Horizon Report 2009

El informe anual Horizon investiga, identifica y clasifica las tecnologías emergentes que los expertos que lo elaboran prevén tendrán un impacto en la enseñanza aprendizaje, la investigación y la producción creativa en el contexto educativo de la enseñanza superior. También estudia las tendencias clave que permiten prever el uso que se hará de las mismas y los retos que ellos suponen para las aulas. Cada edición identifica seis tecnologías o prácticas. Dos cuyo uso se prevé emergerá en un futuro inmediato (un año o menos) dos que emergerán a medio plazo (en dos o tres años) y dos previstas a más largo plazo (5 años)

Gossiping Personalized Queries

International audienceThis paper presents P3Q, a fully decentralized gossip-based protocol to personalize query processing in social tagging systems. P3Q dynamically associates each user with social acquaintances sharing similar tagging behaviours. Queries are gossiped among such acquaintances, computed on the fly in a collaborative, yet partitioned manner, and results are iteratively refined and returned to the querier. Analytical and experimental evaluations convey the scalability of P3Q for top-k query processing. More specifically, we show that on a 10,000-user delicious trace, with little storage at each user, the queries are accurately computed within reasonable time and bandwidth consumption. We also report on the inherent ability of P3Q to cope with users updating profiles and departing

Social media: a new frontier for retailers?

During the last two decades the retailing industry is finding itself in a state of constant evolution and transformation. Globalization, mergers and acquisitions, and technological developments have drastically changed the retailing landscape. The explosive growth of the Internet has been one of the main catalysts in this process. The effects of the Internet have been mostly felt in retail sectors dealing mainly with intangibles or information products. But these are not likely to be limited to these sectors; increasingly retailers of physical products realize that the empowered, sophisticated, critical and well-informed consumer of today is essentially different to the consumer they have always known. The web, and particularly what is known as Social Media or Web 2.0, have given consumers much more control, information and power over the market process, posing retailers with a number of important dilemmas and challenges. This article explains what the new face of the Internet, widely referred to as Web 2.0 or Social Media, is, identifies its importance as a strategic marketing tool and proposes a number of alternative strategies for retailers. Implementing such strategies will allow retailers not only to survive, but also create competitive advantages and thrive in the new environment

"You Tube and I Find" - personalizing multimedia content access

Recent growth in broadband access and proliferation of small personal devices that capture images and videos has led to explosive growth of multimedia content available everywhereVfrom personal disks to the Web. While digital media capture and upload has become nearly universal with newer device technology, there is still a need for better tools and technologies to search large collections of multimedia data and to find and deliver the right content to a user according to her current needs and preferences. A renewed focus on the subjective dimension in the multimedia lifecycle, fromcreation, distribution, to delivery and consumption, is required to address this need beyond what is feasible today. Integration of the subjective aspects of the media itselfVits affective, perceptual, and physiological potential (both intended and achieved), together with those of the users themselves will allow for personalizing the content access, beyond today’s facility. This integration, transforming the traditional multimedia information retrieval (MIR) indexes to more effectively answer specific user needs, will allow a richer degree of personalization predicated on user intention and mode of interaction, relationship to the producer, content of the media, and their history and lifestyle. In this paper, we identify the challenges in achieving this integration, current approaches to interpreting content creation processes, to user modelling and profiling, and to personalized content selection, and we detail future directions. The structure of the paper is as follows: In Section I, we introduce the problem and present some definitions. In Section II, we present a review of the aspects of personalized content and current approaches for the same. Section III discusses the problem of obtaining metadata that is required for personalized media creation and present eMediate as a case study of an integrated media capture environment. Section IV presents the MAGIC system as a case study of capturing effective descriptive data and putting users first in distributed learning delivery. The aspects of modelling the user are presented as a case study in using user’s personality as a way to personalize summaries in Section V. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper with a discussion on the emerging challenges and the open problems

A multi-layer framework for personalized social tag-based applications

Recent years have seen an increasing diffusion of online communities giving their members the ability of specifying and sharing metadata concerning online resources. Such practice, also known as social or collaborative tagging, has the purpose of collecting and sharing opinions about Web resources and simplifying their retrieval. In this paper, we go one step further and show how tags can have more enhanced applications to be exploited for customizing Web content fruition. More precisely, we propose a multi-layer framework where data collected by social tagging communities are complemented with additional services. Such services provide users the ability of expressing their dis/agreement with existing tags, denoting the members they trust based on their characteristics and relationships, or specifying policies on which "quality" assessment of resources should be returned. Besides providing the formal specification of the proposed framework, we illustrate two case studies we have implemented and the experiments we have carried out in order to verify the feasibility of our approach

