Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Image Data Analysis

I saw this interesting image analysis demonstration few days ago.
Beside the fact that one of the contributors is teaching in the university I 'visited', I thought it could be a good concept for other tools.




Source: Fascinating! Content Aware Image Resizing
And comments: A Tempest In A Teacup?
And more comments: Image Resizing: Third Party Online Working Demo


What if we could apply this to eMail as well?
Let's say that you wake up in the morning to a list of 200 eMails in your Inbox...

Imagine you could resize the Inbox (of use another controller, such as a slider) to filter out eMails, based on the level of 'energy'/'relevancy' and so on.

We all know tools that assist you file and filter these types of eMails - but to actually be able to see the 'spam' vanish would be a great, satisfying experience.

I plan to work on it (when I have some time...)

E.T.

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Club Penguin

Last year my young daughter came to me and said: "I need a Job"

"Why?" I asked. "So I could subscribe to clubpenguin and buy an ice castle to my penguin" she replied.
She also wanted to buy a disco floor for the castle (and she was laughing when I showed her what disco was all about...).

So our connection to the club was established long time ago...



As "...Club Penguin has joined the Walt Disney Company in a business partnership..." time will tell if the Penguin will save its unique experience and features - or would it become an extension to the other Disney network (Mini-penguin)...

The "official" image may hold the answer:


Club Penguin price tag was around $700,000,000....



E.T.

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Monday, August 13, 2007

Buzzword Preview

I was looking into "Buzzword" an Adobe Flex based word-processor from developed by virtub.

Beyond beta related issues (loosing connection to the server and other errors), the Buzzword behave as an application (not as a Web application / Website).

Like other current (online) word processors, Buzzword is focused on the practical features and not on everything.

The main features I liked were:

  1. Group Tool Tip - When hovering on the toolbar, Buzzword present the tips to all the items in the category - allowing the user to find what s/he looking for without the need to 'click around' for help.



  2. Table Controller - Buzzword introduce a very simple and powerful interface for controlling a table. It is simple to use the toolbar (as in other applications), and you could also edit/control the table, using in-place controller. It is really cool way to add and remove rows and columns without looking context.



  3. Color Schemes - Buzzword makes it easy to select and to use matching colors across the document. Just select a scheme and stay with it.

There are many other nice features, some are common and some may differentiate Buzzword from other similar offerings.

For early access to "Buzzword" click here.


E.T.

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Friday, July 27, 2007

Notes from reading "The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun



The book includes many interesting topics and anecdotes about innovation, innovators and other factors, effecting and building the myths around innovation.

Scott did a great job encapsulating different phases and steps an innovative person or team go through doing the 'innovation' process as well as the different perspectives people have on the innovation before and after the acceptableness of it.

For Example:

Challenges: Find an Idea, develop a solution, secure sponsorship or funding, reproduce, reach customers.

Probability: (assuming 50% success rate and based on the challenges)
50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%=0.390625%
(do not get depressed, just yet...)

Feedback you better expect:
It will never work, no one will want it, it cannot work in practice, this is not the problem... Get out of my office...

and why you got it:
Ego, pride, politics, fear, priority, sloth, security, greed and consistency.

The bottom line is that there is no magic (now you can get depressed...) but there is a lot of hard work, timing, luck, curiosity, knowledge and focus involved.

the book includes many interesting quotes, such as:
"...History is written by those who wind and those who dominate... - Edward Said"
"...History is the lie commonly agreed upon... - Voltaire"
"...It does not matter where you start, as long as you start... - John Cage"
"...How do you systematize innovation? ... You do not... - Steve Jobs"
So - get back to work and hope one day you could look back and notice/appreciate your innovations.

E.T.

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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Visuals and Contact Us

Like many, I am also looking for original visuals during presentations, demos and prototype development. There are many good (and reasonably not expensive) sources for these visuals.

If you are using Adobe CS2/3, it is easy to use Adobe Bridge and the stock photos.



For other images, I sometime use iStockPhoto as well.



But sometime, you just need something completely different.

There are many amazing independent photographers and artists who can provide you with unique visuals.

Some of them are using their Blogs or Websites, like Jon Hope to promote their work



while other are using services such as http://www.zhibit.org, where many artists have a platform to show their work (and get paid as well...).



A side note:
Sometime you would like to contact the photographer.
I think the "Contact Us/Me" page is a very important part of the branding.
Sometime you find a long list of links and phone numbers, sometime just an address, but some time you get more...

