Janne Lahti

A mobile phone-based context-aware video management application

We present a video management system comprising a video server and a mobile camera-phone application called MobiCon, which allows users to capture videos, annotate them with metadata, specify digital rights management (DRM) settings, upload the videos over the cellular network, and share them with others. Once stored in the video server, users can then search their personal video collection via a web interface, and watch the video clips using a wide range of terminals. We describe the MobiCon architecture, compare it with related work, provide an overview of the video server, and illustrate a typical user scenario from the point of capture to video sharing and video searching. Our work takes steps forward in advancing the mobile camera-phone from a video playback device to a video production tool. We summarize field trial results conducted in the area of Oulu, Finland, which demonstrate that users can master the application quickly, but are unwilling to perform extensive manual annotations. Based on the user trial results and our own experience, we present future development directions for MobiCon, in particular, and the video management architecture, in general.

MobiCon: integrated capture, annotation, and sharing of video clips with mobile phones

This paper presents MobiCon, a video production tool for mobile camera phones. MobiCon integrates video clip capture with context-aware, personalized clip annotation -- supporting automatic annotation suggestions based on context data and efficient manual annotation with user-specific ontologies and keywords -- and clip sharing secured by digital rights management techniques. Thus, MobiCon allows users to inexpensively create metadata-annotated video clips for a better management of their clip collections and keeps them in control of the clips they share.

Deploying mobile multimedia services for everyday experience sharing

This paper presents a solution for creating light-weighted content and context-aware mobile multimedia services. The main application domain is in user created multimedia content and experience sharing. Our approach is to have a platform supporting state-of-the art content management functionalities in order to enable easy creation of specialized multimedia services for various target groups and purposes. We have developed a mobile multimedia content creation platform with integrated context metadata support. To verify the overall functionality of our platform we have defined a multimedia content service template and created a set of exemplary services using web-based technologies such as JavaScript, Media RSS feed and Java.

Multimedia service creation platform for mobile experience sharing

The multimedia content created by users with their mobile phones is often shared with family and friends to recreate personal experiences. It is difficult for a single media sharing service to cover all variations on how people would like to present their experiences of different events; thus it is important to be able to easily create versions of these services. This paper presents in detail our platform implementation for enabling the creation of lightweight content- and context-aware mobile multimedia services. The platform supports state-of-the-art content management functionalities in order to enable easy creation of specialized multimedia services for various target groups and purposes. Our solution includes context metadata support for mobile multimedia content and creation of location-aware multimedia services. We have built example services on top of the platform using web-based technologies such as JavaScript, Media RSS feed and Java. The functionality of the platform has been tested in user evaluations with promising results.

Candela-Storage, Analysis, and Retrieval of Video Content in Distributed Systems: Personal Mobile Multimedia Management

Video management research has largely been ignoring the increased attractiveness of using camera-equipped mobile phones for the production of short home video clips, mostly considering them as additional channels for video consumption. The CANDELA project, which is part of the European ITEA program, focuses on the integration of video content analysis with advanced retrieval, mobile, networked delivery, and distributed storage technologies. In this paper, we present the CANDELA personal mobile multimedia management platform, which implements an end-to-end system for personal video production, retrieval, and consumption utilizing mobile devices and distributed databases

Development and evaluation of media-enhanced learning application

With the recent developments in mobile and web technologies and mass adoption of mobile devices by the current school generation, significant opportunities have emerged for e-learning applications. This article makes a contribution to the design aspects of media-enhanced e-learning application. We present a design and development process for mobile application that seamlessly combines user-created multimedia with the students learning process in a school environment. We present the evolution of the application from a simple mobile phone application to a rich tablet application. We also report on field trial results with real users, showing that the application is quite easy to learn and use even for inexperienced users, and present insights from user comments on using mobile devices and user-created multimedia to aid the learning process.

Feasibility evaluation of context distribution in mobile environment

Although mobile devices are rich sources of context information, the distribution of context in mobile environments is often hindered by the limited battery life, and wireless connections with low bandwidth. In this paper, we present two different implementations that enable context distribution in mobile environments. The first solution relies on a presence service architecture and publish-subscribe messaging, whereas the second solution is based on a mobile web server architecture where the context information is fetched from the mobile device when needed. This paper evaluates the feasibility of the two implementations in mobile context distribution. The testing results show that the mobile server-based solution sets higher demands for the mobile device capabilities, but is able to provide more up-todate context information. However, the solution based on the centralized context service provides higher interoperability as it utilizes the existing IETF standards.

