Leaving IBM

So it is (almost) official. My 11 months contract ends on 20. march and there is no hiring in software development in Dublin, so unfortunately it is time to say bye to IBM.

I have some great time here and I have the honor to get to know really good and professional people here. I have also learn a lot of stuff about software development. Whatever it is automated testing, DOJO widget development, HTML5, Xpages, IBM Connections, REST services, SOA, JavaScript or Mobile Web, all that knowledge will be hopefully useful to me.

Currently I don't know, where my next steps will lead, I really enjoy these big companies, so possibly it will be Google, Microsoft or event Facebook. To get to each of them will be a big challenge, but I hope, that my new knowledge will help me with that.

I would like to say to all my colleagues, that I enjoy time working with you and hopefully we will met sometimes in the future again.

Be well and prosper.

P.S.: I have just noticed rounded corners around highlated words in Google translate. I like it.

Effective Xpages development or how to use OpenNTF

 Hello, from my last blog post you can deduce, that my current work occupation has changed a bit. The truth is, that currently I am participating on development of controls for Xpages. Xpages is IBM technology for very rapid web development and it shares pretty much ideology of everything server side. So is you are REST based person, this wont be for you. But still you can use REST inside Xpages, so its not so much separated. Not just REST but support for many other things can be found inside Xpages. There are some basic components in core of Xpages, but if you would like to do sth. more with it, I strongly recommend to use Xpages Extension Library. 

It can be found here and everything you will need is Eclipse, IBM Domino server, Lotus notes client and SVN client. Currently there is few project running simultaneously under name of extension library. It is:connections, domino, features, group, mobile, oneui and sametime. I am currently working on mobile components, so in the future, there could be even more mobile support for Xpages. Even now you can build nice native looking application in xpages, with ability to assign custom skins to it, so it can have different look on android iphone or any other device.

I also recommend to take a look on examples, which can be found in XPagesExt.nsf. Dont be fooled by welcome screen. There is much more of examples, you just need to use specific path to .xsp file to access them. For example myserver.com/XPagesExt.nsf/Mobile_Test.xsp , which will give you demo of currently existing mobile components.

Also notice, that OpenNTF connections gives you nice ability to integrate your Xpages application with your IBM Connections. Fortunately connections features REST API so you can connect with it almost from anywhere. This allows you to automatically post things on your profile wall or create/delete communities, activities or anything you want. Also there is great search API which could be really handy.

OpenNTF become in last years for IBM and Xpages one of the main deployment platforms especially because of the ability to deploy immediately without big testing effort (off course testing is done, but not in such a big scale). It is really great to see IBM to give out sth. free and open, hopefully this will last for longer. 

But OpenNTF is not just about Xpages and extension library, you can find there many more usefull IBM stuff, for example Lotus Quickr widgets, which are also some, on which I have been working on. So enjoy OpenNTF and if you have some time, send a nice mail to those folks for all the great work they are doing, why deserve it. Also it can persuade IBM about meaningfulness of this effort.

Why I have left my PhD. studies in Slovakia?

Recently I have got this interesting question, so let me please share answer on this question with you.

Here is quick insight into science in Slovakia:

GDP of Slovakia is 87.84 billion USD, expenditures for science and research are around 0.3% of this, what is 260 mill USD, what is spread across 13 universities and multiple research centres. In next 5 years they will decrease funding for science and research by 30%. Most of this money are support from European Union.

These money are assigned to scientific institutions in 2 ways. By fixed amount for 1 employee and using grants. Fixed amount for 1 employee covers wage and some basic spendings related to his existence in this institution. So main source are grants. Grants are assigned based on a project proposal, what is specification, which needs to have around 300 pages. If you have well written project, you have around 30% probability to get funding.  This probability is much higher, if you are willing to pay 30% of project money as bribe for officials. 30% is amount, if you know someone close to officials, if not, the share could be even 50%. During my stay on PhD. studies I have cooperate on 3 grants, all of them get refused. So few months work of 10+ people just disappear (you can not resubmit the same project). Problem 1. minimal support for science and high level of corruption.

This is macroscopic (state) point of view. Let`s zoom a bit closer. On University/Faculty level. One would expect, that at least university/faculty will make everything to support science and research. Well reality is a bit different. About grants, if you are even the one lucky and you get a grant, there is great financial system, which just does not allow you to access your money first and last month of year, so you are pretty limited in conference choice, when you have to pay fees etc. Also, if you are buying some equipment, everything goes through this system, and it is not surprising, when you request some book and you wait 1-2 months for them. Well there is next interesting informational system, for study agenda, to keep track on grades and stuff. Students complain about it, lecturers complain about it, even some secretaries complain about it, but someone buy it, so there is no other option, than just live with it. Just to mention in short state of building and equipment of our university. Recently (1 year ago), part of the building collapsed, so far university is looking for money to fix it. Temporary measure is to deny access there. Problem 2. non-existence of dialogue between University/Faculty and its employees/students and poor (in term of material) environment.

