The Massive Technology Show, Fourth Time Around

As I’ve writ­ten in ear­lier post­ings, I have soft spot in my heart for the annual Mas­sive Tech Expo. I remem­ber learn­ing about it first in Boston, before I moved to Van­cou­ver, and then decid­ing to have our first exploratory visit to the city coin­cide with it, back in 2005. Read­ers of this blog know that it was through this show that I even­tu­ally got my first job here, and also met the owner of the condo that we ended up buy­ing. That first Mas­sive was good to us.

This year, I have the some­what less urgent needs in terms of employ­ment (am work­ing now, even if it is a lit­tle spo­radic to begin with), and hous­ing (we are still in the same place we got via that first show). The first time I attended it, the con­fer­ence and show floor occu­pied the Telus Sci­ence World ‘golf ball’ (geo­desic dome) at east­ern end of False Creek. In the years after that, it grew to take up part of one of the show halls in Canada Place (the big build­ing with white ‘sails’ on the the roof, look­ing out on the Bur­rard Inlet), the show’s largest foot­print. This year, ‘Mas­sive’ was notice­ably less mas­sive, and housed in less fancy digs (partly due to ongo­ing con­struc­tion), the UBC Rob­son Cen­tre, an under­ground down­town cam­pus that sits smack in the mid­dle of the city, across from the Van­cou­ver Art Gallery, which I’d say is the city’s heart, as well as its liv­ing room, pillow-fight/flash mob site, party room and Olympic Count-down clock man­tel. Has it shrunk because of the cur­rent econ­omy? I’d say that’s a good bet.

I was pleased to run into some friends there: Jonathan Nar­vey, who cov­ered it well for TechVibes, as well as Jenn Lowther, Kris Krug and Tris Hussey. I also chat­ted with Chris Breikss at the 6S Mar­ket­ing booth, and had a photo taken of me with my face turn­ing crim­son (I wish I didn’t blush so eas­ily) as I held up my free T-Shirt (for tweet­ing the fact that I was vis­it­ing the 6S Mar­ket­ing Booth, of course) flanked by 2 pretty girls, with the slo­gan ‘Show us your tweets!’ on it.

The after­noon (I had to do a work thing in the morn­ing, and hence, didn’t get to the show until around 2), was mainly spent chat­ting with ven­dors, explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of some refer­ral pro­grams and poten­tial busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for my com­pany, but it was actu­ally pretty low-key and friendly.  The most stress­ful moments were when I was inter­viewed live on the Inter­net (stream­ing video) by the folks at Media2o, a video/multimedia pro­duc­tion com­pany (the com­pany Tris works for, who pro­duce the local tech TV show “Con­nect­edLife”). I don’t think I blushed for that, but I can’t be sure, as I didn’t see the feed.

If my usual good luck that involves the Mas­sive show applies, I’ll bet that one of the peo­ple I met or talked to or deals I explored will result in some­thing good down the road. It’s only a mat­ter of time.

When Work Swallows You Up

Where have I been? Why, with the excep­tion of that bit about Arnold men­tion­ing BC in his appear­ance at Meet the Press last Sun­day, have I been so silent? It’s noth­ing very excit­ing. I’ve been work­ing, head down, pretty much every day for about 3 weeks. Aside from going to the Van­cou­ver User Expe­ri­ence (VanUE) meet­ing on Tues­day night — and not even stay­ing for the after party, as I had to get back home and to bed in order to get up before 6 AM the next morn­ing, and I knew that if I didn’t get enough sleep, I’d have got­ten sick again—I’ve kept to bed, com­puter and client site (this past week).

I’m finally look­ing at a day off tomor­row, and all of the weather fore­casts are for a day like today, full of rain. Pam has class for most of the day, so I think I’m going to do some­thing I haven’t done in a long time; I’m going to go to an after­noon mati­nee. I don’t even know what I’m going to see, but the prospect of pop­corn in a nice warm movie the­atre tak­ing in a lit­tle bit of enter­tain­ment on a rainy day sounds awfully good to me.

I’ve checked the local the­atre list­ings, and am not sure what I’m going to see, but I can tell you it won’t be a big, depress­ing movie or a love story, and it cer­tainly won’t be any­thing that in any remote way reminds me of Infor­ma­tion Archi­tec­ture, Pro­to­typ­ing or User Testing.

Except for bit­tor­rent, I haven’t watched all that many movies. Why do I resort to bit­tor­rent?  There is no Net­flix here in Canada, and I’ve heard many peo­ple tell me that the equiv­a­lent, Zip.ca  is not very good. There is also no stream­ing of movies over TiVo here and unlike the Amer­i­can ver­sion of the store, there are no stream­ing movies on Amazon.ca either.  Even the iTunes store doesn’t the vari­ety of movies for Cana­dian accounts as it does in the Amer­i­can store, so the AppleTV is not as use­ful either (unless you buy gift­cards on the other side of the bor­der and load up an Amer­i­can account). So CRTC or who­ever is respon­si­ble for our Cin­e­matic Rights Time Warp, don’t you real­ize that you’ve actu­ally forced me into bit­tor­rent­ing movies, because there is really no con­ve­nient, reasonably-priced alter­na­tive? Video rental stores are kind of a pain (and seem so…20^th cen­tury), and I’m not really inter­ested in buy­ing DVDs (and cer­tainly haven’t popped for a Blu-Ray player).