Citizen noise pollution monitoring

Trabajo presentado a la 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government, celebrada en Puebla (México) del 17 al 21 de mayo de 2009.In this paper we present a new approach to monitor noise pollution involving citizens and built upon the notions of participatory sensing and citizen science. We enable citizens to measure their personal exposure to noise in their everyday environment by using GPS-equipped mobile phones as noise sensors. The geo-localised measures and user-generated meta-data can be automatically sent and shared online with the public to contribute to the collective noise mapping of cities. Our prototype, called NoiseTube, can be found online.This work was partially supported by the EU under contract IST- 34721 (TAGora). The TAGora project is funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program (IST-FET) of the European Commission. Matthias Stevens is a Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders (Aspirant van het Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen).Peer reviewe

Personalized Recommendations Based On Users’ Information-Centered Social Networks

The overwhelming amount of information available today makes it difficult for users to find useful information and as the solution to this information glut problem, recommendation technologies emerged. Among the several streams of related research, one important evolution in technology is to generate recommendations based on users’ own social networks. The idea to take advantage of users’ social networks as a foundation for their personalized recommendations evolved from an Internet trend that is too important to neglect – the explosive growth of online social networks. In spite of the widely available and diversified assortment of online social networks, most recent social network-based recommendations have concentrated on limited kinds of online sociality (i.e., trust-based networks and online friendships). Thus, this study tried to prove the expandability of social network-based recommendations to more diverse and less focused social networks. The online social networks considered in this dissertation include: 1) a watching network, 2) a group membership, and 3) an academic collaboration network. Specifically, this dissertation aims to check the value of users’ various online social connections as information sources and to explore how to include them as a foundation for personalized recommendations. In our results, users in online social networks shared similar interests with their social partners. An in-depth analysis about the shared interests indicated that online social networks have significant value as a useful information source. Through the recommendations generated by the preferences of social connection, the feasibility of users’ social connections as a useful information source was also investigated comprehensively. The social network-based recommendations produced as good as, or sometimes better, suggestions than traditional collaborative filtering recommendations. Social network-based recommendations were also a good solution for the cold-start user problem. Therefore, in order for cold-start users to receive reasonably good recommendations, it is more effective to be socially associated with other users, rather than collecting a few more items. To conclude, this study demonstrates the viability of multiple social networks as a means for gathering useful information and addresses how different social networks of a novelty value can improve upon conventional personalization technology

