Claudio Feijóo

The Impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy

This report provides a systematic empirical assessment of the creation, use and adoption of specific social computing applications and its impact on ICT/media industries, personal identity, social inclusion, education and training, healthcare and public health, and government services and public governance.

The emergence of IP interactive multimedia services and the evolution of the traditional audiovisual public service regulatory approach

Abstract The emergence of IP multimedia services represents another step towards convergence and implies a series of new challenges for market players and for regulatory bodies. Specifically, the regulation applied to the audiovisual sector must develop from its current situation to a higher level of competition and transparency in converged markets. This article analyses the capability of the current framework to answer these challenges and gives some proposals for its possible transformation, in particular that of the traditional public service, the traditional basis for audiovisual broadcasting regulation.

Factors required for mobile search going mainstream

Purpose – This article aims to review the technological and socio‐economic conditions which will influence the development of the mobile search market.Design/methodology/approach – An expert workshop with academics, industry representatives and market analysts was organised to discuss and analyse the results of an online survey of techno‐economic and socio‐economic aspects concerning the evolution of mobile search.Findings – Despite clear positive signs, forecasted great expectations around mobile search are not yet supported by economic market evidence. Substantial development work for creating new applications ripe for the mass market is still needed, although there seems to be no fundamental technological barrier to that. Location‐based services, augmented reality, real‐time information search, and social network search and recommendations, have been identified as some of the key trends that may shape the future of mobile search. User demand for innovative mobile search‐based applications is largely ta...

Prospects of Mobile Search

Search faces (at least) two major challenges. One is to improve the efficiency of retrieving relevant content for all digital formats (images, audio, video, 3D shapes, etc). The second is to make relevant information retrievable in a range of platforms, particularly in high diffusion ones for mobiles. The two challenges are interrelated but distinct. This report aims to assess the potential of future Mobile Search. Two broad groups of search-based applications can be identified. The first group adapts and emulates web search processes and services to the mobile environment. The second is made up of services which exploit the unique features of mobile devices and mobile environments. Examples of these context-aware services include location-based services or interfacing to the internet of things (RFID networks). The report starts by providing an introduction to mobile search. It highlights differences and commonalities with search technologies on other platforms (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 is devoted to the supply side of mobile search markets. It describes mobile markets, presents key figures and gives an outline of main business models and players. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the demand side of the market. It studies users’ acceptance and demand using the results of a case study in Sweden. Chapter 4 presents emerging trends in technology and markets that could shape mobile search. This vision was partly based on an analysis of forward-looking scenarios for mobile, developed by the authors and evaluated by experts in the field (Chapter 5). Another input was a questionnaire to which 61 experts responded. Drivers, barriers and enablers for mobile search were summarised in a SWOT analysis. The report concludes with some policy recommendations in view of the likely socio-economic implications of mobile search in Europe.

Public policies against the digital divide: a necessary adaptation to different degrees of development

The notion of the digital divide encompasses many different dimensions. As a matter of fact, more than digital divide, we should talk about digital divides. Access to ICTs and usage are the two variables that determine the width of the divide. The adequate consideration of these two factors is, thus, necessary in any public programme focusing on fighting against the digital divide. The purpose of this article is to move forward in the understanding of what the digital divide implies according to the level of development of the different countries and, from that point, to analyse the challenges they must face and the different paths they can take to go beyond them.

European competition law in the electronic communications sector : evolution and critical analysis

Following a preparatory process that lasted about ten years, on January 1, 1998, the telecommunication services market was completely liberalised in most European Union countries. It was obvious that in the telecommunications industry, competition could not be quickly established simply by knocking down the legal obstacles. As a result, the first regulatory framework tried to meticulously “conduct” the development of competition in the market. Nevertheless, this scheme evolved along with technology and market competition development. A new regulatory framework for electronic communications was approved in 2002; its main objective is the rapprochement of sectorial regulation towards general Competition Law, based on an ex post intervention.The article sumarises these regulatory changes and then focuses on the description and analysis of the main main novel instruments which are being applied under the current regime. Additionally, a critical assessment of the results achieved since its enforcement is made pointing out further challenges to be faced by its progressive practical implementation. The analysis of the weaknesses of the current model is particularly interesting at a time when the European Commission has already started the reform of the regulatory framework in force.RésuméSuite à un processus préparatoire qui a duré environ dix années, le marché des services de télécommunication a été complètement libéralisé dans la plupart des pays de l’Union Européenne le 1er janvier 1998. C’était évident que dans l’industrie des télécommunications, la compétition ne pourrait pas être rapidement établie simplement en renversant les obstacles légaux. En conséquence, la première structure régulatrice a essayé de « mener » méti-culeusement le développement de la concurrence dans le marché. Néanmoins, ce plan a évolué avec la technologie et le progrès de la compétition. Un nouveau cadre réglementaire pour les communications électroniques a été approuvé en 2002 ; son objectif principal étant de rapprocher la régulation sectorielle vers le droit générale de la concurrence, basé sur une intervention ex post.L’article décrit ces modifications dans la régulation pour après se concentrer sur la description et l’analyse des principaux instruments nouveaux qui sont appliqués sous le régime actuel. En plus, une évaluation critique des résultats accomplis depuis sa mise en application est faite, en signalant notamment les défis supplémentaires que sa mise en pratique progressive devra viser. L’analyse des faiblesses du modèle courant est particulièrement intéressante du moment que la Commission Européenne a déjà commencé la réforme du cadre régulateur.