I really liked Jon Hope's contact page.


This visual gave me the feeling this person been places and is not just a name / URL.
(plus + he has some great work of art on his site).

E.T.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Adobe Flex Prototypes

I am working on some prototypes using Adobe Flex (again).

The applications I'm prototyping merge information from several systems and hopefully would have a cool UI...

Adobe Flex has a great 'out of the box' containers, controllers and other layout capabilities, which make it a great tool for building these type of applications.

As you can imagine, some custom containers are required to enhance the basic capabilities and experiences.

Many good people are creating these components and sharing/selling them.
For example, the Adobe Flex Exchange, Andrew Trice Blog and Quietly Scheming (as shown).



I am using the Flex Style Explorer to create and test CSS play with visuals ideas.

Back to Flex syntax now...

E.T.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I've touched an iPhone...Well...Almost

I met one of my friends at work today and he showed (or should I say - 'showed off') me his new iPhone.

"What is this rubber box?" I asked...

"iPhone with a condom" he replied.

Well... I guess this is what 'safe communication' is all about...



Source: apple store

What can I say...The screen looks very protected and the rest was very black.
Great to view and 'interesting' to touch.

This is the closest I will get to an iPhone until my friend will have more trust in me...

E.T.


Friday, July 6, 2007

Identity by the Crowds

I was looking into several online identity management systems over the weekend and got derailed to another track. Many of these systems based their users identification on eMail-verification and complex passwords permutations. I thought to myself - why not using my Webcam or image related data as a step in the process.

I've checked some of my bookmarks for an old project I did a long time ago, trying to find some references and examples. I found some new links and ideas.
For example:

So far so good. There is a progress in the technology as well as in the related products and services.

Then I started wondering...

What would happen in case my face and my identity are being matched by the crowd?

Riya and Polar Rose Provide the capability to assign names (identities) to images/faces.

Riya:

Polar Rose:


Few questions came up:
  • What would happen if, let say, 5-100 of my 'closest friends' decide to get a 'head start' and assign a different name to my public photos/face... "The community will moderate itself" is usually the answer...
  • Can we use these techniques to recognize Avatars ( and is this the next step? :-) )
  • (When) Can we expect ads based on face/item recognition?
From a product/service point of view, I would like to use these capabilities off-line (as well), so I could have some control over the identities associated with my photos and videos collections, before I upload them to the crowds...

E.T.


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Sunday, July 1, 2007

The Fast and the Arrogant

During one of the sessions on virtual worlds at the Under the Radar conference last week, one of the VC panel members talked about "conventional social network" Vs. virtual worlds.
Although I was listening to buzzwords all day long, this phrase caught my attention. I joked about it with Andreas from SAP Venture. It made me feel so old for 'still' having interest in social network and for having the feeling this domain should not be "archived", just yet...

I was thinking about this over the weekend. I could not find the right way to express what I thought about it, until I saw Marc Andreessen's post:

"...

More recently, aided and abetted by new communications technologies such as blogging and instant messaging, the inside baseball effect has become particularly acute and short-sighted among the group Josh Kopelman famously dubbed the Techcrunch 50,000 -- the core group of Internet industry aficionados and early adopters, including myself and many of my friends, who live, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

It works like this: A new technology hits the market in its earliest form -- social networking, or peer-to-peer video streaming, or voice over IP, or widget-style embedding, or now the Facebook platform. Said technology is rapidly adopted by the Techcrunch 50,000, who jump all over it, enthuse about it, dissect it, analyze it, write about it, use it some more, find some limitations in it, tire of it, cynically dismiss it, and then move on to the next thing, almost overnight.

Sometimes the new thing then proceeds to fall over and die, starved of attention and press coverage, and forever confined to life in a tiny niche of die-hards. And the Techcrunch 50,000 say, yep, called it.

But sometimes, the new thing goes on its merry way, ignored and dismissed by the in crowd, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows -- and is ultimately discovered by millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or even billions of people all around the world who incorporate it into their daily lives and don't have the foggiest idea that there was ever a group of insiders who dismissed it a few weeks into its pre-adolescence.

..."

Open questions:
  • Are we moving too fast?
  • Do VCs dismiss good ideas/products/companies just because they are on a chase for the 'next big thing'?
  • Are we 'early adopters' or just beta testers?



Going fast in great, as long as we do not miss or dismiss opportunities and as long as we are not being arrogant to those who think they can improve current products/services/technologies. Event if they are "so 5 minutes ago"...

