China HCI seminar series in Beijing - First session

China HCI Seminar Series
October 26, 2009

This is what I wrote from the first session in the China HCI Seminar Series which kicked off last night. This seminar series is meant to foster research and collaboration among HCI researchers in the Chinese community as well as abroad. It was held at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences. There was lots of people for the first session, so the turn out was really great like a large lecture hall! There were two talks after introduction by the organizers and distinguished Chinese HCI researchers.








Prof. James Landay, University of Washington, Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research Asia

Jonathan Grudin: A Moving Target: The Evolution of HCI

Keynote Speech

HCI started with Human Factors and Ergonomics with operation and data entry from 1905 to 1945, and then came the invention of general-purpose computers. HCI was one of five major IS research streams since 1967 (Banker and Kaufmann). Then there was HCI in Information Systems for managerial use. Finally Computer-Human Interaction happened in the 1980s with the beginning of the CHI conference and the establishment of SIGCHI. There was a focus shift from non-discretionary use to discretionary use. The Computer-Human Interaction stream started from the work of computer-engineer interaction and the work done at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). The actual goal behind human-computer interaction actually started with the work of Grace Hopper.

According to Jonathan, there is a shifting focus of interface development from the large hardware mainframes, to the PCs, and now in groups and mobile devices where it is used collaboratively. The graphical user interface (GUI) changed the field of human-computer interaction in 1985 with the Apple Mac computer. Jonathan showed a curve of Moore’s Law showing how as you move the number of years, there is a longer tail on the curve. The next big impact was in 1995 where there was unanticipated changes in audio, video and graphics. Now, if we continue the curve, what is the next big bomb and it is predicted that it will happen in 2015. Design started coming into HCI since 1995, but we have been neglecting design for a decade or so. There is now new research trend into emotional design.


History and evolution of HCI


Interface development

The amount of information will dramatically increase exponentially and increasingly significant focus in HCI. H.G. Wells made a quote which sounds very much related to what the vision of human-driven Web 2.0 systems is, and this was in 1905! There is now the emergence of information schools. James Martin from 1973 talked about the era of information scarcity and according to Jonathan, we are still in the age of information scarcity. Now, there is a merging of the physical and virtual world. We can learn something from the kids domain like WebKinz where kids can buy a stuffed toy, enter the code, and then can enter the virtual world where they have to feed their toy and can share with other kids’ toys. He says why this can’t be the same in the adult world like buying a car?



Desney Tan: Creating Novel Human-Computer Interaction with Physiological Sensing
Computational User Experiences Group, Microsoft Research
Desney's web site


Following Jonathan’s footsteps, the next big thing in the evolution of computing paradigms is natural user interfaces. Mind reading devices are now hitting the consumer market, and is now becoming a science. At Microsoft Research, Desney and his team is looking into classifying brain activity tasks and uncontrolled game tasks with greater than 80% accuracy. The goal is to have only a few sensors as possible with high accuracy. They can use the brain sensors to accurately classify images based on brain activity using EEG. Another goal is to take science fiction like Minority Report as reality, and use detection of hand gesture recognition. At Microsoft Research, there is Project Natal which is controller free interaction which will be shipped with Microsoft XBox. In order to make this reality, they use EMG armbands to use muscle stimulation in order to detect gestures. You can sense gestures on a hard surface like a table top using Microsoft Surface.

Games are a very good test of the research because they require accurate classification and fast classification. Their group created a test application called Air Guitar Hero that uses hand gestures to pretend playing the guitar. A third research theme is mouth gesture interactions for example using tongues that can be used with paralyzed people who cannot use their hands or arms. Desneyäs group created a device to be placed on the tongue with electrodes in order to sense the tongue with a micro+controller. The idea is that some children wear retainers when they are young but a reluctant to use them because they are not nice to have and make them look ugly. But if they were cool by using sensors to make them technologically advanced to use, would help adoption of them. An example is using your tongue to control a Tetris game. All the technology is now embedded in the tongue retainer. So what are some applications of tongue gesture interaction? According to Desney, we can use tongue gestures to control mobile devices like for example building a music player within your mouth. Another application is in medical sensing for salivary analysis and food analysis.

The last project is Bionic Contact Lenses where technology is embedded in the contact lens. An application could be to project information into the eye, for example, remembering who a particular person is by looking at that person. Another application is medical sensing such as glucose sensing with bionic contacts.

In closing, Desney is talking about the next evolution of HCI that will help bring computing into the real world.



At the end, there was some questions addressed to Desney and Jonathan.



All in all, a great start to what looks to be a great lecture series on HCI in Beijing, something that I miss from my alma mater at University of Toronto.

Friend View and my phone - so happy together

First of all, I hope you all had a great Christmas with family. I know I certainly did with my wife in our first Christmas here in Beijing since our move from Toronto.

