Antti Tammela

Integrated multimedia publishing: combining TV and newspaper content on personal channels

Abstract Fast networks enable the delivery of TV and newspaper content over an Internet connection. This enables new types of integrated publications that include features from both media. The IMU system, described in this paper, automatically integrates newspaper and TV content into a continuously updated World Wide Web-multimedia publication. An active proxy server pursues the integration and delivers the publication through an ATM fibre link to fast networks, such as the bi-directional cable TV network and the ADSL telephone network, providing near-TV quality. The users read the IMU publication from the Internet on their PCs with normal World Wide Web-browsers. You can also watch the publication on your Internet TV set. The proxy server captures metadata from the Web sites and from the editorial systems of the IMU content providers. In addition, the system keeps track of the choices of the user and proposes what news the user and his/her social group would most probably be interested in. The user interface is based on personalisable channels, which gather news material according to the priorities defined by the editors and the users. For ease of use the proxy server automatically paginates the articles into a sequence of browsable pages. News articles and TV news are linked to each other through automatic association. In a field trial lasting eight months, 62 people used the service through the bi-directional cable TV network in their homes. The average IMU session was brief, focusing on a few and fresh articles, and took place in the evening at prime time or in the morning. Both TV and newspaper content interested the users. Personalisation was not too attractive — only some of the users created their own channels. In the user interviews, the integration of content was viewed as the key feature.

`Podracing': experimenting with mobile TV content consumption and delivery methods

Recently, mobile TV has been launched in several countries. While mobile TV integrates television contents into mobile phones, the most personal of communication devices, it becomes interesting to know how this feature will be used throughout the day and in varying contexts of everyday life. This paper presents empirical results on the use of mobile TV with different delivery mechanisms and both quantitative and qualitative results on how end-users prefer to use mobile TV contents in different situations. The data is based on ongoing empirical research in Finland in 2006 and 2007. The mobile TV services under study included both news and entertainment contents, and were tested in 3G, DVB-H and Wi-Fi networks using different delivery paradigms: broadcast, on-demand and download. To explore the use of different delivery methods and content consumption, we have developed a mobile TV service protoype, called Podracing. The analysis shows that users appreciated up-to-date information and information-rich media forms and contents especially for mobile news delivery. There was high demand for only the latest news on mobiles. The real-time property was considered important. Most of the users looked at the headlines or followed the news several times a day – much more often than the traditional TV and news prime times would allow.

Human-Driven Design: A Human-Driven Approach to the Design of Technology

In the midst of the many large-scale societal and technological transformations, there is a need for design approaches that respect human values and needs and are able to integrate multiple perspectives into technology design in order to work for outcomes that are interesting, feasible and sustainable in all senses of the term. For this purpose, we discuss a possible approach to the design of technology that is driven by human and social values, is collaborative in nature and reflective in terms of responsibility and ethics in the design. We call this approach ‘Human-Driven Design’ and argue that it is needed especially when designing for enabling and emerging information and communication technologies. A human-driven design approach should focus on the early phases of design, be strongly future-oriented and aim to contribute to innovation for a sustainable society and better quality of life in the future.

A Telepresence Robot in Residential Care: Family Increasingly Present, Personnel Worried About Privacy

Elderly people moving into assisted living facilities often face profound changes in their daily routines and social relationships, which may lead to feelings of social isolation and even to depression. Telepresence robots can alleviate this by enabling easily accessible virtual presence of family members and other close ones at the ward. Telepresence robots have been tested in different care environments with often positive responses, but there are still challenges, both technical and non-technical, that hinder the wider adoption of the robots in residential care settings. We seek for more understanding of the non-technical challenges by studying the use of a telepresence robot Double in a residential care facility. In a 12-week field trial, we installed a telepresence robot in a room of a long-term care home resident for communicating with her family members. The qualitative interview data included the perspectives of the resident, her family members and care workers at the ward. The results confirm the potential of telepresence robots in assisted living in order to increase the presence of family members to the resident and vice versa; the study also provides insight about how the increased presence of family members may affect the care work.

Comparing media types and delivery methods on mobile terminals

If a user had a choice of watching the latest television news on the mobile phone, or listening to the news on the radio, or reading text news with the mobile, what would he choose? The project conducted three trials, in which mobile terminals were used in such a variety of situations that no single media type and no delivery method was able to fulfill all needs. Unlike previous studies, the results indicate that mobile television does not involve low commitment: The users did not usually do anything else while watching. Furthermore, just surfing around or viewing an arbitrary program flow seems not to be enough. Even though one of key motives of mobile television use is to kill time, people may want to kill time with content which is appropriate for that particular moment. Entertainment in mobile broadcast content was found problematic, because mobile viewing is typically short-term and fragmentary; thus the users often missed the beginnings of episodes.

Towards a social iTV service: exploring user acceptance and changing media experience

In this paper, we present findings from empirical studies on enduser’s attitudes towards peer-to-peer (P2P) networked TV services. This paper sheds light on the changing trends of consumers’ media experience. We have gathered data with different research methods; with scenario survey and focus groups in order to understand the social aspects that people associate with their TV, viewing in their everyday lives and to discuss further on how interactive TV might change the experiences and social situations in which TV is being viewed. Our primary goal is to use the understanding of the salient factors that shape social TV experience as a basis for the design of NextShare TV, a P2P social media service, which is developed by a consortium of 20 partners across Europe.