MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences

Embedding Intelligence. Designerly reflections on AI-infused products

Artificial intelligence is more-or-less covertly entering our lives and houses, embedded into products and services that are acquiring novel roles and agency on users. Products such as virtual assistants represent the first wave of materializa- tion of artificial intelligence in the domestic realm and beyond. They are new interlocutors in an emerging redefined relationship between humans and computers. They are agents, with miscommunicated or unclear proper- ties, performing actions to reach human-set goals. They embed capabilities that industrial products never had. They can learn users’ preferences and accordingly adapt their responses, but they are also powerful means to shape people’s behavior and build new practices and habits. Nevertheless, the way these products are used is not fully exploiting their potential, and frequently they entail poor user experiences, relegating their role to gadgets or toys. Furthermore, AI-infused products need vast amounts of personal data to work accurately, and the gathering and processing of this data are often obscure to end-users. As well, how, whether, and when it is preferable to implement AI in products and services is still an open debate. This condition raises critical ethical issues about their usage and may dramatically impact users’ trust and, ultimately, the quality of user experience. The design discipline and the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field are just beginning to explore the wicked relationship between Design and AI, looking for a definition of its borders, still blurred and ever-changing. The book approaches this issue from a human-centered standpoint, proposing designerly reflections on AI-infused products. It addresses one main guiding question: what are the design implications of embedding intelligence into everyday objects

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed

Layered evaluation of interactive adaptive systems : framework and formative methods

Peer reviewedPostprin

New Media and the Quality of Life

We are currently in the middle of a revolution. This revolution, sometimes called the digital revolution, is the revolutionary transformation brought about in the information and communication structure of society by the advent of the digital computer, with most of the major transformations having taken place in the past thirty years. Digital computing technology has generated the mainframe and personal computer, the multimedia computer, and computer networks. It has also transformed the telephone system and the monetary system, it is transforming all kinds of conventional products ranging from washing machines to automobiles, and it is on its way to change television as well. More than ever, contemporary society is an Information Society, in which the importance of information and communication is much greater than in past societies, and of which technologies that facilitate information and communication processes are a central societal feature. In this paper, I want to evaluate the implications of contemporary information and communication media for the quality of life, including both the new media from the digital revolution and the older media that still remain in use. My evaluation of contemporary media will proceed in three parts. In the section to follow, the benefits of contemporary media will be discussed, with special emphasis given to their immediate functional benefits. The section thereafter is devoted to a discussion of four potential threats posed by contemporary media. In a final major section, I look at the future of digital media and the possibilities available to us in shaping that future. A short concluding section ends the paper

The Effect of More and Less Relevant Details and Teacher Voice on Student Retention and Problem-Solving Transfer in Teacher-Created Multimedia

Many teachers create multimedia resources for their students, but most are uncertain as to what factors to consider regarding the design of multimedia instructional materials. Prior research identified instructional design principles for multimedia including the coherence principle and voice principle. The purpose of this study was to test the coherence principle in a realistic setting using a heterogeneous group of ninth grade students in a humanities course to determine the effect of seductive details on retention and problem-solving transfer. To extend understanding of the voice principle, this study examined the effect of the teacher’s voice on student learning as measured by retention and problem-solving transfer. Additionally, the study explored the relationship between prior knowledge, retention, and problem-solving transfer. Accordingly, the study, a 2 x 2 factorial design used a convenience sample of 134 ninth grade students enrolled in a Christian Sexuality course in an urban, co-ed high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Students were randomly assigned to one of four groups for the four multimedia packages delivered over a month: No Seductive Details/Teacher Voice, No Seductive Details/Different Teacher Voice, Seductive Details/ Teacher Voice, or Seductive Details/ Different Teacher Voice. Students completed a prior knowledge inventory first and a retention inventory and problem-solving transfer inventory after each multimedia package. Eight two-way ANOVAs were conducted to determine differences in performance between the groups. One statistically significant main effect for the seductive details condition, F(1, 121) = 4.32, p \u3c .05 , d = 0.36 , was observed for problem-solving transfer in Video 1. In contrast to prior research conducted in laboratory settings, there was no seductive details effect observed. No statistically significant differences for voice were observed, but the descriptive statistics revealed a trend of improving scores for both retention and transfer for different teacher voice suggesting that social agency theory does not explain previous voice principle research. Prior knowledge was positively associated with transfer for teacher’s voice and with retention with different teacher’s voice