CUTC 2007 Finale
Posted by Skrud at Monday, January 15th 2007 at 9:34am
The last day of CUTC was a blast, despite the TechTeam presentations early in the morning, and the fact that we didn’t end up winning (I’m only slightly bitter).
The Second Life seminar was interesting despite the fact that I was struggling to stay awake. I really was listening and enthusiastic, I was just tired. Second Life itself seems pretty cool – I like the idea of a development platform, that anyone can use, that just so happens to be in the context of a massively multiplayer game world. I downloaded the client at the hotel so I’ll give it a try sooner or later.
The Google keynote was also pretty good. We learned about a lot about Google’s mobile apps, since that’s what they’re developing in the Waterloo office. We also learned that Google does your laundry and dry cleaning for you, has free mechanics for its employees, and lets you bring your dog (but not cat) to work. The best question at this keynote session was going to win an iPod Video.
I walked up and asked “The problem with mobile apps isn’t lack of innovation, it’s the cost of using mobile internet because of the high fees that telecom companies charge per kilobyte. What’s Google doing to ensure that people can afford to use GMail and Google without paying a ton of money in bandwidth costs, especially for people like the students here who likely won’t have data plans?”
I got a really good answer, too. Google has been working on something called the “Google Transcoder” which essentially dumbs down web pages for your cell phone. This includes the ability to shrink images on Google’s server before it gets transmitted to your phone, saving valuable KB as well as the ability to block images completely.
But I didn’t win the iPod. Some other guy won the iPod and I didn’t even understand what his question was about – neither did the Google speaker. Oh well. I got a consolation prize from Fiona, a Microsoft programmer that was mingling with us throughout the conference. She gave me a handy Microsoft Wireless Optical mouse, because she thought my question was better. Thanks a lot, Fiona!
Finally we had the TechTeam awards ceremony and banquet. Our delegation was dapper as hell.
Our fellows from across the hall at University of Ottawa (and our best friends at the conference) forgot to bring fancy clothes:
But that’s okay, because we got Table 42.
CUTC 2007 was a blast! Thanks to everyone we met and hung out with! It’s a shame the SFU guys couldn’t make it this year, but hopefully we’ll be able to go to their NTCU conference in May.
HOLY SHIT. You guys ACTUALLY got table number 42 – someone mentioned it and I thought it was some kind of inside joke. That’s AMAZING.
Also: Hello!