Showing papers on "Digital media published in 2006"

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

Abstract: Many teens today who use the Internet are actively involved in participatory cultures -- joining online communities (Facebook, message boards, game clans), producing creative work in new forms (digital sampling, modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction), working in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (as in Wikipedia), and shaping the flow of media (as in blogging or podcasting). A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these activities, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, development of skills useful in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. Some argue that young people pick up these key skills and competencies on their own by interacting with popular culture; but the problems of unequal access, lack of media transparency, and the breakdown of traditional forms of socialization and professional training suggest a role for policy and pedagogical intervention.This report aims to shift the conversation about the "digital divide" from questions about access to technology to questions about access to opportunities for involvement in participatory culture and how to provide all young people with the chance to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed. Fostering these skills, the authors argue, requires a systemic approach to media education; schools, afterschool programs, and parents all have distinctive roles to play.The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning

Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries

Abstract: Winner of the Business, Management & Accounting category in the 2006 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Software platforms are the invisible engines that have created, touched, or transformed nearly every major industry for the past quarter century. They power everything from mobile phones and automobile navigation systems to search engines and web portals. They have been the source of enormous value to consumers and helped some entrepreneurs build great fortunes. And they are likely to drive change that will dwarf the business and technology revolution we have seen to this point. Invisible Engines examines the business dynamics and strategies used by firms that recognize the transformative power unleashed by this new revolutiona revolution that will change both new and old industries. The authors argue that in order to understand the successes of software platforms, we must first understand their role as a technological meeting ground where application developers and end users converge. Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example, charge developers little or nothing for using their platforms and make most of their money from end users; Sony PlayStation and other game consoles, by contrast, subsidize users and make more money from developers, who pay royalties for access to the code they need to write games. More applications attract more users, and more users attract more applications. And more applications and more users lead to more profits. Invisible Engines explores this story through the lens of the companies that have mastered this platform-balancing act. It offers detailed studies of the personal computer, video game console, personal digital assistant, smart mobile phone, and digital media software platform industries, focusing on the business decisions made by industry players to drive profits and stay a step ahead of the competition. Shorter discussions of Internet-based software platforms provide an important glimpse into a future in which the way we buy, pay, watch, listen, learn, and communicate will change forever. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

Bodies in Code: Interfaces with Digital Media

Abstract: Bodies in Code explores how our bodies experience and adapt to digital environments. Cyberculture theorists have tended to overlook biological reality when talking about virtual reality, and Mark B. N. Hansen's book shows what they've been missing. Cyberspace is anchored in the body, he argues, and it's the body--not high-tech computer graphics--that allows a person to feel like they are really "moving" through virtual reality. Of course these virtual experiences are also profoundly affecting our very understanding of what it means to live as embodied beings. Hansen draws upon recent work in visual culture, cognitive science, and new media studies, as well as examples of computer graphics, websites, and new media art, to show how our bodies are in some ways already becoming virtual.

Content-aware digital media storage device and methods of using the same

Abstract: A content-aware digital media storage device includes a host device interface for exchanging digital information with a host device, a memory array for storing digital information received from the host device via the host interface, a peripheral module configured to communicate the digital information stored in the memory array to a receiver located remote from the digital media storage device, and a controller communicatively coupled to the host device interface, the memory array and the peripheral module and configured to interpret directory information associated with the digital information stored in the memory array so as to selectively access said digital information and communicate such accessed digital information to the peripheral module for transmission to the remote receiver. Digital images stored in the memory array may be transmitted to a remote host via a wireless network access point with which the peripheral module of the storage device is associated.

Defining digital literacy – What do young people need to know about digital media?

Abstract: This article offers a rationale for the notion of «digital literacy» in education. Pointing to some of the limitations of previous proposals in this field, it outlines a framework based on four key concepts drawn from media education. It applies these concepts to the World Wide Web and to computer games, and discusses the role of digital media production by students in developing digital literacy. The article emphasises the importance of developing critical approaches to digital media as a necessary prerequisite for using them as resources for learning.

Systems and methods for acquiring, categorizing and delivering media in interactive media guidance applications

Abstract: Systems and methods are discussed for providing guidance for Internet-delivered media. In some embodiments, information on available media on the Internet is gathered. The information is associated with existing media guidance data. The associations enable a media guidance application to identify relevant online media and to display listings in a user-friendly way. A user interface for an online media guidance application is also provided. The user interface allows a user to narrow down the large amount of Internet-delivered media in a systematic way according to criteria that interests a user.

Interface systems for portable digital media storage and playback devices

Abstract: A docking assembly serves as an interface between (1) a portable digital media storage and playback (PDMSP) device, and (2) a media reproduction system. A remote controller preferably controls the docking assembly and PDMSP device, which may receive electric charge from the assembly. Media reproduction systems may reproduce audio and video signals in user-perceptible form. Telephonic relay capability is further provided between a telephonic PDMSP playback device and a telephonic remote controller by way of a telephone rebroadcast receiver associated with the docking assembly. Methods for downloading digital media files, and for creating or modifying playlists with a remotely controllable docking assembly adapted to provide a television-compatible video output signal, are further provided.

