Ben Schneiderman is talking how social computing is becoming widely recognized in schools.Social computing is a transformative moment. Ben is now challenging the audience on the vision of social computing and how we can provide impact in the world. We need to drive social computing to combat natural disasters. The take home message is that is your work focussing on national priorities and impact

Second day of IEEE SocialCom conference

Yesterday, after the conference, there was a very great reception (thanks organizers!) at the Renaissance hotel where I was able to network with important people and eat great food! Today is the second day of the conference with lots of parallel sessions and workshops, so it's going to be a busy day. There is a workshop on Mobile Phones sensing which I'm attending. The first is an invited talk on Social Computing with Mobile Phones and Sensors and the talk is about creating social computing applications using sensory data from the mobile phone, for example, one application for determining where to put recycling bins based on pictures, tagging, geocoding and location traces. Another application is for health and wellness, one example is AndWellness.

The first paper in this workshop is on Touch Me Wear, which is about physical contact with social networks presented by Aaron Beach. They created a touch me shirt where if you hug people, it will show on Facebook who are the people you have hugged. It uses Bluetooth to upload the hug to Facebook through a contact access point. This group is the author of the paper WhozThat. There are lots of mobile social networking companies like BrightKite that can find out who are around you and what are you doing through activity inference. This is a very good example of merging actual physical interaction with social interaction and bringing it to virtual communities like Facebook.

Session on Social Computing - IEEE SocialCom'09

I'm now in the session on Social Computing, one of the sessions in IEEE SocialCom conference. The first talk that I attended was about Guangxi on the Chinese Web where the presenter showed work that they did in doing an empirical study of Guangxi web sites using PageRank, compared to the general web and structures that come about from the Guangxi web sites by modelling Guangxi and identifying Guangxi links. The question that comes to mind, is how do the Guangxi web social networks compare with regular social networks, and can this help explain why Facebook and Twitter are not popular with Chinese users?

Another interesting paper was on Structure of Neighborhoods in a Large Social Network using a dataset obtained from Orange mobile phone users. They used "characteristic patterns" to identify neighbourhoods. The first talk in the second session on Social Computing is on Deriving Expertise Profiles from Tags. Their assumptions are that the set of tags defines a resource, and that these tags are correlated with skills. They performed a study with Dogear and IBMr, internal IBM social computing systems. They also create a scoring model to correlate tags with skills, and did find out that the tags do represent the skills. It would be interesting to see how finding similar users and experts could be used for tag recommendations. The third paper is on Probabilistic Generative Models of the Social Annotation Process addressing the challenge of uncovering hidden structure in social annotations, can we discover communities of users and categories of related tags. Their inspiration is on text-based topic models and their solution is Community-Based Probabilistic Social Annotation (PSA), instead of modelling tags, they also model users. Users belong to hidden communities so how can we find these communities, also related to my paper that I will present tomorrow. They recover communities and categories based on the Gibbs Sampler and used Delicious for their experiments. The PSA is better at predicting unsessn data, and they also did a user study to determine if the tags were correctly specified in the categories.

The next paper is on Detecting Communities from Bipartite Networks Based on Bipartite Modularities.

First day of IEEE Social Computing - Keynote 1

After a series of introductionary remarks to the conference (there are multiple conferences here of which IEEE Social Computing is one), now there is a keynote speech by Stephen Lau on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust in Service-Oriented Environments. Alex Pentland of MIT introduced the IEEE Social Computing conference of which my paper is part of the SIN workshop (Social Intelligence and Networking). If you're in the conference, then please talk to me, I will give a talk in SIN at the last session on Monday called "Finding Cohesive Subgroups and Relevant Members in the Nokia Friend View Mobile Social Network".

Dr. Lau is talking about information assurance in Service-Oriented Environments. Now, we are entering service-oriented computing. This is nothing new, IBM Research has advocated service-oriented computing for many years, and in academia and research, service-oriented computing is very important. However, there are challenges in service-oriented computing environments, like for example system reliability, must be easy to use, privacy, trust and tracking users. There are XML-based policies to help with this and software engineering is being used to tackle this.

So, what is Dr. Lau's research to address these issues? They have developed a framework for systematically managing and enforcing security policies and a model for flexible security policies. He just showed the workflow of the architecture of their framework. The complicated part of this research is the integrated framework for managing and evaluating security, privacy, trust and risk. We need to have new models for trust and risk considering technical, human and social aspects.