On the sub­ject is Video Rentals, I couldn’t resist shar­ing this lit­tle nod to Abbott and Costello by Chris Gavaler, that I saw a while ago:

Who’s on First?

By Chris Gavaler

(A CUSTOMER steps up to a video-store counter with a stack of videos.)
CASHIER: Hi. Did you find every­thing you wanted?
CUSTOMER: (Hand­ing over mem­ber­ship card.) Yes, thanks. (Pause.) When is this one due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Yeah, when’s it due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Yes. The Day After Tomor­row.
CASHIER: Right.
CUSTOMER: Right. When’s it due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: I mean the movie. The Day After Tomor­row. When is it due?
CASHIER: Oh! I get it. That’s funny. You thought I meant-right, OK. It’s due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: The Day After Tomor­row is due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Exactly.
CUSTOMER: And Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: Any­time before 10.
CUSTOMER: Is it the same as The Day After Tomor­row?
CASHIER: We close the same time every day. Ten o’clock.
CUSTOMER: But what day is the video due?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomor­row?
CUSTOMER: Why are you ask­ing me?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomor­row is due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: I know, but what about Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: Any­time before clos­ing.
CUSTOMER: But what day?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: You can bring it then if you want to, but we’re open till 10.
CUSTOMER: The movie! Before Sun­set. When is Before Sun­set due?
CASHIER: Oh! We did it again, didn’t we? Isn’t that just like that … what’s that sketch called? Any­way. Sorry. Before Sun­set is due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Thank you. (Pause.) Is that the same for the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You’re not rent­ing The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: Why not?
CASHIER: I don’t know. You can if you want to.
CUSTOMER: Well, I would like to rent the oth­ers, please.
CASHIER: I’ll check the com­puter.
CUSTOMER: For what?
CASHIER: The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: What’s in front of you?
CASHIER: (Look­ing through stack.) Well, we have The Day After Tomor­row and Before Sun­set. Then Seven, After Hours, 48 Hours, Ten, and Before Sun­rise. Hey, that’s funny, “before sunrise”-we could have got­ten con­fused about that too, huh?
CUSTOMER: Yeah. Could you ring them up, please?
CASHIER: So you don’t want The Oth­ers?
CUSTOMER: I want all of them.
CASHIER: But not The Oth­ers?
CUSTOMER: I want every­thing sit­ting right there in front of you.
CASHIER: OK, I’ll ring them up. (Pause.) I’m sorry, but your account lim­its you to six rentals.
CUSTOMER: Oh, OK, I won’t rent Ten.
CASHIER: Excuse me?
CUSTOMER: Get rid of Ten.
CASHIER: You have seven here.
CUSTOMER: I still want to rent Seven.
CASHIER: You’re not allowed to.
CUSTOMER: Why can’t I rent Seven?
CASHIER: Because it’s over the limit.
CUSTOMER: Right, but I want Seven. Get rid of Ten.
CASHIER: (Pause.) That would leave neg­a­tive three.
CUSTOMER: Excuse me?
CASHIER: You know what? We’ll just let it slide this time.
CUSTOMER: Thank you. (Pause.) Is that one due back the day after tomor­row, too?
CASHIER: Yes, you have 48 hours.
CUSTOMER: But is it due with the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You don’t have The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: What did you just ring up?
CASHIER: You want me to read these to you again?
CUSTOMER: No, just tell me when they’re due.
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: But what about the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You don’t have The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: Is 48 Hours due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Yes, by 10 o’clock.
CUSTOMER: Is Ten due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Yes, by 10 o’clock.
CUSTOMER: What about After Hours?
CASHIER: There’s a late fee.
CUSTOMER: For what?
CASHIER: If you return after hours.
CUSTOMER: The day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: All of them.
CUSTOMER: So it’s due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: By 10.
CUSTOMER: What about Seven?
CASHIER: You can bring it then if you want to, but we’re open till 10.
CUSTOMER: The movie! The movie! When is the movie Seven due?
CASHIER: (Hold­ing up each video one at a time.) Seven is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. The Day After Tomor­row is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. Before Sun­set is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. 48 Hours is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. After Hours is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. And Ten is due at 10 the day after tomor­row
CUSTOMER: Thank you! (Notic­ing the last video after a long pause.) But what about Before Sun­rise?
CASHIER: (Pause.) We’re not open before sun­rise.
(CUSTOMER gives up and walks out.)

On the other hand, the movie the­atres here are really nice, and I’m look­ing for­ward to that.

On Sun­day, the sun is sup­posed to come out, but alas, I will have to be get­ting back to work, and hope­fully won’t be too far behind from hav­ing taken a few hours off.

My Brother Hits the Big 10K (Patent, that is)

I got an email from my brother, that a patent that he was one of the four researchers work­ing on (and now, awarded) turned out to be the 10,000^th patent by his com­pany, Microsoft.

