June 16th, 1911 - Three small companies merge and become the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR). 13 years later, their President, Thomas J. Watson, renames them to IBM.
One of the most innovative companies in the world has turned 100 years today. And what a century it has been. IBM has made a huge technological impact on the way our world functions today. It's hard to summarize how huge it really is... I can guarantee that everyday, every one of us interacts with technology that was invented by IBM.
For example, the Universal Product Code and barcode scanners used in every store around the world today. And Online Transaction Processing Systems, technology used for real-time online transactions in banking, airlines, order processing, e-commerce, and manufacturing systems. The magnetic stripe technology, used in credit cards, debit cards, and many other cards. The Selectric typewriter. The laser printer.
Their computing inventions do not get any less impressive. Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RISC Architecture, Relational Databases, Data Encryption Standard.... IBM System/360, The IBM PC... And the list goes on.
IBM made a really cool short video showcasing their greatest inventions over the last 100 years. You can also check out their Icons of Progress page to see more.
Here is also a short movie if you have some time to kill, "They Were There", told by IBMers who were involved in some of those innovative projects that shaped our lives.
You can also check out their IBM 100 site to see how they have changed the world.
I'm excited to see what IBM will bring us in the next century.
Happy 100th Birthday International Business Machines!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Inside Search 2011
Google hosted an Inside Search media event yesterday, to announce some of their latest features and technologies that are coming to Google search. The new feature I'm most interested in is the next step for Google Instant:
Instant Pages
We all know Google is obsessed with speed. They are now introducing a new prerendering technology into Chrome, which will start loading the page you are most likely to click on in the background, cutting down or even eliminating the time it will take for the page to load once you click it.
Google said that the pages will only preload if the algorithm has a very high confidence that the user will click on that specific link. They did talk about the fact that they don't want to use up bandwidth for no reason.
I think Google can pull this one off, after all, the amount of search data they receive on a daily basis is enormous. They definitely should be able to figure out what pages users click on most often. Think about how often you search something and go to look at it's definition on Wikipedia, or the popularity of Google's I'm Feeling Lucky. I think Google's algorithms should be able to do a good job predicting our next click.
I've always liked Google Instant which searches while you type, and paired up with Instant Pages, it can save us that annoying period of time between clicking on the link and starting to interact with the page. I'm looking forward to seeing how well this feature will perform.
Google is also bringing some of the unique features mobile search features to the desktop. Android users should already be familiar with both of them.
From the new desktop features, search by image can be pretty useful in some cases. I doubt I'll use voice search any time soon but it is the next step in being able to interact with your computer by talking to it and I suspect it will be much better then the voice recognition that is currently built into Windows (I've seen some fail videos, heh).
Instant Pages should be really useful though. I hate waiting for pages to load, so if this feature is effective, cutting down that page load time will make me happy :)
Ok, lunch break over, back to work! Also:
GO CANUCKS GO!
Instant Pages
We all know Google is obsessed with speed. They are now introducing a new prerendering technology into Chrome, which will start loading the page you are most likely to click on in the background, cutting down or even eliminating the time it will take for the page to load once you click it.
Google said that the pages will only preload if the algorithm has a very high confidence that the user will click on that specific link. They did talk about the fact that they don't want to use up bandwidth for no reason.
I think Google can pull this one off, after all, the amount of search data they receive on a daily basis is enormous. They definitely should be able to figure out what pages users click on most often. Think about how often you search something and go to look at it's definition on Wikipedia, or the popularity of Google's I'm Feeling Lucky. I think Google's algorithms should be able to do a good job predicting our next click.
I've always liked Google Instant which searches while you type, and paired up with Instant Pages, it can save us that annoying period of time between clicking on the link and starting to interact with the page. I'm looking forward to seeing how well this feature will perform.
Google is also bringing some of the unique features mobile search features to the desktop. Android users should already be familiar with both of them.
Voice Search will now allow you to search by speaking. During the demo, it seemed to recognize words really well, even a word the presenter didn't know how to spell. Google is also supposed to learn through voice searches to recognize words better, so it can be quite effective. This feature will only be available on Chrome.
Image search now will also allow you to use images to search. You can drag and drop images or provide links and Google will then analyze the image and search using the information retrieved. This one is already rolled out for me and works really well, can be pretty useful too.
Google also discussed how much mobile browsing has grown in the recent years. They showed this graph which compares the growth of mobile search over the last 3 years compared to how desktop Google search grew in it's early days.
They also showed how the two compare over a regular workweek. During the week desktop search dominates but start falling on Friday and is much lower, while mobile search rises during the weekend. Obviously, mobile search is growing really fast, so Google also added a few helpful new features for Google Mobile to save you some keystrokes.
