Back in the 1990s, people surf the Internet using their phone lines with dial-up modem. Things have changed quite a bit now. These days, we make phone calls over the Internet either through DSL, cable, WLAN, or other medium of connections. This trend seems to take another step further with not only having voice communicate over the Internet, but for video as well. The Internet will be a disruptive technology on the future of video delivery and rich media contents. Traditional television broadcast, in particular, may see a huge shift of users using their Internet connection to watch tv shows, movies, and daily news. In Computer Science, topic areas in distributed systems and peer-to-peer networks will be important on the future of IPTV.
In recent years, we are starting to see more and more displays around us, starting with our computer monitors to flat panel TVs in the living room, and more recently, digital photo frames. Outside the home, similar trends is happening as the digital signage industry continues to gain ground. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. People are fascinated with pictures and this will have an important impact on the future of the display industry.
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to try a little experiment with my roommate. Using a large online picture album in Flickr, we stream targeted pictures to a computer monitor as screensaver. We used a simple freeware package called Slickr and it worked beautifully on the first try. Here is the link to download Slickr: http://cellardoorsw.com/?page_id=4
Soon thereafter, contents in the display will be dynamic, customized, and streamed on-the-fly. The display experience in the future will be exciting to watch.
Posted in future, technology | Tagged display | Leave a Comment »
A few months ago, I took a graduate course from the UCI Paul Merage Business School. First, I should say that it was a great honor to have taken Professor Kenneth Kraemer’s class, especially since it was his last time teaching a class at UC Irvine after 40 years. Professor Kraemer is a great educator, and a very friendly and approachable person.
From this class, I had the opportunity to write a case study on a high-tech company where Information Technology played a critical role on the company’s success. And it so happens that I was interested in digging deeper into Google, one of the most admirable companies in the world. Few months later now, the paper has matured through several makings and I am honored to have the chance in publishing this paper in UC Irvine’s own Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), one of the world’s leading think tanks on the impact of information technology on organizations and society.
Here is the link to the Google paper published on February 2007.
I hope the materials written in the paper are accurate to the best of my knowledge. I welcome anyone who may have comments on this work. My email address is: rex@uci.edu
Posted in technology | Tagged research | 1 Comment »
During this past week, I gave a presentation in my Ubiquitous Computing course on the topic of Indoor Communications. The intent was to introduce and describe a number of communication technologies for applications for indoor communications. In my presentation, I touched on a number of communication technologies including Bluetooth, Powerline, and Infrared.
Here is the slides to my powerpoint presentation on February 6th, 2007.
However, it seems to me that none other than 802.11 Local Area Network is the clear winner for indoor communications. In many residential and even some metropolitan areas today, we already detect multiple wireless access points nearby. Furthermore, besides having 802.11 wireless access points in the typical household with multiplePCs and laptops for sharing Internet connection, there are now a number of consumer products that are already or soon-to-be wi-fi enabled (e.g. cell phones, Skype phones, cameras, and digital photo frames) AlthoughWi-Fi is known to have interference issues in the open spectrum, over time I think there will be technological solutions to this problem such as cognitive radios.
The FONera Movement is an interesting business case of using wireless access points as a mechanism to share network connection with every consumer being also a service provider. Currently, the target rate for FON routers is to reach a critical mass of having 1 in 10,000 FON routers to human population per country around the world.
Posted in future, technology | Tagged ubiquitous computing | Leave a Comment »
In the past, I used to think that Time Management is simply a waste of time. After all, it takes time to manage how one would like to allocate his schedule. However, as I get older, I realized that more responsibilities are piled up, more role playing are required, while using the same amount of time that everyone has, twenty-four hours a day.
I am now starting to learn about time management and how it needs to be done. Time management is about productivity, efficiency, patience, and priority setting. One needs to think ahead, be able to say “no,” and yet stay truthful with oneself. Furthermore, time management is about when to stay focus, when to juggle multiple tasks, and when to relax with busy schedules. Working day and night without any breaks can quickly lead to burn-out, which can transform into unproductive down-turn. As I am writing this entry, I am feeling the importance of time management . However busy one can be, I realized that having a tight schedule can also be quite exciting to see how far one can stretch and reach his limits.
Posted in living | Tagged development | 1 Comment »
VoIP technology has been around for quite some time. However, it is now emerging as a mainstream form of communication. First, many traditional telephony companies are having difficult times competing withVoIP firms such as Vonage, SunRocket, ViaTalk due to competitive pricing while offering comparable voice quality. In addition, applications such as Skype is becoming pervasive and allowing people around the world to connect.
However, there are now many other web applications offering similar services such as Skype, the difference being that they do not have millions of online subscribers. And they too are getting very competitive. For example, I recently found theseVoIP applications to allow “free” international calls either directly from your PC or mobile device. The technology is not completely mature as there are limitations such as the countries it can reach and some countries are limited to dial land-line calls only. However, the services will get better in time, and the days of expensive international calling rates will disappear. This is a very exciting time for communication and the movement is going towards simplicity, free services and common technology.
Check out these VoIP sites:
Posted in future, technology | Tagged VoIP | 1 Comment »
Although holiday season is usually the time for celebration, I learned that it is also a great time to get things done. Rather than going outside to get cramped with people, simply staying put can be much more productive. For myself, during this time I bonded with new friends in graduate school, catch up with old ones, and more importantly, get to learn more computing. I also realized that during a time where most people get extended days off such as the Holiday season, we get to know people better, their personalities, and their behaviors. Of course, no one wants to be lonely, but people should also keep in mind “how much fun is enough?” In addition, it is hard to keep our regular spending habits “on par” as most people, including myself, are on a spending spree. But once again, with good discipline and periodic check-up, things should be fine.
I started off 2007 by writing down some short-term and long-term goals that I would like to accomplish. I would like to get more organized and stay on top of things. Furthermore, in 2007, I hope to spend more time on research in school. Personally, I think 2007 will be an important year for me, both in academic and in life. This will be an exciting and challenging year.
Posted in living, observation | Tagged goals | Leave a Comment »
