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September 2006 - Posts

A blogger posts whats its like to buy Windows XP in China

Being a MS employee, I buy my Windows XP from the Redmond company store for a mere (Price to low to mention) dollars. Why, thats less than the cost of a brand new Xbox 360 game. I have never had to buy Windows in retail since its usually provided with Read More...
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006 3:44 PM by msracid | 7 Comments

The first NFL game in China to be played in Beijing (Patriots vs. Seahawks)

Although, I am not a Seahawks fan myself (i'm from NYC), you can't spit in a MS office without hitting a SeaHawks fan. I went to school in Boston so I would have to claim Patriot favoritism. The first ever NFL game to be held in China will be held in Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:16 PM by msracid | 2 Comments

Watching Internet video on your TV?

Users want video downloads on the TV . We addressed this problem with our DynaLine paper . However, we approached it from an interaction design perspective: how does one navigate such a huge corpus on a remote control? And given the unique nature of internet Read More...
Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006 5:24 PM by msracid | 1 Comments

Take our survey on RSS Reading Habits

What kind of RSS reader are you? MSR Asia is currently doing research on how people use their RSS readers (aggregators). We've been up to our necks in interviews, contextual inquiries, and now this survey! The results will be made public to the RSS community Read More...
Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:05 AM by msracid | 15 Comments

China Access 2008

I sat on a panel with some of the good folks involved with China Access 2008 today. China Access 2008 is a strategic international business marketing and partnering initiative that has been consciously structured to help China better realise the unique Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 19, 2006 2:47 PM by msracid | 1 Comments

China's $125 OLPC

China undercuts MIT/Negroponte at $125, nobody surprised. Negroponte has said that what he wants is a software ecosystem to emerge from the platform of laptops in developing areas. But he's getting hardware too. Why don't price wars work this well in Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:11 AM by msracid | 0 Comments

What a piracy crackdown in China really means

China's current crackdown on video piracy is humming along and there has been impact on the availability of pirated DVDs to some degree in Beijing. "BEIJING -- Chinese law enforcement agencies destroyed nearly 13 million pirated compact discs, DVDs and Read More...
Posted Monday, September 18, 2006 11:12 AM by msracid | 0 Comments

Gaming in China and some good academic papers on gaming and level design

You may need to open a free account at www.gamasutra.com but these papers provide some pretty good academic analysis of key topics in the gaming field. Understanding addiction in multiplayer games Game Spaces and Worlds Spatial Principles of level design Read More...
Posted Wednesday, September 13, 2006 6:43 PM by msracid | 0 Comments

Holy Smokes, is this what Germans think that China Design will look like in the future?

Some interesting concepts from Germany on what Neo-China will be like : The new opportunities arising for Western designers from the developments in China were the focus of this year's CHINA DESIGN project. This interdisciplinary student project involving Read More...
Posted Wednesday, September 13, 2006 2:34 PM by msracid | 1 Comments

Back from the company offsite...wanna see my trip pictures? It will just take a minute...really, have a seat.

Every year, ATC goes and flies every FTE (full time employee) to an offsite meeting somewhere in China. This year we went to Hainan Island which is a province very close to Vietnam. Think of Hainan as similar to Thailand (both the good and bad aspects) Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2006 3:42 PM by msracid | 3 Comments

Apple Service Bites in China

Just as I was praising how cool Macs were in a previous post , my girlfriend's Nano died today and she had a run in with Apple's service center here in Beijing. As I mentioned previously, Apple seems to be having issues with service and support in other Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 05, 2006 5:04 PM by msracid | 14 Comments

Chinese immigrants returning 'home'

Former MSRA CID visiting artist and researcher Rania Ho , reporting for NPR: The immigrant story is a familiar one: a family leaves behind poverty or war to make a new life in America. They work hard, save money, make friends, buy a house and a car, and Read More...
Posted Tuesday, September 05, 2006 9:24 AM by msracid | 1 Comments

"IM is too distracting" for a few Beijing girls

Two 16-year old Beijing girls from the Zhonguancun area in Beijing (the "Silicon Hutong") mirrored me for several hours at work a couple of weeks ago. These were girls not specifically interested in pursuing careers in technology, but they certainly knew Read More...
Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 6:06 PM by msracid | 2 Comments

Free WiFi in and around Beijing

On a recent user research trip to a village in Huarou County, outside of Beijing (home of the beautiful Huairou geological formation), several of us piled into a minibus (complete with in-car navigation system that probably needs to be updated more than Read More...
Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 5:45 PM by msracid | 1 Comments

Attachment(s): 20060904 018.jpg

This sort of looks like the Xbox 360 logo

This is a picture of the side of the building where the sign hangs. Its about 50 feet tall and in the Zhonguancun Silicon Hutong of Beijing. -frank yu Read More...
Posted Friday, September 01, 2006 2:57 PM by msracid | 0 Comments

Macs in China

This was an interesting post from an MS employee in the Macintosh Business Unit and her experience with being a Mac user in Microsoft. In some ways, I can understand her situation since I am a former mac Zealot myself having owned the following in the Read More...
Posted Friday, September 01, 2006 11:15 AM by msracid | 4 Comments
 
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