Digital content consumption, today
It would be an understatement to say that digital content consumption is creating a headache for the traditional providers. The latest public display was billed as Media Brawl at Web 2.0.
Digital content consumption, tomorrow
What is right around the corner is a new generation of techniques and solutions. Here are some of the areas that PARC is working on.
* Non-traditional directed consumption through user generated content such as tags
* Predictive models through sentiment analysis and machine learning
* Distributed content and security management
* Recommendation systems built on reality mining in mobile devices
Digital content consumption, the day after tomorrow
One of the areas that there does not seem to get a lot of attention is how are users actually consuming content. Most the discussions have an implicit assumption of a bygone day when a person would actually devote a chunk of time to an activity, i.e. read a news article, in front of a decent size screen. With smart phone projected to overtake laptop as the most ubiquitous mobile device, the inevitable question in a couple of years is when I am on the go with a smart phone, when and how do I want to consume content?
One of the more interesting insight that PARC has worked on already is the notion of "microwaiting." The simple scenario, albeit a bit scary, is to think of stopping your car at a red light in your morning commute. You know the wait is about 60 seconds. And, guess what, we have found that this is an example where people are very receptive to consume content. Thus the term "microwaiting".
One of the things that people don't often know about is how social science plays a key role at PARC. This is an example where this unique combination of technical and social insight leads to really interesting design and business implications.
p.s. Let me know if you want to learn more about "microwaiting". We have published a CHI paper on this topic.
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P@P
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
What is truly important
Fountain of productivity
It should not come as a surprise that coffee is one of the major fuels behind PARC's work. Similarly, it probably is not a surprise that there is a fairly nice coffee maker that would grind coffee beans on-demand in one of the common areas.
So, what happens when the nice coffee maker breaks?
Coffee maker updates
The coffee maker broke recently and there has been a ground swell of low-level anxiety. Not being a regular coffee drinker myself, I did not even know the thing was not working at first. Then, I noticed that, in the weekly lab meeting, the status of coffee maker became a prominent item that everyone seemed to pay particular attention to.
Not that I am suggesting there was ever a threat of a full-blown riot by the frustrated coffee drinkers. On the other hand, I am glad to report that we now have a fully functional coffee maker again.
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P@P
It should not come as a surprise that coffee is one of the major fuels behind PARC's work. Similarly, it probably is not a surprise that there is a fairly nice coffee maker that would grind coffee beans on-demand in one of the common areas.
So, what happens when the nice coffee maker breaks?
Coffee maker updates
The coffee maker broke recently and there has been a ground swell of low-level anxiety. Not being a regular coffee drinker myself, I did not even know the thing was not working at first. Then, I noticed that, in the weekly lab meeting, the status of coffee maker became a prominent item that everyone seemed to pay particular attention to.
Not that I am suggesting there was ever a threat of a full-blown riot by the frustrated coffee drinkers. On the other hand, I am glad to report that we now have a fully functional coffee maker again.
===
P@P
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Going Mainstream - Cloud Computing's First Black Eye
When a technology goes mainstream
Technology is often known for the hype it generates but less is discussed about when it has gone mainstream. One reason is that when it is integrated into the fabric of everyone usage, it is no longer visible or hype-able (if there is such a word).
Put it another way, when a technology is talked about in the context of violating an unspoken norm of everyday, it is a good indicator that it has gone mainstream.
Cloud Computing's first black eye
So, after all the accolades and fear surrounding Cloud Computing in recent years, this is the first time that it has a specific impact to a substantial number of unfortunate users when T-Mobile, Microsoft 'almost certainly' destroyed users' Sidekick data
Ironic twists of event
The first irony is that this was not high on the list of potential issues that people have been predicting about Cloud Computing.
The second level irony is that this is actually a pretty simple fix that should have been caught/designed-in when the system was being architected.
The third level of irony is that, at the end of day, human remains the biggest variable in the use of a technology.
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P@P
Technology is often known for the hype it generates but less is discussed about when it has gone mainstream. One reason is that when it is integrated into the fabric of everyone usage, it is no longer visible or hype-able (if there is such a word).
