Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

Following the last comment on Yahoo’s new movements - "Yahoo acquires Flickr, the next generation Yahoo services", here is a quick reference on Yahoo! 360. The current services offered includes: Blog, Mobile Authoring (publish texts and photos from mobile phones), Photo Sharing, Social Listing and Exchange (personal recommendations on books, music, movies and TV programs etc…), Quick Communication Tools, and Music Sharing (little similar to the MSN music albums in personal space publishing?). The thumbnail is captured from yahoo! site, goto http://360.yahoo.com/ and check it out! Here is D’Arcy Norman’s first opinion on Yahoo! 360.

The two well known “non-crackable” hashing schemes have been successfully de-ciphered by a team of computer scientists in Shandong University, China. This surprised the cryptography community [and possibly the NSA] with an threat of implemeting a new scheme in the coming year. The SHA-1 function is widely used for digital signatures in such applications as e-mail and Web browsers. The SHA-1 function produces a hash 160 bits long. In theory, it should take 2^80 comparisons before two identical, random message hash results are found. That is several years' work for a huge number of cooperating PCs or one very powerful supercomputer. The recent SHA-1 break is a collision in which two random, non-meaningful messages were found to have the same hash in 2^69 comparisons, or about 2000 times faster than the brute-force method. That is still a very long job. Furthermore, the researchers applied some constraints on what the input message can look like in order to achieve this result. The National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] previously recommended migration to SHA-2 by 2010.

Happy Easter!

The Chinese government is investing 330 million yuan (55 million CAD) renovating the world famous temple in Tibet - The Potala Palace and the Jokhang Temple Monastery, Lhasa. Due to the nature of missing blue print of the huge architecture, the engineers have to re-construct 3D models using precise measurements in order to complete the renovation. The project will be completed in 2006. I am looking forward to finally visit the holy palace in each Tibitan's heart after this re-construction.

It's funny that this morning on the way to work I was thinking about how flickr should expand their service to a wider audience. I know such a service can be really profitable in Asia. Then here I read this from a Chinese news network (Xinhua)

BEIJING, Mar. 22 -- Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd. President Stewart Butterfield on Monday confirmed Yahoo has agreed to acquire its photo-sharing Web site Flickr.

Wonder what's Yahoo really up to, they have recently acquired multiple companies and rolloing out bundled services such as blogging, wiki and group organizers. Here's a quote that may answer the question:

Last week, Yahoo said its 360 service will combine instant messaging, photo storage and sharing, and Internet radio together. It is currently being tested by employees, and will be made available to Yahoo users by March 29.

So I guess Yahoo = search engine + game + instant messaging + blog + photo storage + internet radio + 300 other services!

Google launched an open source development community - code.google six months ago. Chris DiBona, director of the Google open source iniatives mentioned recently that Google is going to increase the exposure of this community and use it as a two-way portal connecting the community and the open source developers. Many developers in Google are coming from an open source development background, and Google needs to keep a healthy relationship with the open source community in order to compete with the giant corperates like Microsoft and Yahoo. Here are some descriptions of the community from Google:

What is code.google.com?
Code.google.com is our site for external developers interested in Google-related development. It’s where we’ll publish free source code and lists of our API services.

Who are the people behind code.google.com?
A lot of people worked together to both prepare source code for release and prepare code.google.com for launch and ongoing maintenance. We really care about free and open source software (F/OSS) at Google, and this site is one aspect of that affection.

http://code.google.com

Downloaded the 11MB Netscape 8 beta tonight to play around with. The result? I am impressed by it but not going to use it yet. Here are some quick features worth to mention:

1. Tab based page views. Finally this comes into the mainstream of web browsers. I do like how fire fox set opening new window as default though.
2. One may close all tabs at once, saves lots time.
3. "bookmark all tabs in a folder", very well done and unique feature.
4. Rate the "trust level" of the site being viewed, this list can be constantly updated increased security concepts to respond to the rapid changing Internet.
5. Best compatibility, merged all features from IE and Firefox, I have tested multiple sites with multimedia components, Netscape 8 handled them better than both Firefox and IE.
6. Better interface customization, especially the tool icons, menu items and address bar. I loved the way you can group them and customize them (Customize Toolbars)
7. The "single click" title navigation panels allows you to view the hot topics and navigate to the real contents much more efficient.
8. Real time news update, very unique and powerful...