I had visions of stream­ers, party hats and the like, but his boss at the time, one of the other peo­ple on the team, ended up get­ting most of the atten­tion. I guess that’s how the media cov­ers things. There was some CNET cov­er­age which only referred to my brother as a ‘col­league’ (Boo, Hiss!) and this press release from Microsoft itself which men­tions him in a cap­sule area, but only because he was also the co-recipient (with the same boss again) of the 5,000^th patent. (How crazy a coin­ci­dence is that?)

This patent (10,000) was for a User Inter­face idea for Microsoft’s ‘Sur­face’ com­puter, which I’ve actu­ally writ­ten about in my other blog. Accord­ing to the Microsoft press release, the patent:

…applies to sur­face com­put­ing tech­nol­ogy and out­lines how users can place real objects — any­thing from cell phones to their own fin­gers — on the computer’s table­like dis­play and the com­puter will auto­mat­i­cally iden­tify the objects and track their posi­tion, ori­en­ta­tion and motion. This allows the objects to be asso­ci­ated with data or media, like a spe­cific col­lec­tion of music or photos.

The really big coin­ci­dence is that this past week, at the Inter­ac­tion Design Association’s IXD09 Con­fer­ence that I attended this past week in here in Van­cou­ver, there was indeed a Sur­face Com­puter from Microsoft (along with the Project Man­ager for that prod­uct, Joe Fletcher), and we placed our badges on the com­puter, which rec­og­nized us by our 3D Bar­code or QR Code on the back of the badge (which I’ve scanned here):

When the badge was ‘rec­og­nized’ by the Sur­face, we could con­nect to another user who placed their badge on the com­puter by drag­ging from one badge to the other with our fin­gers, prompt­ing the com­puter to send an ‘I want to con­nect to you’ mes­sage on the IXD09 web site. Kind of silly, when you think of it, since you were usu­ally right in front of the per­son you sup­pos­edly wanted to con­nect with, but it was a fun demo, all the same. The strange sen­sa­tion of see­ing my badge sprout extra graph­ics under it when placed on the glass cof­fee table com­puter was like a real world ver­sion of Who Framed Roger Rab­bit, with car­toon or 2D ele­ments seem­ing to exist seam­lessly and inter­act with the real things around them. Now, know­ing that it was my brother’s patent that was behind this piece of techno-magic makes it even cooler.

So, I hope he at least gets a T-Shirt or some­thing ( Maybe it could say, “I Got Microsoft its 5,000 and 10,000^th Patents and All I Got Was This T-Shirt”). Maybe his own Sur­face Com­puter?  C’mon Microsoft, the guy(s) who hit the 5 and 10K mark for you in the Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty race deserve more than a press release!

Update: Happy to see that ZDNet did a bet­ter job rec­og­niz­ing his contribution!

My Friend the Photoshop Goddess

While I worked at IBM, I met some pretty impres­sive peo­ple. A fel­low con­trac­tor, Maria Masiar, recently achieved what I’d call deity sta­tus, hav­ing been to Adobe’s Pho­to­shop Con­fer­ence, also known as the Art Direc­tors Invi­ta­tional Mas­ter Class in San Fran­cisco for two years, and both of those times, won prizes for her work dur­ing the con­fer­ence (First Prize the first year). Maria, who moved here recently from Toronto, has now just had one of here projects here appear on Pho­to­shop Magazine’s cover as a runner-up in the Fourth Annual Pho­to­shop User Awards. Because I know the artist, I not only got a copy, but also the orig­i­nal photo that she used to pro­duce the final one. It’s help­ful to see it, because it shows Maria as the model, and then her as a flesh-eating zom­bie, and a damned fright­en­ing one at that! Click on each photo to see larger, more detailed versions:

So not only is Maria a Pho­to­shop God­dess (or Guru), she’s also got to be her own model.

Hav­ing Pho­to­shop ‘chops’ like Maria’s means that you can pretty much do any­thing and make it look believ­able. The next time I need some syn­thetic real­ity (I’m think­ing, per­haps, of a photo for my wall of me sit­ting like For­est Gump at the White House with Pres­i­dent Obama), I know who I’ll call.

Missing Macworld

For the first time in a long time, I won’t be attend­ing Mac­world Expo Trade Show in San Fran­cisco this year, which opened today. There are many, many jour­nal­ists and blog­gers cov­er­ing the show, Steve Jobs is not giv­ing the keynote tomor­row, and frankly, in recent years, aside from the plea­sure of vis­it­ing one of my favourite Amer­i­can cities with see­ing many friends there, I haven’t really got­ten that much out of the show itself, either in terms of any­thing I didn’t already know or new busi­ness. So, this year I’m sit­ting it out, but that doesn’t mean that it’s out of mind. For that rea­son, this piece by the Onion came as a wel­come surprise:

Apple Intro­duces Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New Lap­top With No Keyboard

As usual, the Onion hits it out of the park. Bravo.

Update: I can hardly believe it, but appar­ently a blog­ger thought this was a real prod­uct and reviewed it.