[工作點滴] Liberated networking technology

Our company update the home page to a brand new picture. There is a name 'Liberated' to describe the new networking technology we implemented. 

According to the dictionary, I'm most likely the description "free from traditional social restraints" because we are trying to make the fundamental change in different area that we enter. It's an interesting journey to me.

Although it's not 100% correct, I still want to record what I saw here. I plot the company's product map simply by personal thinking as follow from the webpage. 

It looks quite simple and most of the items are not new concept here. If we can do well in every point that describe here, we have big chance to success. So we have to be more hard working to liberated them all.

[工作點滴] RabbitMQ - amqp protocol note

After the RabbitMQ server and client are setup, I start to learn more about the RabbitMQ system. The core of RabbitMQ is based AMQP protocol. There are lots of information we can get on wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Message_Queuing_Protocol

The AMQP is basically start from bank industry and that's why some related terminology like broker are used in AMQP specification. Here is model of the AMQP.

If we want to make the application to be two way communication, we have to make the application with publisher and consumer characteristics.

There are definitions in the specifications and we can check directly on it. 

Here is the packet sequence diagram that collect by the Wireshark.

The application plays two roles of clients in different thread.

We can define the private header and body in the content body for personal functions.

There is an important terminology name Routing Key. It's like the 'To:', 'cc:' and 'bcc:' in email. We have to synchronize the routing key name to let the message can send to the device we want. The definition in specification:

The first step of the application is basically done. Later we will implement more functions that we want on it.

[科技新知] Panasonic's 3D CMOS image sensor

3D image/video is blooming in recent years because of the entertainment industry like movie and game. There are also lot kinds of device appear like 3D camera, 3D TV...etc. The player play the 3D image in early stage is by put two camera into one and post processing the two photos into one.

Gopro has the similar structure of their hero camera and we have to buy two camera with some accessories to make this.

There are devices has already embedded two lens and sensors for having 3D functions like Sony camcorder.

I saw a news on Tech-on today that Panasonic developed a 2.1-Mpixel CMOS image sensor for camera systems capable of taking 3D movie with a single lens and announced it at ISSCC 2013. See following links.

http://big5.nikkeibp.com.cn/news/semi/64837-20130222.html

For taking 3D video, it is necessary to separate light into light entering the left eye and light entering the right eye and to make sure that the two types of lights come to different pixels of the CMOS sensor. To realize this, Panasonic employed a structure that combines a lenticular lens and mirror elements (digital micro lenses: DMLs) made by forming patterns whose size is smaller than light wavelength with a lithography technology.

The lights separated by the lenticular lens are collected with the DMLs to increase their intensities. Then, they enter the pixels of the CMOS sensor. With this structure, the light entering the left eye and the light entering the right eye do not interfere with each other much. Therefore, the intensities of the lights become high enough. The received signals obtained in this way are processed via line memory to create 3D video.

Currently, Panasonic is planning to apply the CMOS sensor to industrial and mobile devices, expecting that products equipped with the sensor will debut in 2014.

This may realize the 3D camera system with lower cost because we just need one lens but there are still some information need to be check further. Like the sensitivity, resolution, optical format that lens need, back-end processor and the price of this sensor. I'm very excite for this sensor because it cam simplified the design of the 3D device system. We also can extend the advantages of the 3D system to some applications especially for image system.

[雜七雜八] Peking University Tickets King - 裴濟洋

There is a message post on Facebook by my former boss that talk about a guy in China who help people to order the ticket before important holidays. He is a Peking University student whose name is Ji-Yang Pei(裴濟洋), 23 years old. There is a report from China's TV station and the link is as following.

http://dailynews.sina.com/bg/chn/chnlocal/phoenixtv/20130222/01194273327.html

In China, people who left home for working would go home every Chinese Lunar New Year. It is the biggest human migration period in the world and it's quite hard to get a ticket to go home. Pei provide more opportunity for those people to get a ticket especially the underprivileged ones in past three years. Later, he did not just provide the fish but also teach us how to fish. Pei post a thousand words of article on the internet to let us know how to do it. Because of this, he become a famous person, lots of people call him the Ticket King of Peking University.

Why does Pei can do this? He said he has the train network and timetable is his head. Besides, we have to notice the dynamic message and have mentally prepared that it is a difficulty task to go home. We can not just cut diamond by diamond because the direct route for home is also the most popular one. The target is there, we can use our brain on the route to reach it. The thinking also can be the philosophy on business. When we encounter troubles on one way, we could have different way to reach the target.

This event make my thinking of the situation in Taiwan. We also encounter the same situation but we do not have that strong feeling before because there is only one train route there and another choice is bus. Besides, the distance from the most northern to southern is 400~500 kilometers and we always have direct thinking in our life. Is that why we become a person as stubborn as a mule? Just kidding.

I quite admire this young man because he observe the the society and help people with his ability. Even though he is a Peiking University student, he never think himself above business. Let's learn from him and have a hand clap to him.

[產業觀察] India electronic policy

I saw a news recently that talk about the national policy on electronics 2012 of India. Kapil Sibal, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology says the government approve the policy and plan to invest 100 billion for electronics industry fostering before 2020. It's natural trend for India to extend from their famous software industrial to hardware.

Kapil visit Japan's recently and says it's very important to have strategy cooperation with Japan electronics company. The most important one is to build first semiconductor factory. The plan will kick-off before October 2013 and start to production around 2015~2016. Then based on the plenty of software engineer, Japan company can have much progress in India on embedded system.

