Thomas de Lazzari

JetBrains AppCode

2012-02-12T16:11:00.002+01:00

I am now using AppCode to develop all my iPhone applications: http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/

This IDE is developed by JetBrains; the guys behind TeamCity, IntelliJ, etc.

I was really tired of Xcode and its poor refactoring capabilities. I also experienced bugs with cross-project reference between Xcode 3 and 4. So I am really glad that JetBrains came up with this alternative and want to recommend it to all my fellow blog readers :)

Autumn in Stockholm

2011-10-26T16:31:00.001+02:00

More pictures here.

Attila Rugby

2011-08-20T17:13:00.003+02:00

I recently started to play Rugby in Stockholm.
We train every Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Bromma.
See our club webpage http://www.attilarugby.com.

Gränna

2011-06-06T19:00:00.001+02:00

High dynamic range

2011-01-16T12:37:00.005+01:00

This is a photo of Stockholm I took last week-end :)
Set of 9 pictures taken with a tripod and a Nikon D90. Bracketing +3F 1.0 set with multiple exposure compensation: -3EV, 0 and +3EV and merged using Photomatix Pro + Tone Mapping filter. Post-processing on Adobe Lightroom and retouched on Picasa.

Google and RIM having plans for NFC

2010-11-20T16:18:00.006+01:00

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO: Android 2.3 to support NFC.

Jim Balsillie, RIM CEO: NFC coming to BlackBerry in the near-term.

@12:16

Stockholm GTUG

2010-11-19T18:37:00.003+01:00

I was at the Google Android Developer Lab this week, organized by the Stockholm Google Technology User Group (GTUG).

Samsung had a booth showing their new Galaxy tab (kind of small iPad) running Android.

Reto Meier presented some new things coming in the next Android release (2.3) and also a lot of new features in the Android Market: apps licensing, crash logs upload, etc.

Then, I attended a workshop by Roman Nurik on mobile UI design and user experience.
We talked a lot on things to do like having a dashboard and a menu bar on top where the user can always navigate back to the dashboard and things to avoid like having more than 5 tabs in your app or hiding some commands in the options menu.
He recommended me some tools to sketch a mobile UI. Pen and paper is good but also a Firefox plugin called Pencil. Another great tool is Android Asset Studio to make your icons :)

ASSA ABLOY Mobile Keys

2010-11-02T10:01:00.001+01:00

Today, I am very proud to show you the video of a project we have been working on at ASSA ABLOY since my arrival in Stockholm earlier this year.

More info: http://www.assaabloy.com/assaabloymobilekeys
Click here to read the full press release.

iPhone dev on Windows

2010-09-26T11:24:00.004+02:00

I have lately put myself back into the ObjC world :)

Summer in Stockholm

2010-09-01T10:15:00.005+02:00

Yes it has been a while since my last update here. I have been moving at the end of July in a new flat still in Stockholm city center and I really like it. I still have to rearrange some furnitures, buy a router and a good TV, and then I'll maybe post one or two pictures here. I am looking at all the models right now but don't have a clue which one to choose, maybe the Sony Bravia KDL-46EX700.
What else interesting? I had good times in Sweden during the summer, biking around, playing tennis with friends and swimming in this lake (it's only five minutes' walk from my new place).
I had the pleasure to invite some friends from France who stayed here and visited Stockholm for a week. I am starting to know some good places :)
We rented Kayaks near Pampas Marina and went for the big tour around Kungsholmen in the middle of the city!
I also spent 10 days in August in Nice, my hometown... and I am now back at work in Stockholm and excited by all the projects and things going on there.

Today's tune: Empire of the Sun - We are the People

Hagaparken, May 2010

2010-05-16T17:39:00.011+02:00

What's your Game?

2010-05-15T19:12:00.000+02:00

Rainy Sunday in Stockholm (after a great sunny week), so I'm keeping myself busy with some video games.
Starcraft 2 Beta patch 13 has been released on friday with lot of changes on the Zerg side, Frenzy spell is awesome! So far, I have played more than 100 games mainly as Protoss. I'm looking forward the release on July 27th. I'm not sure I'll take the collector edition though.
Here is a great link if you want to download custom maps: http://www.sc2mapster.com.

I also played Mass Effect 2 during the long, dark and cold Swedish winter we had but I didn't have time to finish it yet. It's very good, I try to play the Renegade side. You can see my character on the picture below (the blonde girl) :)

Some other games below (Borderlands is very fun in co-op). Did someone try Red Dead Redemption?

Today's tune: Depeche Mode - In Your Room

Nikon D90

2010-04-04T18:36:00.020+02:00

I recently bought a new camera, the Nikon D90.
I don't really know about all the DSLRs but I wanted to buy one "good enough" and I like the image quality of the D90, it simply renders natural colors thanks to a 12.3 Mpx DX-format CMOS sensor. It can also make HD videos and the viewfinder is amongst the best you'll find on a camera of this class (according to some reviews I read on Internet).
My favorite shooting mode is Aperture Priority. You tweak the aperture size using the sub command dial (the one in front of the camera). Narrowing down the depth of field (with bigger aperture size) will give bokeh effects on both the foreground and background of the subject.

I enrolled in a (too expensive) Photography class given in English at Folkuniversitetet. It will only start this summer. The goal is to learn the basic Photography fundamentals. The content of the course includes subject like "What is a good photograph?" but we will also walk around the city and shoot pictures of Stockholm’s architecture, landscapes and its people. We'll see how it goes and maybe it's a good opportunity to meet people with the same hobby.

It's always good to take a closer look at what professionals are doing. Eric Lafforgue is a french freelance photographer I follow (he has an impressive list of publications including the prestigious National Geographic).
http://www.ericlafforgue.com
His photostream on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics/

I also recommend the book "Travel Photography" from Lonely Planet. I wanted to buy it since the 3rd edition came out last year and I had the great surprise to receive it by mail in a package from Japan! Thanks bro :)
I'm sure you've already seen some pictures I took with the D90 here or on Facebook. If you want them in RAW or higher quality, please send me an email. Now that the winter is over, it will be easier to go out with the camera and try to capture the Swedish life in spring instead of empty streets ravaged by snow.

Back at home, I am using Adobe Lightroom to adjust the white balance, clarity, vibrance and saturation.
Below is an example of this tool to crop & straighten a photo. The final output can be seen on my flickr (Night in Stockholm, view from Södermalm).

My default lens is a AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm (given with the camera) and I also bought a smaller lens to shoot portraits and macro, the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35/1.8G.
My next purchase will be a tripod as I like to take pictures at night but maybe another objective if I save money... if you have some good advices, please write a comment.

One day I will bring back photos from an Aurora. I will have to plan a trip to Abisko. Seeing one of those northern lights in real is a child's dream I want to realize before it's too late.
http://www.auroraskystation.se/

Let's finish this post with a funny guide on how to paint your D90 pink! Happy easter!!

Muse in Stockholm

2010-03-27T15:49:00.005+01:00

Muse will play at Zinkensdamms IP in Stockholm on Wednesday 21st July 2010. I can't wait to be there, Muse is one of my favorite bands and I simply love all their tunes. Please tell me if you plan to come. Hurry and buy your ticket, I guess the venue will be sold out soon.

Stockholm, March 2010

2010-03-07T16:48:00.003+01:00

NAD C355BEE and B&W DM685

2010-02-27T18:49:00.017+01:00

I recently bought new speakers and amplifier at Hi-Fi klubben and I must say I am rediscovering all my music. Now I know that I am listening to what the artists created. Also I subscribed to Spotify premium to have a higher bitrate, 320kbps.
I had fun carrying all this stuff in 2 big boxes (almost 25 kilograms) from the shop to the nearest subway station, haha :)
My neighbors are really happy too! They can now enjoy the real power of DEATH METAL§§§

NAD C355BEE
I wanted an amp that sounds reassuring and solid at all times. I like its minimalist design and it looks and feels like quality gear. You can switch all speaker zones on/off with the remote. The NAD features 2 x 80 watt amplification (into 8 ohms) with 6 line inputs. On the front panel there is a headphone socket and an additional line in socket for connecting a portable MP3/CD player, iPods and other devices.

B&W DM685
B&W speakers need lots of power. 80watts per channel is fine, I would not consider anything under. You also need a spacious room for the sound propagation (35-40 square meters at least).
The highs are clear without being aggressive and the bass impact is undeniable whenever requested by the audio track.

Speaking about music, I bought my ticket for Sonisphere Festival this summer in Stockholm:
http://se.sonispherefestivals.com/.
I hope some friends will join... it's gonna be awesome! It will be my 2nd Iron Maiden gig in Sweden!
Run to the hills,
run for your lives.

Tonight's tune by Assemblage 23:
http://open.spotify.com/track/7f86rsjXdw2OjlgRDtkHC1

New Computer

2010-02-14T10:26:00.037+01:00

I bought a new computer in January and it works great! I have been working on laptops for 4 years now and I still have a good Lenovo T500 to work during office hours, but I wanted something more powerful with dual monitors (really convenient) at home to be able to watch movies, play games, store (too many) files, edit pictures on Photoshop, listen to music with good speakers (more on that soon) and of course code a mobile application that will soon rule the world. A desktop computer was definitely the best option now that I am settled up here. And, I am not planning to move out from Sweden anytime soon :)

I took all the hardware from Webhallen. According to me, it's one of the best shop in Stockholm to buy computer parts, but also digital camera (more on that soon). You order whatever you want on their website, they make the reservation for you and you can pay in the shop when you go there to get your items.
They organize video games tournaments some weekends :)

Want to know more about my specs:
Google the names if you want to buy the same configuration!

Main:

CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000
Corsair PowerSupply (PSU) 750W HX
Asus - Socket 1156 - ATX Intel P55 (Maximus III Formula)
Intel Core i7 860 2,80GHz
Noctua CPU-Kylare NH-U12P SE2
Corsair XMS3 4096MB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (2X2048MB) (CL9)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB

Drives:

Samsung Intern SATA DVD±RW 22x
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
2x Intel 80GB X25-M (SSD)

USB:

Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard II (Svensk layout)
Sennheiser Headset PC-350
Logitech G9X Gaming Laser Mouse
Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

Display:

IIYAMA 26" ProLite E2607WS
Samsung 24" SyncMaster 245B Plus

See below, benchmark of my SSDs Raid-0: 500MB/sec oO

The keyboard in Swedish is a bit hard to learn at the beginning :)
I waited around two weeks for the video card (ATI Radeon 5870). Today there are still problems of availability for this card in Sweden... hard to find the precious in Geekland ;) check stock on http://www.prisjakt.nu.

Of course I also subscribed a Com Hem broadband, I took the XXL 100: http://www.comhem.se. My flat don't have the fiber lan yet but cable is okay:
skicka 9.85 Mbit/sek - ta emot 88.37 Mbit/sek - svarstid: 4ms - mätserver: Stockholm (on http://www.bredbandskollen.se).

