NAMU - New AMbient MUltimedia research group

 

A Quick History of Digital Media

Media evolved from media that can be described as integrated presentation in one form (multimedia), towards embedding the consumer into a computer graphic generated synthetic world (virtual reality), to the onsumers’ directly exposed to the media in their natural environment, rather than to computer interfaces (ambient intelligence), and will be evolving towards a fully real/synthetic world undistinguishable pure media (biomedia or biomultimedia).

 

 

 

 

About Us

 

NAMU provides a very special environment for the exploration of ideas by interconnecting disciplines and leaving creative scientific 'madness' a place.

NAMU means in Finnish 'candy' or 'sweets', excellently fitting to the objective to the group, to scientifically explore the tomorrow of media technology and its related services. The group's motivation is "being innovative, creative and looking beyond pure technological focused thinking - there is more than just coding software out there. There are people needed to turn technology into a consumer experience."

NAMU was founded in 2003 by Artur Lugmayr at the Insitute of Signal Processing (ISP) with the intention to give a new viewpoint towards media technology by using ambient intelligence. Currently NAMU resides within the Insitute of Signal Processing (ISP) at the Digital Media Institute (DMI) hosted by the Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and focuses on visionary and future vising approach towards the development of new forms of entertainment experiences. The group is embedded in many initiatives: the Centre of Excellence of Signal Processing (SPAG), ISO/IEC MPEG standardization, Swan-Lake Moving Image & Music Award, etc. Nevertheless, in NAMU work over 10 researchers on many various different topics around the topic line ambient intelligence.

Ambient Intelligence

Ambient intelligence is defined by the IST advisory group as European scientific direction within IST. In the natural user environment sensor networks, intelligent middleware and invisible computer systems are responsible to obtain data about the user, and predict and perform tasks to do on the behalf of the consumer.

 

Both paradigms – mobile computing and ambient multimedia – substitute each other. Only a distributed intelligent network of interconnected mobile devices and sensor networks can enable the data acquisition, processing, and communication of information essential to perform the highly demanding tasks of an ambient system.

Specific Topics we are Working on

The general working topics of the group are around the 'intelligence' component of ambient media. This includes media management and handling, emotional computing, natural interaction, context awareness, computational intelligence, and presence technologies.

In more specific, currently we are working aound the following topic circles, where we have concrete projects running. We are always searching for people to join the team around the topics:

  • Ambient intelligence
  • Digital Interactive TV
  • Smart Mobile Phone Services
  • Smart Media Spaces
  • High-Definition Productions (Film and TV)
  • Metadata and Multimedia Asset Management
  • Smart Homes and Houses
  • Pervasive, Ubiquitous, and Appliance Computation

Available Facilities

  • Digital Media Laboratory (DML)
  • 3D Digital Production Lab (3D-DPL)
  • NAMU-Lab (TF307)

 

Research

 

Currently we are working on many different research projects. Active are currently the EU IST ENTHRONE II project, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) related projects, and a few internal projects. Previously we have been engaged in the EU IST UMedia project, Future Interaction TV project, and Future TV project.

The group offers also internal project with a high 'degree of freedom' in selecting the topics. Usually they are linked to MSc. thesis work, internships, or projects (e.g. SGN-5706 Multimedia Project (5-8 cr) or the SGN-1706 Signal Processing Project (5-8cr). Please contact Artur Lugmayr if you should be interested in a project work related to the topics what NAMU is offering.

 

Project

Idea

Involved People

Funding Source

Scope

I) MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND HANDLING

Smart asset management for High-Definition (HD) Productions

Development of a metadata structure for HD productions applied in a concrete production case including a metadata database system

Piotr Golebiowski
Diego Lopez

Centre of Excellence (CoE)
Internal

MSc. thesis

Metadata management of Quality of Service (QoS) Data

Collection of contextual information from consumers, networks, and service providers to provide optimal QoS

Artur Lugmayr
1 additional positions opened

IST EU Enthrone II
Internal

 

ISO/IEC standardization

Digital rights management system for mobile devices

Teemu Saarinen

Internal

MSc. thesis

II) EMOTIONAL COMPUTING

Emotional media devices

Expressing of emotions and retrieving of emotions from mobile devices

Artur Lugmayr
1-3 additional positions opened

Centre of Excellence (CoE)
Internal

 

III) CONTEXT AWARENESS

Service discovery for smart home entertainment services

Intellignece for the smart home

Leire Gonzalez,
Luis Armas Cabezudo, and Luis Moreno Fernandez

Internal

MP + MSc. thesis

P2 - Portable Personality

Providing a mobile smart entertainment environment for the mobile user based on smart user profiling and personal profiles

