LecTix : a lecture-multimedia player

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-85).LecTix 2.0 is a multimedia player designed specifically for the playback of recorded classroom lectures. LecTix 2.0 plays multimedia consisting of synchronized audio, video, and PowerPoint-style slides. In addition to controls commonly found in multi-media players, LecTix 2.0 features controls designed specifically for lecture-multimedia playback such as customizable skip, variable-speed playback with pitch-normalization, and a browsable timeline of slides. LecTix 2.0's features contribute to its being usable, widely available, and extensible. LecTix 2.0's automatic media synchronization and large, externally consistent controls for navigation make for a learnable, memorable, and efficient user interface. LecTix 2.0's open-source implementation using the Java Media Framework allows it to be freely distributable, portable, and convenient to use without a network connection. LecTix 2.0's media class hierarchy, events, and lecture description result in a modular player that can be extended to support new media types without recompilation of the player's core. In addition to presenting LecTix 2.0, this thesis reviews seven players in use today. I compare them to LecTix 2.0 in terms of usability, availability, and extensibility. I also present a case study of the production of lecture multimedia and the use of an early version of LecTix in an introductory algorithms course.by Timothy D. Olsen.M.Eng

Benefits and Implications of Integrating Technology in EFL Teaching and Learning

This document discloses the significance of technology in today’s English teaching and learning fields. Intended to enhance English teaching procedures, ICT improves English acquisition by allowing teachers and students to organize, plan, and innovate their lessons with greater effectiveness. Nonetheless, ICT also presents a range of problems that institutions, instructors, and students must face. To sum up, ICT is a valuable ally for enhancing English acquisition, but it also needs a number of components in order to be effective.Information and Communications Technology (ICT) may bring to English teaching and learning both benefits and implications. Given the wide range of material available on this topic around the world, top references from authors analyzing ICT in EFL and ELT contexts were selected. These references were qualitatively examined by extracting data from texts, repositories, and academic journals. Diverse studies, mostly in Indonesia, Morocco, Asia, and Colombia, will reveal the consequences of using technology in EFL and ELT contexts, considering the authors’ findings. The monograph is an examination of 40 key sources that were consulted and also emphasizes the use of ICT in EFL and ELT fields. The purpose of this document was not only to highlight the advantages of using technology to teach English, but also some of its potential drawbacks identifying the challenges that teachers, students, and institutions must overcome when implementing ICT in English teaching and learning. In the final analysis, it was concluded that incorporating technology into the classroom may inspire and grab students’ interest. Nevertheless, for technology to be successful in the context of EFL and ELT, it has to be designed, planned, and used with expertise. Keywords: Education in EFL an ELT, Technology for teaching English, Virtual environments, Methodologies for didactics in EFL, Teaching and learning foreign language

Energy-Aware Development and Labeling for Mobile Applications

Today, mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets have become ubiquitous and are used everywhere. Millions of software applications can be purchased and installed on these devices, customizing them to personal interests and needs. However, the frequent use of mobile devices has let a new problem become omnipresent: their limited operation time, due to their limited energy capacities. Although energy consumption can be considered as being a hardware problem, the amount of energy required by today’s mobile devices highly depends on their current workloads, being highly influenced by the software running on them. Thus, although only hardware modules are consuming energy, operating systems, middleware services, and mobile applications highly influence the energy consumption of mobile devices, depending on how efficient they use and control hardware modules. Nevertheless, most of today’s mobile applications totally ignore their influence on the devices’ energy consumption, leading to energy wastes, shorter operation times, and thus, frustrated application users. A major reason for this energy-unawareness is the lack for appropriate tooling for the development of energy-aware mobile applications. As many mobile applications are today behaving energy-unaware and various mobile applications providing similar services exist, mobile application users aim to optimize their devices by installing applications being known as energy-saving or energy-aware; meaning that they consume less energy while providing the same services as their competitors. However, scarce information on the applications’ energy usage is available and, thus, users are forced to install and try many applications manually, before finding the applications fulfilling their personal functional, non-functional, and energy requirements. This thesis addresses the lack of tooling for the development of energy-aware mobile applications and the lack of comparability of mobile applications in terms of energy-awareness with the following two contributions: First, it proposes JouleUnit, an energy profiling and testing framework using unit-tests for the execution of application workloads while profiling their energy consumption in parallel. By extending a well-known testing concept and providing tooling integrated into the development environment Eclipse, JouleUnit requires a low learning curve for the integration into existing development and testing processes. Second, for the comparability of mobile applications in terms of energy efficiency, this thesis proposes an energy benchmarking and labeling service. Mobile applications belonging to the same usage domain are energy-profiled while executing a usage-domain specific benchmark in parallel. Thus, their energy consumption for specific use cases can be evaluated and compared afterwards. To abstract and summarize the profiling results, energy labels are derived that summarize the applications’ energy consumption over all evaluated use cases as a simple energy grade, ranging from A to G. Besides, users can decide how to weigh specific use cases for the computation of energy grades, as it is likely that different users use the same applications differently. The energy labeling service has been implemented for Android applications and evaluated for three different usage domains (being web browsers, email clients, and live wallpapers), showing that different mobile applications indeed differ in their energy consumption for the same services and, thus, their comparison is both possible and sensible. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first approach providing mobile application users comparable energy consumption information on mobile applications without installing and testing them on their own mobile devices

