Just because a big company owns all the media outlets in town doesn’t necessarily mean newspapers and broadcast stations will look and sound alike, according to a review of the research in this area published in the summer issue of the journal Contexts.
While media consolidation does have adverse effects, as described in a literature review, the reduction in content diversity does not appear to be one of them. In fact, the research suggests that media content is no less diverse tha
Viewers of future Olympic Games will enjoy the marriage of two entertainment industries – sports television and sports computer games – when a highly immersive and fully interactive TV system is being developed by the IST project.
PISTE comes to life. PISTE represents the most advanced and immersive interactive sports television experience created to date. Using digital video processing, computer vision, 3D-visualisation and animation techniques, the PISTE system will eventually al
Before long, the majority of mobile phones will have the capacity to show short films. If you want to be one of the pioneering filmmakers to make their mark in this new genre then Pocket Shorts, a new initiative supported by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), the organisation that supports UK creativity and innovation, could be for you.
Pocket Shorts is a supportive environment, offering both generic filmmaking and technology training, while financially supp
A conference at the University of Sheffield is set to celebrate ten years since the first Web search engines, and will reveal some of the capabilities of search engines of the future, and the way that our use of computers will lead them to new ways of archiving and retrieving information. Presentations at the conference will include ways that we can store and search through every personal document we have ever received, and another paper will use George Washington’s letters to demonstrate a new sear
The use of Ariane launcher technology has blasted a French loudspeaker firm into a winning position. Haliaetus Technologies won a top prize in a prestigious competition for creative start-ups with an innovative loudspeaker that uses rocket nozzle shapes to reduce sound distortion.
Three years ago, Jean-Pierre Morkerken, an acoustic researcher from the French lab ’Laboratoire d’Acoustique Musicale’, at the ’University Pierre and Marie Curie’ in Paris, got the idea to adapt rocket nozzle pro
Software that can identify the significant events in live TV sports broadcasts will soon be able to compile programmes of highlights without any help from people.
The technology will save broadcasters millions in editing costs- and should eventually lead to new generations of video recorders that will let people customise their own sports highlights packages. But developing software that understands sport is no easy task.
Picking out the key events from a game- whether it be pool
A modern form of working, teleworking offers many benefits; no travelling to the office, no need for an office and flexible working hours. The IST project TELESOL is successfully promoting teleworking between countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Europe.
“TELESOL is not a research action; it’s about coordinating existing tools and research to make people aware of this new way of working,” says project manager Serguei Smaguine of EDNES. “We can help them overcome the
High-quality video transmission with multi-channel sound through DSL connections finally becomes reality thanks to an up to now unmatched efficiency in audio and video compression. The revolutionary new multimedia technology can be licensed one-stop at Fraunhofer IIS.
MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding AVC allows screen-filling video in good quality at data rates of less than one megabit per second. High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding Surround (HE-AAC Surround) is the ideal audio companion for
Despite the technical advances of digital FM radio, offering increased choice and crystal clear, disturbance-free radio reception, AM (medium and long-range) radio is still the most common medium used to broadcast news and entertainment around the world. Now EUREKA project E! 2390 DIAM has combined the benefits of digital radio with the range and popularity of AM. Following on from the work of the EUREKA project E! 1557 NADIB which defined the technical standard necessary to achieve digital a
Microfirms, companies with less than 10 employees, are essential to creative, expanding and healthy economies. Yet such tiny companies often lack the time and know-how to employ the latest broadband tools and communication techniques. The IST project NEWTIME aimed to address this problem.
Bedrock of the new economy
Microfirms are said to be the bedrock of the new economy. Micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees account for 93 per cent of Europe’s 20 million-plus comp
With Mars now high on the agenda for future space exploration, researchers around the world are building and testing systems that could support long and complex scientific missions to the red planet.
Inter-planetary expeditions will take place over many years and require robust communication systems between the astronauts on Mars and scientists on Earth. Remote Science Teams (RSTs), who specialise in fields such as geology, will be formed from experts around the globe to collaborate on analy
Route directions prove particularly useful for the visually impaired
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a unique guidance system for mobile phones, directed and directing by voice. The system provides relief for the everyday life of the visually impaired, in particular for their use of public transportation, but is also suitable for guiding consumers with normal eyesight and people travelling a lot in their work.
The benefit of the guidance system develop
Rob Vincent, an employee in the University of Rhode Island’s Physics Department, proves the adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
An amateur radio operator since he was 14, Vincent has always lived in houses situated on small lots. Because he couldn’t erect a large antenna on a confined property, he has been continually challenged over the years to find a way to get better reception.
“I was always tinkering in the basement. Thank goodness, my parents we
A bowl of blueberries by the thousands, a rock called “Lion Stone,” dunes of red sand, the shoreline of a salty sea, wind-sculpted volcanic rock — all of these features of the Martian landscape come to three-dimensional life for faculty and students when they don their 3-D glasses and step into the Visualization Laboratory at Northwestern University.
Northwestern is believed to be the only university in the country offering its faculty and students the opportunity to view 3-D images of the
Near-infrared laser transfers data to mid-infrared laser’s beam
“Interband transitions controlling intersubband transitions” is the technical description for what has been achieved in an optics lab in Stevens Institute of Technology’s Physics Department. Robert K. Murawski, a post-doctoral research assistant working under the direction of Professor Rainer Martini , has a simpler way to describe it: “Controlling light with light.”
Regardless of styling, the concept is not a n
Animated characters on the Internet are often soulless. They stare, speak monotonously and have limited facial expression. More realistic characters are being tested by a European team of researchers. Could such enhanced characters benefit e-commerce and build better Web-based communities?
Most of us interact with our computers by punching keys. But the time is ripe for a more sophisticated and realistic interface. One way forward is to program characters known as avatars. They can be given
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