580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Key research themes
1. How does usability impact the effectiveness of smart media delivery on mobile and ambient platforms?
This research area focuses on understanding how usability challenges and adaptations influence user engagement, satisfaction, and overall effectiveness of media delivered through mobile and ambient devices. Given the diversity of form factors, interaction modes, and environmental contexts in smart media, maintaining high usability is crucial for media acceptance and loyalty. The theme prioritizes methods of content adaptation, interface design, and device-agnostic media delivery strategies that address usability constraints and foster positive user experiences.
Key finding: The study identifies specific usability challenges for mobile media, such as small screen sizes leading to excessive zooming and difficulty with input forms, where 69% of users quit due to excessive form fields. The paper... Read more
Key finding: This work highlights how embedding media into the natural environment (ambient media) shifts usability concerns from traditional interfaces to contextual interaction and natural user experience. It presents design principles... Read more
Key finding: Based on expert workshops and future scenario analyses, the paper concludes that ambient media development hinges on overcoming current usability barriers including context sensitivity and multi-device fragmentation. It... Read more
2. How can semantic and context-aware techniques advance the integration and personalization of ambient smart media?
This theme explores the application of semantic technologies, context awareness, and intelligent content modeling to enhance the richness, relevance, and adaptability of smart media embedded in users' environments. It investigates how linking distributed, heterogeneous information sources and leveraging user context enable dynamic, personalized, and interactive media experiences that extend beyond traditional linear media. Semantic ambient media emphasize a mesh of loosely related information entities tailored in real-time to individual consumers, presented in their physical surroundings.
Key finding: The paper defines semantic ambient media as context-sensitive content remixing multiple loosely related information entities personalized based on user context, location, and time. It introduces principles such as... Read more
Key finding: This tutorial presents ambient media as an emerging paradigm that integrates pervasive and context-aware computing, advanced sensor networks, and distributed systems. It stresses semantic processing and intelligent agents as... Read more
Key finding: This report details the architectural and semantic challenges in creating intelligent media assets for real-time interactive broadcasting. It emphasizes the role of semantic tagging, consistent metadata integration, and... Read more
3. What technological architectures and systems support the creation, delivery, and interaction of smart media across heterogeneous devices and environments?
This theme investigates technical designs, middleware, and system architectures that enable smart media functionalities such as cross-media linking, dynamic content delivery, interaction modalities, and cloud-enabled media production. The focus is on addressing fragmentation of media across devices and digital/physical boundaries through extensible linking models, flexible document representation, adaptive user interfaces, and leveraging cloud computing for scalable media services. The goal is to identify technical solutions that facilitate seamless, personalized, and context-adaptive smart media interaction.
Key finding: The paper outlines three core challenges in cross-media information management: cross-media linking, flexible document representation, and cross-media user interfaces. It proposes a data-centric approach allowing metadata and... Read more
Key finding: MediaWise proposes a cloud-based platform for media content management supporting dynamic content creation, personalized workflows, and pay-as-you-go scalability. Unlike traditional CDNs focused on staged content, MediaWise... Read more
Key finding: ThingShare introduces a software solution that enhances object-centric communication in video meetings by enabling users to create and share digital copies of physical objects easily. The system addresses challenges of camera... Read more
Key finding: This paper presents a wearable augmented reality system for location-aware multimedia presentations, embedding hypermedia content directly into the physical environment. The approach combines precise position and orientation... Read more