Funny video below with great tips for Battlefield Bad Company 2 (developed by DICE, a Swedish company), sorry it's in French :)

Today's tune: http://open.spotify.com/track/542QVlWIPEOnDzKBxf8oMg (OMG Goldorak, forgive my childhood).

The war to save mankind begins now!

2010-02-07T15:43:00.031+01:00

Hej hej, I am posting this new message on my blog from Stockholm where everything is going well! I enjoy the life here even if we are having a very cold winter. Things have changed in January and there will be lot of updates on this blog soon.

Let's talk about the recent TV shows I watched during Christmas break :

- The first one is: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Set after the events in 'Terminator 2' Sarah Connor and her son John, trying to stay under-the-radar from the government as they plot to destroy the computer network Skynet.
I really liked the first season and I am currently watching season 2 but so far I think it's not as good as the first even if Summer Glau is still very sexy :) she really has the robot eyes and facial gestures to play this role!
I am waiting with great impatience for Starcraft II to be released soon (hopefully) and since Battlestar Galactica is finished, I am caught in a Space Opera frenzy. I can't help watching other Sci-Fi TV shows like this one or Firefly (also with Summer Glau) or whatever other post-armageddon stories I can find.

- I also recommend True Blood (here again the first season is awesome but I was disappointed by the 2nd... Michelle Forbes is annoying in her role).
The series follows Sookie Stackhouse, a barmaid living in Louisiana who can read people's minds, and how her life is turned upside down when the Vampire Bill, walks into her place of employment two years after vampires 'came out of the coffin' on national television.
Gossip: Anna Paquin is engaged to her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer :)
It reminds me the game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, with Lacuna Coil in the soundtrack!

Vampires and spaceships with robots! That's refreshing and for once it's not Heroic fantasy, I'm a bit tired of knights and swords :)

iPhone training in London

2009-11-22T12:30:00.018+01:00

I will be in London next week, invited by Apple for a training on iPhone development. That will be a good break for me because I am really busy right now selling all my stuff, packing things and finishing projects at work before my departure to Stockholm at the end of the year.

After this training, I will have more understanding of the iPhone SDK and will start to work on slides and tutorials in order to teach my students at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.
Modules covered by the course: A simple iPhone application - Objective-C - Memory Management - Delegation, Core Location, and Text - Subclassing UIView - View Controllers - Accelerometer - Rotation and Notification -UITableView and UITableViewController - UINavigationController - Camera - Saving and Loading - Low-memory Warning - Multi-touch Events - CALayer – CAAnimation - WebKit - Media - Web Services - Localization - Address Book - Bonjour - Setting - SQLite

BTW, the letter M of Master MBDS now means "Mobiquity". 15 years ago, the focus of this degree was DBMS, then we started to teach advanced J2EE and webservices. Today we are evolving with the technology and we teach Android and iPhone development :)

One project I would see for next year is to build an iPhone application with augmented reality (as shown on the video below).

It could be a great idea to couple augmented reality with the new NFC / RFID Reader for iPhone, introduced earlier this week by Wireless Dynamics: http://www.icarte.ca

Today's tune: http://open.spotify.com/track/5KRRcT67VNIZUygEbMoIC1

222

2009-11-05T16:44:00.006+01:00

I was at Sezamo last Saturday and discovered a great Rock Band called 222.
Their first album can be downloaded on http://www.groupe222.com (soon available in all music stores).
I really enjoyed the fact that they actually sing in French and have their own musical style with great arrangements while remaining very modest... not like many poor artists out there. The spirit reminds me Noir Desir.

Listen to "A la Vie" on their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/space222

New job in Stockholm

2009-10-31T10:13:00.007+01:00

I will start my new job in Stockholm (Sweden) at ASSA ABLOY on 1/1/2010. The group is the world's leading manufacturer and supplier of locks. See brands owned by ASSA ABLOY on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assa_Abloy - HID, VingCard for example or Fichet and Vachette in France...
I am very happy with this new position and I will be working in central Stockholm near Liljeholmen. Leaving France and the nice people working with me since 2006 at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis will not be something easy in the coming months. I will start by selling my car :)
To explain briefly what I will be working on, you need to know that your mechanical keys and locks will soon be replaced by your mobile phone and a digital lock thanks to NFC technology. And this is not only valid for hotels. Our team at ASSA ABLOY is developing a Software platform as a secure service to generate unique keys and deploy them into a next-generation mobile.

Will upload pics of Nepal one day soon

Nepal

2009-09-21T21:47:00.011+02:00

Follow my trek in Nepal on Google Maps: http://bit.ly/IAVK1

Java Bluetooth Mobile client/server

2009-09-20T17:45:00.000+02:00

If you want to code a Bluetooth service using Java, I have uploaded code examples :) I am using JSR-82 to implement a Bluetooth client on a mobile device (J2ME). The mobile client can push data to a Bluetooth server running a btspp:// service with BlueCove. See BlueCove supported stacks.

You will find 3 Netbeans projects on my github repo:

BluetoothServer
A Main Class launching a Thread to run a Bluetooth service and waiting for a client connection.

MobileBluetoothClient
A J2ME client with a simple form and a command to send a short Bluetooth message "Hello World" to the BluetoothServer. Warning: To avoid potential deadlock, operations that may block, such as networking, should be performed in a different thread than the commandAction() handler.
Don't forget to edit the Bluetooth address in BTMidlet.java (line 114).

BluetoothScan
A J2SE client that scans all the Bluetooth devices around and retrieve their address.
Ex: btspp://002268DF4E0E:9;authenticate=false;encrypt=false;master=false

A quick word on git. It's a great SCM, like SVN but faster with local repo, clone, push, pull, etc. It was initially designed and developed by Linus Torvalds :)

Download git here: http://git-scm.com/

Architecture and Development of NFC Applications

2009-09-19T15:31:00.000+02:00

This is an updated presentation of the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. I tried to explain how NFC works on a SIM card, what are the standardization bodies, roles and actors in the ecosystem.
This presentation is for developers and describes technical architecture to implement a NFC application on a SIM card using Java and APDU commands (JSR-177, 257 and 268).
These slides will be presented during the Smart-University 2009 in Nice, Sophia-Antipolis.
This time, you can download the ppt file directly on slideshare or below. Some slides are badly rendered by the flash player :(

pptx [15 MB] - ppt [24 MB]

Architecture and Development of NFC Applications

View more presentations from Thomas de Lazzari.

French government funds thirteen NFC and RFID innovation projects

2009-09-12T13:21:00.016+02:00

Christian Estrosi, the French minister for industry, has announced funding running into 'several million euros' for 13 innovation projects in the NFC and RFID fields.

Source: http://www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com/2009/09/11/31669/french-government-funds-thirteen-nfc-and-rfid-innovation-projects/

Our lab at the University of Nice had 3 projects selected by the government thanks to all of our partners (too long to be listed here). One ambitious project is to provide student services in the first European NFC Campus that will fit in the larger scope of Nice NFC city.

Also, I'll give a talk at the Smart University conference next week but haven't started working on my slides yet (always busy as usual... currently in Casablanca working on a mobile solution for international money transfer without bank accounts)! I'll try to teach the Architecture and Development of NFC applications (JSR-257 and JSR-268). See you there :)

http://www.strategiestm.com/conferences/smart-university/09/program_nfc.htm

Spotify

2009-09-09T13:55:00.009+02:00

Spotify is a Swedish music service that gives users access to a huge library of music, through a lightweight application. Music is streamed, partly supported by P2P technology, but it plays instantly.

Here is my playlist (Rock/Metal): http://open.spotify.com/user/tdelazzari/playlist/7xYr4zuSoMRWDaBodZOUO6

Do you have any good music to share? Also, if you want a Spotify invitation send me an email.

Learn the SCRUM software development

2009-08-31T17:25:00.006+02:00

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)
I am using Sprintometer (Free tool for SCRUM projects management and tracking): http://www.sprintometer.com

Indeed.com searches millions of jobs from thousands of job sites.
This job trends graph shows the percentage of jobs that contain the terms agile and scrum.

Wima 2009

2009-08-21T11:21:00.001+02:00

Dopplr

2009-08-16T13:23:00.004+02:00

My Travels (since 2009): http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/tdelazzari/public

Google Code Jam 2009

2009-08-16T12:44:00.005+02:00

Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice.

Register here (qualification round on Sept 2).

Another sponsored Software Development contest: http://www.topcoder.com, a recruitment center where Google and other companies come to find programmers who are proven to be highly skilled.

iPhone

2009-08-08T12:09:00.031+02:00

Dear readers,
I finally bought the new iPhone 3GS about a month ago and I'm very happy with this new mobile device (I don't call that a "phone" anymore). I took the 16GB white and spent some time to transfer all my music to iTunes. Hopefully it detected 90% of all the ID3 tags ;) I didn't buy a case for my iPhone as I think it is useless, unsexy and expensive. You don't buy a Ferrari to leave it in your garage! And when I'm moving, I usually put it in my bag with my laptop (wish I could have a bag like that).

Now, I must say I'm not really an Apple fan, this is the first Apple product I'm buying. I also love the MacBook Pro and will probably have to buy it soon or later. If you have the money, I think it's the best choice compared to all the crap laptops running Vista (mine included).

I have friends who own a HTC-G1 and I hate the fact that the iPhone has a lot of restrictions compared to Android. Also, the Apple's AppStore approval process filters applications in a questionable manner. Two examples:

Apple bans App Store’s 3rd-most prolific developer.

FCC queries AT&T, Apple on Google Voice iPhone app rejection.

So I didn't buy the iPhone because it has an Apple logo on it. I bought it because it's a good device (hardware specs are awesome) with a great user experience and tons of apps/games! I now have all my music in my pocket (see Spotify for iPhone) and I don't need to buy a Nintendo DS to play small games.

My apps: Nike+, Facebook, Skype, Twitterrific, LinkedIn, eBuddy, Nimbuzz, Google Earth, Google Apps, PagesJaunes, Yahoo!, SFR TV, SFR Music, SFR WiFi, WifiTrak, Remote, VNC, Tele7, MTV, Le Monde.fr, NYTimes, ifon.fr, Wikango, ViaMichelin Traffic, Qype Radar, AroundMe, RATP Lite, Shazam, Jamendo, Deezer, Virgin Radio, Fieldrunners, Hero of Sparta, Assassin's Creed, Parallel Kingdom, Fastlane, Penguin2, PAC-MAN, BubbleWrap, Paper Toss, FS5 Hockey, TapDefense, Tap Tap Revolution, Dice, Lightsaber, Sudoku, Labyrinth, iBowl, iDaft, Blizzard Authenticator, iTie, Polarize, EasyBieres, SixPack, OGCNice, Bump, iHandy Level, Flashlight, eBay, Bloomberg, HOME GoodPlanet, WoW Armory, Cyclops, Resident Evil, iDisk, Eurosport, Real Tennis 2009, ...

Do not hesitate to recommend some good apps!

