come back with their own. The new gadget that's the craze out there is the Apple iPhone which is coming out June 28, but only in the US. Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod is the Zune, so what is Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPhone? It is the Ofone, check it out:


Video: Microsoft's oPhone

Let's compare the iPhone with the OFone shall we?




So, which phone would you like to carry in your hand?

Oh, and if you haven't heard by now or can tell from the video, yes it is fake and a prank. But it's funny! I love these kind of videos.

Actually, on this web site, it seems that the OFone was actually shown as a concept mobile device that was previewed at Microsoft Techmela 2007 in Mumbai, India and was presented by Derek Snyder who is the Product Manager, Mobile and Embedded Devices Group at Microsoft. So, then the question really is OFone for real?

On Technorati: Microsoft,
Ofone, Apple, iPhone

CS PhD Production increasing

Well, this is good news. According to the ebiquity blog from UMBC, the number of CS PhDs that got their PhD degree increased 26% between 2005 and 2006. So, if this trend keeps up, then I should be in good shape since I plan to graduate and get my PhD degree next year in 2008! Let's also hope that the percentage of universities hiring CS PhDs for faculty also is on the increase, as well as the number of researcher positions in industry research as well, since I'll be in that boat next year.

On Technorati: CS, doctorate degree

TorCHI talk: Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton

Tonight, Bill Buxton from Microsoft Research is at U of T for the TorCHI talk, talking about his book "Sketching User Experiences".



If you're at the talk, they're selling his book and having an autograph session!

The title of his talk is Design, Design Thinking and Sketching. Bill provides a new way of thinking to design, which is badly needed in industry and business. According to Bill, there are problems in new product development in companies, and frustrated designers within organizations. There should be a chief design officer in the company that works with the chief technical officer, to articulate the requirements for design to translate design technology into products. Bill's book is designed for managers of companies to read, rather than for designers. Design sits within the ecosystem, the design life needs the physical infrastructure. Designers and usability experts need to understand executives, there needs to be cross cultural people to build the bridge.

In the product development process, there is no phase 0 which is the design before building the product (engineering). What is the product going to look like, is it feasible to build, why do we want to build? Bill just kidded around that he was able to publish his book based on the realization that design needs to happen before the engineering phase. We can then think of product design just like digging for artefacts like in archaeology. Design is not a separate phase, it permeates within all the development phases in engineering and also in sales. In fact a product should begin to be developed just like a film is made, and before it is green lighted. There needs to be a business plan, a list of people who are the "actors" in the product, how much the product will cost, etc.

So what is design? Sketching is a method for design, which is used in different types of design like graphics design, fashion design, and industrial design. The design spaces needs to be explored by looking at alternatives. For example, he gave an example of drawing a phone which he claimed most people (even the design challenged can do), drawing a phone's interface (which is much difficult), and drawing the experience of using the phone (which is the ultimate goal in product design). According to Bill, we are going from a materialist design to experiential perspective of design.

So what makes a sketch? First, the sketch is free-hand drawn. Second, the lines are not complete. Third, the sketch is not finished, it is open-loop rather than closed-loop. What is the anatomy of sketching? Sketching is about opening doors, not closing doors, so no higher resolution is required to communicate the intended purpose/concept. Sketching is meant to suggest and explore, you should not have to be complete the first time. Ambiguity is the most important part of design. If you want to get the most out of a sketch, you need to leave big enough holes. If you start to put more detail and close the imagination, then this is not a sketch but more of a memory recording. According to Bill, design is like a funnel, you have a million ideas and then you start reducing ones and throwing them out, until you come out with the idea that becomes the product. There is a continuum between design and usability, from sketch to prototype, along the investment and time axes.

Great talk, as always, Bill is a good speaker, and I think a good example of how you can have a good career in academia, research, and industry.

On Technorati: sketch, Bill Buxton, design, user experience, TorCHI

Google Street Maps, cool but can be scary

I've just read about Google Street Maps (which again is not available for Canada) which allows you to see the actual buildings and even people on the streets at that level of detail. It didn't work for trying to find out where I live (as there was no Street Maps tab), but it did work for where I lived last year at this time when I was at PARC in Palo Alto. You go to Google Maps, find the address you're looking for, then start clicking on the blue outlined street and then you can see at street level the houses, buildings, streets, cars and even actually people! It's as if you were there. I was able to see the apartment where I rented last year and it was exactly how I remembered it.

Many people are touting this a really cool feature of Google Maps and online mapping in general. However, several are specifying how it can be scary if there is something there that you feel is inappropriate and don't want others to know that you went to a place where you shouldn't have gone. This is where apparently you can flag it as inappropriate by filling out a form.

On Technorati: Google maps, street maps

Paper accepted to Hypertext 2007 conference

I just got notified that my paper called "Structural Analysis of Virtual Community in Social Hypertext Networks" has been accepted at the Hypertext 2007 conference which is in Manchester, UK this year from September 10 to 12. I had a paper last year at Hypertext 2006 called "A Social Hypertext Model for Finding Community in Blogs" which was in Odense, Denmark.

