Hi there! Yes! We are back in Singapore after 16hours of flight!

Well , do let me share about our last day experience at LucasFilm! We were really fortunate to be able to pay a visit to LucasFilm, it's very seldom that these big IT companies accept groups from overseas. They do have their own University Relations Department to handle university visits, but still they offer priority to their local students.

Upon arrival at LucasFilm, we were greeted by the Jedi Master fountain! All of us were so excited that we wanted our photos taken with it.

In about a few minutes time, the University Relations Department personnel greeted us and brought us around the internal section of the company; where we got to see the office of the animators and importantly for the students - internship offers by LucasFilm. There was a short presentation on the various jobs offered by LucasFilm and interested applicants could apply for the job title.

We walked around their company and ended the tour with a 20mins movie screening of the animation that they have done. It was indeed an eye opener for all of us; showing us how animation added on with lighting could enhance the overall movie's experience. GREAT!

This trip organized by IDA for Winners of the National InfoComm Competition is a refreshing, eye-opener and a great experience for all of us! Being able to exposure to the different technologies that are now adopted by companies and also visits to big IT companies are great experience for all of us; such as we definitely not able to visit Microsoft if we are going on a typical guided tour! All these visits are specially organized and arranged by IDA.

Thanks to IDA for planning such a wonderful trip!

Thanks to ICT for giving us this opportunity to go on this trip!

Hi to all our new friends made on this trip such as students from Raffles Institution & Hwa Chong! Cheers! = D

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trapster-speed-trap-alerts-now/id290629277?mt=8

It's an iPhone/ iPod Touch app meant to help drivers warn each other of road 'traps' like police checkpoints, speed cameras, etc. While it certainly can't be banned, is this really ethical? It's essentially using technology to make it easier to drive recklessly. Technology is indeed meant to make life easier, but not in that way.

This morning, we visited Apple at 1 Infinite Loop. We were fascinated and excited by the infinite loop address that was outside Apple. I googled it to find out more details. Here is what I have found from Wikipedia.

"The inifinite loop is inspired by a programming concept of programming ; infinite loop, a loop that has no termination-infinity. It is a private U-shaped crescent, which joins up with the public street Mariani Avenue to form a loop."

Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in Apple. However, Apple University Relations Department has done an excellent job in presenting the various products from manufacturing Macbook to today, a cell phone (iPhone) that Apple offers, how Apple's revenue grows during the dot com bubble burst. The short presentation of a general view of Apple was followed by a technical presentation by Mark Sin.

Mark Sin, a singaporean, is currently working for Apple welcomed us. He has been working with Apple for 12 years, he was there as an intern during his attachment and thus continued to work for Apple upon graduation. Mark works there as an engineer, he shared with us the fun and being passionate working with Apple.. He continued his job in Apple after his attachment. From this, it's important that we choose our internship company carefully; that brings back to the point that we must choose the job that we love to do and not for the sake of doing it.. With this, it will definitely widen our exposure and also brush up our knowledge and skills.

Hence, it's very important for one to be passionate about the job that he/she is working in, he talked about having interests in the job that one is doing.

Apple has done great jobs in bringing her products to the consumers. Industrial design plays an important role in Apple's products, till now, Apple's products have not disappoint their customers. During the presentation, it was told to us that many of the user who purchased iTouch have not owe any iPod before, thus it has shown that how "easy" it was to use a iPod product.

Second programme of the day was to Intel Museum, =D

We went on a guided tour with the staff bringing us around the Intel museum, The Intel museum is founded by Jean Jones, it shows a series of intel chips that were launched during the years since Intel was set up. Intel stands for Integrated Electronics.

In summary, today's trip to Apple and Intel were very exciting and fulfilling trip for us. As such trips are not possibble/difficulty to be organized if we were on a tour, because this trip was a study trip organized by IDA who has partnering relationships with these big IT companies that we could get the chance to visit them. We were very glad that we were offered the opportunity to visit these companies. Importantly, we also have met capable singaporeans who have been working in these big IT companies since their internship with them.