Put it another way, when a technology is talked about in the context of violating an unspoken norm of everyday, it is a good indicator that it has gone mainstream.
Cloud Computing's first black eye
So, after all the accolades and fear surrounding Cloud Computing in recent years, this is the first time that it has a specific impact to a substantial number of unfortunate users when T-Mobile, Microsoft 'almost certainly' destroyed users' Sidekick data
Ironic twists of event
The first irony is that this was not high on the list of potential issues that people have been predicting about Cloud Computing.
The second level irony is that this is actually a pretty simple fix that should have been caught/designed-in when the system was being architected.
The third level of irony is that, at the end of day, human remains the biggest variable in the use of a technology.
===
P@P
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Roman Polanski and Sentiments
Polanski in the news
Recently heard that Roman Polanski was captured and there has been lively debate on what to do with him.
I thought this could be an interesting case to see if there is any patterns on sentiments in the digital world. Unlike the Sonia Sotomayor analysis though, this is just a single slice of time look.
In the top 30 terms in the three major web results, most of them seems to be factual with a few negative terms such as "avoided."
(Correction: I originally used "repulsion" as an example of negative term, turns out that it is the title of one of Polanski's films and considered a milestone in the psychological thriller genre. My bad!)
More on the results
A reminder, if you are interested in finding out more about the result details or the inference engine used in this analysis, please let me know at yfjuan (at) parc (dot) com.
Results (top 30 terms ranked in the order of relevance with the most relevant on top)
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P@P
Recently heard that Roman Polanski was captured and there has been lively debate on what to do with him.
I thought this could be an interesting case to see if there is any patterns on sentiments in the digital world. Unlike the Sonia Sotomayor analysis though, this is just a single slice of time look.
In the top 30 terms in the three major web results, most of them seems to be factual with a few negative terms such as "avoided."
(Correction: I originally used "repulsion" as an example of negative term, turns out that it is the title of one of Polanski's films and considered a milestone in the psychological thriller genre. My bad!)
More on the results
A reminder, if you are interested in finding out more about the result details or the inference engine used in this analysis, please let me know at yfjuan (at) parc (dot) com.
Results (top 30 terms ranked in the order of relevance with the most relevant on top)
| Yahoo | Microsoft | |
|---|---|---|
polanski saleby brach escroqueries extradite 8/18/1933 cleland zebiczny pianiste sexual quitters seigner extradition 2000s eatps.web.aol.com wife rozbijemy filming gets chris letterman arrest murderer hour directing revives diamants swindles began musician | polanski travelled directing extradition filming plotted arrest seigner revives murdered roman pleaded arrested dated credited fleeing letterman filmmaker zebiczny repulsion personals directors celebrated avoided meets zurich dwts favre fired collaborated | polanski extradition obama sotomayor gmail geimer zebiczny bankrupt filmography 8/18/1933 getty looting seigner tmz murderer rozbijemy msnbc extradite vick credited repulsion qaida drama screenwriter afghan feeds ancestor swindlers |
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P@P
Monday, October 5, 2009
CCN open source release at CCNX.ORG
A new approach to networking
I have made references to the CCN project that a team at PARC is working on. Very glad to report that the first open source release has gone live at www.ccnx.org
PARC Newsletter announcement
PARC just released an early version of open source infrastructure software and protocol specifications for our "Content-Centric Networking (CCN)" architecture. Our goal is to enable experimentation in the network research community and establish a foundation of open core protocols for content networking. We are also beginning to work with clients to explore new business solutions enabled by the CCN approach.
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P@P
I have made references to the CCN project that a team at PARC is working on. Very glad to report that the first open source release has gone live at www.ccnx.org
PARC Newsletter announcement
PARC just released an early version of open source infrastructure software and protocol specifications for our "Content-Centric Networking (CCN)" architecture. Our goal is to enable experimentation in the network research community and establish a foundation of open core protocols for content networking. We are also beginning to work with clients to explore new business solutions enabled by the CCN approach.
===
P@P
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