From the new desktop features, search by image can be pretty useful in some cases. I doubt I'll use voice search any time soon but it is the next step in being able to interact with your computer by talking to it and I suspect it will be much better then the voice recognition that is currently built into Windows (I've seen some fail videos, heh).
Instant Pages should be really useful though. I hate waiting for pages to load, so if this feature is effective, cutting down that page load time will make me happy :)
Ok, lunch break over, back to work! Also:
GO CANUCKS GO!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Internship!
I am officially employed full-time for the next 11 months!
Yesterday, I accepted a job offer for an 8-month internship at the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. I am currently on my 16-month co-op term, so I will not be taking any classes until Fall 2012.
I had a phone interview with them almost 3 weeks ago (my first interview of the term too). This is kind of unfortunate, I hate phone interviews. I always feel more comfortable with face-to-face interviews because I get to meet the people and see the environment I will be working in.
I have a friend from class who works there right now though, and he is enjoying it. He said they give him time to learn and understand what he needs, everyone gets dual screen and there's other co-op students working there. No free coffee though :( That's a real minus.
I do not know exactly what I will be working on while there. There are various projects I could be assigned to and I'm expected to work with a few technologies. I could also be moved to different projects depending on project progress and completion. They said the work is mainly done in C#, Java and SQL. The key is that I will be exposed to a full software development life-cycle. Should be a great experience.
So I will be working here at Centre for Learning Education until end of August, and then move over to the Ministry of Health from September 2011 to April 2012.
Looks like I do not have to look for a job for quite a bit. :)
11 months! Crazy!
Yesterday, I accepted a job offer for an 8-month internship at the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. I am currently on my 16-month co-op term, so I will not be taking any classes until Fall 2012.
I had a phone interview with them almost 3 weeks ago (my first interview of the term too). This is kind of unfortunate, I hate phone interviews. I always feel more comfortable with face-to-face interviews because I get to meet the people and see the environment I will be working in.
I have a friend from class who works there right now though, and he is enjoying it. He said they give him time to learn and understand what he needs, everyone gets dual screen and there's other co-op students working there. No free coffee though :( That's a real minus.
I do not know exactly what I will be working on while there. There are various projects I could be assigned to and I'm expected to work with a few technologies. I could also be moved to different projects depending on project progress and completion. They said the work is mainly done in C#, Java and SQL. The key is that I will be exposed to a full software development life-cycle. Should be a great experience.
So I will be working here at Centre for Learning Education until end of August, and then move over to the Ministry of Health from September 2011 to April 2012.
Looks like I do not have to look for a job for quite a bit. :)
11 months! Crazy!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Summer Job!
Last week I started my summer job at Ryerson's Centre for Learning Technologies (CLT), a research and development lab at Ryerson, with its projects focusing on accessibility for all users, including those with disabilities.
There are currently a few interesting projects in the works at the CLT, and all of them attempt to make social and cultural experiences more accessible and entertaining for users who are deaf, hard-hearing, blind and visually-impared.
I am a part of the project called SignLink Studio.
This project focuses on bringing a better online experience and accessibility for deaf and hearing-impaired users. There are already techniques used around the web to improve access for the deaf to online media and content, however most of them are text-based approaches such as closed captioning. This works, but it is not the optimal way for deaf people to communicate, especially not for those who are born deaf or suffer from it very early.
Deaf people communicate primarily in sign language. This is their first language, the one they think in, the one they translate everything into inside their head. For them, having to communicate in text is much like having to communicate in a second language for the rest of us. This is not something we do seamlessly, we will translate things to ourselves in our head to our first language to have a better understanding of it.
I have this kind of experience myself. I may think and be really comfortable with English now, but it was much different when I first came to Canada. Communicating was difficult, because I constantly had to switch between English and Polish. Doing this over a long period of time can be very tiring for someone who is not used to it.
The goal is to create an online environment which is designed and more comfortable to use for the deaf community.
Our project has 2 parts to it: A software called SignLink Studio (SLS) and a Content Management System (CMS) associated with it.
SignLink Studio is a software which allows users to record and edit videos and embed annotations, captions and other information right into them. Those annotations are called SignLinks, which allow the user to make a clickable area inside the video, which can link to another website or some other online content (it's like a video hyperlink). You might be familiar with youtube video annotations which have a similar purpose. The software is designed for deaf people to record and edit their sign language videos and then export them onto a website.
The SignLink Studio CMS is a program that supports content from SLS and it optimizes a website for simple navigation for the deaf, by using as little text as possible in favor of visual cues, in majority based on sign language. It`s like an online forum, except unlike a typical forum, most of the text content can be replaced by images and videos. The CMS can be installed onto a website and used by its members.