According the news, I think India have the right strategy to do this. Japan's electronics industry gradually lose their competitive since years ago because their thinking do not keep up with the trend. India have a lots of advantages to help Japan's company reverse this situation including the software industry, low cost man power, big market...etc. Besides the economic view point, the political strategy in Asia, it is inevitable for Japan to keep more relations with China's neighbor union.

Let's keep observing how the things going.

[科技新知] Google Glass launch

After I wrote the Vuzix Smart glasses for just hours, Google launched their glass and built a new web site for this product. Maybe google do not want to be left behind when Vuzix award from CES.
http://www.google.com/glass/start/

The page is simple and clear. We could see a video in the link to sense how it feels. All the functions that describe in what it does are totally from audio, video and gesture recognition. We can take the photo, record the video, translation, search the information, navigation...etc in real-time.
All of the recognition technology have to link with the requirements of people and that's why google raise a competition for people to write down "what would you do if you had Glass". Once the idea is adopted, we could become the Glass Explorer and buy Glass with USD $1500.

However, this activity is for 18+ years old and live in the US. Anyway, I could not wait to see what's happen next.

[休閒運動] The trade of Houston Rockets

I like to play basketball since I was a high school student and I still play around one to twice a week now. Although I love this sport, I do not have too much passion to see the games like NBA after MJ retired. In past year, I started to pay attention on it. One reason is Jeremy Lin and the other is the CEO of my company bought Memphis Grizzlies last year. I start to realize this is not just only a game but also contain a lot of things in it.

There are two trades that I noticed in recently. One is no doubt Grizzlies because it's much more related to  my life. But I'm more interesting on Houston Rocket's trade. There is an article that wrote by blog in Taiwan and I learn a lot from this article.

http://www.isay.tw/?p=2443

This guy 'isay' observe the unusual dispatch of the McHale before the all star game. He analysis the position, salary...etc of all players and provide a list of 5 players on 2/17. The news disclosed early today, 4 players in the list are traded. I'm amazing that he have the high accurate prediction. Maybe this author have the business sense too. After this, I may have a different view to see the sports not only NBA but also MLB...etc.

[科技新知] Vuzix Smart Glasses M100

I saw a news that about the Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 and it get a recipient of the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Innovations 2013 Design and Engineering Award BEST OF INNOVATIONS, and selected as Best Technology in the Wireless Handset Accessory category. More information in following link.
http://www.vuzix.com/consumer/products_browse.html#video-eyewear

It's an interesting device but there are still challenges behind. Since Google launch their project glass, Vuzix is the 2nd company to make the similar product. So M100 get a lot of discussion even google guys go their booth to have it a look. According to the hardware specification from Vuzix web sites. It's totally an android based smart phone and the difference is the glasses appearance only. It's not special by just hardware specification only.

I think the story of this product is based on the intelligence functions like the video recognition, gesture recognition, voice recognition...etc. When these functions are introduced, this device become very interesting.
Vuzix also provide the SDK for developers and it may follow the smart phone pace to have variety of apps on the market.
So, let's look forward to it.

[工作點滴] AirVision 2.0 preview on Win7

Before the Chinese Lunar New Year, I got the latest alpha version of the AirVision2. It does not only  inherit the pros from previous version but more quick and stable also. I just have some preview here about the installation and main pages showing.

After double clicking the windows installer, following the step of installation. When executing the airVision2, there is a windows security information pop up, please make sure the firewall does not block your application.

The airVision shows at the right bottom. Click the Launch a Browser to start a webpage for further.

First, we have to enter the name of the host PC name, language and position we are.

Second step, to create an account to accessing the airVision.

Third step, to add controller. If no, just go Next.

Finally, finish the first time configuration.

Login.

Clicking the unmanaged part of cameras and a list of unmanaged cameras show up.

Entering the information of the camera and clicking the Manage to make the connection.

Open the Map page.

Drag and drop the camera we want to the Map.

Same as the previous version, when detect motion, the color is change.

Add all the cameras on the Map we have.

We can see all the devices information in Devices page.

We can get the related statistics information in the Statistics page.

We can handle the recording in the Recordings page.

Analytics function as well.

The toggle bar at the bottom has lots of system information.

After quick playing, it's really over my expectation. Hope it can be launched soon.

There is a video demo on youtube for previous version. Maybe we can do comparisons in near future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp3nafT3n90

[工作點滴] Miracast in surveillance system

Weeks ago, the supplier demo the Miracast function to us and my colleague told me maybe we can think if there are applications for surveillance system. At first I saw nothing special for surveillance application but I may find there is now.
Here is a capture picture from the whitepaper of WiFi alliance.

Basically, Miracast is a protocol and this means Miracast can be over any kind of infrastructure. However, Miracast connections are expected to be predominantly established between Wi-Fi devices connected with each other directly, without an AP acting as an intermediary. According to the topology, what we can see is a source to a sink and it is a peer-to-peer connection.
Go back to the topic we want to talk for surveillance. I plot a picture as follow, and this is just like a traditional surveillance system with cameras, recorder and monitor.

Now the connection part become the Miracast wifi direct to the adapter like NVR and play the video through HDMI to monitor finally. In future, the smart TV integrate the adapter and monitor part and link to cloud service as the picture.

If our target system is small with 4~8ch or under, this structure is quite simple and real for home, small store...etc. It's interesting and I'm looking forward to see it happen in near future.