Manoel Carvalho Marques Neto

A Model-driven Approach for Integration of Interactive Applications and Web Services: A Case Study in Interactive Digital TV Platform

This work proposed a model-driven development approach related to interactive multimedia applications and Web services integration. It is based on extension of an existing modeling language, which integrates modeling concepts for interactive applications and adds support for Web Services. Three Interactive Digital TV applications were modeled and developed. As we show, the evaluation of the approach brought benefits not supported by related works, like requirements structuring and reducing amount of work needed to finalize the code generated.

StoryToCode: a new model for specification of convergent interactive digital TV applications

This paper presents a model, called the StoryToCode, which allows designing iTV programs focusing on using software components. First, StoryToCode allows transforming a storyboard into an abstract description of an element set. After this, this model transforms these elements into a specific programming language source code. In StoryToCode a software component is treated as a special element that can be reused in other contexts (web, mobile, and so on). StoryToCode is based on Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and allows designing and implementing applications, with context free, considering iTV program specific characteristics.

StoryToCode: a model based on components for specifying interactive digital TV convergent applications

This paper presents a model, called the StoryToCode, which allows the specication of IDTV programs with focus on the use of software components. First, the StoryToCode allows the transformation of a storyboard in an abstract description of an element set that make up the storyboard. After this, the StoryToCode transform these elements in a specific programing language source code. In StoryToCode a software component is treated as a special element that can be reused in other contexts (web, mobile and etc). The StoryToCode is based on MDA (Model Driven Architecture) and allows design and implement of an application, independent of context, taking into account the particularities of an IDTV program.

Cross-platform Multimedia Application Development: for Mobile, Web, Embedded and IoT with Qt / QML

Qt framework is a cross-platform SDK and a technology strategy that lets you quickly and cost-effectively design, develop, deploy, and maintain software while delivering a seamless user experience across all devices. One of the main focuses of the Qt framework is the development of powerful multimedia applications in a simple way through Qt Modeling Language (QML). It allows to develop applications/libraries only once and compile the same source code to multiple platforms. Qt is widely used by several companies around the world, however is still unknown in Brazil. This short-course has the mission to explore the use of Qt/QML for the development of Cross-platform multimedia applications.

Usability-based Language for Authoring NCL Documents

NCL (Nested Context Language) is a notation for hypermedia application authoring, designed to facilitate the modeling and authoring of Digital TV applications for authors with different levels of programming knowledge. However, the ease of use of NCL is questionable due to XML notation and has been the subject of study of several works that analyze its usability while proposing other solutions. This work presents sNCL (simpler NCL), a declarative domain specific language, projected using guidelines established by the CDN (Cognitive Dimensions of Notation) framework applied to NCL. To validate the proposal, an experiment with a questionnaire on the success factors in NCL and sNCL is applied to users with experience in authoring with NCL, comparing their opinions on both languages. The experiment demonstrates that sNCL gains in usability, which can improve, therefore, the performance of authors in the development of applications.

An approach based on events for treating the late tuning problem in interactive live TV shows

This paper presents a proposal to solve the late tuning problem. It proposes a procedural specification approach based on events for interactive scenarios, with a focus on Interactive Digital TV (IDTV). Unlike the traditional approaches, the proposed one tries to specify what events may occur during a content live presentation and not when these events occur. This allows handler synchronization relations between anchors not known at authoring time. The approach also allows defining what actions should be taken, both by the broadcaster as the receiver, in order to treat an event. The proposed approach is specified using the object oriented notation. Thus, the medias that make part of a live presentation are represented by objects and their relations synchronization are represented by messages exchanged among these objects. The choice of this approach seeks to meet the demands of programs designed for ISDB-TB.

Introducing Different Levels of Reuse to a Hypermedia Authoring Language with Macros and Templates

Reuse techniques are a common way of decreasing the development cost and time whilst increasing the quality of applications. The sNCL language was first designed intending to decrease the verbosity required by hypermedia applications for the Ginga-NCL middleware, at the same time keeping equal expressiveness power. However, it removed almost all the reuse elements of NCL. This work presents the reuse elements introduced on the language as a method of increasing the reuse for Digital TV applications developers. It consists of macro elements, that can be used to reuse any generic information and a template system, a common theme in the literature as a form of increasing or introducing reuse on hypermedia authoring. The paper shows an study case with positive results of the new features when specifying five Digital TV applications from a public repository.

Predicting Waiting Time in Public Service Qeues Using Participative and GPS Sensing with Smartphones

Mobile computing provides new ways to help people in daily routine through ubiquituos, collaborative and social computing. Herein, we combine collaboration with ubiquitous and pervasive sensing to provide a service that helps on prediting waiting time in service queues. We argue that combining GPS information with collaboration can improve queue waiting time prediction. Our experimental evaluation uses an actual minimarket service queue, achieving a mean error of 59.56 seconds for predicting queue time in queues with observed waiting time from 120 to 240 seconds. Our results show that this tool could be useful and can be extended for other different classes of service queues.

A Tool to Simulate the Transmission, Reception, and Execution of Interactive TV Applications

The emergence of Interactive Digital Television (iDTV) opened a set of technological possibilities that go beyond those offered by conventional TV. Among these opportunities we can highlight interactive contents that run together with linear TV program (television service where the viewer has to watch a scheduled TV program at the particular time it is offered and on the particular channel it is presented on). However, developing interactive contents for this new platform is not as straightforward as, for example, developing Internet applications. One of the options to make this development process easier and safer is to use an iDTV simulator. However, after having investigated some of the existing iDTV simulation environments, we have found a limitation: these simulators mainly present solutions focused on the TV receiver, whose interactive content must be loaded in advance by the programmer to a local repository (e.g., Hard Drive, USB). Therefore, in this paper, we propose a tool, named BiS (Broadcast iDTV content Simulator), which makes possible a broader solution for the simulation of interactive contents. It allows simulating the transmission of interactive content along with the linear TV program (simulating the transmission of content over the air and in broadcast to the receivers). To enable this, we defined a generic and easy-to-customize communication protocol that was implemented in the tool. The proposed environment differs from others because it allows simulating reception of both linear content and interactive content while running Java applications to allow such a content presentation.

LibsensorPy: A Library to Improve the Development of Ubiquitous Applications on Raspberry Pi

Commonly, programmers who have no knowledge in elec- tronics, and engineers, who have no programming experi- ence, are involved in projects that aims to build ubiquitous systems. To create such systems, they often face the prob- lem of not having the specific knowledge to deal with activ- ities like: implement systems abstractions, configure logic connections between sensors and a computer device, cap- ture, understand and process data from sensors in order to make them understandable, etc. To fill this gap, this pa- per presents a library named LibsensorPy, an extensible li- brary which allows to abstract much of the complexity of these activities and more easily interact with an environ- ment through sensors and actuators coupled to a Raspberry Pi computer.Commonly, programmers who have no knowledge in elec- tronics, and engineers, who have no programming experi- ence, are involved in projects that aims to build ubiquitous systems. To create such systems, they often face the prob- lem of not having the specific knowledge to deal with activ- ities like: implement systems abstractions, configure logic connections between sensors and a computer device, cap- ture, understand and process data from sensors in order to make them understandable, etc. To fill this gap, this pa- per presents a library named LibsensorPy, an extensible li- brary which allows to abstract much of the complexity of these activities and more easily interact with an environ- ment through sensors and actuators coupled to a Raspberry Pi computer.