Nokia Booklet 3G

Nokia has just announced the Nokia Booklet 3G, which is a netbook between the size of a laptop and a mobile with 10 inch screen, running Windows with 3G, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Check out the video below, it looks really nice! It will be fully announced at Nokia World 2009 which is coming soon!



On Technorati: Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia, netbook

My alma mater, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto has changed their web site, which seems much cleaner and has a better user interface than before. Congratulations to the team for doing this!

I can't use Blogger because my Chinese ISP has blocked it, as well as Facebook and Twitter. So this is why I'm using Ping.fm to post. Apologies for my silence in blogging for the past couple of weeks as I was at the Hypertext conference in Turin (Torino), Italy, and then I took a week off to travel around Italy.

You can see pictures from Italy from here: http://ping.fm/cSFqZ

Now in the first session of Hypertext: Structure and Usage. First speaker is Mark Bernstein on On Hypertext Narrative http://ping.fm/YnEP9 #ht09

Just found out I got a book chapter accepted for publishing in Computational Social Network Analysis: Trends, Tools and Research Advances

My graduation photos are now up from today http://ping.fm/DUXwz

My paper got accepted to Symposium of Social Intelligence and Networking held in conjunction with IEEE Social Computing conference!

I just received my degree and shook david peterson's hand, the chancellor of the university of toronto and former ontario premier.

Back in Toronto for my PhD graduation!

Hi folks,

Sorry, if I haven't written on my blog for a while, but I usually update my other social networking sites (like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Plaxo Pulse, etc.) more often than this blog. Everything with me is going well at Nokia Research Center. I will be presenting a poster at the Hypertext 2009 conference in Turin, Italy. I'm in Toronto now for my PhD graduation convocation ceremony on Tuesday, June 9.

I also have a new research website which is at the Nokia Research Center site, so please visit there when you have a chance. I try to balance work and personal and family life, so every week my wife and I plan a different place to go to in Beijing. You can see all the trips we've gone to on my Facebook photos page. Just add me (Alvin Chin) to your Facebook.

As I reflect, I can't believe it has been 5 years in the making when I first started my PhD in September 2003 and who knew that now, I would graduate and also find my beautiful wife. Life has been up and down at times throughout the 5 years both academically, personally and family wise, but in the end, I've become a stronger person. Thanks for everyone for helping me to get to this stage in my life.

Too bad my dad cannot be able to see my graduation as he passed away last year, but I know that he is proud of me and looking down on me from heaven. Dad, I'm following in your footsteps.

Apologies, I will not speak at the Social Networking Conference in LA in June but will speak in London http://ping.fm/0RawB

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers everywhere!

happy Mother's Day to all mothers everywhere! Going to church now to say the First Reading

Nokia comes out with the 6216 Classic cell phone that uses NFC technology http://ping.fm/Om2QM

Just installed Google Maps and Latitude on my phone, to test it out

Nokia Xpress Music 5800 is best selling MP3 player in UK, beating iPod! http://ping.fm/Wl7jU

earth day is today, save our planet!

saw a web site called www.mytwitterexperiment.com. The site shows how u can get 5000 followers at least.

great weekend now back to work week

going to church now after coming back to Beijing

at beijing world art museum

back home from wonderful and refreshing team building meeting and can't believe the weekend is here!

Leaving the hotel called shan ba party or mountain bar party and going to pick strawberries

Beautiful sunny morning up in the mountains on the second day of the team building meeting

Social Mobile Web workshop at IEEE Social Computing conference in Vancouver http://ping.fm/OMpeZ

back at work from holiday, reality kicking in!

Finally back to Beijing from short holiday, and finally have internet!

today is my grandma's 90th birthday party and dinner! Happy Birthday Grandma, we love you!

Shopping in Hong Kong after a great Japanese lunch with family

in guangzhou for good friday service

Another beautiful sunny day in Beijing. Started reading A Dream Of Red Mansions, a famous Chinese classical novel.

Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: http://ping.fm/JJKJE

Funny, saw a 1 yuan bill last night that had the main function written in C language on it! Last minute studying by a student I suppose!

Check out Bill Gates' Facebook profile: http://digg.com/d1o5C5

Nokia releases 'point and find' technology for adding social location to objects at Web 2.0 Expo: http://ping.fm/ZhOj0

another beautiful warm sunny day in Beijing, summer is here, although i've heard it's snowing in Toronto!

