Abstracts

Title: E-Learning for Education
David Ngo, Multimedia University

Electronic-learning (e-learning) is very common nowadays. In education, however, e-learning seems common in schools only. In this presentation, the usage of e-learning in a university will be explored. The presenter will share from his experience of an e-learning project at Multimedia University, Malaysia, which is aiming to develop multimedia resources for existing undergraduate courses."

Title: The issues of deployment and implementation of IP multicast
Jingguo Ge, Chinese Academy of Science

Converting university research on multicast into a commercially viable product is not a simple task and requires focus on a well defined market segment and application, attention to issues such as
ease of use, reliability, user interface, cost and feature sets, and thorough field testing and quality control. In this presentation, we look at the broader problems and future activities with multicast deployment and implementation. Firstly, we discuss the puzzles of multicast markets.

There is chicken and egg situation of multicast applications and multicast services. It is the ISP's responsibilities to deploy the multicast infrastructure and sample applications to impel the multicast markets. But how would the ISP select the solutions to multicast services? The solution should be deployable, scalable, continuing evolving and low-cost. We divide the areas into routing, addressing, transport, security, operations, and research. This talk will focus on solutions which make multicast multimedia communications easy to use and practical for commercial and industrial customers. We think over the current status, future evolvement, and transitional solution. The current solution is based on SSM using MSDP/MBGP/PIM-SM. Many feel that the most likely large-scale applications of multicast are one-to-many, a fact that explains why multicast architecture for one-to-many is becoming popular as a short-term solution. The advantages of SSM are that certain aspects of multicast routing and addressing are easier solved by ignoring the many-to-many case. Currently, global IPv6 interdomain multicast is completely impossible except using SSM: there is no way to convey information about multicast sources between PIM RPs.

Title: The Integrated Media Systems Center’s Immersive Multimedia Technologies
Isaac Maya, USC

USC’s Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) (http://imsc.usc.edu) is NSF’s Engineering Research Center in multimedia and Internet technologies. Its research program is driven by compelling visions of Immersive Entertainment, Education and Communication. The resultant research and technology are designed to expand the diversity and effectiveness of communication and collaboration among people and computing systems. IMSC views Immersipresence as the next great breakthrough in our digital era that will dramatically change our world within this decade, transforming our 2D world of computers, TV and film into 3D immersive environments in our living rooms—or anywhere. The research drives, and is also driven by, how we could harness immersive technologies for transforming customer-oriented business processes, education and entertainment systems.
IMSC's work is already leading to the development of interactive and augmented virtual reality technologies that have near-term application for integration into critical business processes, education and entertainment by changing and enriching visual, auditory, and haptic (touch-related technologies) communication modalities. Leading candidate technologies relate to streaming, advanced graphics and visualization, avatar creation, 3D face and body capture, animation and expression analysis; and speech recognition, intelligent text and voice recognition. As a leader in the multimedia and Internet field, IMSC has developed such unique immersive technologies as 3D face modeling and animation, panoramic video technology, and Immersive Audio. Major progress is also being made in data compression and wireless communications.
IMSC has developed a progressive industry program for sponsoring research and conducting technology transfer and licensing. Among IMSC’s industry partners are FX Palo Alto, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, KDDI, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NCR, Northrop Grumman, Olympus and smaller entrepreneurial companies. IMSC also partners with NASA, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Since its inception, IMSC has had 96 invention disclosures filed at the USC Technology Transfer Office, 51 patents filed, six patents issued, 88 commercial licenses and technology transfers, and nine small company spin-offs established.
The Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) at the University of Southern California (USC) carries out a successful cross-disciplinary program of research, education, community outreach and industry collaboration and technology transfer. IMSC was established as an NSF ERC in 1996. IMSC has 28 faculty investigators, 222 graduate research assistants, 38 undergraduate research assistants, and 15 administrative staff. IMSC’s annual operating budget is approximately $10 million.