The effects of network factors on the performance of 3G UMTS applications

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-148).3G is the wireless network technology expected to allow wireless applications to perform on par with wired applications. However 3G has factors which limit its performance. These factors include both device factors such as small screens, limited battery power and life, as well as network factors such as high delay networks and low bandwidths. This thesis investigates the following: how network factors affect the performance of 3G UMTS applications; which network factors have the most significant impact on a specific application; whether there are any minimum requirements needed for an application. Eight popular 3G applications were investigated: FTP, email, MMS, SMS, HTTP web browsing, broadcast media, video calling and streaming media

Digitalisation and intermediaries in the music industry

Prior to digitalisation, the vertical structure of the market for recorded music could be described as a large number of artists [composers, lyricists and musicians] supplying creative expressions to a small number of larger record labels and publishers who funded, produced, and marketed the resulting recorded music to subsequently sell these works to consumers through a fragmented retail sector. We argue that digitalisation has led to a new structure in which the retail segment has also become concentrated. Such a structure, with successive oligopolistic segments, can lead to higher consumer prices through double marginalisation. We further question whether a combination of disintermediation of the record labels function combined with “self-publishing” by artists, will lead to the demise of powerful firms in the record label segment, thus shifting market power from the record label and publisher segment to the retail segment, rather than increasing the number of segments with market power

Mixed-reality interactive content support on Second Life

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores - Major de Telecomunicações. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Music 2025 : The Music Data Dilemma: issues facing the music industry in improving data management

© Crown Copyright 2019Music 2025ʼ investigates the infrastructure issues around the management of digital data in an increasingly stream driven industry. The findings are the culmination of over 50 interviews with high profile music industry representatives across the sector and reflects key issues as well as areas of consensus and contrasting views. The findings reveal whilst there are great examples of data initiatives across the value chain, there are opportunities to improve efficiency and interoperability

Music CD in development and consumer value in the Thai music industry

While the digital market, especially the music streaming market, has rapidly grown in recent years, however the physical music segment still remains relevant in the Thai market. The Thai music market has inimitable characteristics within the market in terms of the physical music record offers, recorded musical works, and a growth trend in physical sales. Moreover, the behaviour in physical music consumption is opposite to that in world markets. Music consumption practices in the Thai market and why physical music, and CDs in particular, remain relevant to the Thai music industry are an enigma. The music industry itself has suggested that the physical music market needs to be revamped and its physical products redeveloped. In addition, the major record companies have also refocused into developing physical markets. However, precisely how this is to be achieved has not been specified. The twin aims of this study are to more fully comprehend Thai music consumption practices in today’s market and to examine how the concepts of product development could be effective in responding to consumer needs and desires. Consumer-led product development is the main concept of this study used to create ideas to enhance music CDs. This study combined many perspectives related to consumer-led product development and then applied them to construct the conceptual framework named “The Seminal Framework for CD Development”. The framework is a roadmap to create a new set of features for a new form of music CD based on the input of the music industry’s representatives and consumers. A new form of music CD which includes a new set of features is named in this study as the “prototype CD”. Also, the framework is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype CD; how the prototype CD is responsive to consumer needs as far as functional and psychological perspectives are concerned. Bearing in mind the aim of this research, the researcher considered the interpretive paradigm to be the most appropriate approach for capturing consumers’ experiences in music consumption practices and for studying the opinions, points of view and ideas derived from the consumers, and the experts in music CD development. In the data collection process, this study employed the technique of purposive sampling for selecting from the population. The purposive sampling technique allows the researcher to judge and select people or prospective participants who: 1) are available to participate I in conducting the research, 2) are knowledgeable about the industry, 3) have experience related to the context of the study, and 4) can provide the reliable and detailed information required to understand the focal themes of the study. This study conducted nine interviews with the music industry’s experts, 60 one-on-one interviews and four group interviews with consumers. For the data analysis, this study adopted the manual coding analysis. The Seminal Framework determined the coding structure, and sets of data could be organised into distinct themes, such as the new features of music CDs or future positive possibilities for music consumption. This enabled, at the end of the process, an easier and more efficient identification of the experiential values derived from prototype music CDs. In addition, in more fully understanding the needs and expectations inherent in music consumption practices, such careful coding analysis helps to re-define the typology of music consumers. The typology and the concepts also facilitated the identification of music consumption behaviour in today’s environment. This study contributes a wider concept in consumer-led product development that has been applied to the context of music consumption practices and music product (CD) development

Survey of Transportation of Adaptive Multimedia Streaming service in Internet

[DE] World Wide Web is the greatest boon towards the technological advancement of modern era. Using the benefits of Internet globally, anywhere and anytime, users can avail the benefits of accessing live and on demand video services. The streaming media systems such as YouTube, Netflix, and Apple Music are reining the multimedia world with frequent popularity among users. A key concern of quality perceived for video streaming applications over Internet is the Quality of Experience (QoE) that users go through. Due to changing network conditions, bit rate and initial delay and the multimedia file freezes or provide poor video quality to the end users, researchers across industry and academia are explored HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS), which split the video content into multiple segments and offer the clients at varying qualities. The video player at the client side plays a vital role in buffer management and choosing the appropriate bit rate for each such segment of video to be transmitted. A higher bit rate transmitted video pauses in between whereas, a lower bit rate video lacks in quality, requiring a tradeoff between them. The need of the hour was to adaptively varying the bit rate and video quality to match the transmission media conditions. Further, The main aim of this paper is to give an overview on the state of the art HAS techniques across multimedia and networking domains. A detailed survey was conducted to analyze challenges and solutions in adaptive streaming algorithms, QoE, network protocols, buffering and etc. It also focuses on various challenges on QoE influence factors in a fluctuating network condition, which are often ignored in present HAS methodologies. Furthermore, this survey will enable network and multimedia researchers a fair amount of understanding about the latest happenings of adaptive streaming and the necessary improvements that can be incorporated in future developments.Abdullah, MTA.; Lloret, J.; Canovas Solbes, A.; García-García, L. (2017). Survey of Transportation of Adaptive Multimedia Streaming service in Internet. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(1-2):85-125. doi:10.5296/npa.v9i1-2.12412S8512591-

Ambiences: on-the-fly usage of available resources through personal devices

In smart spaces such as smart homes, computation is embedded everywhere: in toys, appliances, or the home’s infrastructure. Most of these devices provide a pool of available resources which the user can take advantage, interacting and creating a friendly environment. The inherent composability of these systems and other unique characteristics such as low-cost energy, simplicity in module programming, and even their small size, make them a suitable candidate for dynamic and adaptive ambient systems. This research work focuses on what is defined as an “ambience”, a space with a user-defined set of computational devices. A smart-home is modeled as a collection of ambiences, where every ambience is capable of providing a pool of available resources to the user. In turn, the user is supposed to carry one or several personal devices able to interact with the ambiences, taking advantage of his inherent mobility. In this way, the whole system can benefit from resources discovered in the spatial proximity. A software architecture is designed, which is based on the implementation of low-cost algorithms able to detect and update the system when changes in an ambience occur. Ambience middleware implementation works in a wide range of architectures and OSs, while showing a negligible overhead in the time to perform the basic output operations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version