And it takes reasonably good pictures and videos, see below:

The iPhone SDK is easy to understand. I never used Xcode neither worked with Objective-C before but you can find a lot of tutorials and screencasts on Internet. Objective-C is the primary language used for Apple's Cocoa API. The interface builder allows you to quickly do "wysiwyg" stuff. Drag and drop a button and link the onClick event to the code takes approx 2sec. You can run your application using the simulator (debug mode). If you want to use a specific library like the AddressBook, just add the Framework to your project.

I'm actually working on my first iPhone app but I can't reveal too much here! I'm working with lot of new features introduced in SDK 3.0, like MapKit :)
I'll also have to take a look at OpenGL and SDL since I already worked with it.

I'm the administrator for the iPhone Developer University Program in my lab and we have a small team working with the SDK. A lot of our partners are now asking us to develop some features on the iPhone.

Also, I will probably teach a graduate course (Master degree) on the iPhone SDK next year. I will try to publish some articles/tutorials on this blog.

No holidays for me this summer, restricting myself to the beach and my swimming pool! But I'm waiting confirmation for plane tickets to go trekking in Nepal this October (true story), woot!

Today's tune: Muse - Uprising (new single)

Interactive Shop Window and City 2.0

2009-07-22T11:42:00.012+02:00

Nokia, NXP Semiconductors and Sony were at WIMA 2009 in order to show their progress regarding Mobile Contactless technologies and solutions. Nokia announced the Nokia 6216 classic, its latest NFC phone.

During the event, we presented one project developed in our lab: Interactive Shop Window (Vitrine Impactile).
The goal is to transform any shop window (of a local store, a bank or a real estate agency...) into an interactive touchscreen.
It allows the selection of an offer by touching the advertisement (with your fingers). A projector behind the window can display a video. The customer can also grab a free coupon or promotional code with his mobile phone (RFID and Bluetooth). Or he can book a meeting with a sales adviser if he wants to have more information about the selected product.

The innovative aspect of this project lies in the fact that it is a typical and classic shop window, in which four sensors are added in the corners, allowing you to retrieve coordinates X,Y of an impact on the window (triangulation). See: http://www.i-vibrations.com

This project is a good example of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) applied to a city 2.0 where our favorite local merchants are all connected through local clouds and geotags providing user generated hyperlocal/context-aware content. See this great article by Digital Urban: http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/2007/11/connected-to-world-but-not-to-city.html

" [...] Local Clouds would provide local services accessible within a small radius around specific points, with tailor made information this would finally allow us to connect to the city at a street level..."

Another interesting article here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_rise_of_hyperlocal_information.php

Nike+

2009-07-07T11:51:00.005+02:00

New gear: Nike Pegasus 25

I am now using Nike+ to track my workout progress :)

How does it work? First you need to buy Nike+ compatible shoes (or buy a shoe pouch) and insert a wireless sensor inside.

Then you connect your iPod or iPhone 3GS to the sensor using the Nike+ application.

It records your workout (distance, speed, pace) and you can listen to your music library.

Here is a link if you want to know more about all this stuff: http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/

Sports gear for geeks!

I also purchased a sport armband to run with my iPhone 3GS. I read some customer reviews before making my choice on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Tuneband-Grantwood-Technologys-Silicone-Protector/dp/B0019FEZ88/ref=pd_sbs_a_38

I don't really like Nike products in general but I find Nike+ and Apple partnership very interesting. By connecting your shoes to a social networking website (like FB), you can share your workouts, challenge your friends, map your favorite running spot, train with a virtual coach, compare power songs (song to play when you need instant motivation).

Below is my Nike+ profile and Nike+ mini. Feel free to connect :)

Still about sport: I support Lance's return to Tour and Livestrong global cancer fight. It means a lot for me (those who know me will understand).

Sport is a way of life, Never give up...

Robodomo

2009-07-02T11:00:00.001+02:00

Robodomo is a project developed by our lab at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.

The goal is to experience “Mobile PCs” (e.g Robot-assistants) to help people at home in frailty situations:
–Elderly/Disabled people
–Better assistance for people after life accidents or temporal disabilities
–Customized homes for permanent disabilities

Japan

2009-06-09T13:50:00.023+02:00

I was in Japan for 15 days in May to see my Gaijin brother (he is working there) and visit this beautiful country!

I'm trying to write something on this blog about this journey to share my experience and some pictures! If you have never been to Japan that is something I strongly recommend you to do and you will shape your own opinion. I'm sure you will see things I did not even notice. It's a small island compared to the rest of the world but a lifetime would not be enough to visit and understand Japan in its entirety.

When you first arrive in Tokyo Narita, you have the impression of being on another planet. You are completely jet-lagged after your 11h flight (Paris-Tokyo) and you arrive in one of the largest city in the world (the largest?) that is twice the size of NY, and of course everything is written in Japanese. So you get lost very easily trying to find your train in the middle of the crowd :) that's your first challenge.

Japan looks like USA more than Europe, particularly if you compare the size of the stores... huge. It is a great economic power where everything is well under control. I had this feeling in Tokyo, on the subway, looking at all workers going back home after a hard day.

My first 2 days in Tokyo were very hard. I was really happy to see my brother who had some days off (golden week) but the weather was rainy and we walked a lot. When you first walk in Tokyo streets, your head is going from left to right and from top to bottom at each corner. You look at a huge building and walking down the street you find another one higher, and another one... at the end of the day, your legs are not responding and your head is full of stuff you don't understand. We took the main streets and walked from Shinjuku to Shibuya. Shinjuku is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the busiest train station in the world but you can still find a large forest in Shibuya among the buildings. The forest is hiding the Meiji Shrine, a Shinto temple. I also went to Ginza and its Apple store. I felt home in Akihabara, also known as Electric Town. It is an area of Tokyo where you can find a lot of computer stores, video games stores and electronic stuff. ALSO THERE IS A BURGER KING (near the Yodobashi), awesome.

After two or three days, I started to feel very excited by the city's diversity and began to take my marks. It was easier to take the subway alone, change lines, eat somewhere (love sushis) and find a place (although most signs are written in Japanese). Ok, I admit I got completely lost trying to find the Tokyo Tower. Sorry but finding a 333 meters high tower is just impossible in Tokyo. You are a small thing, down to earth, trying to look for the tower but you are surrounded by high buildings hiding the sky. I visited several museums including the Edo-Tokyo Museum where you can see some nice replicated exhibits of old Tokyo and faithful representations of large-scale models.

I also recommend the district of Odaiba which is an artificial island in Tokyo Bay, across the Rainbow Bridge (beautiful at night). You can walk along the sea among Japanese couples who come here on their first date. It's also the place if you like photography and want to take some nice pictures of the bay. I finished my day in one of the department stores there and ate a good Hawaii Burger!

I went to Yokohama. This is the second largest city in Japan (3.6M people). It's really close to Tokyo. I'm sure if you look at it from the sky on Google Earth, you see only one big city. In the same day I took another train, a boat and a mountain cable lift to go up the Nokogiri Hills, across the Tokyo Bay. I did not expect to arrive in such a colorful and quiet place! And it was not overcrowded like other tourist places, because it's not mentioned in the Lonely Planet and other guides. I'm really happy we decided to go there instead of Kamakura, which is said to be more popular. We decided to walk in the forest down the moutain and we took an ancient Buddhist path. The light and the magical atmosphere in the Inca forest reminded me the video game Tomb Raider or the movie Indiana Jones! Back to the real life, I was in Japan. At the end of the day, we were tired and still had to walk an hour or so to catch a train to Tokyo. We were walking on a road when a Japanese guy stopped his car and proposed to drive us to the station! You can't find this kind of behaviour everywhere, I mean in my country it is really unusual so I was surprised! He was very kind. And throughout my journey in Japan, I had no problem with the people. The Japanese are friendly, helpful and respectful (sometimes too much). I am wondering if dishonesty does exist in this country?

The 2nd week, I went to Hiroshima where I stayed one night. There is not much things to do in Hiroshima and I visited a museum dedicated to the tragic past of the city and the atomic bomb that killed thousand of people at the end of World War II. Very sad and a touching moment to be here more than 60 years later. The peace memorial in Hiroshima has a flame that will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.

The next day, I took a train and a boat to go to Miyajima, the divine island. It is a UNESCO World heritage site. The view of the gate in front of the island's Mount Misen is classified as one of the Three Views of Japan. I liked this place, I liked the deers (considered sacred animals) and the Shinto torii.

I ended up my trip in Kyoto before heading back to Tokyo. It's a big city with a lot of stores and everything (1.4M people) and it has a human and reasonable dimension, okay except the train station :p You can easily walk or take the bus to visit all the temples and hopefuly buildings are not as high as in Tokyo. Kyoto is one of the rare big cities in Japan that was preserved during the war and this city is full of antiquity. I also went to Nara which is not so far from Kyoto and rent a bike for the day. During my trip in Japan I had the chance to learn a lot about the past of this country and its civilization. Japan has a rich history and in everyday life, traditions remain. The Japanese are proud of their history and try to preserve it. Many temples have been rebuilt or restored. In Kyoto, I met many school children who were there with their class to visit the temples. They asked me some questions like where do I come from... trying to speak a little english with them was really funny.

There is an interesting gap between what we could define as the traditional Japan with its temples, geishas, sumo, old boutiques... compared to the High-Tech society and their mobile phones coming directly from the future, superfast trains, automatic toilets, etc.

Speaking about trains, I must say that all the train stations in Japan are very clean and you always have at least one or two employees on the dock to announce a train arrival or departure. When you come back in France you really have the feeling that everything is dirty and disorganized, scary.

But I also realized during this trip that it is very hard to live in Japan, especially if you do not speak the language (not many people does the effort to speak English). Food is good but you have to like fish (I tried whale meat and it's tasty), and human relations seem difficult. Girls look very shy and boys are completely crazy when they are young, playing video games a lot and when they get a job in a company, they suit up (yes like Barney) to go to work and begin to be serious.

I am very pleased about this trip and I had such a good time in Japan. As you can see in the above pictures, they already have NFC and 2D Barcodes there, and it works great!

My budget was around 2000Euros for one person/15 days, including the plane ticket, the trains (Japan Rail Pass) and other stuff like cream donuts, a hat, useless stickers and a new headset. Expect a little more gold if you stay at the hotel in Tokyo.

A big thank you to my brother, I know you will read this so thanks again for giving me the chance to discover Japan and I hope we will have the opportunity to plan some next travels together... who said South America?

Still there? Go to my flickr page to see more pictures! Click on logo below.

Have you met the Motorcycle Diaries

2009-06-05T15:19:00.015+02:00

I know you are waiting for the pictures from Japan, but you will have to wait a bit longer! This article is about all the movies I watched in May! Boeing 777 are now equipped with small flat screens for each seat (see picture below). Air France has a large choice of movies, so I did not get bored even if the flight took around 11 hours (Paris-Tokyo).