Volker Bruns
Simon Reymann

Centre of Exclellence (CoE)
Internal

MP + MSc. thesis

RFID

User-interface for RFID tag services

Joaquin Rodriguez

Internal

MSc. thesis

IV) METHODS AND ALGORITHMS

Data fusion

Data fusion techniques for context awareness for in-home services

Mario Mejia

Internal

MP + MSc. thesis

Smart news aggregation

Development of a framework for smart news aggregation

Periklis Tsirakidis

Internal

MP

 

I) Media Management and Handling

 

IST ENTHRONE2: Metadata Management of Quality of Service (QoS)

The provision of an integrated management based on the end-to-end QoS over heterogeneous networks and terminals is considered to be a key element for the successful mass market provision of audio-visual services, that would produce revenues for the content/service providers and network operators.

The ENTHRONE project proposes an integrated management solution which covers an entire audio-visual service distribution chain, including content generation and protection, distribution across networks and reception at user terminals. The aim is not to unify or impose a strategy on each individual entity of the chain, but to harmonise their functionality, in order to support an end-to-end QoS architecture over heterogeneous networks, applied to a variety of audio-visuals services, which are delivered at various user terminals. To meet its objectives, the project will rely on an efficient, distributed and open management architecture for the end-to-end delivery chain.

A high-level goal of the ENTHRONE project is to bridge the divide between the content provision and the networking worlds, resulting in cross-industry co-ordination on both network and content management issues, and bringing focus to mutually advantageous standards such as MPEG-21.

ISO/IEC Standardization

Contributions to MPEG-21 standardization via QoS related contributions (e.g. ENTHRONE2) and DRM applications for mobile phones.

Smart Multimedia Asset Management for High-Definition (HD) Productions

The main goal of smart multimedia asset management for High-Definition (HD) productions is the technological exploration of the workflow of video production stations. The specific focus is the management of metadata during the production processes. Currently MXF content related metadata is explored and a system including a database management module implemented.

II) Emotional Computation

Emotional Media Phone

The main goal is the exploration of emotional devices, how they can recognize emotions, express emotions and manage consumer expriences. A specical focus is given to mobile devices as central component.

III) Context Awareness

 

Digital Aura and P2 - Portable Personality

The key-idea is the development of the “Digital Aura” - a mobile consumer surrounding intelligent digital environment of invisibe technology. The central technology are mobile devices such as PDAs, mobile phones, and intelligent systems. Here a few application scenarios of the Digital Aura:

A group of turists arrive at the national park Seitseminen in Finland. They are arriving at a lake and would like to know more about the sea-life in it. Anna, a biology student from Helsinki takes out her mobile phone. The phone reccognizes, that Anna just bought a entrance ticket for the Seitseminen national park. Anna bought her ticket via her electronic cash burse embedded in the mobile phone. The phone recognizes the location via GPS and also knows from the personal user profile of Anna, that she is studying biology. The mobile phone aggregates automatically information from the Internet about the sea-life in Seitseminen. Anna gets some nice personalized information about some worldwide rare fishes.

Student Willi is driving home in his car after an exhausting day at the university on a Friady. It is close to 18:00. The car-radio reminds him "Hey Willi, there is no beer left in the fridge. Your friends are coming at 8 - you should buy some. The next shop is just around the corner - you can still manage before the shop closes." Thanks to the Digital Aura - an ambient mobile environment Willi came on time to the shop and could buy some beer for his friends.

 

 

Services for Students

 

1) Thesis Supervision

We are always searching for candidates for MSc., BSc. or PhD. thesis works. Please contact us if you are interested in working with a very creative team.

2) Project Works

Please contact Artur Lugmayr if you would be interested in one of NAMU's topics and doing your projcet within the following project courses:

3) Internships

NAMU offers always the possibility for completing your internship. The topics of your interestest should be around the competences of the research group.

4) Employment

NAMU offers constantly opportunities of students in payed projects. You should be having already all credits completed and start working on your MSc. thesis or PhD. thesis. Currently we are searching for:

  • 2 MSc./PhD. thesis students for the EU ENTHRONE II project: you should have experience with XML and Java programming. Ideally you are are also aware of J2EE web-server programming.
  • 2 MSc. thesis students for the CoE SPAG related projects related to the Digital Aura. Ideally you have experience in mobile programming, client/server programming, and Java.