I think I will use it once the stable version is out.

Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards is a program showcase and recognizes the outstanding examples of innovative learning each year. This award accepts entries in three categories: Custom Content, Innovative Technology and Outstanding Case Studies. Custom Content category is defined as A browser-based course, delivered via the Internet or an intranet, created for a specific audience and not sold as an off-the-shelf product. Innovative Technology includes Innovative software or hardware to create content, manage, or deliver training. Outstanding Case Studies are written descriptions of effective learning programs and initiatives in user organizations. The deadline for submitting the proposal is April 21, 2005. However, it does cost $495 US for each entry submission. I personally don’t understand why the expensive submission fee, because I don’t believe any one in the public institutions can afford $650 CAD just for an award application. It almost seems that the award is built for the commercial products and private education institutions only…

How big is big? I know I have always wanted a bigger display, my PC monitor went from 14" to 15" to 17" then to 19"; My home TV went from 21" to 32" to 52". But whenever I see a large screen being displayed in the stores, there is still an urge to make a move. So, I don’t know the answer to the question, but I do know I would not mind to have a wall sized display to replace my window like in the science fiction movies in 10 years. Sony and Samsung both made some some ice breaking development in large sized display technologies recently. Sony has just show cased the largest display in the world, the 50m x 10m video projection. It is using Grating Light Valve to transform RGB values to a 78m x 16m screen 60 meters away.

Samsung responded (with Sony’s help) with the largest LCD – 82”（1870mm×2200mm). This is the 7th generation of glass panels (S-PVA) from “S-LCD” (a joint company between Samsung and Sony). It’s time to start saving for my “wall display”.

Following up the article on Jan 23rd, 2005 “Newest statistics on the Internet Usage in China 2004”, a new estimate on the number of internet users in mainland China in 2005 will exceed 120 million which is still behind the number in the US (180 million). However, this is a very conservative estimate. The average speed of the commercial internet will be boosted along with CERNET2 being deployed among public education institutions.

Just read an up-to-date marketing report on Chinese IT training industry. The report is written in Chinese, here is my translation:

Summary on Chinese IT Training and Education 2004

Chinese IT training and education market generated 3.35 billion Yuan in sales (approximately 558 million Canadian dollars) in the year 2004, a 16.3% increase over 2003.

Marketing Structure
From product and service point of view, basic IT training (28.7%) and internet application training (22.7%) played two important roles in the market, them together generated over 50% of the total profit. The other IT training sectors that worth to mention are: software development training (14.7%), database administration (11.1%), operating systems and desktop publishing (18.2%).

Vertical Analysis:
Corporate training continuously to be the main form of demand in this market, it converts over 75% of the total IT training marketing profit. There was an obvious increase in demand from the enterprise and government in the previous year. Here is the break down list based on profit based on the demands from the year 2003 to 2004: Education (50 million RMB, 8.7%), Government (261, 24.9%), Family/Home/Residential (510, 6.5%), large size enterprise (1530, 19.5%), medium size enterprise (849, 16.4%), small size enterprise (150, 9.5%), total 3.35 billion RMB.

Parallel Analysis:
Communication, Finance, Energy and Manufacture are four major sectors in the IT training industry. Here is the break down list based on industrial demands: Communication (610 million RMB, 21.8% increase), Construction (6, 0.0%), Transportation (280, 6.9%), Education (50, 8.7%), Finance (567, 20.1%), Research (30, 7.1%), Mobilization (210, 2.4%), Media (290, 3.6%), Energy (420, 18.0%), Health (250, 8.7%), Dawk (420, 5.0%), Government (260, 24.9%), Manufacture (420, 21.4%) and Others (400, 11.7%), total 3.35 billion RMB.

Geographic Analysis:
Central China continuously had the largest on IT training over other areas in China. However, North West regions are catching up. North East and South West are slowing down.