I enjoyed watching The Motorcycle Diaries (Carnets de Voyage). This movie tells the story of a road trip Che Guevara went on in his youth that showed him his life's calling. I particularly loved the splendid landscapes from Argentina and Peru. The soundtrack is really good and adds a depth. I highly recommend this film if you have not already watched it, even if you are not a revolutionary communist like me ;) It shows how traveling and meeting people can change a man.

The Motorcycle Diaries

Another movie I liked is not a movie but a TV show: How I met your mother. All 5 main characters have their own personalities, it makes me think of the TV show Friends, 10 years after. I spent a very good time watching the 4 seasons. Can't wait for the 5th in september on CBS! It makes you realize that hanging out with your best friends is what life is all about. Of course, like everyone else, I love Barney and I think he is awesome :)

How I met your mother

So, I have tried to rank the other movies with small stars, 5 is the maximum score. Pardon my bad taste and I know Persepolis or The Class are both great movies but I probably missed something.

Burn After Reading

Watched it in a Japanese movie theater. I like the dumb character played by Brad Pitt :)

Reign Over Me

Great drama! The title of the film comes from the song "Love, Reign o'er Me" by The Who. The song appears on the film's soundtrack along with a cover version recorded specifically for the film by Pearl Jam.

Body of Lies
Two Lovers
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Yes Man

Almost Famous

Amores perros

Before Babel, starring Gael García Bernal

Persepolis
Entre les murs (The Class)

The film received the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival

The Heartbreak Kid
Last Chance Harvey
Transformers

No more news for today, I need to practice my Guitar Hero skill and it requires a lot of training ;)

Currently playing The Killers - When You Were Young:

http://open.spotify.com/track/3sYSUid2zJmRs39upbsVNQ

NFC city trial in Nice

2009-05-23T16:51:00.015+02:00

Luc Chatel, French government spokesman, was in Nice yesterday to announce trial in the city for Mobile Contactless Services, with Veolia Transport, Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.

See video of one project, here: http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/18/paying-by-mobile-phone/

In the photo below, I am showing a mobile payment application to Luc Chatel, Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs, Albert Marouani, President of the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, and Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice (first on the left in 2nd picture).

Pictures and news from Japan coming soon :)

Touch-Me at WIMA 2009

2009-04-22T18:40:00.016+02:00

This is a project I worked on, presented at WIMA 2009 (University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis has a booth this year, showing 4 projects with a lot of partners: SFR, La Poste, MMA, CASSIS). So, I'll be very busy in Monaco the rest of the week, before leaving for Japan on May 2nd :)
I'll try to upload some pictures after the event.

Ticket Open Ubiquitous Coupon Heterogeneous Mobile Environment
Touch-Me is a mobile marketing solution allowing customers to book a ticket from their mobile and easily get product information by touching an advertisement poster.

http://www.mbds-fr.org
http://www.cassis-intl.com

Sorry no sound! I suggest this track: http://www.deezer.com/track/1330

Cool new things you can do with your mobile phone

2009-04-03T19:53:00.001+02:00

Funny and lots of information!

New laptop

2009-03-28T20:13:00.005+01:00

I received my new laptop at work, it's a Dell Studio XPS 16. I hate Vista but if you remove UI effects, Indexing and other useless services... it runs well. There are too many problems with drivers if you try to install Windows XP (SP3) on this laptop.

Intel core 2 Duo T9400 @2.53GHz
4GB RAM
Screen resolution: 1920x1080 (FullHD Widescreen 16.0 inch)

NFC is not something people need. Thoughts and vision :)

2009-02-20T17:52:00.024+01:00

Hello,
I hope you’ll take the time to read this message because it is my way of thinking about the mobile market and NFC (Near Field Communication) in the coming years.
First, let’s watch this video clip showing the different Google applications available on the new G1 Android (HTC).
Google is going from web to mobile. This means you can now create a contact or an entry in your calendar from your mobile and data is automatically replicated not on the SIM but on Google servers (trust and private life is another debate). This is ATAWAD = anytime, anywhere, any device. They start from the needs without necessarily innovate. They did not create the search engine, they just improved it. In 5 years we’ll probably say: "they didn’t create the mobile, they’ve just improved it."
After 4 years of prototyping on NFC and according to me and my small experience [1], I wonder what is wrong with this technology. Why GPS phones appeared so quickly while we are speaking about NFC for 5 years now with words such as "mass market" and "huge business potential” and still delaying [2] [3]. Here is the answer: NFC is not something people need, they can still pay with their VISA, take the bus with tickets, etc. Before GPS, people were lost! Of course you can ask the question: do you need LCD TV?
Since 2004, companies have had a lot of fun around NFC, trying to create a need, running pilots and experimentations to show people how to “touch and pay”, learning them. These projects cost a lot and pay my rent :)
My conclusion is that NFC is a complicated technology due to complex value chain and ecosystem, not like GPS or Camera. A lot of people are thinking about business model before thinking about the customer needs and improvements to be done on the mobile. There are still some major added values identified around the "smart poster" (can already be implemented using 2D barcodes) and NFC as an enabler to configure something like Bluetooth pairing (touch and interact)... especially because the mobile must be increasingly simple (touch screen) with more and more customized services in it (like widgets or apps). Please Apple/Google, release an iPhone/Android with a simple NFC antenna (no matter if the Secure Element is the SIM or your iTunes). We'll see how you can force the market in you direction and how banks will react if I pay my bread with my Google Checkout account. Thousand of developers will join and develop nice applications with your great handsets (tired of the black & white Sagem my700X). Your SDK has to be free and easy, I don't really see developers learning APDU commands or casting HTML to byte (SCWS) and my little start-up paying I don't know how much to rent a secure container on the SIM card.
Let’s speak about user interaction and games before speaking about ticketing, payment or mobile digital signature and ask the question: why NFC instead of online web services if tomorrow you can communicate/secure a transaction with objects and devices that are all connected?

The token remains in the hands of manufacturers (Nokia, Apple, etc) who are on top of the food chain and at the bottom poor customers without purchasing power ;)
My 2 cents.

Thomas de Lazzari
Project Manager University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France
Finalist at 1st NFC Competition 2007
2nd prize at NFC Forum Global Competition 2008 (WIMA, Monaco)
[1] http://tdelazzari.blogspot.com/search/label/nfc
[2] http://www.juniperresearch.com/shop/viewpressrelease.php?pr=113
[3] By 2009, ABI Research estimates that up to 50 percent of the cell phones will be NFC-enabled.

Nice Carnival 2009 by night

2009-02-20T10:15:00.001+01:00

الدار البيضاء

2009-02-19T10:15:00.014+01:00

I was in Casablanca (Morocco) two weeks ago to teach Master's students at EMSI, Ecole Marocaine des Sciences de l'Ingenieur.
Title of my current lecture is: Mobile Java development, Java Card, USIM and touch-based services.

I found the city very different from European cities such as London, Paris, Nice... especially looking at road traffic; there were roadworks everywhere! One thing I learnt: if you drive in Morocco don't forget to use your car's horn!
Casablanca is a huge city: Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It's also the biggest city in the Maghreb and the sixth biggest city in the entire continent of Africa.

The city is divided into many districts and you can take cheap taxi to travel in it. Old Fiat or Peugeot, completely destroyed but still running even after 500000kms ;) It's funny, if you don't know the price of your journey, some drivers try to ask for more money! For example, it costs less than 20dhs to go from Maârif to Ain-Diab and sometimes the driver asked me 40!
I went to see the souq with one of my student (commercial quarter) and the old Medina! There you can buy fake fashion Diesel clothes at 10dhs (less than 1 euro). It was full of small disorganized shops separated by narrow streets: fruits, bread, eggs, toys, souvenirs, clothes, alive chickens, etc. with children running around and playing football in the streets. You can buy anything you want at any time.

As a tourist, you are being followed by street sellers all the day. If you buy something, don't forget to negotiate the price, it's so cheap!
I felt scared the first days because people are begging for money and talk to you in the street. Morocco is still a poor country with a lot of unemployment.
Moroccans are really welcoming but you need to be careful, don't trust a random guy just because he knows you are a foreigner, he can try to steal your phone or I don't know what. It really differs from French Riviera where people don't really want to be disturbed, to meet or to exchange. In Morocco, you can meet people very easily! Human relations are much simpler!

Weather was warm for a winter. I gave a lot of classes in the morning and evening until 10.30pm, so it was intense but I had time to visit during afternoons.

I uploaded pictures on Facebook and a video on Youtube showing the view from Hassan II Mosque. It is one of the largest Mosque in the world! Simply amazing... the work on the site did cost a lot of money. Some features were specifically requested by King Hassan II, who declared, "I want to build this mosque on the water, because God's throne is on the water. Therefore, the faithful who go there to pray, to praise the creator on firm soil, can contemplate God's sky and ocean." It also includes a number of modern touches: it was built to withstand earthquakes and has a heated floor, electric doors, and a sliding roof.

I liked the fresh orange juice for breakfast, the famous Couscous and also kebab sandwiches! After that you need to run to lose weight ;)
My return flight was delayed 6 hours without a given reason, now I hate Royal Air Maroc!

Battlestar Galactica

2009-02-17T14:29:00.011+01:00

Season 4 continues on Scifi: http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

In a distant part of the universe, a civilization of humans live on a series of planets known as the Twelve Colonies. In the past, the Colonies have been at war with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons. The Cylons launch a sudden ambush on the Colonies, laying waste to the planets and devastating their populations. The handful of human survivors flee into space aboard any spacecraft they can reach. Of all the Colonial Fleet, the Battlestar Galactica appears to be the only military capital ship that survived the attack. Under the leadership of famed military leader Commander Adama, the Battlestar Galactica and its crew take up the task of leading the small fugitive fleet of survivors into space in search of a fabled refuge known as Earth.

DON'T READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH THE FIRST 3 SEASONS, SPOILER INSIDE! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED :)
I like this sci-fi series because it's small-budget production and actors are really good! Don't expect a lot of nice pyrotechnic and special effects just because it is Science Fiction or you will be disappointed. This is really not Star Wars even if it tells the story of a war in the space :) Survivors and their old spaceship are looking for the Earth... and many things happen like the discovery that four of the "final five" advanced Cylons masquerading as humans were actually on the Galactica!
In this drama, I also like the influence of God and religion found in the character named Baltar.
I'm a bit sad because the Season 4 is said to be the last one and there are already 15 episodes out :(

Below is a screenshot for Geeks only:
Cylon Detector iPhone app shows who you can trust, LOL!

Malongo fair trade coffee with NFC

2009-02-16T16:21:00.011+01:00

Traceability project on Malongo coffee in the fair trade in Haïti. The objective of this project is to set up a unified management platform enabling the monitoring from coffee manufacturing to the customer using ICT technologies (RFID/NFC and Wimax rev E).

On May 12th 2006, Malongo presented the wide-scale technological project that it is developing with Nice Sophia-Antipolis University and Haiti State University.