Holiday today in Beijing, importing new contact business cards into my Outlook, going to be 27 degrees, must go out today but where?

At wangfujing for like the 4th time, but it is a warm night in Beijing and many people walking

Nice beautiful day, finished having lunch with church friends

Palm Sunday today on a beautiful sunny day in Beijing! Going to say part of the readings for the Passion gospel today

Today is Palm Sunday and I'm going to be helping out with the readings for the Passion of the Christ for the gospel. This is my first time!

Share on Ovi (http://share.ovi.com) has changed their web UI

Finished first session of retreat about paul's conversion to Christian through his Damascus experience.

at xuanwumen catholic church for retreat, today is ching ming jie

3 day long weekend is here. Retreat today, Palm Sunday reading on Sunday, and Monday is holiday in China for remembering those passed away

XpressMusic 5800 the best? http://ping.fm/tvsjG

Ah, back to internet today after no internet yesterday since had no money on the card from the ISP! How so dependent we are on internet!

april fools day! My wife is not pregnant but thanks for all the congrats anyways!

Giving a research seminar at work today, and my wife is pregnant!

Just received notification that my poster got accepted into Hypertext conference http://www.ht2009.org! Going to Italy in end of June!

another chilly morning in Beijing, when will it be warm again?

heading into work on a chilly monday morning in Beijing, Chinese lesson today

Reading the first reading at xuanwumen catholic church

At the cctv tower observatory

Right now pedaling a boat on the lake at yuyuantan garden park

At yuyuantan park for the cherry blossom festival

Just saw beijing's version of toronto's cn tower!

Switch off your lights for one hour today at 8:30 pm for Earth Hour (http://ping.fm/BAd2k) to conserve power and save our Earth

leaving to take the bus to go home from the workshop, met new friends

Finishing up the 2nd day of the university collaboration workshop, great discussions and brainstorming

University collaboration Workshop is almost over for day 1, good brainstorming

Bright early morning, heading to a 2 day workshop off site, chilly morning but at least no snow!

Great day, was a sponsor for a friend of a friend who is becoming Catholic, then went to Beijing Zoo, and Sarah Brightman concert!

sarah brightman concert is finished, now heading home!

sarah brightman concert is finished, now heading home!

Sarah brightman concert starting!

At the sarah brightman concert sitting down at our seats

Finished church, tonight going to sarah brightman concert

Hypertext 2009 demos/posters for inclusion in proceedings is due in 2 days, March 23! http://ping.fm/tMIRn

Finishing up writing a paper for a poster

Finally at the gym one month later! Better late than never!

One year since my father passed away

I can't believe it but it has been exactly one year since my father passed away. It was just so sudden and surreal, that my family was at his bedside in the hospital one year ago. As I think about the year since he passed away, I know my father would be proud of me that I finished my PhD and found a great job at Nokia Research Center in Beijing, and that I'm learning Mandarin.

So even though life moves on, I will always remember my dad. Remember all those time we shared when I was a child, when we would play catch with the baseball, going out to dinner, asking him help on Chemistry homework in high school, and helping me with my Grade 7 and 8 science fair project.

My father is in a better place without any suffering any more and is with God. So even though I miss him, I can feel at peace that he is with God and is watching over me, saying "I'm proud of what you have done son". You never know what life throws at you, but whatever it is, I have my faith in God. It also makes you realize you need to treasure every moment with your loved ones.

It's been a long long day today, meetings and then NRC Day! Another busy day tomorrow!

Traffic bad so taking subway and then short taxi ride to a client meeting

Nokia N97 gets thumbs up: http://ping.fm/OMqYl I'm looking forward to seeing the actual device later this year!

It's St. patrick's Day today, are you wearing green? Well actually I'm not. Have a great day, it's going to hit 24 degrees in Beijing!

Looks like a great line of speakers and panel discussions for Mesh 09 in Toronto in April, too bad I won't be able to be there: http://ping.fm/aH0Nj

Check out this cool demo from TED that merges the virtual with the physical world: http://ping.fm/AKfsJ

Palm Pre: Is Palm back from the dead?

Everyone has heard about the Palm Pre and how it wowed everyone out there at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) including tech geek blogger Robert Scoble. Scoble says how Palm did what Nokia, RIM and Microsoft couldn't do, and that is build a user experience better than Apple. Palm overhauled their previous UI and interface and developed WebOS, it's web-based operating system, where everything is web-based.

