Abstract

    There have been considerable efforts to have Audio Video systems and applications converge, in particular in home environments with homes as spaces of convergence, and for nomadic users with advanced mobile devices as points of convergence. These trends are important but also have limitations that we seek to address and overcome: home-centric systems fail to account for increased mobility and the desire to provide continuous service across spatial boundaries outside the home; device-centric convergence, e.g. in 3G phones, supports nomadic use but provides a very limited user experience as no single device and interface will fit many different applications well.

    In this NoE we seek to progress beyond home and device-centric convergence toward truly user-centric convergence of multimedia. Our vision is The User as Multimedia Central: the user as the point at which services (multimedia applications) and the means for interacting with them (devices and interfaces) converge. Key to our vision is that users are provided with a personalized interface and with personalized content independently of the particular set of physical devices they have available for interaction (on the body, or in their environment), and independently of the physical space in which they are situated. Our approach to this vision is to investigate a flexible wearable platform that supports dynamic composition of wearable devices, an ad-hoc connection to devices in the environment, a continuous access to multimedia networks, as well as adaptation of content to devices and user context. 

Objectives of the network

    There have been considerable efforts to have Audio Video systems and applications converge, in particular in home environments with homes as spaces of convergence, and for nomadic users with advanced mobile devices as points of convergence. These trends are important but also have limitations that we seek to address and overcome: home-centric systems fail to account for increased mobility and the desire to provide continuous service across spatial boundaries outside the home; device-centric convergence, e.g. in 3G phones, supports nomadic use but provides a very limited user experience as no single device and interface will fit many different applications well.

    INTERMEDIA seeks to progress beyond home and device-centric convergence toward truly user-centric convergence of multimedia. Our vision is The User as Multimedia Central: the user as the point at which services (multimedia applications) and the means for interacting with them (devices and interfaces) converge. Key to our vision is that users are provided with a personalized interface and with personalized content independently of the particular set of physical devices they have available for interaction (on the body, or in their environment), and independently of the physical space in which they are situated. Our approach to this vision is to investigate a flexible wearable platform that supports dynamic composition of wearable devices, an ad-hoc connection to devices in the environment, a continuous access to multimedia networks, as well as adaptation of content to devices and user context.

    A possible scenario for a platform considered could be as follows: a user starts playing a music album at home with a fixed audio player, continues in the car with the embedded audio system and then with an mp3 player, a mobile phone or simply earphones while walking. In other aspect, a simple desk phone could be networked in ubiquitous environment through the cloth platform, to act as a personalized phone with address books, a personal scheduler interface, a radio music player interface, a SMS messenger, etc. During this kind of daily activity, different devices are used while sharing the same session and content. Each device will provide personalized interfaces to access and manipulate contents.

    INTERMEDIA’s objective is to generate a shared vision of user-centric multimedia services for modern nomadic people, who has high level of mobility and is connected to network for most of times.

Objective 1: Vision toward device-free user-centric media environments

    In a modern nomadic life, the usage of media is not limited by spaces. New interactive mobile devices like mobile phones, portable music players, PDAs, and DMB(Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) devices extend the space where people can access the multimedia contents. The concept of user-centric convergence will provide freedom to a modern nomadic person without the requirement to carry a range of mobile devices by providing personalized access to media regardless of device types. It will extend personal media spaces for modern nomadic life by removing spatial constraints in our daily activities.

To realize the user-centric convergence, technological advances in a wide range of research domains need be achieved under the common vision. Europe has built its excellence of research activities in the related domain followed by strong industrial activities from world-leading companies. When it comes to the integration of those achievements in a new concept of the convergence, research activities have been separated by focusing on each individual issue without the global strategy of convergence. True multidisciplinary knowledge is required to realize the innovative idea, which includes mobile networking, human-centered interface, and multimedia content manipulation. INTERMEDIA aims to build a multidisciplinary research society to develop a path towards the true innovation we are targeting.

    INTERMEDIA will achieve the level of integration in two way approaches. The most important activity of INTERMEDIA is developing and providing common platforms to develop, test and integrate current and future achievements on related technologies. The other approach is building a set of multidisciplinary research groups for each major research elements.

Objective 2: Constructing multidisciplinary research groups

    INTERMEDIA focuses on creating a sustainable multi-disciplinary research community with innovative vision of user-centric convergence. To provide the technological vision towards the goal, the research group targets following major research directions:

• Dynamic Mobile Networking Research Group: The overall goal of this group is to identify, develop and test a reference wireless ad-hoc architecture with support for QoS, multimedia communications, digital rights management(DRM), and secure communications for heterogeneous devices in a home environment. Considering that related issues in networking and DRM are, in general, a very challenging technical problem overall, we will target the development of appropriate common solutions for body area networks, home area networks and their interconnections by integrating state-of-the art achievements in corresponding areas. The goal will be achieved with collaborative integration of different technologies including personalized interface and multimedia content management.
  
  
• Multimedia Content Adaptation and Sharing Research Group: The multimedia is presented to different devices for personal manipulation which required adaptation of media to device or personal context along with seamless presentation of the media for different devices. It can be also shared through dynamic networks with other individuals, which requires a redesign of media technology towards multi-way interactions. In the dynamic network environment with user-centric convergence, the adaptation issues should be considered in an integrated way, sharing interactive data, transferring semantic representation, enhanced session mobility for different context and interaction model. INTERMEDIA aims to pave a path toward a framework of user-centric adaptation through the integration of related research achievements in different disciplines.
  
  
• Personalized Interface Research Group: At the interface level, our aim is to facilitate the seamless interaction with multimedia across varying sets of devices. We will thus investigate the integration of disparate interface developments, across different paradigms such as mobile multimedia, wearable computing (on the body interfaces), and ubiquitous computing (everywhere interfaces). These have developed largely in separation but we will explore how they can be integrated for provision of dynamic personalized interfaces. Our driver in this research will be to provide a coherent user experience – this means looking beyond the technical aspects of providing interfaces across multiple devices to integration at a ‘semantic level’ for provision of meaningfully adapted services.

Objective 3: Building a common platform with a vision towards semantic convergence

    The objective is to organize common research platforms to provide a framework for the integrations of achievements from different disciplines under a the common vision. The common research platforms will be an environment to share and exchange achievements and develop common concepts. It will be carefully guided and designed by the development of the common vision in order to integrate, test and verify the concept developed inside the Network. Moreover, these platforms are targeted to support wide range of research community for development of technologies and visions on semantic convergence.

    In this Network of Excellence, know-how of experts in each technological areas will be brought together in order to analyze and investigate research actions towards the goal in a concept of user-centric convergence of multimedia. The major activities are focused not only in on achieving technical breakthrough, but also on providing a vision of new technology through collaborative research activities. INTERMEDIA aims to provide a common research vision toward this premises in order to provoke necessary research activities in the European research society to continue leading innovations in the related area. The concept evaluated and developed in this Network of Excellences will be demonstrated through its selected showcases on common home media environment.