Embedding of Dedicated High-Performance ASICs into Reconfigurable Systems Providing Additional Multimedia Functionality

The computational power required in many multimedia applications is well beyond the capabilities of today's multimedia systems. Therefore, the embedding of additional high-performance accelerator multimedia components into these systems is most decisive. This paper presents the embedding of multimedia components into computer systems using reconfigurable coprocessor boards. The goal of those reconfigurable platforms which can be adapted to several applications and which include programmable digital signal processors, control and memory devices as well as dedicated multimedia ASICs is worked out. On the way to such a platform four ASICs for image and text processing are presented. The embedding of these components into a computing system using a CardBus-based coprocessor board is shown. Such a reconfigurable coprocessor board is an important intermediate stage on the way to future hybrid reconfigurable systems on chip.     

Desktop conversations — the future of multimedia conferencing

Both the recent explosion of interest in the Internet and the ongoing development of video-on-demand services have focused attention on the retrieval and delivery aspects of telecommunications networks. Yet the telephony network is fundamentally based on a much more basic human need — two-way communication. In fact, people normally communicate using conversation — interactive speech plus additional information in the form of non-verbal cues like body language.The underlying technologies and standards to enable the easy exchange of information in a conversational way are now converging — which brings together the fields of conferencing, multimedia, and telephony into a unified whole. This could well be the catalyst to turning data communications into the dominant conversational medium of the future.This paper looks at the ways that the desktop may soon rival the telephone as the natural route for carrying out a media-rich conversation with a remotely located person, and focuses on one example of a desktop conferencing application — Passepartout.     

Telepresence — the future of telephony

Opportunities for future telepresence services, creating a sense of being present at a remote location, are outlined against a backdrop of telephony as an existing, highly successful telecommunications service. In providing a context for the papers of this themed issue, key telepresence technologies, the building blocks of future services, addressing issues in audio, data, video and virtual environments are reviewed. The practical complexity of commercial telepresence applications, where developments in component multimedia technologies must be complemented by advances in integration, interface and service, is also considered. The paper concludes with a commentary on early applications and a vision of more generic future telepresence solutions — Immersive Conferencing and Persistent Communities.     

Distributed multimedia applications on gigabit networks

MultiG, an open research program addressing issues that range from end-user requirements on distributed multimedia applications supporting collaborative work to medium-access protocols for multi-gigabit networks on optical fibers, is discussed. The projects in MultiG are described from the top down, beginning with computer-supported cooperative work. Distributed multimedia applications and application generators are then considered, followed by networking issues, including interprocess communication, transport services, network protocols, and high-speed protocol processing. Testbed activities and future plans are described     

Satellite onboard processing for multimedia applications

For future multimedia applications, satellites might play an important role. For broadcast applications satellites are ideally suited to illuminate a large geographical area. However, multimedia applications are interactive, and are therefore a combination of a broadcast mission and a multipoint-to-point mission. The natural question is, can a satellite system compete with the capacity provided by terrestrial cable networks? If the answer is positive, and it shown in this article that it is, a second question arises: what new developments are required to migrate from the state-of-the art satellite technology to such advanced concepts? Taking the example of the European Space Agency's activities in this field, an overview of the required building blocks which make up a complete multimedia communication satellite system are described. Based on this technological overview a discussion of the systems developed by European space industries with support from the European Space Agency is given     

QoS Recovery Schemes Based on Differentiated MPLS Services in All-Optical Transport Next Generation Internet

The Internet is evolving from best-effort service toward an integrated or differentiated service framework with quality-of-service (QoS) assurances that are required for new multimedia service applications. Given this increasing demand for high bandwidth Internet with QoS assurances in the coming years, an IP/MPLS-based control plane combined with a wavelength-routed dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical network is seen as a very promising approach for the realization of future re-configurable transport networks. Fault and attack survivability issues concerning physical security in a DWDM all-optical transport network (AOTN) require a new approach taking into consideration AOTN physical characteristics. Furthermore, unlike in electronic networks that regenerate signals at every node, attack detection and isolation schemes may not have access to the overhead bits used to transport supervisory information between regenerators or switching sites to perform their functions. This paper presents an analysis of attack and protection problems in an AOTN. Considering this, we propose a framework for QoS guarantees based on the differentiated MPLS service (DMS) model and QoS recovery schemes against QoS degradation caused by devices failures or attack-induced faults in an AOTN. We also suggest how to integrate our attack management model into the NISTs simulator—modeling, evaluation and research of lightwave networks (MERLiN).     