Re‐thinking universal service policy for the digital era: setting the scene – an introduction to the special issue on universal service

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the concepts related with universal service and the papers in the special issue about “Re‐thinking universal service in the digital era”.Design/methodology/approach – This special issue aims to provide support to the policy process with regard to universal service in a digital context. The papers in the issue highlight developments that are shaking up the current universal service model. They consider universal service from a set of different dimensions, encompassing both demand and supply side considerations. Also a comparative outlook draws lessons from a representative set of existing regulatory models.Findings – The paper finds that the foundations and concept of universal service are experiencing a profound transformation as we enter into a new phase of information society development. A new set of policy goals and tools is the main consequence of this change.Originality/value – The paper presents a timely account of the universal service policy ...

The value of personal information online: Results from three stated preference discrete choice experiments in the UK

This paper proposes the application of a widely used approach, known as stated preference discrete choice experiments, to estimate the value of personal information in three real-life contexts and situations. The paper develops three experiments describing hypothetical situations in which respondents considered varying aspects of their personal information (e.g. storage, sharing with third parties) when (a) purchasing online a product, (b) a service or (c) conducting pure search online. The survey was carried out with sample quotas pre-specified in order to match the profile of the Internetuser population in the UK with respect to gender, age group, geographical area of residence and personal annual income. The results from the experiment provide new insights in the value and influence of attributes of personal information when conducting online transactions. In particular, main results show that there was little interest by respondents to pay in order to introduce control over their personal data, that the extend of sharing of personal information with third parties was seen the most important aspect when choosing online retailers and search engines, and that an unspecified duration of data storage was received as badly as the data storage beyond several years for online retailers and worse than shorter durations.

On the influence of individual characteristics and personality traits on the user experience with multi-sensorial media: an experimental insight

Recent studies encourage the development of sensorially-enriched media to enhance the user experience by stimulating senses other than sight and hearing. Sensory effects as odor, wind, vibration and light effects, as well as an enhanced audio quality, have been found to favour media enjoyment and to have a positive influence on the sense of Presence and on the perceived quality, relevance and reality of a multimedia experience. In particular, sports is among the genres that could benefit the most from these solutions. Several works have demonstrated also the technical feasibility of implementing and deploying end-to-end solutions integrating sensory effects into a legacy system. Thus, multi-sensorial media emerges as a mean to deliver a new form of immersive experiences to the mass market in a non-disruptive manner. However, many questions remain concerning issues as the sensory effects that can better complement a given audiovisual content or the best way in which to integrate and combine them to enhance the user experience of a target audience segment. The work presented in this paper aims to gain insight into the impact of binaural audio and sensory (light and olfactory) effects on the sports media experience, both at the overall level (average effect) and as a function of users’ characteristics (heterogeneous effects). To this aim, we conducted an experimental study exploring the influence of these immersive elements on the quality and Presence dimensions of the media experience. Along the quality dimension, we look for possible variations on the quality scores assigned to the overall media experience and to the media components content, image, audio and sensory effects. The potential impact on Presence is analyzed in terms of Spatial Presence and Engagement. The users’ characteristics considered encompass specific personal affective, cognitive and behavioral attributes. At the overall level we found that participants preferred binaural audio over standard stereo audio and that the presence of sensory effects increased significantly the level of Spatial Presence. Several heterogeneous effects were also revealed as a result of our experimental manipulations. Whereas binaural audio was found to have a generalized impact on the majority of the quality and Presence measures considered, the effects of sensory effects concentrate mainly on the Presence dimension. Personal characteristics explained most of the variation in the dependent variables, being individuals’ preferences in relation to the content, knowledge of involved technologies, tendency to emotional involvement and conscientiousness among the user variables with the most generalized influence. In particular, the former two features seem to present a conflict in the allocation of attentional resources towards the media content versus the technical features of the system, respectively. Additionally, football fans’ experience seems to be modulated by emotional processes whereas for not fans cognitive processes –and in particular those related to quality judgment– prevail.

Novel Approaches to Immersive Media: From Enlarged Field-of-View to Multi-sensorial Experiences

This chapter presents a review of current evidence on the influence of immersion (defined in terms of the technical features of the system) on the user experience in multimedia applications. Section 2.1 introduces the concepts of media enjoyment, presence, and Quality of Experience (QoE) that frame our analysis from the user perspective. Section 2.2 discusses the bounding effects of multimodal perception on the previously defined metrics. Section 2.3 analyses the influence of relevant technical factors on presence, enjoyment, and QoE, with emphasis on those characterizing the level of immersion delivered by system across four dimensions: inclusiveness, extensiveness, surrounding, and vividness. Section 2.4 presents recent works integrating some of these factors into multi-sensorial media experiences and highlights open issues and research challenges to be tackled in order to deliver cost-effective multi-sensorial media solutions to the mass market.