Perspectives On Multimedia - Communication, Media And Information Technology

The uses of multimedia are rapidly increasing. Its power to present information in ways not previously possible and its integration of resources, allow for the creation of rich learning environments. Perspectives on Multimedia: Communication, Media and Information Technology provides a critical examination of the latest multimedia developments and approaches, such as Interface Technology and QoS architectures.


Topics covered include:


* The key concepts intrinsic to digital forms of multimedia: integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersion, narrativity and hybridity.

* The development of Information Technology (IT) usage in society and in the business community.

* How modern IT enables private companies and public organisations to support business operations, create new business opportunities, and to promote more proactive service management.

* Multimedia from a computer science perspective and how computer science provides the technical foundation for the computer software and hardware that drives the information age.


Gives a broad range of perspectives on key issues for interactive multimedia in organisations and industry today. This book will be of interest to practitioners involved in multimedia development in an organisation, management consultants giving professional advice on digital solutions and information technology matters to their customer organisations and academics focusing on business and technical aspects of multimedia frameworks.

ROBERT BURNETT is professor of Media and Communication Studies, Karlstad University. Burnett is the author of The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry (Routledge, 1996), Concentration and Diversity in the International Phonogram Industry (Gothenburg, 1990) and the co-author of, Web Theory (Routledge 2002, with David Marshall).
His main research areas include the global media, the music industry, digital media, and the Internet.
Burnett has been a regular commentator on global media issues with appearances on radio and television programs and commentaries for newspaper and magazine articles. He is one of the founders of the Communication, Media and Information Technology (CMIT) Research Group as well as the HumanIT Research Group. Burnett has been a visiting scholar in Canada, the USA, Scotland, Norway and Zimbabwe.


ANNA BRUNSTROM received MSc and PhD degrees in computer science from College of William and Mary, Virginia, USA in 1993 and 1996, respectively. In 1996 she joined the Department of Computer Science at Karlstad University where she is now a professor. She is research manager for the distributed systems and communications research group and also served as research manager for the Department of Computer Science from July 1998 until June 2002. She leads several research projects on communication protocols and is active in national and international projects on wireless communications. She has authored and co-authored two book chapters and over 30 scientific papers. She is a member of IEEE and ACM.


ANDERS G. NILSSON is professor of information systems at Karlstad University, Sweden. He has a PhD in information management from Stockholm School of Economics, and is a research partner at the Institute for Business Process Development (Institute V) in Stockholm. Anders has been working as a researcher with the ISAC approach to information systems development, the SIV method for acquisition of standard application packages (enterprise systems, ERP systems) and a business modeling framework for creating method combinations. He has also been active as an adviser to many change projects in private industry and the public sector, and has been fro many years deputy chair for the special interest group for systems development (SIG-SYS) at the Swedish Information Processing Society. Anders is author/co-author of 14 books on business and systems development.

Foreword.


Preface.


1. Multimedia: Back To The Future! (by Robert Burnett).


1.1 Introduction.


1.2 Multimedia as Art and Science.


1.3 Secret History of Multimedia.


1.4 Multimedia as Art and Performance.


1.5 Summing Up.


1.6 References.


2. Alternative Approaches to Interface Technology (by Steve Gibson).


2.1 Introduction.


2.2 Cybernetic Systems.


2.3 'Hands-free' Tracking Systems.


2.4 MIDI Instruments as Visual Triggers.


2.5 Conclusions.


2.6 References.


3. Transparency, Standardization and Servitude: the Paradoxes of Friendly Software (by Andreas Kitzmann).


3.1 Introduction.


3.2 Digital Promises.


3.3 Find Where Everything Is.


3.4 The Question of Practice.


3.5 References.


4. Business Modelling as a Foundation for Multimedia Development-Concerning Strategic, Process and Systems Levels in Organizations (by Anders G. Nilsson).


4.1 Business Modelling-Some Needs in Practice.


4.2 Business Modelling-Thre e Levels of Development Work.


4.3 Business Modelling and Multimedia.


4.4 Business Modelling-Systematic Work in Phases.


4.5 Business Modelling of Values, Operations and Objects.


4.6 Business Modelling for Multimedia-Main Messages.


4.7 References.


5. How Should Interactive Media Be Discussed For Successful Requirements Engineering? (by Lennart Molin and John S¨oren Pettersson).


5.1 Specifying Requirements.


5.2 Requirements Work In Multimedia Systems Development.


5.3 Ozlab-A Simple Tool for Prototyping Interactivity.


5.4 Challenges for Multimedia Requirements Work.


5.5 Writing Requirements vs Visualizing Requirements.


5.6 Requirements Specification By Content Professionals.


5.7 Concluding Remarks.


5.8 References.


6. Evaluating Interactive Multimedia in an Inexpensive and Timesaving Way-Illustrated by Business Case Studies (by Louise Ulfhake).


6.1 Background.


6.2 The Multimedia Case Studies.


6.3 Evaluation Methods.


6.4 What to Evaluate.


6.5 Evaluation of the Structure.


6.6 Evaluation of the Interaction.


6.7 Evaluation of the Usability.


6.8 Evaluation of the Productivity.


6.9 Conclusion.


6.10 References.


7. Conceptual Modelling for Creating Multimedia Databases (by Lars Erik Axelsson).


7.1 Introduction.


7.2 The ISO Report.


7.3 Conceptual Modelling in a Multimedia Environment.


7.4 Conclusions.


7.5 References.


8. Adding Security to QoS Architectures (by Stefan Lindskog and Erland Jonsson).


8.1 Introduction.


8.2 An Overview of QoS.


8.3 Introducing Security in QoS Architectures.


8.4 Further Readings.


8.5 Concluding Remarks.


8.6 Acknowledgments.


8.7 References.


9. Partially Reliable Multimedia Transport (by Katarina Asplund and Anna Brunstrom).


9.1 Introduction.


9.2 Transmission Control Protocol-TCP.


9.3 Design of PRTP.


9.4 Performance Evaluation.


9.5 Further Reading.


9.6 Concluding Remarks.


9.7 References.


10. Bit Error Tolerant Multimedia Transport (by Stefan Alfredsson and Anna Brunstrom).


10.1 Introduction.


10.3 Performance Evaluation.


10.4 Experiment Results.


10.5 Further Readings.


10.6 Concluding Remarks.


10.7 References.


11. Transcoding of Image Data (by Johan Garcia and Anna Brunstrom).


11.1 Introduction.


11.2 JPEG Coding.


11.3 JPEG Compression Transcoding.


11.4 Robust JPEG Transcoding.


11.5 Further Reading.


11.6 Concluding Remarks.


11.7 References.


About the Authors.


Index.