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Posted by avsm
Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:38:10 GMT
Well I've been back in Cambridge for a week now, catching up on stuff that's been languishing in the last month of travelling. So here are some blog quickies!
- Shouts out to the newest blogger, the least German-like German person I know! Whooooop yeah yeah...
- Released a new version of OpenFX, with some really cool new features from Dr. Stuart Ferguson!
- Sorry about the backlog of OpenBSD-related things; I think I've caught up on all my mails, and imported and updated lots of bits and bobs and ports. Please re-mail me if I've ignored anything you have sent me recently.
- Released a test version of review2atom, the result of my ocamlduce hackery (and many thanks to Alan Frisch for answering my incessant questions!).
- Submitted DarwinPorts for calendar (dports/devel/caml-calendar) and ocamlduce (dports/lang/ocamlduce).
- I'm going to buy a juicer; turnip smoothie is en route!
Posted in hacking, cambridge | no comments
Posted by avsm
Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:33:43 GMT
One of the more interesting discussions I had during Ubicomp was with Tim Kindberg and a very nice chap from France Telecom who lived in Japan for a few years. He was very familiar with the state of barcode tagging as deployed in Japan, and these points stood out:
Most barcodes in use here are QRCodes and NTT phones come pre-installed with a reader. Users can also install a UPC barcode reader. The first such use of QRCodes you see is in your passport; the entry stamp has a barcode on the sticker with your id number on it.
QRcodes are so easy to read since most camera-phones in Japan are auto-focus, in contrast to our crappy fixed-focus attempts here. Our tests with QRcode reading using the KDDI cellphones were pretty successful due to that alone.
QRCode deployment in Japan is by no means ubiquitous, as reports in some blogs suggest. You find them on some products (like, oddly enough, tissue packets) but most advertising posters are distinctly QRCode-free. I certainly never saw people clicking on them in public over around 3 weeks of wandering around the country. The telcos here draw a clear distinction between content providers and application providers. Phones aren't quite as programmable as in the West, and so most barcodes take you to a webpage portal with various actions (such as buying the product or just linking it for future reference). Of course, phones in Japan have cheap high-bandwidth connectivity, so this works very well without the long latencies and download times that we have to put up with on our carriers. We confirmed this by playing with the phones KDDI provided at the conference. One really interesting example was that mobile phone bills sent out to people in the post have a QRCode on them, which, when clicked, is stored in one of the phone "barcode slots" in the reader application. Users then go to a post office or bank, and can pay that bill by pressing their phone against an RFID reader (which pays the bills for all the QRCodes stored on the phone). A superb example of a pick and drop interface in the wild.
Posted in ubicomp, research | 2 comments
Posted by avsm
Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:01:00 GMT
Ubicomp had a pretty strong technical start in the first few days, at least compared to previous years. The last day of the conference was more HCI-centric, but here's a quick summary of what went on from a combination of notes from myself and Al. It isn't entirely complete, as we admittedly blew off the last session to go watch the September Grand Sumo Tournament (which was unbelievably fun, more on that in a later entry!)
We somehow ended up in the Sumo house during the conference... |
... and found the main ring where battle commenced! |
Later, we found the sumo fanbois gathered around their fave wrestlers banners |
Read more...
Posted in research, ubicomp | no comments
Posted by avsm
Tue, 13 Sep 2005 06:37:00 GMT
I'm in Japan at Ubicomp 2005 at the moment, and have been taking notes along with Al using Subethaedit over the dodgy WiFi network here. The conference has been better than the previous ones I've been, most likely since its in Japan where we can sample some of the more exotic technology in use here. Here's some of the more interesting things we've seen in the first couple of days...
In Japan one drinks... |
... eats ... |
.. and enjoys the view... |
Ubiquitous Networking:
Read more...
Posted in research, ubicomp | no comments
Posted by avsm
Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:57:22 GMT
The time has come to reveal a dark secret, hidden for many years, subject to taunting from my esteemed colleagues (you know who you are!). Yes, its true... I dont know how to swim!. Never got around to it... sink like a rock ... nose too big ... the excuses really piled up.
However, after several viewings of Titanic on various plane journies and cheap movie nights, it was time to end this impasse. And, luckily enough, my buddy Colin in Hong Kong has a pool at his place in Tsing Yi. A mere two hours of trying later (and some expert tuition), I can do a backstroke and avoid drowning and crying like a baby! And even better, I'm spending a week in a hotel in Japan, with a pool! Is this heaven?
PS: Your turn to learn now djs. Oops, did I just reveal two dark personal secrets in this blog exclusive?