E.T.

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Saturday, June 30, 2007

Who Participates And What People Are Doing Online

Very interesting statistics on who is participating in online activities and what they are doing (USA online users) from BusinessWeek.


(Original image)

UPDATE
Could not resist adding this clip




E.T.

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Friday, June 29, 2007

In-video Search and Ads

I would like to share with you some thoughts and questions I had during the “Under The Radar Entertainment and Media” Conference yesterday.



Notes:

There is a need for in-video search capabilities, both for people and for business. For people – it will allow finding relevant movies from large catalogs and aggregated sites, and even easy navigation to a specific frame within these movies. For business – it will allow a new type of monetization models on top of user-generated-content.

Some of the issues related to ads within Internet-videos (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) are very similar to mainstream TV. People do not like ads and would skip them if they have a chance. I know I skip them by using Tivo. (I learned that there are already tools for skipping ads within these movies as well…)
Some ads are not related to the show or even the show content is harmful to the marketed brand.

Most companies I saw so far are using Adobe Flash as the delivery format. Using Flash allows merging the movies and the ads into one experience. The main experience I saw so far were textual ads Vs. multimedia ads (a movie within a movie). Encapsulated experience (the information is presented within the player) Vs. Open experience (the ads send the viewer to a Webpage).

Another trend is developing the ads using an ‘ad market place’ where creative professionals and amateurs ‘compete’ on advertisements projects.




My thoughts:

  • Advertising within content (video, feeds, etc.) becomes more relevant as the content available via many portals (destination sites).
  • People will continue to skip ads (manually or with some help from independent technologies) while advertisers will continue to push their messages across channels.
  • Advertisement agencies leverage creativity from many sources, with a low cost.
  • How can content producers be compensated for their content when it been used as a marketing vehicle?
  • From “Who own the channel?” to “Who own the clip?”

An interesting example for an ad from my friend Craig Cmehil:




is the new interesting in-video company I saw.
(http://www.pluggd.com/)
With a very interesting text search capability, based on the audio track analysis, as well as "heat map" navigation concept for the scrollbar.
(And again… where was I…)


E.T.

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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Logo of the Day: HotHead Games

From all the companies I saw today at the "Under the Radar Entertainment and Media" Conference, HotHead Games has the best logo (visual design, association to the company / brand / products) by far:



Great logo for a game development company!

E.T.

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Word of the Day: WAG

I’m attending the "Under the Radar Entertainment and Media" Conference today and learning many new things about ads and technology (more posts are on the way…)

One of the terms I hear everywhere is “WAG”.
I searched about it for 5 minutes and found some relevant data.


But all of these are not in the context of today’s discussions.

Today WAG stands for “What about Google?”.


Interesting…

E.T.


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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Video Sharing with eSnips / or how eSnips saved my day/face

Today I received an eMail from a friend, asking for my help posting/hosting two, 12 minutes long, training videos, produced by her company.

“You know this stuff, it should not be a problem for you” she wrote. “What the problem?” I replied, “Just YouTube them …”

As it seems, YouTobe as well as other sites I checked has a 10 minutes length limit. (I guess it has good reasons for that, mainly due to copyrights and people posting TV shows…)

“Send me the files using yousendit and I will cut them into shorter movies” I suggested. (Being as productive and lazy as possible, at the same time). “No” she replied, “We tried that, but the movies have to be presented as is”.

So I had to find another solution.

One option was to simply convert the movies from WMV to FLV and upload them to my friend’s site. But I did not have the right tool installed (yet), due to my recent switch to Mac. I also wanted the movies to play within a player (to allow play, stop, rewind and other operations).


So – back to posting/hosting/sharing solutions…

Recently I learned that videoegg have a great interface, allowing you to edit and convert movies on your local machine before uploading them to their site. I created an account, downloaded the Safari plug in and gave it a try. The process was fast and fun. The only problem was that a water-mark of flip4mac was added to the exported movie… WTF?!

I know they have a great video encoders and converters – but I was not expecting to see this. What good is the videoegg plug-in if it does not provide a complete solution? Should I pay for the convector? Does this really save me time?

Anyway – after a cup of coffee I decided to address this issue not as “video posting” challenge but as a content sharing challenge. I thought about online services I use to host my data.

I’ve checked box.net, but my free account does not allow me to upload files larger than 10mb…

And then I remembered that I am using another site to host a verity of files and formats. eSnips is a content/community portal and service. eSnips supports many content types.






