Community being together wherever you are

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Community- being together wherever you are

• Johnny Widén
• Media Technology CDT
• Luleå University of Technology

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Content

• Communications models
• Research issues
• Prototypes
• Co-operating Vital projects
• M.Sc. Proposals

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Synchronous communication

• Asynchronous different time
• Email
• Messaging
• Forums

• Synchronous same time
• Audio
• Video
• Chat
• Messaging

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Human communication
Face-to-face
Mediated
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Research issues

• Scalable distribution of real-time media to
  dynamic groups
• Dynamic adaptation
• User interface design
• Group awareness
• Mobile collaborative interface for distributed
  workers

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Room metaphore exists today
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Room metaphore - static
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Community metaphore - dynamic
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Examples of dynamic groups

• Geographic position
• - I want to interact with all users within 1 km
  radius interested in human power vehicles
• User state
• - I want to interact with of my friends that
  currently are not sleeping
• Work relation
• - I want to interact with my project group

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Scalable distribution of real-time media to
dynamic groups

• static groups is solved
• (matching groups with IP Multicast groups)
• How to achieve scalability with highly dynamic
  settings where each user creates their own groups?

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Adaptive
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Dynamic adaptation

• How to interconnect various communication media
  such as traversing audio to text, text to audio,
  activity cues to audio to support more limited
  devices?
• How to interconnect various communication tools
  such as desktop computers, hand held devices,
  wearable computers, and fixed and mobile phones
  without sacrificing good quality when it is
  available?

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User interface design

• Presentations of dynamic groups
• User interface and interaction methods for
  wearable computers

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Group awareness

• How to create a better awareness and better sense
  of presence for groups
• using desktop computers
• using a combination of desktop computers, PDAs,
  and mobile phones

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Mobile collaborative interface for distributed
workers
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Scenario driven applied research

• Results
• Prototypes (running software/systems)
• Good academic results
• We want the results to be utilized!
• We live as we preach!

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Protoypes so far

• MIM - Mobile Instant Messaging
• MIM Web Gateway
• Marratech Pro client for messuring user behaviour
  
• Integration of telephone in a Marratech e-meeting
  room

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MIM - Mobile Instant Messaging

• Overcome the limitations of ICQ, AIM, IRC, MSN
  Messenger, etc
• MIM supports
• use on many computers
• mobile usage
• MIM clients so far
• ICQ, IRC, Marratech Pro chat
• on desktops, laptops, and Java based mobile phones

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MIM Web Gateway
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Marratech Pro client for measuring user behaviour

• Different parameters could be set
• e.g., give the video for a focused user more
  frames/s

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Integration of telephone in a Marratech e-meeting
room

• Telephony via SIP in Marratech Pro

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Example e-visitor at a fair

• A fair in Stockholm
• Remote participants in Luleå
• A much greater experience than with a fixed web
  cam
• Audio environment of great importance
• This was very good!!

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Community - summary

• Technology that makes it simple for
• rich meetings with family, friends, and
  colleagues
• located elsewhere or on the move
• Rich meetings
• (depth, quality, and substance)
• by use of video, audio, chat, and shared areas
  for text, pictures, and drawings

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Co-operating projects within Vital

• Meetings
• Meetings are central in society. User interfaces
  for communication have to be intuitive and be
  adapted to mobility
• Situate
• Services based on the users position, context,
  and situation simplify the usage of complex
  communication systems
• ABC - Always best connected
• In mobile communication the best available
  network connection should automatically be used
  based on user profiles for bandwith, latency,
  costs, or other parameters

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M.Sc. Thesis proposals

• Important parameters in network-based visual
  communication
• Automatic subtitling for videoconferences using
  audio-visual sensor fusion
• Object based low bit-rate video codec using a
  Flash engine
• User quality control
• Talk to Greger, Ulrik, Jiong!

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Questions?