Today many people in China are sad. Who’s sad? The people in China who most strongly support Google. These people were excited about Google’s services- search, docs, wave, android, chrome, and all the other services that were yet to come. Google could do no wrong in their eyes, and they were ready to be the early adopters of any service, be it alpha, beta, or product, that Google would deploy. They would use Google Wave even though the first version barely limped along and still think it was the coolest thing on earth. They would install a Chrome browser and every update the minute it became available. Why are they sad? They’re sad because they believe Google’s bold move towards the Chinese government means the end of Google in China.

With its bold statement towards the Chinese government, Google basically closed their doors in China. Business tactics that may work in countries like the US do not work in China. In China there is a strong feeling about building relationships. There is a strong feeling about “saving face”. There is a strong culture and history that the people are very proud of.

Sure there are problems. And yes there are problems that need to be fixed. But the question that arises is what is the best way to go about it.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs gave a keyntoe at CES. This was perhaps the best CES keynote I attended, since Jacobs went through a lot of information at a quick pace and he brought forward many interesting partners.

Jacobs said one line that sums up Qualcomm’s vision and strategy "We believe all consumer devices are going to be cell phones themselves. Qualcomm is helping drive that innovation."

Nokia’s CEO  Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo gave a keynote and CES. I attended the second half and I included my live tweets below. Overall, I was very impressed with the keynote. It really differed from the other keynotes I saw which focused on products. Nokia really focused on people, their needs, and Nokia’s solutions to those needs. One strong theme was focus on people and use connectivity to “empower people to take care of themselves.” Another strong theme was focus on “doing good business and doing good.”

Intel CEO Paul Otellini gave a keynote speech at CES 2010. I live-tweeted the session and my raw tweets are below. In addition, here are some of the themes and highlights that I heard.

• The world is moving in directions that need a lot more compute/processing power.
• Computing and processor technology has rapidly advanced in compute power and energy efficiency, both in PCs and mobile.
• 3D is a key emerging area in the year ahead. 3D requires lots of computation, especially as visual quality increases.
• Mobile continues to be an important evolving area. Mobile processor advances are enabling new form factors: mobile devices, netbooks, slates, etc.
• Intel has launched the AppUp Center, an app store for netbook apps that runs on Windows and Linux. They are allowing their netbook partners to customize their storefronts.
• Intel Labs is innovating for the future.

Let’s dig in a bit deeper.

Steve Ballmer (CEO) and Robbie Bach (President of the Devices & Entertainment division) shared the keynote and CES. They talked about what Microsoft did in 2009 and what Microsoft will do in 2010. I live-tweeted the session and my raw tweets are included below. In addition, I’m including some of the big messages I heard in the keynote.

The biggest messages I heard in Microsoft’s vision and plans for 2010 are:

• PCs will come in all shapes and sizes- including slates; there will be something for everyone.
• The Cloud will be combined with software on the PC.
• Adding the PC Experience to anything makes it better. (e.g., watching TV or playing games)
• Xbox live will broaden its market to have something for everyone.
• Xbox live will let you play games with Natural User Interfaces.  Project Natal will be available for the 2010 holiday season.

New Year’s Day is always a time for reflection, especially when the new year ends in a 0. This morning I tweeted some tech thoughts I have on the 2010’s. I’ll follow up with blog posts dedicated to some of these topics. In the mean time, here are some of my first tweets for the new decade.

1. The 2000’s: From Y2K to the geo-social-mobile web.
2. The 2000’s and 2010’s: Search engine showdowns. Browser showdowns.
3. The 2010’s: Fight of the Operating Systems!
   • Open Source OS’s or S.O.S.?
4. The 2010’s: Rapid churn: in devices, in OS’s, in services, …
   • The 2010’s: Innovation in devices and devices+services. The emergence of the Client Cloud.
5. The 2010’s: Devices get more senses. And services learn to use them.
6. The emergence of client-cloud experiences: 2009: Mobile apps improve mobile web experiences. The 2010’s: PC apps improve PC web experiences.
   • 2010: Apps or browsers? In mobile? On PCs?
   • The 2010’s: Great strides in user experiences.
7. 2009-2010: From notebooks to netbooks. 2010-2011: From netbooks to notebooks.
8. The 2010’s: The rise of the platforms.
   • 2010: The year that many will realize that they are better as a platform.
   • The 2010’s: Better off as a platform: Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Microsoft, Google, …
   • The 2010’s: Social capabilities are built into the fabric of the internet as a platform.
9. The social web: 2008: Finding your old friends. 2009: Meeting new friends & followers. 2010: Converting your followers into friends.
10. The 2010’s: Immersive multimedia experiences… for entertainment and communication.

Well, that’s my tweetburst for this New Year’s morning. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Which do you think are most interesting? Which do you agree/disagree with? What would you add to the list?

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

Professor William F. Schreiber was my Ph.D. thesis advisor. He passed away in October 2009 at the age of 84. This article in the Boston Globe describes a bit about his life. His remembrance ceremony was held at the MIT Faculty Club on November 21, 2009. The room was packed with people who came to celebrate his life. His family, friends, colleagues, and former students attended, many of us flying in from across the country.

I have the honor of being Professor Schreiber’s last Ph.D. student. I was invited to be one of the speakers at his remembrance. These are the words that I shared in memory of Professor Schreiber.  Please feel free to share your Schreiber-isms and memories of Professor Schreiber below.

In the world of image processing research, it is important to have standard test images so people can compare their results. The cameraman image is a test image that has been used for decades.  It can be found in many image processing textbooks and homework problems.

The Cameraman image is widely used as a test image for image processing research.

Imaging and photography has come quite a long ways since then.  Just for fun, here are a couple pictures I took during my trip to Cairo Egypt for ICIP 2009 and a brief introduction to some research that Professor Sabine Süsstrunk presented on Near-Infrared Imaging to improve digital photography in the years to come.

Here are some people pictures we took by the Pyramids and the Sphynx during my trip to Egypt in Nov 2009.

The first picture is the Step Pyramid in a town called Sakkara which has 16 pyramids. It turns out that there are many different types of pyramids, and it took some experimentation to find the shape that worked best. I’ll post more on that later.

I spent some time with the camels in the Egyptian desert at night, with the beautifully lit Pyramids of Giza in the distance. I’m sharing a few pictures that we took. I don’t know much about camels, but this seemed like a particularly happy crew.

The first picture has our calm, cool, and collected camel.  Notice his elegant stature, which is accentuated by the blue glow of the pyramid in the distance.

Camels relaxing in the desert with the pyramids glowing in the distance.