Full of hope, I’ve logged in to my account and set a new public folder. I’ve uploaded the two 90Mb WMV files within few minutes and...

Success!!!

I’ve used the video widget to embed the movies within the eSnips player and send the code to my friend.

As a bonus – the WMV files were converted automatically to FLV, so I could download them for future use.

Talk about a great service!
;-)

So this is how, by the end of the day, I helped my friend and mained my “multimedia guru” reputation.
(At least with her…)

E.T.


PS – This is a movie, demonstrating some of the service features, I found on eSnips.








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Monday, June 25, 2007

10 reasons why I switched to Mac (MacBook Pro)

  1. So I could start my day with a smile and not with "Control" "Alt" "Delete".
  2. So I will not have only 1 hour of power.
  3. So I will not have to wait 5 minutes every time my laptop is waking up.
  4. So I could use my 24" Screens without the need to upgrade drivers and boost my docking stations beyond their limits.
  5. So I could open Photoshop files and get work done within less than 30 minutes.
  6. So I will not have the IT department pushing me "Critical Updates" every other day. (Especially the Excel French dictionary…)
  7. So my digital camera and I will be friends again.
  8. So I could run “Windows” within a small window (just for eMail and other must have Enterprise applications).
  9. So I could have videoconferences without any cables.
  10. So I would feel like I care about it and write this list.

:-)

E.T.

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

The iPhone and Interaction Design

I like great, simple, functional design.
I do.
So - like many others, I also got as close as I could get to the new Apple iPhone by viewing the latest iPhone tour.

I really liked what I saw for two main reasons: (1) It seems like a really innovative and great product. (2) It is not perfect. Do not get me wrong - I am not taking pleasure in others problems, it just make me feel better about the challenges I'm facing when designing complex business products.

The interaction design of this device is outstanding. There are some new ideas I did not see or think of before, made available by using the touch-screen, which inspired me.

But I also saw great examples from how hard it is providing a continuously interaction model, even within this 'closed' device (The interaction options are well defined. The device has known display options).

As I reviewed the movie I've noticed that some of the interactions, especially regarding zoom actions, are different.
I think I've noticed that because the iPhone is promoted as a one device with all these great integrated applications (you can call by clicking numbers appearing in notes, eMail, SMS and such, for example) and the experience is not as integrated as for the zoom actions.

Some examples:

Zooming in:

In documents such as Excel and PDF zooming in done by using two fingers clicking and dragging to opposite directions.




In Safari (browser) and in the Google maps zooming in done by double taps on the area you would like to increase.



Zooming out
is done by tapping with two fingers in the Google map and with one tap (and finger) in the browser and other applications.




I think this shows the complexity of designing and building a system/device/service, composed by many providers. Some additional challenges, in business applications, include legacy systems with totally different UI concepts and technologies.

Overall – I think the iPhone is a very promising device and I will keep monitoring and looking for opportunities to use its (current) unique capabilities beyond the consumer market.

E.T.

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Thoughts on video search and in-video ads

Yesterday afternoon at Supernova, thirteen companies selected by TechCrunch and Supernova presented 5 minutes demos.

ReadWriteWeb coveted the demos very well.

The interesting discussed trends were around mobile applications and experiences, vertical search and in-video ads.

I found the direction of creating an “ad layer” on top of user-generated content very interesting.
The mechanism of adding ‘business value’ at post-production phase seems very scalable.

About 4 years ago, I was working with some of my team members on developing eLearning tools to capture knowledge within enterprises. The concept was very simple.
Take long recording of training sessions, NetMeeting/WebEx sessions and analyze the video stream. We found and indexed video frames where a new side was shown, when a new topic was discussed and so on. We were working on an OCR capability to automate adding labels to the index. The end result was a create tool to capture and generate many eLearning units – used by SAP Developer Network ever since…

Well… These were very simple videos and the eBooks were very structured. Today, the user-generated-videos as well as other high quality video clips are more complex and understanding/mining them can be used for more than smart indexing.

Some of the parameters that could be use to analyze a video could include:

  • Tags
    • Use tags to find key terms
  • Audio
    • Voice-to-Text, find key terms
    • Theme – could be recognize and tagged
  • Video/Image
    • OCR – extract the text, find key terms
    • Colors – colors could be matched to tagged branding colors
    • Refresh rate – indicate the pace of the video and could be use for tagging and matching
  • Time
    • Used to create anchors within the data stream
  • Links to this object
    • Indicates domains with interests in this content

So – by analyzing video content objects using such mechanism, one (or a system) could create a good meta-data level understanding of the content and other parameters which define the content and be able to match it to other content objects (such as ads) with similar characteristics. These days, using Adobe Flash and other multi-media formats, the ‘Ad layer’ could be added to relevant content. The time anchors in the movies provide an opportunity to provide the ads in context and on time.


adap.tv show a great demo of these capabilities.