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

A new model of web-based application to social networking management systems

The emergence of the Web, in the 90’s, has brought a new concept of information sharing and interconnectivity. Being considered the greatest invention of the 20th Century, the Internet, and especially the Web, quickly became indispensable in many aspects of modern human life, changing the mindset of people ranging from how they go shopping through the Web to how they communicate in a completely innovative and unprecedented ways. With the advent of the Web 2.0, the second phase on the evolution of the Web technology, the Web became a much more interactive and collaborative tool, becoming easier to share online content. This technology is based on two distinct paradigms: usability and technology. It is considered a collection of new technologies, business strategies and social trends that let developers, easily and quickly, create new Web applications that were unimaginable until now. The rise of the blogs, in 1997, triggered a new way to communicate and share information among users over the Web. In fact, blogs increased exponentially in few years, which led to believe that a new online social trend was emerging. Later, with the emergence of online social networks, that social trend was confirmed. Nowadays, online social networks are part of everyday life for billions of people all over the globe, being considered as a new venue of innovation over the Web. It is through social networks that people get news in the morning, do business, meet and maintain contact with other persons. In the past few years, social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Foursquare or YouTube became extremely popular. Some of these social networks, like Facebook, have more people than large countries. In 2012, Facebook had 1.01 billions of active users. Online social networks are a reflection of what happens in the real world, where people can share information and communicate just a mouse click away. Blogs came to bring the facility that users needed to create and maintain content, share interests and different points of view with other persons. To meet this needs, were created systems like Blogger or WordPress that let users create and manage blogs assuming the role of administrators and have the capability to manage online contents. With the advent of social networks, became common the desire of some users to create and maintain their own social networks, their own social communities, according to a different type of interests. This dissertation focuses on the creation of a Web-based application/platform which let users to create and maintain their own social communities. Through this platform, users assume the role of administrators where they can create and manage online content in a completely innovative, easy and very intuitive manner. Like administrators, they can create a diversity of social communities according to distinct interests, providing that communities to other users. On the other hand, that users have the capability to explore the entire community and can share comments or multimedia content, edit profiles and personal info, make friends and interact with them. To investigate this topic, the work presented in this dissertation was structured in two parts. First, a depth study about the concepts related with social networks was prepared. The discussion flow then passes to the topic related to online content management systems namely to the blogs management systems and software that include social networking features. Making a comparison between this type of systems, a new solution was presented and implemented. Compared with existing software that make possible create or integrate social networking features, this new solution don’t need any kind of installation process as well as technical knowledge once it is a fully integrated solution on the Web. Similarly, this platform is distinguished from most of the existing software because is a free solution. Relatively to social features, this platform is distinguished because the social features implemented are integrated without need any kind of installation support, via plugins or modules.O aparecimento da Web, nos anos 90, contribuiu para a criação de um novo conceito de partilha e interconectividade. Considerada por muitos a maior invenção do Século XX, a Internet, e em especial a Web, rapidamente se tornou uma ferramenta de trabalho indispensável em muitos aspectos da vida quotidiana da população mundial, mudando o pensamento das pessoas, desde a forma como se compra através da Internet à forma como se comunica de uma maneira completamente inovadora e sem precedentes. Graças ao aparecimento da Web 2.0, a segunda fase na história da sua evolução, a Web tornou-se numa ferramenta muito mais interactiva e colaborativa facilitando assim a partilha online de diversos contúdos multimédia. Esta tecnologia é considerada como uma colecção de novas tecnologias, estratégias de negócio e de tendências sociais, permitindo que os programadores, de uma forma fácil e intuitiva, criem aplicações inimagináveis até aqui. A ascensão dos blogs, em 1997, desencadeou uma nova maneira de comunicar e partilhar informação entre utilizadores sob a Web. De facto, os blogs aumentaram exponencialmente em poucos anos, levando mesmo a acreditar que uma nova tendência social estava para nascer. Posteriormente, com o aparecimento das primeiras redes sociais, essa tendência social acabou mesmo por se confirmar. Nos dias que correm, as redes sociais fazem parte do dia-a-dia de biliões de pessoas em todo o Mundo sendo, por esse motivo, consideradas como um novo meio de inovação baseado na Web. É através de redes socias que as pessoas recebem a maior parte das notícias pela manhã, gerem os seus negócios, conhecem e mantêm contacto com outras pessoas. Nos últimos anos, redes sociais como o Facebook, o LinkedIn, o Google+, o Twitter, o Foursquare ou o YouTube tornaram-se extremamente populares. Algumas destas redes sociais, como é o caso do Facebook, possuem mais pessoas que grandes países. Em 2012, o Facebook possuia cerca de 1.01 biliões de utilizadores activos. As redes sociais são uma reflexão do que acontece no Mundo real, onde as pessoas podem partilhar informação e comunicar à distância de um click. Os blogs surgem perante a necessidade dos utilizadores pretenderem criar e gerir conteúdos, de partilhar interesses e pontos de vista com outras pessoas. Para responder a estas necessidades, foram criados sistemas como o Blogger ou o WordPress que permitem criar e gerir blogs permitindo assim que utilizadores assumam o papel de administradores e que tenham a capacidade de gerir conteúdos multimédia. Com o aparecimento das redes sociais, tornou-se comum que os utilizadores pretendam criar e gerir as suas próprias redes sociais, as suas próprias comunidades sociais, de acordo com determinados interesses. Esta dissertação foca-se na criação de uma aplicação/plataforma Web que permita que utilizadores possam criar e gerir as suas próprias redes/comunidades sociais. Através desta plataforma, os utilizadores assumem o papel de administradores podendo criar e gerir conteúdos de uma forma completamente inovadora, fácil e bastante intuitiva. Como administradores, poderão criar uma diversidade de comunidades sociais de acordo com interesses distintos, disponibilizandoas assim a outros utilizadores. Por sua vez, esses utilizadores terão a capacidade de usufruir de todas as funcionalidades da rede social, podendo partilhar conteúdos, editar perfis e informações pessoais, fazer amigos e interagir com eles. Para investigar este tema, o trabalho apresentado nesta dissertação estruturou-se em duas partes. Primeiro, elaborou-se um estudo aprofundado dos conceitos relacionados com redes sociais. O fluxo de discussão passa depois para o tópico relacionado com sistemas gestores de conteúdos online, nomeadamente para os sistemas gestores de blogs e para softwares que incluem características de redes sociais. Fazendo uma comparação entre diferentes sistemas, elabora-se uma nova solução e procede-se à implementação da mesma. Comparativamente com o software existente que permite a criação ou integração de características de redes sociais, esta nova solução não requer qualquer tipo de processo de instalação, uma vez que é uma solução completamente integrada na Web. Do mesmo modo, esta plataforma distingue-se da maioria do software existente, visto que é uma solução completamente gratuíta. No que diz respeito às características sociais, esta plataforma distingue-se pelo facto de as características implementadas estarem integradas e também não requererem qualquer tipo de intalação, como por exemplo via plugins ou módulos