硅谷，这个有如仙境般的美国科技区，坐落在美国加利福尼亚州的三藩市。今日能亲眼所见，真是三生修来的福气。 三藩市，那个辉煌一时的旧“金山”，可说是个世界化的城市。在这个美丽的小城市里，我们目睹了不同的种族，不同肤色，来自不同国家人们如何和睦共处。或许，他们的曾祖父是英勇无比的“寻金”勇士。 或许，他们是来自不同的地方学者到这里寻求崭新的学习环境。

         第2天,我们首先参观了世界顶尖的公司,惠普(Hewlett - Packard)。负责接待我们的惠普员工和我们分享了惠普公司的内部结构，以及惠普研究学院的新发明。我们学到了不少新知识，受益不浅。

         下午，我们来到了家喻户晓的微软公司 – 硅谷的微软研究学院。Windiows Live Mail 的 队伍和我们分享监管Live Mail运作的心得。从中，我们得知微软的幕后工作者是如何维修服务器，如何更新服务器。最后，我们来到了员工专用的微软专卖品店。

Hello, I’m Koh Li, Shi Hui roommate for this trip! I will be blogging today! 

Okay, the entry that I had just type for th e past  1 hour was gone and I had not sa ve it. GOODNESS! Guess it’s hinting to me that the entry I type previously is not good. 

Okay here we go! 

Guess you guys know that we are currently at Silicon Valley. Yes, Silicon Valley is where most of the big technology company like Microsoft, HP, Google, Facebook Headquarter sit. Well, on the other hand, this is a  place whereby there are many techno-entrepreneurship started. 

Our first stop: HP Labs;

outside HP labs. Nice building isn't it

Due to some reason, we aren't allow to bring in any cameras inside, Sorry folks. What amazed me is Halo Communication. it allows corporate to use it to have meeting across different geographical areas. It's a super cool technology as you are able to share what you are looking at easier - the documents you are holding on hold, the other parties are able to see it clearly through the webcam. 

Halo communication bring conveniences as people from different part of the world in the same company, or different co mpany, to work together real time. 

And also it promotes green! as we travel less, less emission of carbon. 

Our next stop: Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus

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uot;margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Cambria;">it's a super nice place. place are themed according to the 4 colors in the Microsoft logo. 

Some photos to share... 

edwin and shi hui outside Microsoft building

trying out mulit-touch on a TV. 

Kenny giving us a introduction to Microsoft

servers inside Microsoft 

Window Live team giving a in-sight of their jobs and what they do everyday. 

We can see that Microsoft having a balance in work and life. it's looks like a super cool company to work in. 

I feel that all the company are now doing their best to keep the world green, or rather it's like a trend now to be green, Maybe a question to keep us thinking, what are some impacts that are bring to us? Personally i feel that technologies did changes our behaviors in some ways, like we become more rely on technologies. But we can't deny that technology bring us conveniences like I'm skype-ing with my mom in Singapore. [: 

Stay tone okay! we will be going apple! 

PS: it's super cold over here. Shi hui and I looks like a dumpling when we are on street. we are wearing like 3 -4 layers of clothing. 

Today we visited a Microsoft research centre in the afternoon. We were given chance to meet face-to-face the operations personnel as well as back-end software personnel for Windows Live Hotmail. We learnt some of the challenges faced for this service of over 10bn registered accounts, requiring 10,000+ servers to match. In such an environment, even the smallest optimization to one's resource usage makes a great affect to overall service availability and affordability to its hosters.