I was focusing on better service to the users and they found a way to make money out of it... Why didn’t I think about it…

☺

E.T.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

SuperNova2007 (6/...)

Does the Net Need an Upgrade?
(Van Jacobson, Rick Hutley, Norman Lewis, David Isenberg)

Applications, user expectations, business arrangements, and infrastructure demands are all changing as the Internet converges with voice, video, and mobile networks. There are even calls for a fundamental technical redesign of the Net, in order to address scaling, security, and other needs. Will the Internet of the next decade look different than the Internet of today? Should it?



Notes:

Rick Hutley:
• The Internet is not “out there” – it is a collections of activities shared by people and companies.
• The Internet as corporation use it – keep changing.
• The upgrade should be defined by the entities that use it.
• Security will continue to be a problem, as the nature of business become more complex.

Norman Lewis:
• We need to define who to engage in a discussion with the stakeholders and users.
• Security is a main topic. How do we create a balanced process and result?

Van Jacobson:
• The protocol was design in 1975 and was changed only 3 times since. And this is very good, compared to the telephone system – from a scale point of view.
• Keeping the “Net” simple was achieved by following the concept of pushing everything to the edge.
• The place we could not push to the edge was security. The “Net” is moving data and the “Net” is blind to the dataset, therefore it cannot help the end points with security. “Garbage/threats” in “garbage/threats” out.
• We need to upgrade the content and the ways to secured it – keep the “Net” simple.
• Making the “center/core” more complex will not work.

David Isenberg
• We need to be careful when trying to fix the current issues not to cause more damage.
• There are calls for upgrading the “Net” be companies – trying to support their current business models (limit Internet solutions that affect their business – for example – phone companies who would like to charge more for Internet services, providing VoIP).



My Thoughts:

Similar to ‘upgrading’ the ‘Web’ (offerings, services, applications) to ‘Web2.0’, upgrade of the Internet should bring real value and new concepts/applications.
There are constant changes in the way people and companies/organizations are using the Internet.
No one can stop current processes as these activities happens at the edges and are motivated by market needs. It cannot be stopped or rebooted.

As for the responsibility for the security issue (Network core/protocol or applications at the edge), the panel used examples of sending a secured letters via the mail.

My example would be related to cars, trains and travel: At the edge, cars ars are getting better, safer, faster, smarter, greener, while in the core, the infrastructure is lagging behind. Forcing new order in transportation is like forcing cars to be loaded onto trains and travel on specific rails.



It is the way you would like to travel?
What is worst – a car crash or a train crash?

E.T.

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SuperNova2007 (5/...)

Data dump: KC Claffy
The greatest problems of the Internet… and why we aren’t making measurable progress in solving them.



Notes:

Claffy listed the top operational Internet problems as shown here:
http://www.caida.org/publications/presentations/2005/topproblemsnet/topproblemsnet.pdf

According to her, the problem with this list is that it was complied with uncompleted data, which was collected, by companies and organizations with interests in the domain. Can we trust this data and outcomes?



My Thoughts:

I am concerned from the presented trends, and even more from the notion that professional claim they do not have enough good data, but yet publish their finding…

Is more = less or less = naïve/happy?

One of the key concepts of the Internet, as I heard in the following session, was ‘keep the Net simple and push complexity to the edges’. Maybe the way to receive some relevant data should come from addressing the users issues. Users = customers and that could create more pressure on the providers to share and measure relevant operational data.

E.T.

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SuperNova2007 (4/...)

Spotlight: Udi Manber
Search is at the center of today’s Internet experience. The top search technologist at the top search company discusses where search is going



Notes:

Scale and diversity is amazing. It seems that 20-25% of the queries Google see each day are new…

One of the parameter of the search algorithm is location based, which helps/makes the result to be more relevant to the user.

Instance translation allows people to learn and consume information from other languages.


My thoughts:

Great short session about the current and future search features from Google.

As for the demo we saw - Does “Where I am” indicates “Who I am” and what my interests are?

I guess I could stay logged in to Google at all time and let them track me anywhere I go…


E.T.


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