Simulation and Implementation of the Autonomic Service Mobility Framework

The increased traffic load, proliferation of network nodes and, in particular, wireless user devices, and the boom in user services and exponential growth of information stored in content distribution networks (CDNs) have brought new challenges for current networks. One major challenge has and continues to be efficient load balancing and information access. The topics have been well studied for wired networks for, for example, process load balancing in distributed computer networks with migration. However, the wireless networks and ubiquitous computing environments create new limitations and additional requirements to perform service or process migration. In this paper, we present a simulation case and proof-of-concept implementation for service mobility as a part of the BIONETS service evolution process with the aim of optimizing service penetration in a pervasive computing environment and balancing the load in the system caused by the high service utilization rate.

Connecting Digital Cities: Return of Experience on the Development of a Data Platform for Multimodal Journey Planning

The multiplication of real-time data sources in urban areas creates a fragmented environment regarding the supply of mobile services for transportation. Thus, in order to support the deployment of smart mobility services with a more global view of the urban context, the available data must be appropriately handled through dedicated platforms. It is in this context that the Connecting Digital Cities (CDC) project has been initiated at European level. The goal of the project is to deploy a platform that is able to collect, analyze and enrich the relevant information in order to provide a valuable aggregate of real-time data related to urban mobility. This paper presents a first return of experience in the development of this platform. We first provide an overview of the CDC project and we detail the architecture of the platform intended to collect and process real-time data. For validation purposes, we then describe a mobile service for multimodal journey planning that has been deployed to interact with the CDC platform. Finally, we share the lessons learned in terms of reliability of the system and proper integration of the system into urban ecosystems.

Context-aware Personal Video Distribution Service

VTT has created context aware personal video sharing and retrieval service for mobile phones. Service includes mobile content creation platform that allows to attach context information to self created content as metadata. Videos may be shared and retrieved by utilizing any RSS client. 1.1 Content sharing Video Retrieval Service Services for creating and sharing personally created multimedia content are becoming increasingly more important since the amount of self created content is increasing. The ExpeShare Video Management Service (EVRS) has been designed especially for utilizing available context information (e.g. location) with this kind of content. The service can be used for example with Nokia Video Centre like in our demonstration or some other suitable RSS reader in mobile phone or PC. The EVRS consists of a RSS web server, a streaming server and a storage database. Figure 1 illustrates how these different components act together with Content Creation Platform (CCP) and Nokia Video Centre located in user’s mobile phone. The content is created by user with their mobile phones using the CCP. The EVRS, build on top of the CCP, utilizes the interfaces offered by the CCP for accessing the user created video clips and context information. When a user opens up the RSS-video feed offered by the EVRS, his/hers context and personalization data (e.g. location) is sent to the RSS web server. The EVRS combines the context information both of the content as well as the user whos requesting the feed and based on this information offers suitable personalized feed as a response to the user. The service utilizes the context and personalization data in form of different channels in the RSS file. It provides for example a list of the nearest videos relative to user’s current location. Other list in this service are the most viewed videos, the most recent videos, all user’s videos and user’s most recent videos. 1.2 Content creation Context-aware Mobile Content Creation Platform The CCP has been developed to support creation of light-weighted (mobile and non-mobile) web based services and applications. Using the CCP-platform the application developers can easily create context-aware lightweight services, which utilize the content created by users with their mobile camera phones. This architecture (Figure 2) of the CCP has been designed to provide real-time combination of content and context information to different applications. Basic idea behind our solution is to create a simple and cost-effective way to provide user created content (currently videos and pictures captured with the mobile phone) along with the context data to various services in the network and locally on the mobile device. Using our architecture the applications can be easily ported on different device platforms (mobile phones, tablet PCs, PDAs, laptops or IPTV set-top-boxes) as the platform is transparent to the overlaying services. The interfaces to the content and context service and information are implemented using web services.