Thanks to “RFID” technology :
- Consumers will soon be able to obtain key information about their coffee, from the bush to the cup, if they have a mobile telephone fitted with an RFID "tag reader" (Near Field Communication).
- Haitian small growers will receive – via distance learning – up-to-the-minute training on the cultivation of coffee and its techniques, in the Creole language and actually on the plantations, thanks to satellite installations and shortly via high speed networks (WIMAX, CDMA EVDO or DVB-H).

Job wanted !

2009-02-16T13:10:00.002+01:00

I am looking for a position as Software Engineer / Consultant.

I am considering working abroad as an opportunity to broaden my perspectives and enhance my career with an international experience.
I have major interests in international mobility and consultancy.
My aim is to work within a skilled team inside a company which could give me possibilities to take actions, discuss projects, innovate, find solutions and design software architecture in a R&D context.
I am keenly interested in acquiring more theoretical knowledge and technical skills, particularly regarding SOA and Mobile Development.

Please contact me if you require any further details or documents. You can find my CV here
and some recommendations on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tdelazzari.

You're pro or you're a noob, That's life!

2009-02-16T11:45:00.009+01:00

This guy is quite famous on Youtube and I am a fan: http://www.worldofathene.com
Now you think I'm crazy :D
Don't worry, in fact I no longer play much but wanted to write a topic on this blog about video games I like and play at the moment.

Red Alert 3
If you are still waiting for Starcraft II and look for a good real-time strategy, I recommend this game. It's the new title from Command & Conquer saga.
The solo campaign is really well made and I enjoyed the small video clips between each map, with real and sexy actress you have the great feeling to be part of the story!

Left 4 Dead
Too funny! You need to play this first-person shooter with 3 other friends on Steam.
You play 4 survivors, you have many weapons and of course your only objective is to survive against thousand zombies invading the city! It remembers me the movie Braindead or other cool zombie-movies, haha. You can also play Versus mode against another team of 4 players who control special zombies with different abilities and must trap the survivors ;)

Hacker war drives San Francisco cloning RFID passports

2009-02-04T13:47:00.002+01:00

I will not tell you how to hack the RFID passport chip to steal an identity, but here is a funny article found on engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/video-hacker-war-drives-san-francisco-cloning-rfid-passports/

Now say thanks to RFID ;)

Vendee Globe

2009-02-01T19:02:00.006+01:00

Skipper Michel Desjoyaux wins with a large advance from his opponents the Vendee Globe 2009. I enjoyed following this solo around-the-world sailing race and checked the GPS position and speed of the boats (60ft yacht) every day on the website: http://www.vendeeglobe.org
Dolphins and albatross at the other side of the world...

My office

2009-01-19T10:38:00.000+01:00

NFC Congress 2009

2009-01-11T21:05:00.005+01:00

The 3rd annual NFC Congress 2009 is taking place in Hagenberg, Austria from 24th - 26th February 2009. The NFC Congress is the most exclusive and extensive event on Near Field Communication in Central and Eastern Europe.
See NFC Congress 2008 photos at Flickr

Follow the link to see speakers, program and to register for the event:
http://www.nfc-research.at/index?id=69

Sophia-Antipolis under the snow

2008-12-27T17:13:00.013+01:00

We had a really cold autumn this year in the south of France! Here are some pictures of Sophia-Antipolis and Antibes under the snow, taken in November 2008 :)
It's good for people like me who love skiing!

Jmagine University foundation launched

2008-12-06T00:52:00.012+01:00

Bringing University and Industry together

by Nicolas Pastorelly

I was interviewed by the French national radio, Europe 1, for the launch of a University Foundation the 5th December 2008: Jmagine. I had a few time to explain what we did in the project Campus Nova with Credit-Agricole. The idea of this project was to put an electronic purse inside a mobile phone and give 20 NFC phones to selected students who had then the possibility to pay with it at the cafeteria or exchange money between each other (P2P offline exchange of real money between two mobile phones). Here is an article about this project: http://www.nicerendezvous.com/FR/actu-2239.html
I uploaded the sound record on Youtube:

Links about the Jmagine University foundation:
http://www.jmagine.org
English presentation: http://www.jmagine.org/presgb.pdf

The partners who started the foundation are: Amadeus, Credit-Agricole and Covea (see picture below with chief executives).

The goal of Jmagine is to establish a win-win relationship between University and Industry:

Advantages for students

R&D on new topics and technologies, web services
Work on multi-partner international projects
Validate a real experience with top visibility and communication

Advantages for industry sponsors

Students define services they would use (early adopters)
R&D at a lower price (test technologies & services ideas)
Easy way to evaluate and maybe hire newly graduated students
Multidisciplinary research with university (business models, marketing, psychology...)
European showroom for world IT companies

press article on a local newspaper

Cap d'Antibes

2008-12-03T11:14:00.001+01:00

CARTES

2008-11-10T01:55:00.003+01:00

I was at Cartes & IDentification last week in Paris to meet some business partners such as Gemalto or SFR and to see what's new regarding Contactless Cards! It took place in Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition centre.
Cartes is probably one of the world leading event in Digital Security and Smart Technologies. There were more than 500 exhibitors and 20000 visitors.

Contactless payment, mobility, content, standardization and digital security... Nowadays a new value chain links the different players concerned by the smart technologies and identification market. To better understand and anticipate these major changes, CARTES & IDentification is the international rendezvous you cannot miss.

Grid computing

2008-10-09T20:55:00.001+02:00

I had the chance to meet the team working on Grid computing at INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique). I was really impressed by the solution they are developing: ProActive, so I decided to write a small text to present it on my blog ;)

ProActive is an Open Source Java library (GPL 2) for parallel, distributed, and multi-threaded computing, also featuring mobility and security in a uniform framework. With a reduced set of simple primitives, ProActive provides a comprehensive toolkit that simplifies the programming of applications distributed on Local Area Networks (LANs), Clusters, Internet Grids and Peer-to-Peer Intranets.

You can fin more details on the website: http://proactive.inria.fr
and they recently created a company: http://www.activeeon.com

Min dröm är att flyga

2008-09-26T13:44:00.017+02:00

Hej,
I was in Sweden for two weeks this summer to visit this beautiful country (and to see Iron Maiden on tour). I did not expect to fall in-love with it so quickly and how hard the return in France would be... especially with all these unreal landscapes in my mind.
Strange but for once I felt at home there. I believe you're likely to find very friendly people who are respectful, open-minded and honest at least compared to mentalities in the south of France. They also have my same hobbies like fantasy, role playing games, sports, rock music and metal. I was really impressed by they speaking English. TV, movies and books are not translated to Swedish, for most.
Everything is not perfect, of course. It's not heaven and you don't have birds singing every morning but I think the Swedish model is good (although in this country, attitudes are changing as well).
I have a friend who has been working there for 5 months now and he explained me the life in society on a daily basis and it really differs from what you can find here among people at home. Individualism, fashion, appearance and bling-bling... welcome back to French Riviera, a region still beautiful but overcrowded and poorly built.

I hope one day to return in Sweden and take a small house. It's not so expensive there so maybe I'll don't have to pay it for 25 years, or let's say 40 years to cope with the crisis. Also I love snow, darkness and cold weather.
In each building you can have a common room for doing laundry but also a sauna if you are lucky :p it's all very clean!
Then, I'll have to sell my Toyota for a Volvo!

And just because I saw the movie Babel yesterday, I wanted to add this clip to my blog. Hope you'll enjoy the music.

Smart-University - source code examples

2008-09-19T18:20:00.016+02:00

HelloWorld NFC application

As promised, you can now download the source code examples shown during my Smart-University presentation (slides on my previous message) :

HelloMidlet
Use Nokia 6131 SDK with Eclipse and don't forget to sign your Midlet with a trusted third party certificate (java code signing), see Thawte or Verisign.
HelloKiosk
Use SmartCard I/O API defined by JSR 268 (included since Java 6) and a random PC/SC reader. I'm using a SCM SDI010 dual interface, for my projects ;)
HelloApplet
Use JCOP Tools or other JavaCard IDE to deploy the cap file on your unlocked secure element. The JavaCard area is compliant to Global Platform 2.1.1 and JavaCard 2.2.1.

Some pieces of code are from the examples provided by Nokia's SDK.
Don't forget to read the Nokia WIKI and FAQ on NFC.
See the figure below to understand how the application is working!

Smart-University slides

2008-09-17T15:20:00.006+02:00

This is a presentation of the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. It focuses on standards, specifications, ecosystem, available devices, use cases and keys of success.
The second part is for developers and describes technical architecture to implement a NFC application.

I will present these slides during the Smart-University 2008 in Nice, Sophia-Antipolis.

Near Field Communication

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: communication field)

View it on SlideShare or you can download a PDF version here :
[18 MB] Near Field Communication (right-click save as)

CURRICULUM VITAE

2008-09-16T19:13:00.008+02:00

I have updated my CV.
Click on the picture below to download a PDF version from my Dropbox public folder.

05/2011

Tennis - Hiking - Mountain biking

2008-09-13T16:11:00.010+02:00

French Riviera is really a beautiful region and it is also where I have the chance to live and work ;) It is one of those rare places where you can swim in the sea on summer holidays and then ski in the Alpes during winter.
If you prefer nightclubs, bars, restaurants, you will also find your pleasure between Nice, Cannes, Monaco, Antibes or Saint-Tropez which are not so far from each other.

Most of my weekends are dedicated to great activities such as Tennis, Hiking or Mountain biking with some friends. Tomorrow, I'm going to see the Verdon Gorge and maybe canyoning into.

And yes, I'm writing this post for the sole purpose of making you jealous!

Hiking near Toudon (50km from Nice) / Tennis court at my office place

Moutain biking near Vence

Have a look at the following guides and plan your next daytrip (I'm sure you can have it translated at tourism offices) :
http://www.cg06.fr/tourisme/rando/guide-pratique/Lien_direct.htm

My CV as a tag cloud

2008-09-05T11:34:00.006+02:00

Try it @ http://www.wordle.net

Storm, Earth and Fire, heed my call...

2008-07-01T00:47:00.054+02:00

Hello! With summer just beginning, I'll have some free time between two swims to write something on this blog :)

I was at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris this weekend!
I really enjoyed the show and the studio announced their new game Diablo 3 during the opening ceremony.

I played Starcraft 2 a lot (5 or 6 rounds of 20 minutes each). This game is gonna rule!... like all Blizzard games in fact ;)
When you play it for the first time, you can see all the good things from the first Stacraft: same gameplay, same races, same overall goal.
But it innovates with a really good 3D rendering and nice new units like the Terran mecha called Thor :D blblblblbl!

We also watched a lot of pro gaming matches of Starcraft, Warcraft 3 and WoW Arena 3v3 Tournament! Among the top players, at least half were from Korea, omg! The level was extremely high. What a pity Athene did not attend :(

Saturday evening, we attended the dance and costume contest. That was sooooo funny!
In brief, we did not get bored! There were so many activities like esports tournaments, board games, trading card game, signings, a cosplay armory, babes everywhere and around 600 computers to play Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King.
I played a level 55 Death Knight (new class to be added) and made some pvp/duels. He has a great ability to pull a distant opponent near him!