5) Teaching

Currently the group offers the following courses in close cooperation with other groups within the institute:

Besides, we can act as customers for the following project works:

 

Publications and Reports

 

Publications

Thesis Works

  • Felix Kobler: Development of a framework for systematic and strategic planning of innovation-based mobile broadband services, BSc. thesis, 2005
  • Katharina Buchelt:
  • Philip Eibach:
  • Artur Lugmayr:

Reports

to be updated

Readings from Others

http://www.vepsy.com/communication/volume6.html
http://www.ambientintelligence.org/
"Tangible Bits", Ishii H., CHI97, http://tangible.media.mit.edu/papers/Tangible_Bits_CHI97/Tangible_Bits_CHI97.pdf
“Ambient Interfaces: Design Challenges and Recommendations”, Fraunhofer Institute http://www.uni-weimar.de/~gross/publ/hcii03_gross_amb_int.pdf
Beating some Common Sense into Interactive Applications, Lieberman et. Al. http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieberary/Common-Sense/Common-Sense-Intro.html
M. Weiser
- http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/UIST94_4up.ps
- http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/ACMInteractions2.html
- http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/UbiCompHotTopics.html
- Open House, WeiserM., 1996
Designing Calm Technology", M. Weiserand J. SeelyBrown http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm
Slow Technology, Hallnas& Redstrom, http://civ.idc.cs.chalmers.se/projects/slowtech/papers/slowtech.pdf
Ambient Agoras, project, www.AmbientAgoras.org, Fraunhofer Institute
Papers of MIT AI-lab Smart Room experiments, http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/, http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/aire/
Sensor systems for Interactive Surfaces, Paradiso http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/393/part3/paradiso.html
Concept Homes http://www.research.philips.com/Assets/Downloadablefile/ambientintelligence-2456.pdf
Georgia Tech “Aware Home” http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/ahri/projects/index.html
MIT Media Lab Smart Room experiments http://vismod.www.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/smartroom/
Stanford iRoom http://iwork.stanford.edu
Other interesting literature:
"The meaning of Things", Csikszentmihalyi
"The Cultural Biography of Things", I. Kopytov
"Culture and Consumption", "Mc Gracken,
"The Social Life of Things" Apadurai, A.
“Intelligent Environments”, P. Froege(ed)

People

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Current Group Members

  • since 2006
    • Simon Reymann: project + MSc. thesis
    • Volker Brunns: project + MSc. thesis
    • Mario Mejia: project work + MSc. thesis
    • Luis Armas Cabezudo: project work + MSc. thesis
    • Leire Gonzalez: project work + MSc. thesis
  • since 2005
    • Christian Laubenstein, project, “RFID tagging service development”, to be completed in 2006
    • Piotr Golebiowski: High-Definition Productions
  • since 2004
    • Esther Alcolea, MSc. "Ambient Multimedia in the Home Environment", to be componeted in 2006
    • Teemu Saarinen, MSc., “Development of a light-weight digital rights management system for mobile devices utilizing MPEG-21”, Tampere University of Technology, to be completed in 2006
    • Mikko Oksanen: MPEG-21 implementation for digital TV plattforms (MSc. thesis)

Previous Group Members

  • 2006
    • Mikko Oksanen, MSc., “Metadata protocol stack implementation for digital TV based on MPEG-21”, Tampere University of Technoogy, 2006
    • Romain Montespa, MSc., internship, “Metadata repository for supporting QoS for TV”, 2006
    • Patrice Ravetto, MSc., internship, “Metadata repository for supporting QoS for TV”, 2006
  • 2005
    • Piotr Jean-Babtiste Lott: RFID tagging systems for ambient media services (internship)
    • Felix Kobler, BSc., “Development of a framework for systematic and strategic planning of innovation-based mobile broadband services”, cooperation with the Technical University of Munich, completed, 2005
    • Jean-Phillipe Tournut, internship, “Implementation of a location based mobile information service platform”, research director of internship, cooperation with UFR S.T.G.I, France, 2005
  • 2004
    • Duan Xia Bo, project, “Exchanging personal profiles with MPEG-21 digital items between java mobile phones”, project work, 2004.
    • Katharina Buchelt, MSc., “Potentiale des Digitalen Fernsehens im Hinblick auf Markteintrittsbarrieren und Zuschauerbindungen - Ein Vergleich zwischen Deutschland und Finland”, cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences, Brandenburg, completed, 2004
    • Perttu Rautavirta: MHP service design (MSc. thesis)
    • Philipp Eibach, BSc., “Aspekte medialer Kommunikation – Entwicklung von ‘the closed circuit’ eine Installation mit ambienten Schnittstellen”, cooperation with University of Applied Science Mittweida, 2004

 

Deliverables

 

Demonstrators

  • Location (GPS) based travelling guide - PDA and PC, 2005
    Light-weight digital rights management system for mobile devices, 2005

©2004 Artur Lugmayr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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