CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Challenges and opportunities of context-aware information access

Ubiquitous computing environments embedding a wide range of pervasive computing technologies provide a challenging and exciting new domain for information access. Individuals working in these environments are increasingly permanently connected to rich information resources. An appealing opportunity of these environments is the potential to deliver useful information to individuals either from their previous information experiences or external sources. This information should enrich their life experiences or make them more effective in their endeavours. Information access in ubiquitous computing environments can be made "context-aware" by exploiting the wide range context data available describing the environment, the searcher and the information itself. Realizing such a vision of reliable, timely and appropriate identification and delivery of information in this way poses numerous challenges. A central theme in achieving context-aware information access is the combination of information retrieval with multiple dimensions of available context data. Potential context data sources, include the user's current task, inputs from environmental and biometric sensors, associated with the user's current context, previous contexts, and document context, which can be exploited using a variety of technologies to create new and exciting possibilities for information access