Brand Names:
Top five IT training co-operations: Beijing University APTECH, NIIT, Chinese Academy of Science Software Training Centre, ATEC and DigitalChina. These five companies control over 40% of the IT training market in China.

One of the biggest in the IT training industry is the web based training is replacing face-to-face training. This trend will continue it's momentum in the year 2005. The original Chinese document is located here:

http://www.chinabyte.com/busnews
/216486142927699968/20050304/1918267.shtml#

There have been multiple times that Bill Gates mentioned in the public that one of his biggest regret which is also one of the Microsoft’s biggest misjudgment is to let Google took the lead in the search engine industry. Gates also warned Google to look out that Microsoft is not giving up on the big pie; they will upgrade their current search functions which are built in their operating system and browser to compete and gain back the lost market. However, internet rumors say one of their core OS engineer - Mark Lucovsky has switched over to Google. Although no one knows what kind position is he going to hold in Google. Mark worked for Microsoft more than 16 years, and he is one of the core developers in Windows NT technology (in charge of NT core, Win32 runtime components development). Mark has expressed his disagreement on how Microsoft Ships Software via his blog. However, the million dollar question is what does Google want from Mark? A Google OS? With Firefox, I guess Google is really ready to take on Microsoft’s next generation product – Longhorn.

You think you had a hard time finding a job? Take a look at these pictures! Over 100,000 job hunters showed for the largest job convention in Beijing on Feb. 25th, 2005. According to the news article, most of the candidates have college or higher education background.

From the product selection process to the actual launch of this multi-user blog system at the University of Calgary took less than 2 weeks! Amazing work. D'Arcy and his colleagues screened through over a dozen of multi-user blog/cms type of social software and decided to go with Drupal, a well built open source CMS in PHP and mySQL. Here is D'Arcy's reason on choosing Drupal over others:

"Why use this rather than something like Blogger, or Typepad, or something else? The biggest benefit (at least initially) is the ability to create ad-hoc organic groups, where content that is published by group members is displayed on a "group page" - an easy way to collaborate with a research group, a breakout group that's part of a class, or a department."

I have been looking at some of these social software lately for our learningtools web site, and I would have gone for Plone if we have enough Python expertise in our team. It seems that Drupal is not a bad choice either...

Quotes from Rachel Smith at NMC,

"Pachyderm 2.0 is in beta, and we are actively seeking beta testers! We're looking for people to help us spot usability issues and bugs before the Pachyderm multimedia authoring tool is released this fall. Beta testers will become part of the Pachyderm community and will help shape the final form of this exciting content development platform. To register as a beta tester, please use the form located at this URL:

http://www.nmc.org/pachyderm/betasignup.shtml

Testers will be divided into three groups, with the first group beginning testing in April. The second group will begin testing in May, and the third in July.

About the Pachyderm 2.0 Project

The Pachyderm 2.0 Project is a partnership led by NMC and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The project brings software development teams and digital library experts from six NMC universities together with counterparts from five major museums to create a new, open-source authoring environment for creators of web-based and multimedia learning experiences. The new tool will be based on Pachyderm, the authoring and publishing tool developed by SFMOMA to author its successful series, Making Sense of Modern Art."

Just trying to spread the words around. Check out this creative project!

Everyone is sick at work, including myself. A mixed flu and spring allergy (since Vancouver is having some warm weather recently).

Had some interesting challenges while experimenting with Flash mix with video / audio data. This is related to an international project (Pachyderm) me and my co-worker is involved in. The project requires the flash interface to be able to load and control different types of media files on the fly. The media files vary from swf to mpeg video data, mp3 to wav and aiff sound files. Due to the nature of Flash has different ways of loading different file types: loadMovie() and loadSound(), importing video files and “squeeze” them in Sorenson compression or linking to them externally, video objects and audio objects etc… The trick lies in there must be a “Player Selector” component to be in place to first identify the file type based on the XML attributes and then determine the right loading functions and control components. Anyway, it was a good day in Flash development, looking forward to test some new features in Flash 8.