Microsoft told us that there are specialized people handling hardware purchase decisions, amongst other experts of software, and network, specialized domains. For the hardware domain, even a minor cost cut for a chosen server model is felt greatly, when multiplied tens of thousands of times. Similarly, when software is made available live 24/7 for billions of users, a great weight is placed on the shoulders of both its back-end authors and its subsequent maintainers, supporting the active service throughout its lifetime. One of the personnel remarked, that it was this dynamism in challenges of keeping a service used by many up and running, that gave them the excitement and anticipation for work every day. For them, something like a hardware failure was encountered every day. It is only through their keen processes and safeguards that keeps operations going smoothly for its users, who access their mail without taking a second thought every second of the day.

This gives better appreciation to some of the work of HP Labs, whose offices we visited this morning. Today we learnt that they were developing a project called BRAIN, which purpose is to combine the analytical conclusions of multiple expert personnel, to derive an accurate prediction, such as for the price of a commodity such as oil. This project sees a difference between a single expert's opinion under normal conditions, and the combined system-analyzed individual (group-unbiased) opinion of multiple experts who were each presented with incentive in producing a correct estimation. This project saw a slight increase in accuracy of modelling compared to the original opinion, in this real-world case, the case of the price of oil. In the presentation given, the system predicted 18.4 cents compared to the previously-held single expert's prediction of 19.0 cents. The actual price then turned out to be 18.4 cents.

While the slight increase in accuracy of estimation and subsequent planning sees little use for small cases, when multiplied thousands or ten thousand-fold, the massive effect of dynamically changing systems underscores the need for such analytical techniques, as well as numbers of analytical people who should graduate and work in the computer field. The cost-effective maintainance of such systems of huge scalability makes one appreciate the work of the analysts.

Today,  bear-bear was very excited as he heard that he was going to big places :D

It had its tour around Silicon Valley, were most of the big companies were situated. Silicon Valley is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area. Companies like google, microsoft, intel, ebay, hp and yahoo are situated in the area. And thats why bear-bear got very excited !

Above pictures : beautiful scenery around silicon valley (degraded by the bus windows)

After its scrumtious breakfast in the hotel it went on the bus and had its first stop in HP!

HP was were bear-bear had an inspirational experience. The place he went to was called HP IDEAlabs, a place in which top scientists researchers and engineers met up to brainstorm for possible ideas to change the world. unfortunately, for security reasons cameras were not allowed inside but bear-bear had a great time. it first had a simple tour around hewletts and packards original offices in which everything was preserved as it was long ago. bear bear could already feel a sense of awesomeness and innovation which existed within the founding fathers of HP long ago. after that it had a presentation by some employees. these employees shared with bear-bear and his friends about what happens in HP labs and some of the current projects which are in the works. unfortunately bear-bear isnt allowed to talk much about their ideas but what it can say is that these top researchers are paving the way for the furute of technology and the world can expect the unexpected in a few years. what it learnt was that no matter who you are it is ideas which empower the world and ideas are only of good use if you try to put it into action.

Next after it had a good lunch in HP's canteen, it headed for its next interesting destination, one of the greatest and oldest and most inspirational IT companies of all time, MICROSOFT.

first it had an interesting tour of the campus.

here is the map of the whole of microsoft in silicon valley

after that it had an interesting presentation about the campus. after that it had a demo of the microsoft SURFACE, a totally cool table

after that it went for the most important part of the day, the meeting with the employees from windows live

the talk was really interesting as all the employees shared with bear bear about life working in silicon valley. it allowed bear bear to get an insight and made it think about its own furute (job, studies etc.). the employees in microsoft seemed to enjoying their worklife very much as microsoft managed to take good care of its employees and guide their career paths well.

finally bear bear made a visit to intel. it was very excited about it. however, due to the temperature in SF, intels heaters were damaged causing the intel museum to shut down for that day and therefore bear bear could not vist intel museum for the day :( however it did manage to take some cool pictures outside intel.

after that bear bear went for dinner at a buffet restraunt and filled its belly with a good all-you-can-eat buffet. yum yum :D

stay tuned for more bear bear adventures tomorrow! APPLE IS COMMING UP :)