I tried to upload version 0.830 of Nokia Friend View on my phone a couple of days ago, but for some strange reason, I kept getting "Certificate error, please contact the vendor". As cryptic as that error message sounds, I checked my certificates that Friend View would use and using my engineering background, tried to reverse engineer from which certificate was causing the problem. After deciding not tinkering with removing the certificates with the risk of making other software on my phone unusable (as is like with Windows machines), I decided to remove Friend View and revert back to the one that did work which was version 0.823. But, alas, I got the same error and couldn't install. Same for Nokia Image Exchange.

All I wanted for Christmas was having my Friend View back, because I couldn't FV on my phone and had to use the web. But seriously, it was probably good to have that break since I'm beginning to be addicted to FV on the phone.

Well, I'm glad to say that my phone and I are back to normal with FV reinstalled after I decided to reinstall my phone by flashing it. Thank you Nokia PC Suite for backing up all my data, all I had to do was restore after installing Friend View and Image Exchange, and it didn't take that long (maybe 10 minutes) to do the restore and I had all my applications and data back to normal. Boy, I wish it was that easy with reinstalling Windows on my PC.

So all is well in Friend View land for me and me and my phone are now happy. Onto enjoying the rest of the Christmas holidays, and hope you are also having a great Christmas holidays too!

Mobile Mondays Beijing event

Right now I'm in the meeting at Mobile Mondays Beijing. This event was started by Benjamin Joffe of PlusStar. The meeting tonight is about foreign firms in China. The speakers for this meeting are Lin Song from Opera China, David Sullivan from Alliance Development Group, Karl J. Weaver from Gemalto China, Dan Wong from Nokia China and Allen Yang from LemonQuest China. There is such a great turnout here at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, around at least 100 people! The speakers are now talking about why they entered into the Chinese market.

Lin Song is talking how Opera started as a narrow facility and then how it expanded in the mobile browser market. Allen Wong says their main reason to come to China was to bring research and development together, produce in China, and then market abroad. LemonQuest does development of mobile games. Karl J. Weaver is now saying why Gemalto came to China because it makes sense to come to the largest market in the world. In fact, I did not know that Gemalto was the original developer of the SIM card that is used in GSM mobile phones. It makes sense to go to China to go to the largest subscriber base. David Sullivan is now explaining that it is important to choose your partners, working with Huawei and ZTE, it's having your engineers work with others. He says that you become "customers of your partners". You must maintain speed and the technology roadmap, you need to have offense to protect your defense, in football speak.

Benjamin is now talking to Dan Wong, VP of Software and Services of Nokia China about how Nokia is getting into the services area. IPR for services and software is more complex, one of the important things is how to protect IPR for your business, one way to do this is to look at China. In China, it is easy to copy products, as people are familiar with. China created free software but charge for time to connect with the server, that is the business model that works, according to Dan. The deeper question is can you develop a business model that is IPR proof, it is broader challenge for developing services globally. Nokia's vision is that OVI provides a very differentiated experiences via just the hardware. According to Karl Weaver, you cannot stop IP, you cannot stop the flow of technology, there are strategies that you can compete. According to David Sullivan, a lot of foreign companies use the same model to start up shop in China, but it doesn't work. Services are becoming very important and critical in China, if you get the service model right then you can protect yourself. You need to keep staying ahead.

How do the foreign companies keep staying ahead, is the next question addressed by Benjamin. According to David Sullivan, it is important to identify the ecosystem and then identify the suppliers, there is a need to be much more creative. From Lin Song of Opera, you need to have a great product and get constant feedback from users.

Third question: What kind of difficulties have you found in growing the business in China?

Karl J. Weaver: Chinese companies treat information as secret, which is frustrating in trying to grow the business in China.

Allen Yang: Foreign companies can never act local when they are global, they say act global stay local.

David Sullivan: A lot of companies go into China and see the level of investment needed, and decide not to come. The challenge is localization, you need to find the Chinese partners and the language. The challenge is also talking with headquarters.

Dan Wong: The biggest challenge is market challenge, the biggest market in the world. In China, there are 2000 models, the level of competition is at an entire new level from the regulatory environment, the unique standards, and the market structure. The biggest challenge is the combination of all those things.

According to David Sullivan, there are companies that are starting to develop with the China market first and then bring it globally, that have 95% of the development work in China. From a consumer demand, Nokia's Dan Wong says want to compete in the services arena in a different way, it is not to replicate this. For mobile music, people in China will pay for downloading music, Dan says we are seeing pockets of opportunity.

Question: What are some failures and success stories with your companies?

Lin Song: There is an importance of finding the right people, it is not that they are not competent, it is the element of trust.

David Sullivan: A lot of companies project their experiences but have no idea what is going on, which results in failure. when companies find the right technology fit and right partner, and commit to that localization, then there is a lot of opportunity for success.