Design of a Link Control Protocol for Multimedia Services in Wireless Local Communication

The convergence of wireless systems with multimedia services is the challengeof future generation wireless networks. The large variety of QoS requirementsof different media as well as the maintenance of synchronization of thedifferent streams to be presented at receiver, demand from the Data link layersome extra functionalities. In this paper, we present an enhanced approach forthe efficient management of multimedia applications in third-generationwireless networks. We advocate the use of multiple connections, one for eachtraffic component of the application, as the effective solution for thetransport of multimedia applications in future-generation wireless networks.The effectiveness of this scheme is guaranteed by providing a new link controltechnique that works on top of a PRMA-type access protocol which jointlymanages different streams of a multimedia application. For this purpose, wepropose a two-level priority mechanism (static and dynamic priorities)specified by higher protocol layers for link activation, channel access, andadmission control procedures specific to a multimedia application and foroptimizing the sharing of radio channel resources and management of thereservation queue at the base station. We expect this priority-based mechanismto perform well, especially during periods in which system traffic load ishigh, and to react well to the deterioration of multimedia service quality,in terms of both QoS parameters and the synchronization of its trafficcomponents.     

Voice and Internet Multimedia in UMTS Networks

Voice telephony is the predominant service on today's cellular mobile networks, in terms of number of customers, revenues and network usage. However, it is difficult to predict how long this will be the case given the rising demand for new Internet multimedia services. It is therefore essential that 3rd generation (3G) mobile networks support a voice telephony service, but also that these networks are also capable of providing Internet multimedia services using the same technology.This paper provides an overview of how voice telephony is provided in the initial phase of the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS). It then describes how this is expected to evolve in later phases — so that voice telephony becomes one of a large number of multimedia services provided from a common Internet protocol-based mobile network.     

Personal Virtual Humans — Inhabiting the TalkZone and beyond

One of the fundamental goals of graphics has always been to visually create a three-dimensional person that is indistinguishable from a real person. This target is only slightly short of being reached, as was demonstrated when Columbia Pictures released Final Fantasy in 2001, an animated science fiction film with high-definition emotive characters. Through what has been a cultural and technological convergence, we are now starting to see software tools and techniques that can generate life-like characters while not sacrificing the human judgement and artistic skills that are needed in character animation. Computer games, films, and the Internet are now starting to use virtual humans, which as our conclusion will show will become more realistic. However, a new challenge has been set — people now do not want to just play a computer game with a visually realistic character, or see a television programme with a vivid computer generated character — they want to see themselves in that computer game or film. The future is towards individuals having their own virtual clones, which they can utilise in computer-generated worlds an applications. This paper will discuss the advantages of having a personal computer-generated character, and also describe several systems that BTexact Technologies have successfully developed and deployed to generate them, as well as some of the applications for which they can be used. The paper will finish by glimpsing into the future of what we can expect to see in the next few years, with the advent of this new exciting technology.     

移动多媒体传输的分层结构与解决方案

根据信源数据特征和信道质量来改变传输参数的自适应机制是保证移动多媒体业务有效传输的重要方法之一。针对具有移动接入的多媒体业务的特点,给出了一种适用于未来多媒体综合业务移动传输的分层新结构,并介绍基此结构的自适应宽带多媒体数字传输系统设计模型。     

Multimedia and multimedia communication: a tutorial

This paper presents, in a tutorial fashion, the important features of multimedia technology. The specific areas addressed are multimedia and compression standards, computer networks, multimedia transport, and some specific applications employed by industry to date. Multimedia and the effective and efficient communication of multimedia using compression and networks are fused together in this tutorial in an attempt to demonstrate the tight coupling which exists between these two interrelated technologies. First, the techniques and properties inherent in both multimedia and compression standards are presented. Then, the important characteristics of the major local and wide area networks are summarized. Next, the communication techniques for the transport of video and video conferencing are discussed. The new strategies employed to connect homes through cable TV and the telephone companies, as well as the new Ethernet technologies, are also described. Finally, some modern applications of multimedia communication derived from the automotive industry are used to describe the use of this technology in design, manufacturing, and sales     

