Multimedia Navigation Systems (D5)
Project PI: Russell Pinkston
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Most navigation systems in networked multimedia assume a focused goal-driven searching, rather than the browsing or exploring activity more generally associated with entertainment. Yet even the term "surfing the Web" implies activities more casual than purposeful in nature. These browsing encounters, perhaps akin to channel-surfing on television, will be demanded by consumers as they get access to a greater number and variety of multimedia content sources. Two obvious examples are music and images, whether they be still or moving. While some access of sound and images may be purposeful, much may be akin to a scan button on a radio. This project will implement and investigate, from the perspective of actual users in research settings, a variety of navigating environments for digital music and image digital collections.
Delivery of multimedia content over the Internet promises to revolutionize the business of providing entertainment, information, education and advertising to consumers the world over. The right combinations of content, delivery systems and client applications are still to be defined. By applying proven research results developed over years of study into audience behaviors, content design for mass media and server file structures, this project will establish new knowledge and standards for this emerging multimedia application area. Research questions will include determining how users prefer to annotate and filter music and image content for causal searches and their comfort with differing levels of interactivity with the content.
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
This project will implement and test a variety of mechanisms and interfaces for organizing, displaying, and navigating multimedia content that could be made available to consumers by entertainment companies, performance artists, museums, libraries, and educational institutions. Both the development work and user testing will use a distributed client-server system running under Windows NT.
IMPACT
The evolutionary path of powerful Intel processors and MMX technology creates new opportunities to provide millions of consumers with access to large collections of text, images and sound. While significant research has been done on text-based navigation, little is known about how those consumers will want to explore and casually use image and sound content. Just as Netscape made access to the Web a ubiquitous element of daily life, successful navigation systems for music and images can expand the consumer's desire for computer-based entertainment.
EQUIPMENT
This project requires 2 quad processor servers, 6 dual processor client machines and 2 desktop systems.
RESOURCES
The research will be centered in the Center for Advanced Study in the Arts and will be conducted by interdisciplinary teams of faculty and graduate students from the Colleges of Fine Arts, Communication and Natural Sciences.
BENEFITS TO INTEL
The entertainment market represents significant opportunities for growth for Intel platforms. Accelerating penetration of that marker requires development of content applications that will fuel consumer interest in acquiring multimedia systems for the home. This project addresses a key element needed to deliver those content applications.