Christopher Peri Ph.D.
I make things out of bits.
Warning, this is a new site as of 9/1/14, thus there is a lot of content refinement and formatting to be performed.
Exe Summery
I received my Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in Architecture. My focus was on Collaboration in Virtual Environments delving into methods that facilitate designers and engineers to improve communication.
I have an interest in and have worked on rich media web based applications (RIA) since 1995. The last 20 years has been based in the startup world with less a focus on code and more on strategic direction, company structure and management. Page last updated 2014.Professional
I have worked on web, mobile and hardware/software solutions starting as a designer, then programmer, manager, to various leadership roles over my career. I have founded a company, conceived and developed products as well as provide vision, strategic guidance, and technology implementation for SaaS and new media business. Typically reporting to the CEO, I accept responsibility for overseeing all technical aspects of product development, deployment and on-going management. This includes:
- Identification, design, development, and maintenance of solutions to meet strategic business objectives.
- Implement process and procedures in software development and product management, ensuring software quality and short time to market for new products or product revisions.
- Manage schedules, budgets and staffing for multiple, concurrent projects.
- Provide hands on management of technical issues where required.
Projects of Interest
I have worked on a number of interesting projects both professionally and as a hobby. Here I've included a small sample of projects I found interesting or unusually challenging where I had a personal hand in it's design and creation.
TwittFilter TwittFilter is a twitter client that is geared to reducing twitter noise. The main part of TwittFilter is a set of analytics that provide relative scoring of everyone you have interacted with on Twitter and thus provide filtering based on that score. Other features include displaying tweets based on person; not time, a visual address book and bot that will only notify you of new followers, messages and/or mentions if they score above a certain level. (This is being rebuilt)
Vyew Vyew was created by stripping down, rebuilding and recasting an product that was in the conceptual stage. I have been frustrated at systems that fail to address the three most basic functions that everyone tends to use when collaborating; an image of the issue in question, the ability to annotate that image, and finally retain that interaction for future reference. Using this as a foundation, Vyew was created. Relying on insights gained from my PhD work, I realized a new market opportunity to address both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.
PureSense Birthed from a side project looking at air quality and asthma in the Oakland area, PureSense was founded by myself and 3 others. Overseeing technology and budget I created a flash based application that was completely modular in that only elements needed by the system were loaded into memory. This allowed us to create a mobile app that could run on iPaq 3000 series Pocket PC. The PureSense system is a collection of remote water sensors deployed in a urban water system that uses SMS data and commands to request and collect data on demand. Data that is collected is checked for anomalies using spatial temporal analysis.
Swarovski Projects Swarovski Facebook App. Created a holiday contest where visitors would subscribe to a Facebook application to enter a drawing to win Swarovski items. Swarovski iPad App. Created an iPad app for the 2010 Magic show. This application would allow visitors to the Swarovski booth to dress a 2D manikin in various Swarovski partners’ garments. The resulting ‘outfits’ can then be saved and emailed to the user. This email would include the booth location of the partners.
Swarovski iPad App
The Swarovski Magic Show iPad app was designed to take advantage of the nature of tablets and its touch interface. Unlike many dress up app, the clothes are shot is such a way that adding and mixing articles of clothing on the dummy would look photo realistic. The navigation is set up to allow someone to use the app with ease while holding the iPad with one hand. Another innovation is the ability to store a combination of items as an outfit and have those items, the designer, and the location of those items at the show emailed to you.
Unfortunately a nice video of the app was lost in a disk crash so all I have left is this test version; screenshot below. When I have time I will have to reload the application and reshoot a nicer demo.
SusExchange SusExchange (originally StatupStats) is a web based application that allows users to buy and sell virtual stocks in startup companies. In addition to the game, a set of bots would search various sites looking for any mention of that startup company and/or its product. Based on which sites the company was found, a rank would be created relative to all other companies that are listed in the exchange. From the combination of score and ranking; an ‘earnings’ value is given to the company while a different bot would buy or sell stocks based on set rules thus providing a P/E ratio. This product was conceived and created before CrunchBase and Tradewinds (now VB Profiles). However, I received Angel funding for another project and put SusExchange on hold and did not return to it after the two mentioned companies released their products.
This product is no longer supported.
Research
Archville
Archville is a distributed, web-based VR system that allows multiple users to interact with multiple models at the same time. I used it as a platform to exercise collaborative design in a course I taught as a TA for 6 semesters that was akin to a studio class.
Archville
Archville is a distributed, web-based VR system that allows multiple users to interact with multiple models at the same time. I used it as a platform to exercise collaborative design in a course I taught as a TA for 6 semesters that was akin to a studio class. The pedagogy is based on the Cardboard City exercise, which required each student to construct a 3 x 3 structure within a city formed by all students in the studio. Like the original exercise, Archville requires students to build individual buildings as part of a city, or village, and share some common formal convention with their neighbors. Unlike the original exercise, Archville uses VRML (a 3D file format) rather than cardboard. In addition to architectural design and computer modeling, the exercise immerses students in the political and social aspects of designing within a community, where many of the design constraints must be negotiated, and where group work is often required. As a Web-based system, Archville also demonstrates the advantages of up-to-date information and real-time communication in a virtual environment.
