Keynote Speaker

Title:

Networks and Media: Trends and Prospects on EU Research

Abstract

Mobility, convergence, social and community networks, sensing and acting upon the environment are some of the trends having a profound impact on the future network infrastructure and on the way services and media will be accessed. The current media landscape is characterised by an explosion of massively distributed digital objects, by a growing share of user generated content and an ever increasing quality of professional content (digital cinema, ultra high definition TV, immersive games, 3D, amongst others). This is compounded with new consumption modes and users' demands for new services, such as ubiquitous access on demand, social and community media, content personalisation and more intuitive and easier methods for content creation and retrieval. This requires moving from content to context and from a traditional broadcasting approach to personal and on-demand media access. The above trends have a profound impact also on the infrastructure and the access technologies required, for example content awareness and advanced methods, tools and systems enabling more intuitive content creation and multimedia-based search for content are to become basic elements of the Future Media Internet.

The European Commission is spearheading new areas of research, from basic technologies to service integration and applications. Innovative domains, such as video or 3D object search, next generation of P2P, end to end 3D video delivery and immersive media experiences are some of the topics that the current R&D projects are addressing. In parallel new research opportunities are being explored as they should lead to new technology breakthroughs and new business opportunities. This is the way to ensure Europe will be able to play an important role in the future networked media world, as we are fully aware that beyond a key technology we are addressing a major industrial and cultural challenge for Europe.

Biography

Luis Rodriguez-Rosello holds a degree of Telecommunications Engineering (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid). After some years of professional activity as engineer at a private company and as full professor at the Faculty of Telecommunications and Engineering Madrid in Computer Science and Control Systems. He was Director of the Research and Development Department at the ITE (Institute for Technologies in Education) of the Ministry of Education in Spain and Principal Advisor for the Programme of New Technologies. He was appointed later on Head of the International Department of the CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico e Industrial). He joined the European Commission in 1989 as Head of Division in Directorate-General "Telecommunications, Information Market and Exploitation of Research" as responsible for the R&D Programme DELTA (Developing European Learning through Technological Advance) and chairman of the DELTA Programme Committee initially, and later on of its follow-up within the new Framework Programmes "Telematics for Flexible and Distance Learning". Research Networking and Telematics Engineering were added to his responsibilities. He also headed the Educational Multimedia Task Force of the European Commission. He was acting Director in 2003 and 2004 of Directorate "Emerging Technologies, Infrastructures. Applications" of Directorate General Information Society, a new Directorate he had been entrusted to set up. Domains of responsibility encompassed basic research (Future and Emerging Technologies), Grid Technologies, Research Infrastructures and application areas related to eInclusion and New Working Environments. He was chairman of the Research Infrastructures Committee. He was appointed in 2004 Head of the Unit “Networked Audiovisual Systems & Home Platforms”. He is the author of numerous books, videotapes, educational software, articles and speeches on his main areas of work in his professional career, from technological research to strategy papers on European Research

Title:

Challenges and Opportunities in Multimedia Content Delivery

Abstract

Current technologies for delivering multimedia content around the world will be presented and existing limitations and challenges will be discussed. Future developments on multimedia content delivery will be finally addressed in connection also with the internet of the future.

Biography

Aggelos K. Katsaggelos received the Diploma degree in electrical and mechanical engineering from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in EE from the Georgia Tech, in 1981 and 1985, respectively. In 1985, he joined the Department of EECS at Northwestern University, where he is currently a Professor (past holder of the Ameritech Chair of Information Technology). He is also the Director of the Motorola Center for Seamless Communications, a member of the Academic Affiliate Staff, NorthShore University Health System, an affiliated faculty at the Department of Linguistics, and a faculty appointee at the Argonne National Laboratory. He also held visiting and consulting appointments at Universities and industries around the world. He has published extensively (5 books, 180 journal papers, 400 conference papers, 38 book chapters, 16 patents). He is a Fellow of the IEEE (1998), Fellow of SPIE (2009), and the recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000), the IEEE Signal Processing Society Meritorious Service Award (2001), an IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award (2001), an IEEE ICME Paper Award (2006), an IEEE ICIP Paper Award (2007), and an ISPA paper award (2009). He was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2007–2008).

Title:

Towards Truly User-Centric Convergence of Multimedia

Abstract

In the Network of Excellence INTERMEDIA, our vision is to make the user as a multimedia central to access multimedia anywhere and anytime exploiting diverse devices. To realize the user-centric convergence, we defined three key challenging issues: dynamic distributed networking, mobile and wearable interfaces, and multimedia adaptation and handling. Each field of interest investigates a transparent access to diverse networks for seamless multimedia session migration, a flexible wearable platform that supports dynamic composition of diverse wearable devices and sensors, as well as the adaptation of diverse multimedia contents based on the user’s personal and device contexts. To prove our goals, we prototyped two scenarii, called Chloe@University and Chloe@home, which included interactive 3D multimedia manipulation with seamless session mobility, modular wearable interfaces with DRM, contextual bookmark with mobile interfaces, and interactive surfaces and remote displays which aim to overcome the limited output capabilities of mobile devices. In our presentation, we will show how we have put together our know how and show some results of the INTERMEDIA project.

Biography

Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann is currently Professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Director of the research lab MIRALab that she founded first in Canada, then in Switzerland. She is a member of the Swiss technical Academy of Sciences. After having obtained several diploma in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science and a PhD in Quantum Physics, all from University of Geneva) she initiated the field of Virtual Humans in early eighties and received 7 artistic awards for her participation to the film "Dreamflight" that was shown in the electronic theater at the highly regarded conference SIGGRAPH'83. She further developed a strong agenda of interdisciplinary research that was considered as early innovation. In 1987, she was nominated woman of the year by the greater Montreal for her exceptional achievement in Sciences and Art. In 1988, she received a one year grant from the Council of Arts of Canada for her co-direction of the film "Rendez-vous in Montreal". In 1988, her work on Virtual Marilyn was shown at the Modern Art Museum in New York along with the work of other young Canadian promising artists.
Back in Switzerland, she has initiated and developed several programs of intensive research that have been awarded by the European Commission. She has participated to more than 45 European projects, dealing with simulating emotions, social robots, clothing, cultural heritage, augmented reality, virtual reality , medical 3D simulation of the human body, etc.. She is coordinating presently the NoE INTERMEDIA and also the Marie Curie Project 3DAnatomical Human.
She constantly tries to link Art and Science and recently she directed the research and the production of a new awarded film, High Fashion in Equations, that was shown at the electronic theater in SIGGRAPH'07 and that has received later on two artistic awards. Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann and her students have contributed to the publication of more than 450 scientific papers, written more than 40 books and produced more than 25 virtual reality shows. Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann is Editor-in-chief of several scientific journals, among them, the Visual Computer and the Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds Journal and is also associate Editor of several other journals, as for example, the IEEE Transactions Journal on Multimedia. She has been invited to present and discuss the impact of her work at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Recently, she was Vice-Rector of the University of Geneva while continuing her lab research activities.