I'd thought Silicon Valley bodes ominously, with the symbolic emphasis diffusing onto the latter word. Despite's the comforting solace that programmers seek in Moore's Law, I'm convinced that computing can't be perpetually 'hyped'. Borrowing its gold-mine-ly origin: the geeky founders of IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Xerox, and... found the gold (I recommend getting the "Triumph of the Nerds" VCD from your school library if it's available, it'd be a awesome scaffold for this trip), and enjoyed as primary consumers, so to speak. Technology no doubt has improved tremendously since then. But perhaps it is dwindling to a stage where we will merely be reinventing the wheel (ahem, the processor). Or maybe not: the FOLDING@HOME project is an exciting example of applied inter-disciplinary integration of diverse fields such as proteomics into the mechanical brutality of supercomputers. The deep sinking feeling of the valley may also derive its portentous overtones from China's uprising. Thomas Friedman contended that it's mainly outsourcing work, so the States should still be "safe" since they are doing the higher-order work. However I'm sure we wouldn't not notice the fluidity of the paradigm shift. After all, Singapore's Wisdom (K Y, Lee) has firmly emphasized the imperativeness of Chinese nowadays - and we aren't even bothering with the culturally correct ratiocination nowadays. 'Learn Chinese so we could ride China's economy' became our general consensus. Really? Really? I cohere: but more as a cultural obligation than anything else. But that's rather inexplicable and raw so we shan't broach that here.

Whether the Valley has evolved beyond being a literal geographical 'depression' to a figurative 'depression', the prestige associated with US Colleges perhaps still holds strong. Just as we did not manage to have Google arranged in this trip, it is also unfortunate that we did not get to visit any of the Ivies. I'll join you to interject that Stanford U is on par, if not better, variably. Some of us here are in the process of applying for College and the visits have certainly been of immense help for us.

On a final note, I recall our beloved guide Hanny telling us about Boston Tea Parties. I'd like to share that it is the very first time that I learnt of the historical origins of the term. I have hitherto only recognised it as an euphemism for something that is rather taboo to talk about... a construct of slang, as acknowledged by a significant number of linguistics references: it is a 'polite' concealment for a sadomasochistic 'party'... I'm not sure if it's contemporary with our times though!

- Written by Hwei Ee

Today we visited three wonderful places! Though we were tight on time, but we had enjoyed ourselves! Let me share the places that we been to today!

Early in the morning, we checked out of Cova Hotel. Loaded our heavy luggage into the bus and we set off to our very first stop! - University of California Berkeley! (UC Berkeley).

UC Berkeley ambassador, Joey B brought us around his campus. Joey introduced his campus to us; that includes the campus's history, traditions, students' activities area, and also academics.

Joey's sharing of his campus was great and we are able to see a great difference between singapore university and the american university; which is freedom of speech. In California, students are able to speak and protest their rights in a specified area or plaza. However, in our very own university, such thing don't happen. Though it is not a good thing to do, but at least it added some vibrancy to the university campus! =D

After our visit to UC Berkeley, we proceed for our lunch (on our own) at In Out Burger or Macdonald. Then we continue to Nasa Ames Research Center, located at the heart of California's Silicon Valley at the core of the research cluster of high-tech companies, universities and laboratories that define the region's character. We were greeted by the Nasa tour guide and he shared with us what NASA is famous for, things that NASA did via a video.

NASA is famous for launching robots into planet for exploration, example MARS to explore the surroundings. The project is called Mars Exploration Rover mission (MER). When the robot is launched in to the space and on to the planet for exploration. The robot is left on its own for landing and during this period of time it is known as the 6 minutes of terror; It is a form of "terror" to the scientists as during this period of time, the scientists do not have control over the robot..

Upon landing on the planet, it emitted 1600 degree celsius of heat around the robot, thus to protect the robot, there is a heat shell surrounds the robot to prevent the robot from the high degree of heat. Just 5 seconds before the robot lands on MARS, air bags are inflated to protect the robot. After the robot has successfully landed on to the planet, the scientists send packets of instructions to the robot instructing it what to do next.