SPATIAL PERCEPTION IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
This experiment was constructed to support my Masters of Science Thesis in Architecture at UC Berkeley. The experiment was simple. Have two groups explore a number of virtual spaces, one group using a Head Mounted Display, the second group using a mouse and computer monitor.
SPATIAL PERCEPTION IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
This experiment was constructed to support my Masters of Science Thesis in Architecture at UC Berkeley. The experiment was simple. Have two groups explore a number of virtual spaces, one group using a Head Mounted Display, the second group using a mouse and computer monitor. What was interesting is at the time, none of the 3D rendering engines I could find in academia was fast enough to allow sufficient immersion in the Virtual Space. However, I did find that if I hacked a game called Quake, I could get sufficient stereoscopic and spatial sound in the HMD. It was a bit frustrating when some students would see that its Quake and start shooting up the place, but that is another story.
Mobile and Wearable
Pebble tasker
I was one of the original Pebble kick-stater backers. Once I got my watch I started to see how to best use it with the iPhone. Although limited, I still liked the watch. However, once I switched over to Android I was able to create little scripts through a great tool called Tasker. This allowed me to take the Pebble beyond the out of the box experience and customize it to do what I wanted. My favorite 'task' was a little script where I could request and get the latest news on my watch using another program I wrote called NewsSnacker.
NewsSnacker for Google WearNewsSnacker is a very simple and perhaps most used program I have ever written. The functionality is very simple, get the latest news from a variety of sources on Twitter, remove the duplicates and display it as simply as possible. For speed the page is stored as a static cache version thus freeing the user from logging in or worrying about hitting the site too often. Currently, I'm working with the Google LG watch to bring this functionality to Google Wear. We are about 80% there, so keep an eye out.
Swarovski iPad App. (I know this is listed twice but I'm still deciding where I want this.) Created an iPad app for the 2010 Magic show. This application would allow visitors to the Swarovski booth to dress a 2D manikin in various Swarovski partners’ garments. The resulting ‘outfits’ can then be saved and emailed to the user. This email would include the booth location of the partners.
Swarovski iPad App
The Swarovski Magic Show iPad app was designed to take advantage of the nature of tablets and its touch interface. Unlike many dress up app, the clothes are shot is such a way that adding and mixing articles of clothing on the dummy would look photo realistic. The navigation is set up to allow someone to use the app with ease while holding the iPad with one hand. Another innovation is the ability to store a combination of items as an outfit and have those items, the designer, and the location of those items at the show emailed to you.
Unfortunately a nice video of the app was lost in a disk crash so all I have left is this test version; screenshot below. When I have time I will have to reload the application and reshoot a nicer demo.
Fun Projects
Robot
Although I did not write the code for this effort, I did let lead it and problem solved many of the issues along the way. Years ago, someone installed a card key system for getting into the office where I used to work. When the company first moved in, there were only a few card keys left for employees. As the company grew they ran out of keys and thus anyone wanted to come in had to ring the door bell and someone had to let them in. So how do we solve this kind of a problem? Simple! We build and customize a robot that opens the door via a mechanical claw and a mobile app.
LEAP motionAlthough a board member of the AEC hackathon, I did participate. During the weekend I create a web app that used a LEAP motion detector that would detect the hand motions for moving up, down, left and right. From there I connected to a X3D model that would show the position of shades on a window. This is then linked up to an actual window at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. When I moved my hand up, the shades at Lawrence would move up. Move my hand down and the shades come down. Fun little hack. Won first prize in my category as well.
Volunteer Work
This is a new volunteer organization trying to help returning veterans transition in to the technology field. Those with promise and drive are assisted to identify opportunities with local companies, where to find training and if desired, help to start their own companies. I am an advisor and have been with this origination from its inception. A first for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction Industry, the AEC Hackathon is a non-profit event that creates on-the-spot teams of technologists and industry stakeholders to shape the future of our built environment. The hackathon provides a playful, exploratory environment where disruption and creative ideas are the essential tools for innovation. The AEC community faces fresh new problems that urgently need brilliant minds to solve them.Publications
This is a short list, I will add more later
Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in 24 Hours - Pearson Publishing June 1, 2011This book walks you through everything you need to know to make Twitter API calls including setting up a LAMP server. The book was written for API 1.0, then 3 months later Twitter announces 1.1 I think this is first and last API book I will ever write.
Various articles in iPhone Life Magazine
4 Tips to Reduce Dropped Calls
Twitter on the iPhone
Augmented Reality for the iPhone
iRiding
Academics
Dissertation - IMPACT OF MEDIA ON SPATIAL COMMUNICATION
ARCHVILLE:
A distributed VR system for teaching real-time design collaboration.
Patents
There are too many now.
Please go to patents.justia.com/inventor/christopher-peri for more info.
