Check out the new audio preview button on YouTube:

Pretty neat, and it was inspired by web comic xkcd (via Lifehacker)

Andrew Kun

I just ran across Slideshare, a (beta) website that lets you share slides (yes the name is descriptive). I uploaded my first set of (PowerPoint) slides, and now I can embed them in this post - very cool:

Andrew Kun

Check out www.tinyurl.com. It allows you to create tiny URLs out of long and winding ones. This is neat when you want to send a link in an email to someone without having to worry if their email client will interpret the multiple lines of the link correctly.

It’s also neat if you want to include links in presentations or posters. I’m preparing a presentation for an upcoming talk at Microsoft Research and have just used this site to create a couple of links: one to this YouTube video of the Project54 driving simulator and another to this eceblogger post about the eye tracker that we’ve recently installed in the simulator. Best of all, tinyurl allows you to create your own custom tiny URLs. So, I’ve created www.tinyurl.com/p54sim and www.tinyurl.com/eyetracker.

Andrew Kun

Check out Robert Scoble’s post on longer videos coming to YouTube. He also has a link to a Mark Cuban post in which Mark argues that YouTube’s business model is flawed and that Hulu’s is better. However, Hulu only has content generated by NBC and Universal (such as full-length movies), and no user-generated content (such movies about Project54 research on YouTube) so it seems like we’re comparing apples and oranges. Perhaps a better comparison is between YouTube and Flickr, especially now that you can upload movies to Flickr. Both YouTube and Flickr are social networking sites, while Hulu is not.

Andrew Kun

If you haven’t heard by now Microsoft’s http://maps.live.com has updated their routing algorithm to account for traffic. Check the box next to “Choose route based on traffic” to recalculated a route with traffic added into the equation.

The technology behind this is called Clearflow. Microsoft’s Adaptive Systems and Interaction group has created traffic models to predict congestion and find the quickest route.

Last week, at the suggestion of Tim Paek, I installed Microsoft FolderShare. The web-based service synchronizes the contents of folders on multiple computers. I find this to be useful in two ways. First, it allows me to share files with a Tim. He and I can both create folders on our machines, and instruct FolderShare to keep these folders in sync. Now, after a phone conference, Tim can place a PowerPoint file summarizing our action items into a folder on his computer, and moments later it appears on mine. In fact, FolderShare will synchronize folders across more than two computers, so you can use it to share files between larger groups.

The second way I started using FolderShare is to move files between my office computer and my laptop. I often work from home using my laptop (e.g. typing this) and up until now, I depended on a USB memory stick to move files between home and office. This presents two problems. One, the memory stick has limited memory. Two, I often misplace it, or simply forget to bring it to work. With FolderShare, I now have a folder on my laptop and on my office computer that are synced. No need to bring a memory stick with me anymore.

FolderShare will be a great tool to share files in our lab. E.g., my students often create videos (see here), which they need to get to me for review. Due to the large size of video files, this almost always means bringing a disk or memory stick to my office. With FolderShare we’ll be able to move files back and forth a lot more quickly.

Andrew Kun

OK, I really like MS Live Search Maps. I tested it out at the suggestion of Tim Paek, with whom I’ve been talking about in-car navigation devices. The topic of web-based navigation came up because Tim and I are interested in comparing the driving performance of drivers who use printed directions with the performance of drivers who use personal navigation devices (PNDs).

MS Live Search Maps has three features that I really like:

1. Pushpins: You can add a pushpin to any location on a map. You can then ask for directions to that location. This is really useful for places such as the UNH Kingsbury Hall visitor parking lot. I don’t know what the address of the parking lot is, therefore I cannot easily entice a regular mapping program to tell me (or more importantly tell my visitors) how to get there. But if I can place a pushpin in the lot and get directions to it, then this problem is solved. You can also assign images to pushpins, and these can be useful when giving directions.
2. Bird’s eye view: Satellite images, move over! Bird’s eye view provides more detailed aerial photographs, and usually there are four viewing angles available.
3. Drawing on maps: You can provide people your own directions to a particular location (e.g. Kingsbury visitor parking). This sure beats having textual directions only.

One thing that’s currently not well supported in MS Live Search Maps is street level view, which is only available for Seattle and San Francisco. A couple of weeks ago I used this feature of Google Maps for Boston, and that was really helpful in figuring out how to find a car rental place on Route 1A by Logan airport.

Another thing I’m having problems with is figuring out how to properly share my “collections.” MS Live Search Maps saves pushpins, etc. in so-called collections, which you can tag and share. I did this but can’t seem to find my collections when I search for my tags: ece, unh, kingsbury, etc… I can provide a link to a collection that can help get you to the Kingsbury visitor lot: see here (click on Bird’s eye view).

Overall, I’m really impressed with MS Live Search Maps. There are other nifty features such as MapCruncher and 1-click directions that are really interesting. Finally, searchable and shareable collections can be really powerful. Imagine how nice it’ll be when the majority of us start having Internet access in our cars! Of course, you don’t want to be looking at a PC screen while driving, but a passenger could. Or maybe we can have smarter PNDs, that know how to help you with directions without distracting you from the primary task in a vehicle, which is driving.

Andrew Kun

Last Wednesday, 2/27/08, i gave a tech talk on Microsoft’s Facebook SDK. The Facebook SDK allows developers use and .Net language to create Desktop apps, Web apps, and also embed them within Facebook.

Why has Microsoft done this?

Here are some statistics on Facebook…

• Facebook has become the 2nd largest social networking app
• It is the #1 site in US for photos (>flickr)
• Network grows by 300% each year
• 50% of Facebook users return to the site each day
• Mass distribution- “viral” applications

I would assume Microsoft wants in on some of this action. They want Facebook developers creating apps in their Visual Studio environment which, by the way, is free for students. ( see my post on DreamSpark).

Here are some resources if you interested in getting started creating you own app.

• Coding4Fun- Collection of resources for beginning Facebook development
• CodePlex - Home for the .Net FB SDK
• FB Developer Documentation (API)
  
• FREE Microsoft development software

Jonathan Oppelaar

IEEE’s Xplore service is an important source of papers for electrical and computer engineers. However, its search feature is frustratingly poor.

Here is an example of how poorly the search works. In advanced search, I initiated a query for “speech analysis by homomorphic prediction” and I specified that I want the query to look at all data fields (this is the default). I wanted to find a paper by Kopec et al. that appeared in the IEEE Transactions in Acoustic, Speech, and Signal Processing. IEEE Xplore informed me that “no results were found.” I copied and pasted my search into Google, and I got this link as the first result. Note that when you click on the link you get to the IEEE Xplore page that lists the paper as “Speech analysis homomorphic prediction” without the “by” in the title. The paper title includes the “by” however, it was transcribed incorrectly by IEEE, but this would have been difficult for me to guess correctly. Xplore can’t deal with this difference. Google can. Clearly, we have the technology. So, IEEE, please fix the search feature in Xplore. In the meantime, I guess I’ll log in to Xplore but search in Google.

Andrew Kun

del.icio.us (pronounced delicious) is a web service that allows you to store your favorite links online. In addition, you can tag your links so that they’re easy to search and easy to share. You can create networks with friends and colleagues. You can also explore what other people with similar interests are tagging (a cool conference maybe?). 

You’ve probably seen tag clouds (e.g. on Flickr). Tag clouds help visualize what is popular on a site. del.icio.us also allows you to create your own tag cloud, which is a nice thing to display on your home page or blog. As an example, here’s my del.icio.us tag cloud:

Feel free click on “Add me to your network,” perhaps we can exchange some interesting links!

Andrew Kun