We also have a deaf person working with us and she gives us feedback on the project and how to improve it. She also demos the project to the deaf community and gets more feedback from them, that way we can make sure the software and CMS are as deaf friendly as possible.
I am working with one other person developing the SignLink Studio Content Management System.
So far, I am really enjoying the job. The job is quite relaxed and I am actually quite interested in the project and I am enjoying working on it (you know I mean it because it's 7:30pm and I am still in the office, heehee). The hours are also really flexible (so todays extra hours can translate into more sleep tomorrow, heehee). The work environment is just fantastic, I felt at home right away. It might have something to do with the fact that I already knew some of the people who work here before. A few of them are from upper years in Computer Science, two of them even used to be my TAs :)
I think this will be a great experience for me. I'll even get to learn some sign language. I already learned a few things, like "I must have coffee now".
Oh, in fact I actually have to demo our project tomorrow. *shrug*
Also, here is how my work station looks like. I love it! :)
And there's more exciting news on my job front today!
I really wanna share it, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow.
I'll write a separate blog post about it (that way I can also blog more often) ;P
So STAY TUNED!
It's time for me to leave my office and head down to The Edge Studios with a few friends. City and Colour (Dallas Green) is celebrating the release of their new album Little Hell, which comes out tomorrow, and they will be performing for free. And I can't miss pretty, free, live music. <3
There are currently a few interesting projects in the works at the CLT, and all of them attempt to make social and cultural experiences more accessible and entertaining for users who are deaf, hard-hearing, blind and visually-impared.
I am a part of the project called SignLink Studio.
This project focuses on bringing a better online experience and accessibility for deaf and hearing-impaired users. There are already techniques used around the web to improve access for the deaf to online media and content, however most of them are text-based approaches such as closed captioning. This works, but it is not the optimal way for deaf people to communicate, especially not for those who are born deaf or suffer from it very early.
Deaf people communicate primarily in sign language. This is their first language, the one they think in, the one they translate everything into inside their head. For them, having to communicate in text is much like having to communicate in a second language for the rest of us. This is not something we do seamlessly, we will translate things to ourselves in our head to our first language to have a better understanding of it.
I have this kind of experience myself. I may think and be really comfortable with English now, but it was much different when I first came to Canada. Communicating was difficult, because I constantly had to switch between English and Polish. Doing this over a long period of time can be very tiring for someone who is not used to it.
The goal is to create an online environment which is designed and more comfortable to use for the deaf community.
Our project has 2 parts to it: A software called SignLink Studio (SLS) and a Content Management System (CMS) associated with it.
SignLink Studio is a software which allows users to record and edit videos and embed annotations, captions and other information right into them. Those annotations are called SignLinks, which allow the user to make a clickable area inside the video, which can link to another website or some other online content (it's like a video hyperlink). You might be familiar with youtube video annotations which have a similar purpose. The software is designed for deaf people to record and edit their sign language videos and then export them onto a website.
The SignLink Studio CMS is a program that supports content from SLS and it optimizes a website for simple navigation for the deaf, by using as little text as possible in favor of visual cues, in majority based on sign language. It`s like an online forum, except unlike a typical forum, most of the text content can be replaced by images and videos. The CMS can be installed onto a website and used by its members.
We also have a deaf person working with us and she gives us feedback on the project and how to improve it. She also demos the project to the deaf community and gets more feedback from them, that way we can make sure the software and CMS are as deaf friendly as possible.
I am working with one other person developing the SignLink Studio Content Management System.
So far, I am really enjoying the job. The job is quite relaxed and I am actually quite interested in the project and I am enjoying working on it (you know I mean it because it's 7:30pm and I am still in the office, heehee). The hours are also really flexible (so todays extra hours can translate into more sleep tomorrow, heehee). The work environment is just fantastic, I felt at home right away. It might have something to do with the fact that I already knew some of the people who work here before. A few of them are from upper years in Computer Science, two of them even used to be my TAs :)
I think this will be a great experience for me. I'll even get to learn some sign language. I already learned a few things, like "I must have coffee now".
Oh, in fact I actually have to demo our project tomorrow. *shrug*
Also, here is how my work station looks like. I love it! :)
And there's more exciting news on my job front today!
I really wanna share it, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow.
I'll write a separate blog post about it (that way I can also blog more often) ;P
So STAY TUNED!
It's time for me to leave my office and head down to The Edge Studios with a few friends. City and Colour (Dallas Green) is celebrating the release of their new album Little Hell, which comes out tomorrow, and they will be performing for free. And I can't miss pretty, free, live music. <3
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