On Technorati: ht07, Hypertext2007, social hypertext

Vote Aodhan Cullen from StatCounter as Europe's Young Entrepreneur 2007

I did not know this but apparently Aodan Cullen who is the man behind StatCounter which I use for tracking statistics on this blog and my research group's blog and my web site, is nominated for Europe's Young Entrepreneur 2007 award.

I love StatCounter and the way I can grab the statistics and download them to do statistical analysis and see if my blog and web site is gaining any traction. These factors could be possible indicators of a sense of community, something I looked at in my blog research at a presentation I did at the CASCON workshop on The Business of Blogging.

Anyways, vote for Aodan Cullen!

On Technorati: StatCounter, Aodan Cullen

Malcolm Gladwell and Jim Balsilie to get honourary doctorate degrees at UW

It seems like Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, along with Jim Balsilie who is Co-CEO of RIM, are getting honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Waterloo at the Spring convocation in June.

On Technorati: Jim Balsilie, Malcolm Gladwell, UW

Facebook on your Rogers mobile phone!

Yes, besides having YouTube on your Rogers mobile phone through Rogers Vision, now you can get Facebook as well. Of course with Rogers Vision, you need to have a phone that supports that. This is what Rogers says about accessing Facebook on your mobile phone:

Everything you love about Facebook is now on your wireless phone. Poke, get messages, find family and friends — it's all here!

To access Facebook, launch your mobile Internet browser and click on Facebook or text FB to 4751 and we'll send you the link!

Facebook costs 5¢ per KB or as per your mobile Internet plan. Can't get enough of Facebook? Get a mobile Internet plan and browse for less. Plans start as low as $5/month for 5MB or $10/month for 10MB.

I suppose if you really need to be in contact and have to use Facebook, then this is a good service. Otherwise, you could probably just wait to get back to a computer with Internet access to use Facebook. I mean do you have to really have Facebook on your mobile. I guess if you're paying an mobile Internet plan, then it's ok.

It looks like Facebook is becoming the social network OS, and with the ability to create Facebook applications and opening up the API to developers, it does look like Facebook has the capability to become the social OS of the internet on the web. Now, since Facebook is getting into the OS and applications arena, it's going to compete with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Facebook resisted the buyout from Yahoo, so it looks like Mark Zuckerberg has something up his sleeve with his creation.

On Technorati: Facebook, Rogers, YouTube

Tom Rodden talk at U of T

Tom Rodden from the University of Nottingham in the UK who spoke on Interacting in Ubiquitous Computing Environments at the Pervasive conference a couple of weeks ago in Toronto, is speaking at U of T today. So, I'm in this talk right now which is on Ubiquitous Computing in the Real World. There are many synonyms for ubiquitous computing, such as pervasive computing, smart artefacts, smart spaces. A lot of the vision of ubiquitous computing is technical, but according to Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, "what matters is not technology, but its relationship to us" (Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown from PARC). However, since ubiquitous computing involves having technology embedded in the environment, is the future of ubiquitous computing mean that every device has a user manual? How many of you read the user manual for every new gadget that you get (well, I usually don't, cause I just want to use it, and I feel stupid if I have to look at a manual). He gave an example of a picture of a faucet in a US airport where there is an instruction manual that explains how to operate the faucet. You go near the faucet to turn it on, and you walk away to turn it off. If you wear black clothing, then the faucet does not work.

Tom is the director of the Equator project. One of the research works he is explaining is an online game that incorporates location and mixed reality called Can You See Me Now. In this game, players use a PDA and run to catch other players in different cities, and online players can see the interactions happening online. Visualizations can be used to show the coverage of Wi-Fi and GPS, which exposes the gaps within the technology to seamlessly integrate with the real world. What needs to happen is to reveal and make the infrastructure a resource for interaction. One of the games they created involves exploiting the wireless access points as resources within the game.

In order to have ubiquitous computing in the real world, Tom says that we need to expose the invisible. For developers, what gets in the way of creating location-based applications is the infrastructure. Content triggering does not depend on just the location but also the infrastructure. Another neat application they created is Savannah, in which they used a playing field to make a virtual savannah. Children used PDAs to look at a savannah based on where they are positioned in the playing field. But the problem was that the children started to stop and form a circle. The hidden features of the technology need to be revealed to designers, researchers and individuals.

One thing that really struck me and is really true is that the more intelligent the technologies, the more they will frustrate. If we look at the original definition of ubiquitous computing, it is not the technology that is important, but its social effect on people. I think this is where social context needs to be exploited.

I asked a question to Tom after he finished his talk about the option for opting out of the ubiquitous computing system. This comes from what Adam Greenfield talked about in his keynote to the Pervasive conference, about having users be able to abort or revert back away from the system because sometimes the user may not want to conform or follow the ubiquitous computing system. Tom's answer was yes for sure, there needs to be a way for the user to opt out. He even elaborated further that there should be a method for a user to counter-act what the ubiquitous computing system does. This then reminded me of hacking, cause isn't that what hacking is, to counter-act the system and break in?

Nonetheless, it was a great talk and inspiring, a great perspective on ubiquitous computing from someone who is not just building the ubiquitous computing systems because they're cool, but for a purpose and demonstrating that in real life.

On Technorati: pervasive computing, Tom Rodden, ubiquitous computing