My first trip to China gave me a few occasions to sit back and take pause. Foremost of my observations involved the social and professional uses of online technology and services and how the use cases varied from North America, while I was equally interested in the enormous lack of cultural preservation.

While most people in Canada access online services through their home PCs and broadband connections, a large focus of MMEC was spent on content, products and services that will be accessible primarily through handheld devices. China has embraced the 3G Mobile Phone, and while the raw numbers of Chinese people on the internet is very large, an overwhelming majority of Chinese people have mobile phones compared to those with home computers.

Many of the products, services, and content discussed at MMEC will be tailored for an audience with handheld devices over those with home computers simply due to the sheer number of potential clients.

Another main observation worth mention here, is that of China's incredibly primitive state of digitization and preservation of culture. Beijing, a city thousands of years old, contains few historical landmarks (most have been ripped down and built over), The Great Wall is collapsed in several locations, innumerable Chinese cultural artifacts and traditions have been lost or are at risk of being lost due to a very small preservation effort. There are HUGE possibilities for digitization and preservation of cultural heritage in China. The forthcoming Olympics have helped in diverting some money and effort to preservation, restoration and digitization, however there is so much that can be done.

Ian Chapman Banks - Motorola

In this session I heard about Motorola's vision for providing seamless access to online services and content through their handheld devices. The perspective of Motorola (as well as other companies represented here) was that there is no difference between a mobile phone and a Gameboy - they are and will be portable devices with which users can access any service they want. There is really no distinction between what is a phone, a gaming device, a camera or an MP3 player. They are all multimedia devices and were often referred to as the 3rd screen (next to the TV and the home computer).

I found it interesting that of all the research and work being done in this domain there is little in mention of standardization. Motorola is only 1 of the many companies represented in this field. The few different browsers and platforms that I have to worry about seem like nothing compared to the thousands of devices produced by hundreds of companies in the field of wireless access.
-------

Eldon Hylton - CEO International Media Centre

One of the only people I met who was involved in preservation of Chinese culture through digital projects. Spoke of how the vast Chinese culture is often hidden, forgotten and neglected. He worked on a 3D visualization project in which he has reconstructed part of The Great Wall which has fallen down. He advocated the use of MultiMedia as a preservation and educational tool so that Chinese culture can be not only preserved but remembered from one generation to the next.
-------

Nicholas Negroponte - MIT Media Lab

Dr. Negroponte first spoke about MultiMedia in general. He has a very effective way to speak about abstract terms and concepts - a quick glance around the room sees most audience members nodding in agreement with almost everything he says. He spoke a bit about the ubiquitous nature of MultiMedia (music, text, audio, video = all digital, all the same DNA) and then got to his main topic which was his 1 Laptop Per Child initiative.

Initially begin as a program for 3rd world countries, 1 Laptop per Child is proving to be so successful that even US states are adopting it. Basically laptops are produced for under $100 each and every student involved in the program gets their own laptop which is then used as their main educational tool. He spoke at length on the development of the laptops which was quite interesting and how they are now being used in Brazil, Cambodia, etc.

This session was incredibly interesting from a methodological perspective, to technical, social, and design perspectives as well.
-------

Other Mentions of Interest ...

Adrian David Cheok (ACM SIGCHI) discussed Mixed Reality and Human Centered Media for Social and Physical Interactive Computer Entertainment. Some of his projects are very interesting and would fit in well at SIGGRAPH as well as SIGCHI.

Daniel Alegre (Google) spoke about the many issues and hurdles to overcome while trying to index all of the world's information. What I found most interesting was his inability or unwillingness to address and discuss the real existing and forthcoming privacy issues. The more info indexed, the newer the initiatives, the greater the potential for an infringement of personal privacy.

Alex Zhou (Irdeto) tried to tackle the issue of copyright protection. This is almost an impossible subject to consider in the country that pirates the most digital entertainment and products globally. Mobile MultiMedia video will surpass 10 million users in China alone in 2006. The Olympics will be broadcast for mobile phone reception and copyright protection will be the largest undertaking. There are many things which will be technically possible, but dealing with copyright protection is uncertain at best.