Takeaways: Cloud Computing

Steve Ballmer gave a talk on cloud computing today at UW Paul Allan Center. Those are my notes and takeaways:

5 things cloud computing will deliver:

1. more responsibility and opportunities
2. incredible user experiences (demo of bing map)
3. enhanced social experiences (demo of sky tv on xbox live)
4. ask for smart devices
5. improved severs go along with better cloud computing

I am lazy to type in the details. Steve is one of the greatest IT leaders, his talk is very inspiriting. His speech in the company meeting 2009 made me believe the future of computing, and Microsoft.

User-centered Privacy Principles

While software/service design is going be more and more user-centered and user-value sensitive, would the data privacy laws/principles be the same way?

When I was talking with a Google product manager last month about privacy issues, he said as long as the company 1) let the users know how it handles private data, 2) be transparent, and 3) be more user-centered in design of the privacy options, there would not be big privacy issues.

Google has its privacy principles as guide to design their online products (also watch the video below). Those five bullet points deliver the messages that Google is using personal information for good use - customized and valuable products and services, Google is following the privacy standards to protect user's data, and Google is providing options to let user protect his/her privacy.

Youtube Video: Google's Privacy Principles

Comparatively, Microsoft defines their guiding principles as transparency, control, and security.

I believe both companies are doing the right things about privacy. Although I have no idea what is the best way to balance private data and better service, the followings are must-dos to embrace user-centered privacy principles:

• Be transparent. Let the users be aware of their personal data and how the product/service is using the data.
• Be controllable. Let the users have control of their personal data and options to choose whether they would like the company to use the data to do good things.
• Let the privacy principles involved in early stages of product/service design. Design privacy principles, and use them as guide to design.
  

As more companies are involved in discussion about managing personal data such as Data Privacy Day and really taking efforts on it, I believe a much better awareness and solution of privacy in the future.

Who is more evil, Google or the Chinese government?

[image source: China Google (censored!) - 2007 http://www.richswebdesign.com/googlelogos.shtml]

To recap the emerging issue, Google said on Tuesday (1/12/2010) in its official blog that due to the recent "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" and continuous disagreement with the Chinese government on the censorship of search results, Google might shut down Google.cn as well as its offices in China.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. After its 10 years serving, Google did change the world in terms of information flow. However, more and more issues come along with its success and domination. Copyright and privacy become everyday news to Google: copyright lawsuit over Digital Book Project in China, privacy lawsuit over Street View in the United States, and also many other cases all over the world. Don't be evil seems more like a joke, and even Google itself has no definition of evil. While making information accessible globally, Google has no way to control the information consumption, because it is unable to know who is using the information for what purpose: a terrorist can simply use Google Map to get to know the environment of a target. Nevertheless, Google can control the information flow and decide how to use it either for business or for the great good, and even though we all understand our privacy must be offended to some point but we can do nothing about it - because Google is the rule maker. The same reason that we all know the American government should not send armies everywhere, but as they play the world police role, they rule the world.

Google's leaving China is not because the hackers and censorship. It is hard to believe that such a giant can not handle the attacks, and when Google landed in China, they accepted to offer censored search service. Surprisingly, Google China has increased its market share significantly in the past six months according to the analysis, which suggests that the market is not the main reason either. But (I think) losing the confidence of operating in China is. Look back what happened since 2006:

• The market share increases from 13.2% in 2006 to 32.8% in mid-2009 while the Chinese Internet users increases from 105 million to 338 million.
• In June 2009, Google was asked twice to remove all its porn sites from search results, the news was broadcasted through all major channels including CCTV.
• In December 2009, Google was sued by the Chinese author over illegal web book scan, later hundreds of authors joined to claim Google, and Google lost 125 million dollars.
• In December 2009, Kai-Fu Lee, the founding president of Google China, announced his resignation and started a new career.

Everybody knows China has the largest potential market. But how to run business in China has always been a problem for all the foreign companies. Smart like Google, could not find efficient ways to resolve all kinds of issues, especially localization. Both Chinese laws and culture are so different from the American, the company never fully understood the environment, the government, and the people. Leaving lots of problem unsolved, Google China's future looks not good at all - more censorship, more competitors, and more lawsuits?

On the other hand, the Chinese government, reacted "companies do business in China must follow the laws of the land". It sends a clear message: if you want to play in my house, you must follow my rules. Note that the Chinese government is nothing like the ancient anymore, given the position and power of China in the world, the country is no longer afraid of any threats. As a developing country, being stable is one of the principles, which means, the laws like censorship will not change just because of Google or the critics from western countries. Transparency, openness, democracy will eventually be there in China, but it needs time and phases, (I do believe) the government is doing the right thing to protect people. Sadly, the issue now is not only between Google and the Chinese government, the US government is being involved too: Hillary Clinton demands explanation for the Google issue.

Anyway, if Google exits China, that would be the most stupid move ever, it will damage not only itself, but Chinese people and the rapidly growth market. The Chinese government will never compromise. In long-term, it is also a huge loss for the Chinese users. In the following days, keep an eye on Google, the Chinese government, the US government, the Chinese people, and Microsoft/Yahoo/Baidu, lots of interesting things will happen for sure.

To make it more interesting:

• In 2006, Yanhong Li, the founder of Baidu, predicted that Google will entirely lose the Chinese search market. Source (in Chinese).

And one remaining question is, Google said nothing about how the Chinese users should deal with the issue. It hurts if I was using Goolge services in China. So far as I know from lots of Chinese forums, people started to backup their Gmail data.

Footnote: I am a Chinese student study abroad in the US, who knows both the Chinese government and Google well. It stands for personal opinion only.

First impression with HCI

This is my first post.

I am so glad that most of the classmates in HCI course have realized that User-Centered Design seems to be too ideal, and not practical. The water flow model of the interactive software engineering life cycle illustrates that it is the right way of doing software engineering, and we all know that is true, but is it being applied in the industrial field? The answer is no. I have a friend who knows some guys from Nuance (http://www.t9.com) developed T9 input method, which is the most popular cell phone input method in the world, actually they did not do too much usability testing, the approach model was still developer oriented at that time. many HCI design concepts are not being used as industrial standards nowadays, most of the companies still follow the traditional way, e.g. spec, design, implementation, testing, and integration without too much user interactive involved. What happens if they find that spec is changed or design does not match user's needs when they are in the integration stage? Throw away all the coding and re-design everything? No. Companies and users come to a compromise finally and users will be accustomed with the current outcome.

Jeff, our TA, said that three companies, Microsoft, Apple, and Google did really good at usability engineering. Well, from my point of view, Microsoft is not that good, see what Microsoft has designed, Vista, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, they make software complicated! They usually dump information to users and give us lots of options to choose, it seems to be professional though, users do not want that much. What users care about a peice of software are 1) do I need it; 2) is it easy to use; 3) will it bring any trouble to me. Apple is renowned for its fancy design, but I do not think that they come from users' opinions. Apple has groups of creative people who are crazy for UI designs, their products are always out of our imaginations, and that's why it emerges lots of Apple-Only-Fans. Google is another story similar to Apple as they have got every employee extremely talented. What can a group of talents do? Actually, what can't they do?

However, I do think that user and usability focused software engineering will have its time in the future, as Parmitt, our another TA, has said, "nobody talked about usability engineering 10 years ago, and it is still new today and it is going to change, but change takes time". Agile software development has been accepted and put into practise recently and more and more companies will follow this model to re-define software engineering. 

Keep J's (the professor of HCI course) words at the end: users are not like me.