Showing papers by "Marco Furini published in 2011"

Mobile music distribution: a multichannel approach

Abstract: In contrast to what is happening in the Internet-based scenario, the music market in the mobile scenario is far from being considered a large success. Several studies state that excessive downloading time and high cost are the main burdens. Motivated by the growth of social and mobile applications, in this paper we propose an approach that aims at reducing both the downloading time and the cost to get digital music when acquired in the mobile scenario. The proposed architecture exploits the usage of personal communication technologies embedded in cellphones (e.g., Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) to couple the current distribution model (mainly based on 3G networks), so as to provide a multichannel distribution model where users are free to redistribute digital music. The architecture includes a license-based security mechanism that prevents unauthorized usage of digital music, and makes use of an incentive mechanism to stimulate and reward the music distribution among customers. By analyzing pros and cons of the music distribution chain, results show that the proposed architecture might help in reducing both the downloading time and the cost to get digital music when acquired in the mobile scenario. Therefore, it might be helpful to the success of the mobile music scenario.

MovieRemix: having fun playing with videos

Abstract: The process of producing new creative videos by editing, combining, and organizing pre-existing material (e.g., video shots) is a popular phenomenon in the current web scenario. Known as remix or video remix, the produced videomay have new and different meanings with respect to the source material. Unfortunately, when managing audiovisual objects, the technological aspect can be a burden for many creative users. Motivated by the large success of the gaming market, we propose a novel game and an architecture to make the remix process a pleasant and stimulating gaming experience. MovieRemix allows people to act like a movie director, but instead of dealing with cast and cameras, the player has to create a remixed video starting from a given screenplay and from video shots retrieved from the provided catalog. MovieRemix is not a simple video editing tool nor is a simple game: it is a challenging environment that stimulates creativity. To temp to play the game, players can access different levels of screenplay (original, outline, derived) and can also challenge other players. Computational and storage issues are kept at the server side, whereas the client device just needs to have the capability of playing streaming videos.