Posted in travel, sport, cambridge | no comments
Posted by avsm
Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:18:39 GMT
I decided to stop by Hong Kong for a couple of days en route to Ubicomp in Japan, and stayed with Sibyl's parents and Colin for a couple of days. My impression of Hong Kong has just been completely awesome! Its been a packed couple of days, as we walked up to Victoria Peak to get a really cool view of the city from above, grabbed the Star Ferry to look at the mainland side, and of course went shopping everywhere to find the good deals.
Some things really made Hong Kong stand out though...
- The Octopus card is an anonymous stored-value card that you just put some cash into, and can then seamlessly use on all of the public transport (and even restaurants and dessert places). It makes it so quick and easy to get around. London is just starting to catch up with Oyster, but Hong Kong leads the way with almost everyone having this card. It's great to see it implemented the correct way and letting individuals preserve their anonymity instead of a centralised e-cash system.
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The food is simply awesome, ranging from the seafood on the floating Jumbo to the incredibly fresh Mango deserts at Hui Lau Shan. Not only does it taste great and fresh, its super-cheap, as most people I talked to preferred to eat out rather than cook as it works out cheaper and easier!
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Everything is clean and spotless; although most people live in really tall tower blocks, the public places are really large and well laid out, so it never felt claustrophobic (even coming from somewhere like little Cambridge).
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Unlike Japan, where its quite a lot of hassle to get around without speaking some Japanese, most people I met in Hong Kong spoke enough English to get by (as you might imagine given its history). It was much less stress-free; I could consider living in Hong Kong I think, unlike Japan which I love to visit but not actually move to.
- It isn't flat. Must...leave...Cambridge...
Hong Kong on a misty day
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I loved the floating restaurants |
Buildings. Lots of buildings |
Posted in travel | no comments
Posted by avsm
Tue, 09 Aug 2005 18:36:07 GMT
My Dad and I have been in India for over a week now, travelling across quite a few cities visiting relatives and catching up with friends. Our trip started in Bangalore, unfortunately for the funeral service a close family friend. Despite the reasons for going, Bangalore turned out to be the first city in India I would describe as "pleasant", with glorious sunshine and a temperature that was always just right!
I was pretty impressed with the pace of development there as well, with software development being outsourced there at a huge rate. However, despite the shining new Silicon Valley-style buildings, the infrastructure still needs a lot of work as traffic is insane and getting around the place is pretty tough (starting with the lame airport!). It's been 23 years since I was last here, and it's definitely been worth the visit. Dad and I are currently in Hyderabad, so here are a few pictures I snapped over the last few days.
The memorial ceremony |
Traffic really is crazy |
It looks like de_dust! |
Posted in travel, india | no comments
Posted by avsm
Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:05:02 GMT
So I'm half-way to Tokyo Narita on a Lufthansa flight, and I happened to open my laptop and discover that they have in-flight WiFi access!
So I did what any self-respecting person would do ... update my blog!
Very cool indeed, although a bit latent it offers complete IP access (no proxies), and even UDP so Skype works (barely).
sleek:~ avsm$ ping recoil.org
PING recoil.org (194.70.3.133): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 194.70.3.133: icmp_seq=0 ttl=235 time=631.553 ms
64 bytes from 194.70.3.133: icmp_seq=1 ttl=235 time=629.864 ms
64 bytes from 194.70.3.133: icmp_seq=2 ttl=235 time=626.753 ms
sleek:~ avsm$ traceroute recoil.org
traceroute to recoil.org (194.70.3.133), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 172.16.64.1 (172.16.64.1) 3.330 ms 26.993 ms 2.348 ms
2 cbb-cds-psn.by.boeing (172.16.0.18) 2.131 ms 2.177 ms 2.074 ms
3 sbs.by.boeing (172.31.0.1) 2.500 ms 2.797 ms 2.137 ms
4 * * *
5 10.10.36.21 (10.10.36.21) 587.252 ms 745.720 ms 581.943 ms
6 mos02r03-v25.connexionbyboeing.net (10.10.36.2) 769.563 ms 583.565 ms 581.822 ms
7 mos02r21-f2-9.connexionbyboeing.net (10.10.32.25) 580.833 ms 869.622 ms 656.564 ms
8 10.10.32.33 (10.10.32.33) 581.529 ms 764.980 ms 570.506 ms
9 mos02r01-f2-3.connexionbyboeing.net (10.10.32.130) 585.012 ms 582.451 ms 768.756 ms
10 mos02r02-f2-3.connexionbyboeing.net (10.10.32.131) 580.568 ms 580.606 ms 586.664 ms
11 asd2-rou-1014.nl.eurorings.net (134.222.97.217) 1391.234 ms 737.475 ms 1024.744 ms
(...etc)
Posted in travel | no comments
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