Let's zoom a bit more, on student level. Well, when one is for example mathematician, he don't need fancy environment and tons of money for equipment, paper and pen are enough for him. So how doctoral research itself is supported? As doctoral student in Slovakia one get around 400 Euro a moth as support. Price for 1 bedroom apartment is around 350 a month. What gives you option to stay on college together with cockroaches, mold in shower and throwing up student in toilet (one toilet for 10-30 people). Other option is let parents support you. Lunch costs around 5€, if you are humble and can cook, you can get in 7€ a day for food. As you can see, financial situation of doctoral student in Slovakia is really not shining. But let's forgot about money and concentrate on research. For research one need articles, books and equipment. Both of the is a bit a problem. University has some subscriptions, but if you need article from other source (I desperately needed some from SpringerLink) you can buy it for your own, or ask friend working on foreign university to get it for you (this could get pretty wrong, if you ask him 1-2 times every week). Books are available in university/faculty library, commonly in number of pieces 1 and some of them you can not take away from library, so you can just scan parts of them. Off course, if you need latest edition of books, in many cases e-books are your only option, often illegally acquired (but at least it is for good thing, research). Equipment is primary problem. If you can not fit your equipment into grant, or you don't have enough money, your only option is to ask someone, if he does not have some money left in his grant. I needed few cameras and couple of graphic cards, I participate on 2 grants to get money for it, none of them was approved. Total cost of it was around 1500 €. Problem 3. Life of doctoral student is close to surviving with little (material) support for his existence and research.

This is just few problems, not mention high level of bureaucracy, clerks who scream on you and are always right, even if they are not... Despite all this, intellectual environment on faculty was really great and stimulating. All the people there are truly professionals and some of them has great publications on world best conferences. I have learn a lot from them. I really admire them, especially when they can do science in any conditions available. I am kind of person, which can take a lot, but if someone (as we say in Slovakia) constantly "throws logs under your feet", one can not expect me just to smile and keep walking.

Also, I am not the only one, who take this path, to abandon original PhD. study on our faculty and start elsewhere. It is more of us. They have more or less the same reasons like me. Personally I know few people from our department who started on our university and then switch, also after PhD. some of them return back. One past colleague, former PhD student on our university, switched to Japanese university, others migrate mostly to Germany, Austria, England and recently on friend of mine, who was in 3. year of his PhD. switched to MIT.

I think that, so much excuses is enough, perhaps behind it all is some part on my subconscious, which just does not wants to be there any more. I will see results of my decisions when I will be older, with some time distance between their execution and my judgement.

Bye HTML5 and Quickr, Welcome Xpages and Vulcan

So where one project end another begins, I have developed some nice features for Lotus Quickr like HTML5 upload (same as Google has for Gmail), nice facebook-like chat using web-sockets and other nice (mostly GUI) features. But its over.

And where saga ends, saga begins.

So here we go for Xpages extension library and project Vulcan, what seems to be also nice things to be working on.

OpenCV issue

So quick one post. If you are getting OpenCV error:
warning: error opening file (c:\user\vp\ocv\opencv\src\highgui\cvcap_ffmpeg.cpp:452)
where is the problem?

There could be 2 main causes:
1. You need to have build highgui WITH cv_ffmpeg, but before rebuilding check:
2. You dont have resources in right directory.

For Visual Studio (I am using 2008) it is directory in which is your .cpp file, but of course if you have build it and want to run it, it is also directory where is your .exe file, so debug or release directory, depending on what are you building.

I hope this helps.

More on computer games PhD

Hello mr. reader.

So application for ITU Copenhagen done. It was pretty much fight to get everything on time, but there is not too much bureaucracy. We will see how it will go. Btw. I have combined topics 2 and 3 from previous post and submit them. looks pretty good.

But not to bet always only one horse, I have decided also to post more applications. Currently it will be University of Waikato. And here are research topics I am proposing (as topic for research):

1. Persuasive games and public gameplay : Company called MegaPhone [1] recently present their technology, which allows for people play computer games using their mobile phones just in the middle of the street. This technology has been used widely in marketing, which is by nature persuasive. Until now, there was no study about use of this technology specially in persuasive games. It is really interesting to explore what is people attracting to this kind of games and factors as public presentation or physical aspect, which brings difference between classic multiplayer games and MegaPhone games. Also, because this is pretty different way of presentation of game, design challenges and decisions are pretty different, so this is another nice topic about which one can think. So here are few basic questions, on which I would like find answers in work on this topic: How can public games influence players behaviour? What are design challenges for combination of public and persuasive games? How to design successful public game? What are main differences between design of classic casual multiplayer games and public multiplayer games? Are public games suitable only for casual games? How can be public persuasive games used in other areas (marketing, public opinion research, education)? How to use public games for education (use of serious games)?