Electronic Commerce Back-office Integration

This paper discusses some of the lessons learned from integrating two customers' back-office systems with a pilot BT-managed business-to-business electronic catalogue service. An overview of the two pilot implementations describes the experience and offers some important lessons learned.Three types of lesson learned are presented in this paper — firstly based on the design and implementation of both pilot catalogue systems, secondly about the importance of proper site security for Internet applications, and lastly about relationship building and information gathering — in the hope that others will be able to use this information in helping to avoid some of the mistakes and pitfalls encountered in this work. As George Santayana once said: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'     

Web agents that work

Intelligent search applications are the future direction for the World Wide Web and for the Internet in general, but without the ability to gather and understand exact information about multimedia data and documents, making these applications a reality will be difficult. In the future, we may have the technology necessary to read human-oriented multimedia documents. Making the Web less agent-hostile takes great strides toward that goal today     

Current reliability issues and future technologies for systems on silicon – processes, circuits, chip architecture, and design

The progress of silicon technology is opening the era of “systems on silicon” in which a large-scale memory, a CPU, and other logic macros will be integrated on a single chip. These kinds of chips, called system LSIs, have an especially promising future in mobile and multimedia applications but face inherent technical problems related to the reliability of ultrathin oxide film, conflict in the processing of different components, increased gate and subthreshold leakage currents, memory bottlenecks, and design complexity. This paper reviews the system LSIs and then introduces related technologies in processing, circuits, chip architecture, and design. It also discusses the influence of the system LSIs on business strategies.     

Multirate signal processing techniques for high-speed communication over power lines

With the widespread use of Internet and multimedia applications, there is renewed interest in utilizing the electric power lines for transmission of high data rate communication signals. Power lines offer a convenient and pervasive communication medium that does not require new cable installation. However, power lines are classified as a noisy and unpredictable communication channel. Advanced signal processing techniques, such as wavelet filter banks and multirate systems, can be utilized to improve the quality of communication over power lines. In this article an overview of the diverse applications of wavelet filter banks in power line communications is presented with particular reference to wavelet-based multicarrier modulation techniques. Moreover, some suggestions are given regarding the future applications of multirate signal processing techniques in PLC.     

Wearable Computing and the Remembrance Agent

This paper gives an overview of the field of wearable computing. It covers the key differences between wearables and other portable computers, and discusses issues with the design and application for wearables. There then follows a specific example, the wearable remembrance agent — a proactive memory aid. The paper concludes with discussion of future directions for research and applications inspired by using the prototype.     

Presence/absence: the 2005 ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Exhibition

Multimedia computing is a technical field with strong and pervasive connections to contemporary art. Arguably, multimedia has been an artistic medium since its beginnings; many of the most technical fields of multimedia are about delivery of creative content, and artists have always been quick to harness the expressive potential of all kinds of multimedia technology. For its second year, the ACM Multimedia Interactive Arts Program provided an explicit forum for the presentation of technical multimedia art papers that describe novel multimedia tools, applications, and artwork. The arts program, in addition to the conference track in which long and short papers are presented, included an exhibition of multimedia artwork. As in 2004, the exhibition was organized in a gallery space to run concurrently with the conference, this time around the theme of presence/absence.     

Quality-based evaluation of multimedia synchronization protocolsfor distributed multimedia information systems

Distributed, networked multimedia information systems will be a critical component of technology-based information infrastructures in the future. We present an infrastructure for supporting multimedia applications. We discuss various characteristics of multimedia data and the effect of the network on the required quality of presentation for multimedia data. We present a suite of synchronization protocols to support the quality of presentation. The crux of these protocols is the scheduling of multimedia information for synchronized delivery, over broadband networks with limited resources, and is identified as an NP-hard problem. We introduce two parameters which can be used to measure the performance of end-to-end synchronization protocols in a network supporting distributed multimedia applications. We propose and implement several heuristic scheduling algorithms, and compare their performance. We deduce the appropriateness of these algorithms in different types of distributed multimedia environments