Contextual Media Systems

	Personal media that knows how to mingle.

Emerging technology will soon allow us to capture and store the sights and sounds of our lives in digital format. These media artifacts might range from rich media representations of big events (e.g. a wedding) to simple photos capturing the mundane trivia of everyday life (e.g. dad eating breakfast). At the same time, media systems have access to an increasing range of contextual information, both from smart sensors (e.g. GPS, device discovery) and text inputs (e.g. email, browser history). Our group builds systems that integrate media with contextual information to create a simpler and smarter capture, access, and playback experience.

Specifically, our systems will deliver three primary benefits to the user:

1. Being There: create a rich fabric of media interactions that bridges distances in space and time, helping people keep in close touch with distant friends, families, and colleagues.

2. Cooperative Composition: creative authoring is typically a social activity that depends on interactions among individuals who share ideas and media and also serve as audiences for one another's storytelling. Our systems will be designed to take advantage of these cooperative interactions and facilitate them.

3. Simple Media Experiences: streamline the user interface and exploit contextual information, so that the user can interact in a direct and rewarding way with his media, avoiding burdensome administrative tasks (e.g. re-configuring a presentation for a new playback environment, photo organization and annotation).

Recent

We kicked off the CASL::Speaker Series in May with Nathan Shedroff (Experience strategist) and Davis Masten discussing the future of branding.  Please see the speaker web site for upcoming speakers.

Viewing and Annotating Media with MemoryNet, Rajani & Vorbau; ACM CHI 2004

Patrick's presentation from the Media Hub Summit.

Check out the new information about PLOG, a system that stresses ease-of-use story telling through cell phone photography.

Check out CASL::Design Research, a blog for communicating thoughts related to design research.

Check out the CMS blog to see what we find interesting.

Related Blogs

To keep up with the CMS team please tune into our various blogs.

We use the CMS blog for general communication of information, ideas, and commentary.

The SNAP blog covers information exchange related to the SNAP project.

The CASL :: Speaker Series is a blog devoted to exploring culture and experience.

The CASL :: Design Research blog is dedicated to discussion of topics related to design and experience research.

Patrick Goddi's d13

Rakhi Rajani's re-ver-ber-ate

Andy Fitzhugh's Blog Away

<click here  for vision scenario>

SNAP
SNAP is a research project that is exploring the use of personal media in friends and family social environments and interactions. .
more...

PLOG
PLOG is a system that stresses ease-of-use story telling through cell phone photography.
more...

StoryMail
StoryMail is an extension of the traditional voice mail service model, which is familiar to millions of mobile and landline phone users. It enables camera phone users to record, send, receive and playback voicemails augmented with a set of digital pictures or video clips.
more...

MemoryNet
Our memories are connected
with the people, places
and events in our lives,
our personal media
should be connected in
much the same way.
more...

Web Presence
(mature research)
Infrastructure for connecting
the physical world of
people, places, and things
using a network of  virtual "presences" on the net.
Web Presence