Segurança e privacidade em terminologia de rede

Security and Privacy are now at the forefront of modern concerns, and drive a significant part of the debate on digital society. One particular aspect that holds significant bearing in these two topics is the naming of resources in the network, because it directly impacts how networks work, but also affects how security mechanisms are implemented and what are the privacy implications of metadata disclosure. This issue is further exacerbated by interoperability mechanisms that imply this information is increasingly available regardless of the intended scope. This work focuses on the implications of naming with regards to security and privacy in namespaces used in network protocols. In particular on the imple- mentation of solutions that provide additional security through naming policies or increase privacy. To achieve this, different techniques are used to either embed security information in existing namespaces or to minimise privacy ex- posure. The former allows bootstraping secure transport protocols on top of insecure discovery protocols, while the later introduces privacy policies as part of name assignment and resolution. The main vehicle for implementation of these solutions are general purpose protocols and services, however there is a strong parallel with ongoing re- search topics that leverage name resolution systems for interoperability such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Information Centric Networks (ICN), where these approaches are also applicable.Segurança e Privacidade são dois topicos que marcam a agenda na discus- são sobre a sociedade digital. Um aspecto particularmente subtil nesta dis- cussão é a forma como atribuímos nomes a recursos na rede, uma escolha com consequências práticas no funcionamento dos diferentes protocols de rede, na forma como se implementam diferentes mecanismos de segurança e na privacidade das várias partes envolvidas. Este problema torna-se ainda mais significativo quando se considera que, para promover a interoperabili- dade entre diferentes redes, mecanismos autónomos tornam esta informação acessível em contextos que vão para lá do que era pretendido. Esta tese foca-se nas consequências de diferentes políticas de atribuição de nomes no contexto de diferentes protocols de rede, para efeitos de segurança e privacidade. Com base no estudo deste problema, são propostas soluções que, através de diferentes políticas de atribuição de nomes, permitem introdu- zir mecanismos de segurança adicionais ou mitigar problemas de privacidade em diferentes protocolos. Isto resulta na implementação de mecanismos de segurança sobre protocolos de descoberta inseguros, assim como na intro- dução de mecanismos de atribuiçao e resolução de nomes que se focam na protecçao da privacidade. O principal veículo para a implementação destas soluções é através de ser- viços e protocolos de rede de uso geral. No entanto, a aplicabilidade destas soluções extende-se também a outros tópicos de investigação que recorrem a mecanismos de resolução de nomes para implementar soluções de intero- perabilidade, nomedamente a Internet das Coisas (IoT) e redes centradas na informação (ICN).Programa Doutoral em Informátic

Computer-Assisted Interactive Documentary and Performance Arts in Illimitable Space

This major component of the research described in this thesis is 3D computer graphics, specifically the realistic physics-based softbody simulation and haptic responsive environments. Minor components include advanced human-computer interaction environments, non-linear documentary storytelling, and theatre performance. The journey of this research has been unusual because it requires a researcher with solid knowledge and background in multiple disciplines; who also has to be creative and sensitive in order to combine the possible areas into a new research direction. [...] It focuses on the advanced computer graphics and emerges from experimental cinematic works and theatrical artistic practices. Some development content and installations are completed to prove and evaluate the described concepts and to be convincing. [...] To summarize, the resulting work involves not only artistic creativity, but solving or combining technological hurdles in motion tracking, pattern recognition, force feedback control, etc., with the available documentary footage on film, video, or images, and text via a variety of devices [....] and programming, and installing all the needed interfaces such that it all works in real-time. Thus, the contribution to the knowledge advancement is in solving these interfacing problems and the real-time aspects of the interaction that have uses in film industry, fashion industry, new age interactive theatre, computer games, and web-based technologies and services for entertainment and education. It also includes building up on this experience to integrate Kinect- and haptic-based interaction, artistic scenery rendering, and other forms of control. This research work connects all the research disciplines, seemingly disjoint fields of research, such as computer graphics, documentary film, interactive media, and theatre performance together.Comment: PhD thesis copy; 272 pages, 83 figures, 6 algorithm

Digital Echoes of the iGeneration: An Examination of Digital Media Used in 21st Century Education

