Understanding Interactive Television Newsletter - July 2003

July 2003

UNDERSTANDING INTERACTIVE TELEVISION (UITV.INFO)
Academic and research resources about interactive television
http://uitv.info/


What's new
http://uitv.info/updates/

Find online the proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Personalization in
Future TV http://uitv.info/topics/um03tv03/



Editorial
http://uitv.info/editorial/

*Bill Gates, Entertainment God*
Microsoft is already into many living rooms with its video-games
console, although the XBox has received a lot of criticism
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1091618,00.asp). Microsoft is also
well-known for its persistence to penetrate any given market, and the
money invested so far in home entertainment, out-numbers previous --and
similarly slow moving-- investments in mobile systems; thus Microsoft is
here to stay. The threat of Microsoft can be felt by the recent
(http://www.designchain.com/coverstory.asp?issue=spring03) collaboration
between Sony and IBM to make hi-end chips for computer entertainment and
to move further away from the PC-based architecture that Microsoft is
tied to. Nevertheless, Microsoft's attack has many fronts; In addition
to set-top boxes Microsoft has developed
(http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/923856.asp) and is pushing
(http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59699,00.html) to cable
operators a back-end platform (MSTV) (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/) and
in parallel it tries to define digital content standards in cooperation
with Hollywood players
(http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/40gates.html). Microsoft's
commitment to home media is also apparent from the digital video user
interface (http://uitv.info/papers/drucker02/) and home media networking
(http://uitv.info/papers/bell02/) framework publications of the
respective Research (MSR) groups.



Articles
http://uitv.info/articles/

*Digital Broadcasting and Consumer Electronics Engineering for
Interactive Television Systems*
http://itv.eltrun.aueb.gr/articles/2003/07chorianopoulos/
In addition to content design and media consumption behavior in the
home, another discrete and important facet of interactive television
research is engineering for broadcasting systems and consumer
electronics. Information technology researchers and practitioners will
find that broadcasting centers and set-top boxes are increasingly being
driven by personal computer components, like hard-disks, Ethernet
networking, and are running common operating systems, like Linux on
TiVo. Yet, the requirements for interactive television products are very
different from office equipment, in terms of operation, appearance,
reliability, security, maintenance, and life-cycle span. In this
article, I describe the challenges of engineering design for interactive
television systems and present suggestions from the literature.



News
http://uitv.info/news/

Sony and IBM unite on set top boxes
http://inquirerinside.com/?article=9578
Big Blue and Sony will show examples of how they will collaborate on
what they call front and back end digital set top boxes.

Pioneer adds TiVo to DVD recorders
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1020879.html
Pioneer Electronics is hoping to raise the profile of digital video
recording services by adding TiVo's service to its line of DVD
recorders.

Microsoft unveils cable TV software
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/923856.asp
Microsoft presented new software to help cable television companies
develop digital TV programming and services. The software is installed
on both customers' set-top boxes and on computer servers at cable
companies. 



Events
http://uitv.info/events/

Special Issue on "Video Technology and Interactive Broadcasting"
Computers & Graphics, An International Journal of Systems & Applications
in Computer Graphics
http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/cag
Guest Editors: David Shrimpton (d.h.shrimpton@xxxxxxxxx), Dirk Balfanz
(dirk.balfanz@xxxxxxx)
Deadline: August 16th, 2003
Email expression of interest (short abstract): ASAP




Edited by Konstantinos Chorianopoulos
ELTRUN, EBusiness Center, Athens University of Economics and Business
http://www.eltrun.aueb.gr/





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