After the video and sharing by NASA tour guide, we toured around the NASA exhibits and bought gifts at the NASA gift shop!

Thereafter, we visit Ivy League University - Stanford University. We were greeted by our very Singaporean students who are our tour guides! They are the undergraduate students of Stanford University. We went to see the Main Quad, Memorial Church which is very beautiful. Not forgetting the White Plaza where students could express their freedom of speech over at the plaza. We were given approximately 40minutes to shop at the Stanford University. Folding@Home was our next stop where we get to see a very interesting project using distributed computing (in PCs and Playstation 3) to solve protein structures. We understand from the professor that each individual protein has it's very own unique structure; there are no identical protein in the world. The algorithm used to "fold" the protein is using a n^2 algorithm.

Dinner was at Merlion resturant which is opened by singaporean. We have networking session with other Singaporeans who have migrated to California or currently studying in California. They share about their life experience in California.

Disclaimer: The following persona, Raffles Bear, embodies the voice of a few students who are part of the NIC knowledge and acqusition trip 2009 to San Francisco.

Prologue (Day 0):

(Beep-Raffles Bear has logged in, 06/12/09 Sunday)
Hi, I am the Raffles Bear, but you can call me Bear-bear (in fact, I too call myself Bear-bear). I'm really excited about the trip to San Francisco today. Last year, Wombat went for the trip and had a really great time! I know its going to be a blast. Can't wait! I'll be posting my adventures soon. See ya.
(Raffles Bear signed out, 06/12/09 Sunday)

Day 1
After a long flight from Singapore to San Francisco, Raffles Bear finally arrived at the San Francisco Airport, where he was greeted by frosty winds that made his nose tingle. But thanks to his special adaptations, he found no need for thick layers of clothes and winter wear, unlike his owners from Raffles Institution.
After the first freezing encounter, Bear bear had dinner at a local chinese restaurant. After filling his tummy with scumpcious chinese cuisine, bear-bear retired to warm and comfy bed in Cova Hotel.

Day 2

The next day, the trip began with a tour in Autodesk, where bear-bear learnt more about modelling and design. In autodesk, there were many 3d masterpieces, ranging from dinosaur models to laptop models. These were made by users of softwares created by Autodesk, such as Maya and 3ds Max.  (To find out more about autodesk, you can also check out the previous posts by some of the friends bear-bear met on the trip).

Bear-bear's favourite display throughout the exhibition would be a cool yellow and black car called 'the bee'.

After a wonderful tour of autodesk, bear-bear and friends visited the San Francisco ferry terminal and had lunch at a classy Italian Restaurant, where they ate pasta and and a very delicious cheesecake.

Later, bear bear went for a city tour.

On the city tour bus ride, bear-bear felt a little sleepy, probably due to jetlag, and inevitably fell asleep several times. After his well-taken afternoon nap, he visited a few well-known tourist attractions, such as the golden gate bridge, (which he found out), was not really as golden as honey, but it was still a memorable experience.

Among other key landmarks visited were the extremely crooked streets of Lombard Street, as well as the alcatraz island, which once housed a prison.

After a long day of touring the city, bear-bear arrived at pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf. Although it was only evening (around 6pm), the surroundings were already getting dark in San Francisco, a stark contrast to Singapore. Bear-bear and friends tried the famous cream chowder soup, which gave them a warm and fuzzy feeling inside in midst of the cold weather. It was lovely.

 After that, dinner was at hardrock cafe. Unfortunately, the burger patties of the burgers were a little burnt (Ahhh carcinogenic!), but the ambience of the cafe was rocking cool. After a long day of adventure and city touring, bear-bear was really tired, and retired to bed as soon as his fluffy head touched the soft pillow, where he dreamt of the adventures in store for him the following day.