More generally about persuasive design and technology, there are some young conferences about this topic [2] [3], so here it is observable, that this topic is becoming interesting for scientific community.

Megaphone provides free developer program, in which I participate now and I believe that they would appreciate cooperation in this area, so I can can contact them and create university+industry link.

2. Brain-Computer Interface and adaptive gameplay : Adaptive games are nothing new in computer games research, there is plenty of publication by many institutions and also there are IEEE and ACM conferences on this topic. Pioneer in this are was ITU Copenhagen Centre for Computer game research [4]. Currently research is done all over the world including Sydney Australia, Concordia Canada, Bergen Norway, Georgia Tech USA and many others. Most of papers use for "adaptation" direct player feedback or indirect variables, such as player success in the game.

BCI is existing for a long time, but it is really young area and there is not too much commercial use of it. Most advanced product is [5], which is one I would like to use in my work. First papers about combination of BCI and computer games are only from last years (09-10). And none of them is actually discusses their combination with adaptive gameplay.

This is more experimental topic and open questions are not so clear, but some can be stated: How can be BCI used for adaptive games? Should be BCI used only as passive element, or should player be able also to influence gameplay through it? What is the right metrics to measure player satisfaction with BCI? What challenges are in design of adaptive games with BCI? Can use of BCI during early prototyping of game give results, which can lead to better design of final game?

But except wide theoretical study, purpose of this research will be create actual game, which is using BCI to adapt.

[1] http://www.playmegaphone.com/index.php

[2] http://www.persuasive2010.org/

[3] http://designforpersuasion.com/

[4] http://game.itu.dk/index.php/about

[5] http://www.emotiv.com/

Center for Computer Games Research

Hi people, recently I have found this page of Center for Computer games Research and it looks like, they are accepting PhDs! So I have write down few proposal, please give me feedback so I can form solid Statement of Purpose from it. It is 3 of them, 1 main and 2 spare. Fell free to be bad and have a lot of criticism.

Here it is:

Real-World data based game content - basic idea is to generate game content based on actual real-world data. There could be multiple uses for this and it is wide area. Examples:

1. Games content delivery - you can deliver game content based on geographical location of player, in different places you can play different levels of game. It can be used for example for propagation of cultural attractions, where if you visit museum or gallery you can play game on your phone, and levels of this game will be personalized to that museum or gallery. Goal of this would be to build a game, which delivers game content depending on geographical position and other easily obtained data (time) from client (player).

2. Solving real world problems - lets imagine a computer game, which reflects real traffic situation and quest of the player is to get from point A to point B. There could be multiple players and one who can get there in best way will be the winner and actually his solution can be delivered to someone, who will be using GPS and would like to get from point A to point B. Next example is to have game with climate situation and the quest of the player will be to manipulate with the weather. Based on player actions then we can observe the resulting situation and compare it to actual situation evolved after time. Those are simple examples, we can think about more complex models, which provides player with ability to solve real-world problems with computer games, based on real-world content. One bright example can be found here.

3. Gameplay in real-world environment - Here you can imagine computer games, mostly on mobile phones, which are using augmented reality to provide game content. Provided game content is also dependant on current surrounding of the player. This would be nice combination with point 1. Under this point one can also discuss game-content based on real world models. Just imagine you have a model of a car, you would move your mobile phone around that car, the car get 3D into the mobile phone and you can play the game with that car. Actually this, what I am describing in last sentence is based on video-based rendering and I have already some results in that area.

Those are 3 main possible areas, where to use real-world data based game content. If none of them would be suitable, I have few ideas here for other themes for thesis. For this other themes I have not deep background, but it is not problem for me to work hard to get it. So here are few other ideas:

Indirect control gameplay - The name is little bit mysterious, but have you ever play Black and White game? This is one of a kind game and it is using this indirect feedback model. You have a creature, which is acting in the game according his own will and you as player can punish or reward it. Also this creature is observing players behaviour and actually it reflect players style of play. I think it is pretty interesting area to observe. For example in strategy games, when one is playing for a race and he will build a new base. So he will have 2 bases. Then he can promote and general, which will take care for the old base and he can concentrate on the new base. The player can give some indirect orders to the general and also promote/demote him. This can result into forming generals character. This is example for strategy game, same can be done for racing game, where teams are racing against each other and in one race there is multiple racers, who need to cooperate. Here it can be also interesting to get the good balance between player feedback and agent autonomous behaviour.

Adaptive computer-player cooperation in gameplay - I have read your papers on adaptive content and how to maximize player fun. This was one of other factors, which can be taken in consideration. Besides player there could be another character in the game controlled by the computer and this character will help the player based on his current results. So if he is doing well, the character will interact less, otherwise he will help more. This could be really nice addition to generated game content, because it has no delay in response to player actions (if we are thinking about Mario game, then computer controlled character can help also on the same screen so player does not need to wait to move to another screen).