There were less people on sunday, probably around 4000 I'd say.
We went through each booth to buy some goodies and have my Diablo 3 poster signed by Samwise.

See videos of the closing ceremony below, featuring an amazing orchestra! Videogames Live performed Lament of the Highborne and all Blizzard music themes \m/

Jeremy Belostock on the future of NFC

2008-06-17T12:38:00.000+02:00

AaRON at Nice Jazz festival

2008-06-01T16:41:00.006+02:00

AaRON (Artificial Animals Riding on Neverland) will be at Nice Jazz festival this year.
I like their music but unfortunately I'll be in Sweden during the show :(
I discovered this band in the movie: Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas
Website: http://www.aaronwebsite.com

Marseille - Frioul Island

2008-06-01T16:18:00.007+02:00

WIMA - NFC Competition 2008

2008-05-07T11:15:00.007+02:00

My team of students from Master MBDS of the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, ranks 2nd in the NFC developers competition (Near Field Communication) at WIMA, Monaco. This year, the contest was organized by NFC Forum and sponsored by Nokia.
Our project was a Mobile Marketing solution called: Ticket Tap. It allows user to receive promotional offers on their mobile phones.

WIMA Event : http://www.wima-nfc.com
NFC Competition : http://www.nfc-forum.org/competition/

I was then invited by the NFC Forum in Frankfurt (Germany) to present this project to all their attending members. Frankfurt is a nice city, lot of buildings everywhere and a lot of companies as it is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. I did not have a lot of time to visit.

You can see us receiving second price at 2:30 in the video ;)

LinkedIn profile

2008-05-01T16:25:00.002+02:00

Facebook badge

2008-03-24T12:42:00.002+01:00

Old websites

2007-12-20T20:55:00.004+01:00

Please forgive me about all these old web pages. I was young (15 when I made my first website) and used to play a LOT of games. I decided to list some of them here just for fun and to remember how was the Internet before! Sorry if links are dead... it's been more than 10 years now!

Blizzard World - http://membres.lycos.fr/blizzardworld/
An old website that has been made with friends when we were at High School. Google wasn't that famous or didn't exist yet. We did it using MS Word and "save as" HTML document option. We put ads everywhere because we wanted to earn money and become rich :) articles on this website talk about games developed by Blizzard studio, way before they thought about World of Warcraft!

Colymar - http://www.chez.com/coly/
I participated in the development of this website dedicated to T4C: The 4th Coming, one of the first MMORPG after Ultima Online.

LDP - http://membres.lycos.fr/ldpclan/
A website made for a team of friends who played video games (again)!

Many others have been deleted or disappeared in the depths of the Internet!
...and perhaps it is better that way

jMaki on Rails

2007-10-29T10:38:00.003+01:00

Sorry for the lack of update lately but work has been crazy busy : deliverables, new students, new ideas, new projects, ...

I'll be at CARTES & IDentification 2007 in Paris, mid-November.
Yes I am still working around NFC and will post the slides I presented at the Smart University module, very soon.

I'd been doing a lot of web development recently, testing new frameworks and java tools. Some interesting links to digg :

A great screencast showing how to use Ajax components with Java and Ruby :
http://download.java.net/javaee5/screencasts/jmaki-on-rails2/
Netbeans 6.0 Beta 2 is out and downloadable here :
http://www.netbeans.org
wingS is a web application framework based on Java Servlets, resembling the Swing API :
http://wingsframework.org

You should have a look at Google GWT (and use gwt4nb) :
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

Philips: internship report

2007-09-25T15:31:00.006+02:00

I finished my internship at Philips Semiconductors one year ago. You can find below my report about the work I did there during almost a year. It was my first long-term professional experience and I had the chance to work on innovative mobile healthcare solutions (R&D team).

Contactless Mobile Services [1.4 MB]
My slides [4.5 MB]

Deezer | Music on demand

2007-09-16T20:14:00.004+02:00

Here is my ultimate playlist on Deezer
To be completed...

Toyota Yaris

2007-08-14T13:47:00.000+02:00

Yay! I finally bought my new car and I had a long indecision between models such as Renault Clio III, Peugeot 207 and the new Toyota Yaris :)

I decided to give Toyota a try.
You can see it on the side picture. It's a dark-blue Toyota Yaris 1.3 Luna with air-conditioning!
This is so useful here during summer ;) but I'll try to use it with attention to preserve our beautiful earth.
Ok, I should better go to work with my bicycle

I chose it with 5 doors and I configured my Bluetooth mobile so that I can hear phone call through car's loudspeakers (really necessary geek option).

It's a small sized car, light weight, appropriated for urban & extra-urban... even highway.
A quick downshift to fourth delivers comfortable power. Toyota has probably the most reliable motor of this category (three year guarantee). We'll see.

My previous car was an old Citroen AX. Now, I really appreciate driving :)

Sony Ericsson K810i

2007-08-02T12:47:00.000+02:00

I recently changed my mobile phone for a Sony Ericsson K810i Cyber-shot (side picture) \o/

I was not sure about the model to take. I read some good articles and reviews about the new Nokia N95 which is GPS/WIFI.
But this one was really expensive (more than 500 Euros with a subscription) and I would have died of cancer in approximatively 10 years due to radio frequency radiation.

So... more reasonably, I chose the K810i from Sony Ericsson. Of course I checked Java compatibility before to run all my geek games and it also takes really good pictures (3.2 mega pixels).

I agree this is not so exciting to know. I'll try to talk about something more interesting next time :) It's summer break so let me tell my story.

Below, some pictures taken with the handset camera... not so bad quality

at work / hard working

my desk / friends (test of a picture by night)

private residence swimming pool / relax after a hard day coding

my place / barbecue party

Master MBDS @ World Trade Center

2007-07-26T11:22:00.000+02:00

This is the place where I work: http://www.wtc-sophia.com
I will try to take pictures of my office, in the next days.

My brother is starting his new job @ Tokyo ! Good luck :)

Imagine Cup 07

2007-07-26T10:18:00.000+02:00

This year again, the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis did quite well at Imagine Cup. A team of students I am working with (Jean Dat, Bruce Deschamps, Dimitry Dabady and Johan Douilly) ranked 3rd position in national selection. Congratulations to them!
Here is a link presenting their project: http://chadek-project.weebly.com

They all won a Xbox 360, the new game console from Microsoft.
Each year, the American giant firm organizes this competition involving students worldwide. This year was the 5th edition with 100000 students participating and around 100 countries represented.

Next year, Imagine Cup 2008 will be held in Paris!

From left to right: Jean-Philippe Courtois, President Microsoft International, MBDS team (Jean Dat, Bruce Deschamps, Dimitry Dabady, Johan Douilly) and Eric Boustouller, President Microsoft France.

KF#8 review

2007-07-16T14:40:00.000+02:00

As promised, here is a small message presenting some pictures of the LAN Party we organized last week-end in the gymnasium of Vence !
No big problems occurred during the event. Concerning eth and electricity we had a star network design incorporating a fiber-optic backbone.

There were around 90 attendees (expecting 200).
We really hope to make bigger for KF#9 !

LAN Party

Network switch & Counter-Strike players

Admins

More pictures and event website here: http://www.skillfirst.net

Orange announces commercial launch of mobile contactless services

2007-06-28T22:19:00.000+02:00

I was in Bordeaux yesterday, 27th June and I was surprised because I didn't expect to arrive in such a beautiful city! What a pity I didn't have time to drink a glass of wine and visit the town center.

I took the first flight from Nice in order to be at the Orange announcement of the first mobile contactless services (Near Field Communication). This means Orange customers and Bordeaux resident will be able to subscribe to this offer at the start of 2008.

There will be very few handset models available at launch, due to the limited availability of compatible NFC phones.

Partners of this announcement are Clear Channel (for advertising & NFC posters), Veolia for public transport especially Bordeaux Tramway and LaSer for financial services (Cofinoga).

An analyst from OVUM was there and made a really good speech of what the NFC market will be in the next years. Of course NFC standardization is not yet released but in Korea and Japan, FeliCa is already everywhere in mobile payment (EMV). Concerning Europe, the first NFC service to be massively deployed, will surely be for transportation before mobile payment.
People think Orange is too early announcing commercial launch but this will probably make MVNOs react and they are experimenting NFC in Caen, for almost 4 years now! Orange is thus starting to require phone manufacturers to incorporate NFC chip in their handsets (for the glory of NXP & Inside Contactless).

Save the cheerleader, save the world

2007-06-23T10:09:00.002+02:00

I am finished with the last episode of Heroes season 1 ! Now I can't wait for season 2 to come out on NBC. There are rumors and casting spoilers on the Internet ;) don't be afraid I will not talk about it to ruin your surprise. Volume 2 preview at the end of season 1 is exciting !

For those who don't know about this TV show, I hope you'll have the opportunity to watch it. Heroes will be broadcasted in France on TF1 at the end of June. See trailer @ http://www.heroes-france.com
As usual, it is completely ridiculous compared to the original version (like 24). I hope they will not translate Hiro's japanese ! YATAAAAA ! This is my favorite quote :)

Below is a copy-past of a summary I found on NBC.com

As a total eclipse casts its shadow across the globe, a genetics professor (Sendhil Ramamurthy, "Blind Guy Driving") in India is led by father's disappearance to uncover a secret theory -- there are people with super powers living among us. A young dreamer (Milo Ventimiglia, "Gilmore Girls") tries to convince his politician brother (Adrian Pasdar, "Judging Amy") that he can fly. A high school cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere, "Ice Princess") learns that she is totally indestructible. A Las Vegas stripper (Ali Larter, "Final Destination"), struggling to make ends meet to support her young son (Noah Gray-Cabey, "My Wife & Kids"), discovers that her mirror image has a secret. A fugitive from justice (Leonard Roberts, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") continues to baffle authorities who twice have been unable to contain him. A gifted artist (Santiago Cabrera, "Empire"), whose drug addiction is destroying his life and relationship with his girlfriend (Tawny Cypress, NBC's "Third Watch"), can paint the future. A down-on-his-luck Los Angeles beat cop (Greg Grunberg, "Alias") can hear people's thoughts, which puts him on the trail of an elusive serial killer. In Japan, a young man (Masi Oka, NBC's "Scrubs") develops a way to stop time through sheer will power. Their ultimate destiny is nothing less than saving the world...

Andy Mckee & Album Leaf

2007-06-22T11:51:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was French day of Music (summer day): good bands and artists everywhere in the streets.
This topic to speak about music I recently discovered browsing the web.

Andy Mckee, this guy is a genius ! Just click play ;) this is TOTO ~ Africa
One day, I'll play the guitar like him, or not.

