Plans to develop protocols and devices that link together all the audio and video gadgets that clutter homes, handbags and briefcases will unleash an incredible array of new, personalised and location-based services.
Imagine your alarm wakes you up an hour early because it knows you’re flying abroad, and there’s a traffic jam on the way to the airport. Your coffee maker turns on an hour early too, while the alarm clock gives you the latest headlines about your destination
The new standard for broadcasting digital video to future mobile phones, PDAs and laptops, DVB-H, is now almost complete. The next step is to begin testing the technology, and here the INSTINCT project will continue its key role.
Many industry observers see the broadcasting of video to mobile phones as the next logical development for the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard. Broadcasting digital video over the existing wireless telecom networks brings a number of technica
The European CAPANINA research consortium, led by the University of York, has made a significant step forward in perfecting a revolutionary broadband system following high altitude trials in northern Sweden.
Carlo Gavazzi Space, one of the Italian consortium members, co-ordinated the trials at the Swedish Space Centre at Esrange and took care of the High Altitude Carrier – a stratospheric balloon.
Trials using radio and optical communications equipment were carried out, u
A powerful new platform that delivers high computing power and high channel capacity could help meet consumer demand for multimedia content via PCs, interactive TV and mobile phones.
The FULL SPEED project that developed this platform created an innovative solution based on USB high-speed communication techniques. This smartcard connectivity uses the high-throughput channel USB 2.0.
FULL SPEED’s capability permits the direct embedding of critical applications in smartc
Boffins at the University of Bradford will be looking into ways of improving computer modelling and animation used in such films as Shrek, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and Jimmy Neutron.
Dr Hassan Ugail and Dr Ian Palmer from the University’s School of Informatics have been awarded a grant of around £300,000 to carry out fundamental research into developing new techniques for computer-based modelling and animation.
The grant, which has been awarded by the Engineering and
Imagine being able to communicate in your own handwriting with your mobile phone, PDA, laptop or PC without any cables. The VPen does just that. It looks like a space age pen, but works like a mouse, pen, keyboard or graphic tablet.
Dealing with cables during mobile working can be awkward. VPen, developed by partners in the IST programme-funded VIPDATA project, is wireless, yet features a long talk and standby time of several days. It is a convenient little device the size of a s
Good news for TV addicts. Soon they will have the possibility to watch their favourite TV programmes wherever they may be as a result of new chipsets for digital TV from a dynamic French electronics company.
Founded in 2000, DiBcom designs high-performance, low power consuming chipsets – based on their patented algorithms and architectures – which enable mobile TV. This means digital television will be available for cars, laptops, PCs and portable LCD TV, and even mobile devices s
A Yorkshire research centre has won a prestigious contract as specialist consultants on a multi-billion dollar project to roll out interactive digital television across Brazil.
The work will see Yorkshire technology becoming part of a new world standard in digital television. It could open the door to the Latin American markets for Yorkshire companies working in wireless technology, providing a major boost to the region’s digital economy.
The team at the newly created W
The hardware and software developed by a European project aims to unleash the full potential of digital media by offering the secure creation, delivery and consumption of audiovisual media across a wide range of hybrid networks and platforms.
The IST-funded project TIRAMISU focuses on protection of intellectual assets by securing the content with a digital rights management (DRM) solution, while maintaining interoperability and use of open standards.
According to projec
A new website with a Global Information System will provide valuable information for assessing environmental hazards caused by Hurricane Katrina. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health, created the website to provide the most up-to-date data to public health and safety workers on contaminants in flood waters, infrastructure and industry maps, as well as demographic information for local populations.
The NIEH
For young Americans, the “food landscape” in television advertising is packed with junk food, according to a new study.
The study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the first to explore the nutritional composition of foods advertised to children using Nutrition Facts labeling.
Nutrient-poor high-sugar foods – candy, sweets and soft drinks – dominate (nearly 44 percent) the foods advertised during the TV programs children ages 6 to 11 wa
Consumers who are very skeptical about the truth of advertising claims are more responsive to emotionally appealing ads than ones peppered with information, according to a new study.
The finding comes from work by researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Washington State University who examined consumers’ responses to advertising, including brand beliefs, responses to informational and emotional appeals, efforts to avoid advertising, attention to ads
A unique piece of software that will code any piece of recorded music, or speech, for any device, has been created by a team of European researchers.
The IST project, called ARDOR, developed a unique codec, short for COmpressor-DECompressor. Codecs are the engine under the hood of software media players.
“At the moment there are dozens of standardised sound codecs. Basically each application has its own dedicated codec and these codecs are optimised for specific input sig
We look at a Gothic cathedral in a different way than we gaze at a standard apartment block, and when we scrutinize paintings, our gaze slides along differently than when we look at a datasheet with numerals to be memorized. And how are training materials – manuals, video films and websites – perceived, when as much information should be gained from a glance? How should they be made up to work most effectively? Specialists of the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (Modern University for the Humanitie
The earliest “moving picture” of a magician – which was created for a scientific study on magic in the 1890’s – will be shown for the first time tonight, Wednesday 26 July, at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in South Kensington, London.
The pictures were created during a study by famed psychologist and creator of the IQ test, Alfred Binet, as he investigated the psychology of magic.
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, who discovered the pictures in a Paris archive, wi
“Reporters are surpassing doctors as a source of health information,” says Maria Simbra, a medical reporter for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, United States, and a practicing physician, in a special debate in this month’s issue of the open access international medical journal PLoS Medicine.
For the debate, PLoS Medicine invited health journalists worldwide to give their views on the role that the media should play in spreading health messages to the public.
In her commentary,
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