This study explores the use of digital media as three teams of middle grades students create an original film about a topic of their choosing. The impetus of the study is fueled by a personal curiosity to see how students learn when given the freedom and flexibility to research and explore outside of a standards-based environment using digital media. Equally important, I wanted to examine the participatory process; as well as how this process affected the students\u27 views, values, and to what extent, if at all. This study was made possible due to the 2011 JOCO Film Festival. Each of the teams of students participated in the film festival which carried the theme, and now you know the rest of the story . The study is grounded in a vast array of research as I explore the journey of the image, digital technologies, and humankind all the while viewing how each has situated itself in a postmodern, twenty-first century culture. It is with this research that I frame my study in a theoretical perspective which I have coined, digital infusion theory. I begin with technology and its questionable relations with humankind (McLuhan, 1964, Stiegler, 1998, Weaver, 2009, Lanier, 2010, Hansen, 2004, Berger, 1972, Derrida, 1974, Derrida & Stiegler, 2002). I then move into formulating aesthetic theory (Benjamin, 1935, Brownowski, 1969), image and text relationships (Heidegger, 1977, Mitchell, 1986, 2005, Ranciere, 2007, Weaver, 2009), the theory of the present (Manovich, 2001, Ranciere, 2006, Heidegger, 1977), and the politics with/in the image (Ranciere, 1991, 2006, 2009a, 2009b, Weaver, 2010). I identify how the visual image has evolved to play a dominate role in popular culture by way of digital video, possibly aiding twenty-first century students in an intellectual emancipation (Ranciere, 1991) mode of creative expression and learning. The methodology of the study is a critical media literacy qualitative case study. I am viewing each digitally infused case via a critical media literacy lens. Alvermann, Moon, and Hagood (1999) state that critical media literacy is about providing individuals access to understanding how the print and non-print texts that are part of everyday life help construct their knowledge of the world (p.1). According to Weaver (2009), critical media literacy recognizes that images do not represent reality but shape and define reality (p. 115). Hence, this study inquires about intertwined areas which are directly related to a student\u27s growth in agency, participatory learning, creativity, and digital media as the collaborative teams create a film

Secure Communication in Disaster Scenarios

Während Naturkatastrophen oder terroristischer Anschläge ist die bestehende Kommunikationsinfrastruktur häufig überlastet oder fällt komplett aus. In diesen Situationen können mobile Geräte mithilfe von drahtloser ad-hoc- und unterbrechungstoleranter Vernetzung miteinander verbunden werden, um ein Notfall-Kommunikationssystem für Zivilisten und Rettungsdienste einzurichten. Falls verfügbar, kann eine Verbindung zu Cloud-Diensten im Internet eine wertvolle Hilfe im Krisen- und Katastrophenmanagement sein. Solche Kommunikationssysteme bergen jedoch ernsthafte Sicherheitsrisiken, da Angreifer versuchen könnten, vertrauliche Daten zu stehlen, gefälschte Benachrichtigungen von Notfalldiensten einzuspeisen oder Denial-of-Service (DoS) Angriffe durchzuführen. Diese Dissertation schlägt neue Ansätze zur Kommunikation in Notfallnetzen von mobilen Geräten vor, die von der Kommunikation zwischen Mobilfunkgeräten bis zu Cloud-Diensten auf Servern im Internet reichen. Durch die Nutzung dieser Ansätze werden die Sicherheit der Geräte-zu-Geräte-Kommunikation, die Sicherheit von Notfall-Apps auf mobilen Geräten und die Sicherheit von Server-Systemen für Cloud-Dienste verbessert

Software Takes Command

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Software has replaced a diverse array of physical, mechanical, and electronic technologies used before 21st century to create, store, distribute and interact with cultural artifacts. It has become our interface to the world, to others, to our memory and our imagination - a universal language through which the world speaks, and a universal engine on which the world runs. What electricity and combustion engine were to the early 20th century, software is to the early 21st century. Offering the the first theoretical and historical account of software for media authoring and its effects on the practice and the very concept of 'media,' the author of The Language of New Media (2001) develops his own theory for this rapidly-growing, always-changing field. What was the thinking and motivations of people who in the 1960 and 1970s created concepts and practical techniques that underlie contemporary media software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya, Final Cut and After Effects? How do their interfaces and tools shape the visual aesthetics of contemporary media and design? What happens to the idea of a 'medium' after previously media-specific tools have been simulated and extended in software? Is it still meaningful to talk about different mediums at all? Lev Manovich answers these questions and supports his theoretical arguments by detailed analysis of key media applications such as Photoshop and After Effects, popular web services such as Google Earth, and the projects in motion graphics, interactive environments, graphic design and architecture. Software Takes Command is a must for all practicing designers and media artists and scholars concerned with contemporary media

Intelligent Agents and Their Potential for Future Design and Synthesis Environment

This document contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Intelligent Agents and Their Potential for Future Design and Synthesis Environment, held at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, September 16-17, 1998. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Computational Technology and NASA. Workshop attendees came from NASA, industry and universities. The objectives of the workshop were to assess the status of intelligent agents technology and to identify the potential of software agents for use in future design and synthesis environment. The presentations covered the current status of agent technology and several applications of intelligent software agents. Certain materials and products are identified in this publication in order to specify adequately the materials and products that were investigated in the research effort. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement of products by NASA, nor does it imply that the materials and products are the only ones or the best ones available for this purpose. In many cases equivalent materials and products are available and would probably produce equivalent results

Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Live Coding

Open Access peer reviewed papers on live coding published at the 1st International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC) in Leeds