In the end, a great talk and discussion, I've never been to an event where there was so many people listening to the speakers, and there is internet access, and power where my seat is! Now, it's time to network and eat a light buffet!

Went to Bird's Nest and Water Cube!

I had the wonderful privilege last week to go watch the Olympic athletics events at the National Olympic Stadium aka Bird's Nest. I also was able to see the Water Cube from outside (didn't get tickets for inside). The views of both are breathtaking. You can see the photos here on Ovi:



Beijing has really put on a spectacular show for the Olympics to the world and it is going to be difficult for London in 2012 to top this off.

Also, I've updated photos from the Beijing Food channel and Around Beijing channel where I went to see the Temple of Heaven and Wangfujing.

Around Beijing:



Beijing Food:



Enjoy!

On Technorati: Beijing Olympics

Toronto TTC may finally be with the rest of the world

I just read this post from BlogTO today about how the Toronto Transit Commission will be ordering new TTC subways and transforming their stations with a system that actually lights up and announces the current station and next station is in the subway cars. Some photos of this here courtesy of BlogTO:

LED lights in the subway car of the route you are taking:



Outside of the subway car:



Inside the new subway car:



Finally, the TTC is getting along with the times. After riding subways in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, I'm so fascinated at the efficiency and promptness of these subway systems and wonder why Toronto can't do the same. A transit system is behind the life of a city, it is what makes the city thrive. As I am in Beijing now, I am impressed at how Beijing was able to get so many new subway lines installed and operating this year for the Olympics. The subway system in Beijing here is just great, it runs smoothly and it is a pleasure to use. When I always come back to Toronto, I really envy the subway system abroad and wish Toronto would have a system like that. Well, it looks like Toronto may finally have, and about time too!

On Technorati: Toronto Transit System

new Beijing photo channels on Ovi

I've organized my photos into several channels for easy access in Ovi. They are the following:

1. Beijing Olympics channel



2. Around Beijing channel



3. Beijing food channel



Enjoy and post comments if you have any.

Final torch relay in Beijing before opening ceremonies tonight

Today, I had the wonderful privilege on behalf of Nokia to witness and see the torch relay in our area (Beijing Economic Technological and Development Area). Today is the final leg of the torch relay before it enters the National Olympic Stadium for tonight's opening Olympic ceremonies. It seems so surreal that I'm actually here in Beijing and witnessing this live.

I managed to take some pictures which I've uploaded to Nokia's Ovi service using my Nokia N82 cell phone. Unfortunately, the most important event when the torch flame was exchanged between the torch bearer and the other one here at leg 114 (seen
below), I wasn't able to capture because my cell phone ran out of battery!



Here is a picture of me below.



By the way, you can view more pics from this momentous event from Ovi here. And if you want to try out Ovi (instructions here), it's quite nice, it seems to work pretty well and you can download the Ovi client on your Nseries phone to view pictures and your friends' pictures.

Going around Beijing

While I'm not at Nokia Research, I'm going around Beijing along with my wife. This past weekend we were looking at apartments to rent. Here are some pictures around Beijing.

Enjoy! It's really hot in Beijing now and everyone is gearing up for the Olympics. There are so many people wearing Beijing Olympics T-shirts with a red-band on their hand, these people are Olympic volunteers who will direct people to the Olympic venues. Apparently, those volunteers get to ride free on the Beijing subway!

Arrived in Beijing

I've just arrived with my wife in Beijing and staying at a temporary apartment until we find a permanent housing to live. Can't believe that it's finally here, that I'm in Beijing and living and working here. Going to start my first day of work at Nokia Research tomorrow, looking forward to it!

Off to Beijing

I'm at the airport now with my wife and we're waiting for the flight to Beijing. This move is really exciting as I've been in Canada (specifically Toronto) throughout my entire life. I can't wait to start my new job at Nokia Research and I'm looking forward to this new journey in my life.

Please pray for us for a safe flight and a new and blessed beginning in Beijing. Maybe we'll get a chance to see the Olympics while we're there!

Keep reading my blog and keep in touch via e-mail. This is not good bye but a new beginning since so many things have happened in my life this year. And I'm grateful for God for everything in my life, my family, my amazing blessed wife, my exciting new job, and finally nearing towards the end of my PhD (my defense is in November).

God always has a plan for all of us.

Preparing my move to Beijing

Today, the moving company came to move the items that my wife and I are packing to Beijing. They were pretty fast, done within 2 hours, but they had 3 people to help to pack in boxes. Now, it's packing stuff in suitcases and then physically flying to Beijing.

I'm so excited to start a new job in Beijing and with Nokia Research and it will be a great opportunity to start a new life with my wife. I'm beginning to learn how to balance work and family life and having an amazing wife that supports me, I feel I'm the most blessed man and husband in the world.