Reading ProgX, I found a news about THE ALBUM LEAF ~ in a safe place which is a beautiful music to listen while coding or relaxing. It's progressive electronic music. Ok it's not Metal but I really recommend this listening!
Link to their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thealbumleaf

Charming... inspiring... during that time of loneliness...

Gods of Metal 2007 MILAN

2007-06-04T10:08:00.001+02:00

I was @ Gods of Metal 2007 in Milan (Italy).

Okay my ears are completely destroyed lol ;) SOUND WAS SO CRAZY I never heard such a powerful noise... two walls of quality loudspeakers in a middle of a huge park.
Mud everywhere because it rained all the day before :( weather was really hot and of course we forgot the sun lotion !

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BLIND GUARDIAN
SO MAD !!!!! THEY ROCK !!!

Here is a video of "Nightfall" I found on Youtube ! Mine is bad quality.

DREAM THEATER ! Oh my god ! IMPRESSIVE sound :) and crowd was so receptive ! To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Images and Words, they played the entire album, for our great pleasure.

DIMMU and SYMPHONY X were awesome too !

I fell in love with BLIND GUARDIAN, really appreciated DREAM THEATER (and the crazy drums). Was impressed by SYMPHONY X too (what a voice). ANATHEMA... didn't hear much, we arrived at the end of their last song. I enjoyed "Punish my Heaven" from DARK TRANQUILLITY.

GREATEST MOMENT for me, if I have to select only one song of this UNFORGETTABLE day, it would be : "The Bard's Song" from Blind Guardian with the crowd singing and beautiful acoustic guitars. I almost cried !!!

I am looking for the setlist of all songs played this day, especially the one from Symphony X, because I don't know their titles.

LAN PARTY 13-15 July near Nice

2007-05-24T22:11:00.006+02:00

KF is back ! http://www.skillfirst.net
sKill-First is the name of an association I am helping to organize LAN PARTY. The next event will be near Nice, in Vence, 13-15 July.
We are expecting around 200 players and a lot of tournaments will take place : Counter-Strike, Warcraft III and even old games such as Duke Nukem 3D :)
A LAN PARTY is a place where people bring their computers and play games during hours and hours until falling asleep. Actually, I hope good teams will come and we'll have a lot of fun and competition. There will be some rewards for winners as the event is sponsored by local hardware vendors.

Remember KF#6 \o/

I moved recently and I uploaded pictures of my new place as promised... yes it's quite small but I am really near my office now (used to drive a lot).
It's a peaceful suburb with easy access to Sophia-Antipolis.
Look carefully the following photos, that will never be so clean :)

MMmhhhhh banana !!!

Did you listen the new single called Eva from Nightwish band ?
You can download audio sample here : http://www.nightwish.com/en/files/audio
I am waiting the new album with great impatience :)

Also they announce the new lead singer (Goodbye Tarja) : Anette Olzon (side picture).
Here is a link to learn more about Anette :
http://www.nightwish.com/en/band/members/facts?id=16

She is not a great celebrity... I am quite disappointed I was hoping someone younger from TV Star Academy with huge breast :/
and Tarja has a better voice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay that's it.

Next week, I will be at Gods of Metal 2007 in Milano.
Line-up is impressive : DREAM THEATER, BLIND GUARDIAN, SYMPHONY X, DIMMU BORGIR, HEAVEN & HELL, DARK TRANQUILLITY, ANATHEMA, DGM, SINESTESIA !

FEISTY HELL @ can't access tty; job control turned off

2007-05-17T22:09:00.000+02:00

Bad news today, I tried to upgrade my linux distro to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn... everything was fine booting the live CD but can't reboot after install.
This is the message I get :

BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-3ubuntu3) Built-in shell (ash) Enter "help" for a list of built-in commands.
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
(initramfs) _

I spent my day Google searching to find a solution to bypass the initramfs prompt.
This is apparently a hard drive problem as the kernel is not able to mount my main IDE drive.
I tried to add piix to initramfs module and run update-initramfs -u as proposed by Ben Collins in Launchpad.
I tried to add irqpoll & noapic on GRUB boot cmd line.
I tried to chroot my Feisty on a Dapper live CD and run apt-get dist-upgrade.
I even tried to run an install with only one hard drive and my CD-ROM drive on different IDE socket.

But still can't get it running !!!

See this known bug at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=421849
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/106864

... quite disappointed! So now I'm writing this blog entry on my Windows laptop while reinstalling Edgy on the desktop.
I hope a fix will come soon or I'll have to wait for Gutsy :S

Now my Edgy install is freezing at 72%... what a pity I didn't burn the CD at 4x speed. I am cursed today... need to kill some monsters to relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxx
/me launch Dark Messiah

Ruby on Rails vs Java

2007-05-16T16:47:00.000+02:00

Hi, I'm Ruby on Rails!
Mhhh... it remembers me about a video clip on PS3 vs WII :D so funny and somehow so real :D
Next step http://www.rubyonrails.org

Speaker @ Smart University

2007-05-16T16:16:00.000+02:00

I'll give a talk for the SMART UNIVERSITY conferences on Near Field Communication (educational programme), Sept. 17 & 18 at Sophia-Antipolis.
Event web site is: http://www.strategiestm.com/conferences/smartuniv/07/programme_nfc.htm
http://www.smart-university.net

Module 1 : SEPT 17
NFC STANDARDS AND NFC FORUM
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) NFC and Touch based services from an architectural point of view
• Contactless 13,56Mhz, Type A, B and Sony
• Mifare, Felica, Topaz formats
• NFC market and availability
• Complementarity with Bluetooth
• Security SIM /Smart card
• Interoperability, standards, GSM association and ETSI vision

Module 2 : SEPT 18
ARCHITECTURES AND DEVELOPMENT KITS JAVA/J2ME PREREQUISITE
• Development kits (SDK) and JSR 257
• Development platforms
• An application development example on the new Nokia 6131
• Reading and Writing a NFC tag
• Present issues in NFC application development (certification, ...)

See you there ;)

NFC Awards winners !

2007-04-23T22:41:00.001+02:00

The University of Nice, represented by my team of students from Master MBDS, is finishing the first NFC European Competition among the fifth winners of track B "Most Innovative NFC Proposal of the Year 2007" and first in the category CITY LIFE.

Main Winner for Track B is VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland with their project SeeingEyePhone - A Vision Of The Future.
Prices were delivered last week at WIMA in Monaco by a Jury presided by NOKIA and Gerhard Romen (see picture below). Prince Albert was there for a quick tour ;)

I'll try to attach the presentation I did at the ceremony. Quite hard to defend such a project in a 4 minutes speech!

Source: http://www.nfcmagazine.com

Feisty Fawn !

2007-04-20T15:53:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn is here :)
This is a great Linux distro. I am using it but still in its previous version, Edgy Eft. I will upgrade ASAP.
It includes GNOME 2.18.1

You can download it from :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyFawn
http://releases.ubuntu.com/feisty/

Next release in october will be 100% GNU Compliant :)
see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon

If you run out of imagination to find a sweet first name for your child... you know now where to ask :D
Thanks Canonical ;)

Kamelot

2007-04-14T20:34:00.001+02:00

I was in Paris last week to see and listen to Kamelot concert, at Elysee Montmartre. They did one or two songs of their new album: Ghost Opera. Sound was not so bad and they played during almost 2 hours!
Other bands were Fairyland & Leave's Eyes.

Fairyland did quite well with beautiful girl voices. No I am not saying this because my ex-girlfriend is one of the singers (main voice at http://www.kerion.net).
Good guitars solo too.. just missed some power.

I recommend their music, for those who like Metal and especially Symphonic Metal.
Kamelot finished the date with March of Mephisto :D :D YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

NFC Awards

2007-04-14T20:33:00.003+02:00

My team at the University is part of the nominees for the first NFC European Competition final. We'll present to the jury our project which is called HOTEL Nova. The key argument for this project is to save time for business travelers using NFC mobile phone to book a hotel, check-in, check-out, store tickets, administrative bills, open and rent a car, etc.

Below is a small movie clip introducing the "Digital Traveler" :

I'll have 10 minutes in Monaco at WIMA 2007, to explain why this project has a really good business potential.
Sponsors of the Competition include: Nokia, Innovision Research & Technology, NFC Forum, NXP, VTT and partner SmartTouch.

This project contributes to track B of the Competition: Most Innovative NFC Proposal of the Year 2007.
More information : http://www.nfc-competition.com
& http://www.wima.mc

See you at WIMA ;)

Sun tech days

2007-04-14T20:32:00.000+02:00

I was at Sun Tech Days in Paris, 19-21 March.
There were good technical notes on Glassfish, Mobile J2ME, Adobe FLEX, Ajax with jMaki components, JavaDB and even Ruby.
Between conferences, guys from SUN were throwing some Java dukes into the crowd, what a pity I didn't get one :(

I really appreciated the presentation of Romain GUY on rich client. Very impressive ;)
See his blog on http://www.curious-creature.org
He recently wrote a book on this topic with Chet Haase.

Other interesting talk was on mobile deployment and debugging using Bluetooth and Netbeans.
Also Adobe was there to present Flex, a framework to create rich Internet application in Flash (with Action Script). I am going to investigate Adobe's baby. You can build great and eye-candy websites very quickly.

Hope to be there next year ;)

Event web site: http://fr.sun.com/sunnews/events/2007/mar/techdays/index.jsp

Near Field Communication

2007-04-13T15:41:00.007+02:00

This is my first topic about NFC (Near Field Communication) on this blog so I'm going to introduce what exactly is this technology and what kind of great services it allows on a mobile phone.
My role at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis is to technically lead teams of students. We have had to handle very challenging projects related to themes such as mobile payment, home gateways and mobile applications for national and international companies.
NFC and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies enable mobile-contactless services with high added value.

From Wikipedia: NFC is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO14443 proximity-card standard (contactless card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device.

There are three main use cases for NFC:

card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card
reader mode: the NFC device is active and read a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising
P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information.

The NFC Forum promotes implementation and standardization of NFC technology to ensure interoperability between devices and services. There are over 150 members of the NFC Forum, including the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.

Touch to connect, by Nicolas Pastorelly

I'm trying to extend my knowledge on this technology and I'm an active member of Nokia Discussion Boards, a useful link where you can find NFC developers helping each other on many topics.
Link to my profile: http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/member.php?u=150491
You can also find some NFC Java code examples and tutorials on Nokia NFC Wiki.

Mac OS on a PC ?

2007-04-01T12:49:00.000+02:00

Check this WIKI to see if your hardware is supported : http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.4.8

Bill Gates vs Steve jobs

HTML Validators

2007-01-20T19:15:00.012+01:00

What is meant by "validating" a HTML document
Validation is made by a program that checks the markup (HTML, XHTML, ...) of web documents and verify its compliance with the HTML standard version chosen in the DOCTYPE. If it encounters errors or inconsistency in the document, it list them in a final report. The developer can then correct his code.
The validator tracks your bugs (tags ending or missing quotes) and you get the assurance that your page will be displayed similarly by all browsers supporting the standard.
You can download validators as a program to run on your local computer (usually freeware) or directly validate your pages on websites such as:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/
http://validator.w3.org

With the widespread use of HTML editors, this validation procedure is less used and the developer usually prefers to directly check the display of his pages in different browsers.