The Palm Pre was shown by Engadget's Joshua Topolski on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:



But don't count Apple out, apparently Apple's iPhone 3.0 software is supposed to be due out for preview on March 17th (tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day) and is going to have a lot of Palm's webOS features. The race is heating up with iPhone 3.0, Palm Pre and webOS, Google Android, and Nokia Symbian. But I'm still looking forward to the Nokia N97.

On Technorati: Palm Pre

Augmenting the real world with annotated virtual and internet data in real time, Pattie Maes and her team at MIT demonstrate their system at TED for creating a sixth sense: http://ping.fm/AKfsJ This is cool, I wish I could have a wearable system like that wherever I go to get any type of information given to me when I see a real object.

at xuanwumen catholic church for third sunday of lent

watching kmdi university of toronto lecture on the xpressmusic 5800, looks nice!

Meetings went well, looking towards a relaxing and fun weekend! Have a great weekend every one!

Just finished my Chinese class today, had a great meeting with my team, so research is going well!

nice sunny day in Beijing, heading into work. Watched Alias season 1 episode 4 last night

playing i mean testing with the expressmusic 5800

Ugh! Gmail has multi-attachments feature but after upgrading to latest Adobe Flash player, in Firefox I can't add attachments anymore! Why?

Beautiful sunny warm day in Beijing, heading to church now on the second sunday of Lent

My PhD thesis is now in the ACM SIGWEB theses repository: http://ping.fm/qtcAP

Skittles' web page is Twitterfied and includes Facebook, YouTube and Flickr feeds, it's a pure social media site: http://www.skittles.com

Nokia Research Center and Corporate Research

There are many research centers that are part of corporate companies. For example, HP Labs is part of Hewlett Packard, IBM Research is part of IBM, Microsoft Research is part of Microsoft, NEC Labs is part of NEC, and Nokia Research Center is part of Nokia. Research is at the pinnacle of a company's innovation and drive to succeed and differentiate from its competitors. Corporate research also allows researchers to get to see the deployment and use of their research in everyday lives, which is usually very difficult to do in an academic environment such as a university.

One thing that I love about corporate research is how it blends both academia and industry, you kind of get the best of both worlds, in my opinion. However with the economy and downsizing of companies, how does corporate research continue to thrive and transform itself into a driving force for a company? Enter Nokia Research Center, where I'm a Member of Research Staff there (if you do not know by now) at the Beijing lab in China. In the video below by Henri Tirri by Nokia Conversations, head of Nokia Research Center, he explains about how Nokia Research Center is different than the other corporate research labs and how the future of Nokia depends on NRC.

I agree with Henri's views on research, and I'm glad to be working at Nokia Research Center to help bring research into reality and on Nokia mobile phones. The full interview with Henri is here from Nokia Conversations.

On Technorati: Nokia Research Center

First sunday of lent, a time to repent and reflect on Jesus' sacrifice of dying and rising. Help others who are less fortunate than us and be better Christians, and to be more humble and to fast.

First sunday of lent, a time to repent and reflect on Jesus' sacrifice of dying and rising. Help others who are less fortunate than us and be better Christians, and to be more humble and to fast.

Another busy day at work, got my hands on a Nokia XpressMusic 5800 aka Tube touch phone. It's geared towards the consumer than business

Nokia N86 8 Megapixel camera phone: http://ping.fm/JPRt3 Still waiting for N97 to come out in June!

Nokia ExpressMusic 5800 touch phone now in Beijing

Just read that the Nokia ExpressMusic 5800 touch phone (aka Tube), the competitor to Apple's iPhone is now available in Beijing today. Apparently, there is going to be a line up to get the phone, the phone is already available in Taiwan and Hong Kong.



I'm still waiting for the Nokia N97 that was announced at Nokia World 2008, that phone looks cool. The phone competition is really heating up in the touch display and UI world, but this gives great value and choice for customers. The Nokia ExpressMusic 5800 touch phone has been mainly marketed as a music phone that will cater to music lovers and young people with its hit feel and smaller size compared to the iPhone. So the ExpressMusic 5800 is in a different segment than the iPhone. The Nokia N97 however will be targetted for business users and seems will be made available in June of this year.

On Technorati: Nokia ExpressMusic 5800, Nokia N97

Nokia wins at Global Mobile Awards: Sports Tracker, CEO Environment Award, Best Mobile Handset - www.globalmobileawards.com/winners.shtml