Some special characters do not pass the test
In order to take the less bandwidth as possible, HTML was specified to be very compact with small tags, for example img for a picture. HTML uses text formatting and ASCII was reduced by one bit (7 bits instead of 8). Thus you can't use some special characters such as é.
See the complete list of these special characters.

Standards
HTML
Update to HTML 4.01 is strongly recommended by the W3C. See more details about it on the W3C website: http://www.w3c.org/MarkUp

Stylesheets
CSS did not have an immediate success. It is now completely implemented on many browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox). See also the W3C website: http://www.w3c.org

META fields
META HTTP-EQUIV (Content-Type, Expires, Keywords, Last-Modified, Description) and META NAME (Author, Creation-Date, Generator) provide information to HTTP servers, clients, search engines, robots and web crawlers.

Detailed specifications for META fields can be found in standard references HTML 3.2 and 4.0, RFC HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1, etc.
RFCs are available on the LIP6 (my favorite server), here: ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/rfc.

Validators

Bobby checks that your HTML is valid for numerous popular browsers as well as checking that your page is accessible for people with disabilities.
Tidy reports errors and provides a corrected version of the page. You can choose which style you want Tidy to use when it generates the cleaned up markup: for instance whether you like elements to indent their contents or not.
W3C Validator allows you to check your online pages with a dedicated engine for the Stylesheets and HTML.

The first tag of all your pages must indicate the type of HTML to validate.

Edgy Eft

2006-11-15T12:07:00.014+01:00

It's been a while since I've not left a message on this blog. Well, I'll try to keep it running with a big and long news just for you.

I started my new job as a Project Manager for the University of Nice at Master MBDS. Yes I graduated :)
We essentially do some programming and develop new applications with students. Real industry contracts are behind all this work. The projects are challenging because they are related to various themes such as healthcare, traceability, ticketing, new means of payment, etc.
I'm learning RFID and new contactless mobile oriented technologies.
See this great blog on mobile payment: http://mobilepayment.typepad.com.

Here is a small Java userbar because it is what I mainly do in my new work.

If you want to know more about MBDS projects and education programme, I invite you to browse this Youtube channel gathering some nice video clips from French television.

Apart from the new job, I had the chance to get a key to test Burning Crusade, addon for World of Wacraft. Even if I play less than I used to, this game remains very good and BC brings some innovations: new races, new items, new quests… it is planned for January 2007.
I'll have to upgrade my computer to play Neverwinter Nights 2 & Dark Messiah which are also great titles but request a good hardware.

Click to enlarge your p.... the picture

Let's continue to talk about Warcraft universe, sorry for those who don't know about it. Here is the new Basshunter clip after Anna Bot :) The guy is a real star on Youtube, like Kamini or Fatal Bazooka! He's playing live in concert for some geek events such as LAN Party.

Today, I went to see the movie Borat. Jokes inside are quite heavy in fact, I did not like! I thus advise you other current movies like Babel or Prête-moi ta main with Alain Chabat.
You can now buy at Cinema Pathé an unlimited subscription to see movies at will!

The 24th episode of Donjon de Naheulbeuk is out and online on this website: http://www.penofchaos.com/warham/donjon.htm
There again if you do not know the series, I advise you to download all MP3s and to listen carefully (audio is in French language). Guaranteed laughter!
I finally started a new role-playing campaign with friends in the world of Eberron! Do you know about Farador? See http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-5825493270005637835… That looks pretty much like our evenings :)

Let's keep on with the medieval fantastic world. I went to a free Lord of the Rings concert in Nice. Howard Shore did a brief talk at the beginning and I really enjoyed this nice music with a philharmonic full orchestra.

Recently I discovered Airsoft. It's a bit like Paint Ball but bullets hit less badly! The rules are simple, you have to shoot your enemy with different weapons like M15, Famas, etc. throwing small plastic balls. You must play with at least 20 guys to set different play modes. You also need to find an area which fits your gameplay with trees, ruined houses and thickets for camouflage. Various play modes are for example: defend position, free hostages, capture the flag. You have to try Airsoft at least one time in your life. It is a game based on fairplay with a lot of sport to avoid bullets and apply your strategy.

Here is a picture of our last daytrip, near Valbonne.

I try to stay fit and found a sport, other than click click on the mouse of my computer! I practice TAI JITSU in a club. Here is the web address of our school, with some pics: http://shomen.tailland.net (do not look for me the website is not updated any more). It's almost like standard Karate but much more self-defense oriented.

I installed the new version of Ubuntu, Edgy Eft, with Firefox 2 and Flash 9! I spoke about this Linux distro in my last topic. My PC is soon 4 years old and it doesn't run so badly. I did not install Beryl yet (to have 3D desktop).

Here is a small & free game if you have a little spare time: Gridwars - http://gridwars.marune.de

UBUNTU BUG #1 @ LAUNCHPAD https://launchpad.net/bug1.html
Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.
Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PC's for sale have non-free software pre-installed.
3. Observe very few PC's with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.
What should happen:
1. A majority of the PC's for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.

A last link and then I go. I found a place where you can download all recent newspapers (in French) http://ebook.devstude.net
After seeing this, I am not astonished that French newspaper Liberation is in bankruptcy...

This winter, I'll come back with photos from Praloup (ski resort), thanks Credit-Agricole for the flat!

Cya

Awaking the Java World

2006-10-20T19:00:00.004+02:00

I graduated at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis and I now have a Master MBDS (http://www.mbds-fr.org) which is a Master degree in Computer Science (Multimedia and Database Systems). I am finished with my studies !

This year, I had the chance to take part in several industrial projects with partners such as Philips, Amadeus, Renault...
It was really an enriching experience with dynamic project leaders and a great community of students. I worked on very diverse technologies even if they are all part of the JAVA world (this is a choice) : J2EE, Web Services, JBoss, Enterprise JavaBeans version 3 (EJB), MIDlet Java, JSP, Java Server Faces, ... more infos on http://java.sun.com.

I also discovered what is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and how easier is coding with it : visual programing with versioning management like SVN, drag'n'drop WYSIWYG and hundreds of plugins for Eclipse, Netbeans, ...

I used to work with syntax hightlighting and standard text editor! VIM is for rebels \o/

I had already used Eclipse for a Java competition organized by BCS: British Computer Society.

Unfortunately, I can't show you anything because my work concerns industrial R&D projects and I thus do not have the right to reveal much infos. If you look at my CV, you can read that I took part in the Mostra project (Mobile Services for the Traveller) labelized by the SCS cluster. You will find all the details of the project and also its description on : http://www.pole-scs.org

We worked on handset “prototypes” with NFC chip (Near Field Communication) : http://www.nfc-forum.org. This is the subject of my current training course at Philips Semiconductors (in Sophia-Antipolis).

What if you could...

2006-09-26T12:53:00.002+02:00

... be part of the next experience.

This was the title for the campaign introducing the new company founded by Philips : NXP Semiconductors. I worked there from June 1st till end of October. Philips Semiconductors, renamed NXP, is a company providing mobile multimedia solutions and has one of the largest portfolios of multimarket semiconductors in the industry. I was in charge of developing an application to demonstrate potential usability of mobile phone with NFC : Near Field Communication.
Now that my internship is over, I will be working for the University of Nice as a Project Manager, teaching Mobile Technologies such as Java, Bluetooth and RFID to students from the MBDS Master.

I finally removed all my Microsoft products from my desktop computer to switch for a Linux distro, Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an african word meaning "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.
I used to be addicted to Gentoo, which is a good LFS (Linux From Scratch) to learn how the system behind really works. Because I was removing my dual boot, I was looking for a great distro, easy to use, easy to configure, without going through the kernel every time I plug my USB key. Ubuntu answered all my needs.

And even if it takes time to learn how to use new software and find new marks, I am happy with it ;) Gimp is even better than Paint Shop Pro! Skype, Filezilla, Google Earth... it is all running natively on Linux! You can edit your videos with Cinelerra, surf the web with Firefox, listen your music with Amarok, chat with Gaim or Teamspeak, read your emails with Thunderbird, ...
I managed to run World of Warcraft and other games like Warcraft 3 and Neverwinter Nights without a big performance loss. I also tried Xgl with the composite manager, Compiz. All these components will be integrated in the next Ubuntu version, in October. After removing all eye candy effects, we have a 3D desktop which is a great enhancement for user interactivity.

Will people make the right choice when Windows Vista will be released? Microsoft's product will probably be a "good" system for a lot of people. It will have an integrated antivirus, firewall, media player, instant messaging software, search tools, ... good news for those who want to use all that. And then, what alternatives will we have? If all my friends are chatting on MSN, how can I do? My problem with Microsoft is not their products... they are generally good. My problem is the users; the fact that the entire planet is using Microsoft Windows impose their all-in-one solutions and kill all alternatives.

Here is a book that can help you figure out why Microsoft is hijacking the world. It is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Licence known as Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial.
FR > http://www.dicosmo.org/HoldUp/HoldUpPlanetaire.pdf
EN > http://www.dicosmo.org/HoldUp/English/Hijacking_the_World.pdf

Remember 3rd October is the day against DRM. See this web site for more info :
http://defectivebydesign.org.

One last link I recommend : http://www.miniature-earth.com.
Appreciate what you have and do your best for a better world.

Yaay! This is my longest blog entry :D

twitter

2006-09-25T02:54:00.000+02:00

I registered myself on twitter and added this badge to my web site. So now I can keep you up to date about things I am doing... even if this is not really interesting. One more gadget to feed my blogging sickness with my mobile phone while I am away ;)

http://twitter.com

del.icio.us

2006-09-25T02:50:00.000+02:00

My del.icio.us tags cloud ;) open this topic on another tab if it does not appear below (blogspot bug).

Ounaid Project

2006-09-20T19:05:00.002+02:00

3D OpenGL Video Game

Ounaid is the name of a project I did with 4 mates during my studies. It is a 3D video game using OpenGL technology developed in C++ language with the SDL library. The game is only running on GNU/Linux Operating System.

My main task in this project was the integration of a loader to post our own 3D model developed using 3DSMax and converted in MD2 file format (Quake 2). I also took care about the integration of shooting animations and the HUD developed by rest of the team.

In this project, the implementation part was really dominating but much of the specifications were written in a preliminary study and various tasks divided into different “Work Packages”. We held a meeting with the team approximately once per week to define planning and discuss on our progress. Although a CVS would have been useful for a project like this one, we simply used a small web site to present the project and coordinate our efforts. It was my responsibility to keep the web site up to date, for our fans all over the world :) You can browse it following the link below.

You'll see that the background story is really clever

Web site

Source code and Binaries available on demand (dev version ~ 80 Mo)