Digital generations : children, young people, and new media

Abstract: Contents: Preface. D. Buckingham, Is There a Digital Generation? Part I: Play and Gaming. H. Jenkins, The War Between Effects and Meanings: Rethinking the Video Game Violence Debate. M. Mackey, Digital Games and the Narrative Gap. M. Ito, Japanese Media Mixes and Amateur Cultural Exchange. M. Oliver, C. Pelletier, Activity Theory and Learning From Digital Games: Developing an Analytical Methodology. Part II: The Internet. S. Livingstone, M. Bober, Regulating the Internet at Home: Contrasting the Perspectives of Children and Parents. T. Olsson, Active and Calculated Media Use Among Young Citizens: Empirical Examples From a Swedish Study. K. Montgomery, B. Gottlieb-Robles, Youth as e-Citizens: The Internet's Contribution to Civic Engagement. J. Frechette, Cyber-Censorship or Cyber-Literacy? Envisioning Cyber-Learning Through Media Education. Part III: Identities and Online Communities. M. Polak, "It's a gURL Thing": Community Versus Commodity in Girl-Focused Netspace. L.A. Scheidt, Adolescent Diary Weblogs and the Unseen Audience. J. Davies, "Hello Newbie! **Big Welcome Hugs** Hope U Like It Here As Much As I Do!" An Exploration of Teenagers' Informal Online Learning. S. Driver, Virtually Queer Youth Communities of Girls and Birls: Dialogical Spaces of Identity Work and Desiring Exchanges. Part IV: Learning and Education. B. Holderness, Towards Bridging Digital Divides in Rural (South) Africa. A. Burn, J. Durran, Digital Anatomies: Analysis as Production in Media Education. L. de Block, I. Rydin, Digital Rapping in Media Productions: Intercultural Communication Through Youth Culture. C.C. Thompson, J. Putthoff, E. Figueroa, Hopeworks: Youth Identity, Youth Organization, and Technology.

Portable media player as a low power remote control and method thereof

Abstract: A portable multimedia player (102) is used to wirelessly access and control a media server (104) that is streaming digital media by way of a wireless interface (116) to a media unit (106) such as a stereo/speakers in the case of streaming digital audio. In one embodiment, the portable multimedia player is wirelessly synchronized to a selected one(s) of a number of digital media files (109) stored on the media server in such a way that digital media file metadata (song title, author, etc.) associated with the selected digital media file(s) only is transferred from the media server to be stored in the portable media player.

Text to grammar enhancements for media files

Abstract: A control system in a vehicle for extracting meta data from a digital media storage device over a communication link. The system includes a communication module for establishing a communication link with the digital media storage device. The system also includes a processing module coupled to the communication module. The processing module is configured to retrieve, via the communication module, meta data associated with a media file from the digital media storage device. The meta data includes a plurality of entries, wherein at least one of the plurality of entries includes text data. The processing module is also configured to compare the text data of the entries with a set of data files stored in a database. The system also includes a memory module configured to store the plurality of entries retrieved from the digital media storage device.

The relevance of attention for selecting news content. An eye-tracking study on attention patterns in the reception of print and online media

Abstract: This article argues that a theory of media selectivity needs a theory of attention, because attention to a media stimulus is the starting point of each process of reception. Attention sequences towards media stimuli pages of newspapers and online-newspapers were analyzed by eye-tracking patterns from three different perspectives. First, attention patterns were compared under varying task conditions. Second, different types of media were tested. Third, attention sequences towards different forms of news with different design patterns were compared. Attention was seen as a prerequisite for reception:Its selective functions for these processes are especially important. Reception itself was examined within an action-theoretical framework and therefore described as a form of interaction between recipient and the media. Eye-tracking data were used as indicators of attention. Starting with a hypothesis on the impact of different media such as printed newspapers and online newspapers on the agenda-setting process of their audience, the study examined how the type of media and the form of news influences attention and selectivity. Our findings showed that visual cues such as salient photos or graphics and information hierarchies signalled by design and layout guide attention processes, not as an automatic process driven from the bottom up, but as stimuli for an active, intentiondriven selection process. The results indicate that the form of news affects these patterns of interactive attention more than the medium itself.

Server-side media stream manipulation for emulation of media playback functions

Abstract: A media server in the home entertainment network allows a media rendering devices to act as a digital media receiver. The media server enables trick mode functions such as scan forward or reverse, slow motion, pause, and seek on rendering devices with capabilities limited to 1× playback. The media server receives commands from user input at the rendering device transmitted over the network to the media server. The media server manipulates the media stream before the transmission over the network by deleting or adding frames to the media stream as necessary to emulate the desired playback functions and replacing frame timestamps to create a media stream that appears to the media rendering device as a sequential 1× stream. The transmitted media stream may not contain all of the media content stored in the corresponding media file on the media server, thus avoiding limitations on the download bandwidth and local client storage.

Method and system for providing distributed editing and storage of digital media over a network

Abstract: An approach provides distributed editing and storage of digital media. Video information is retrieved during recording of the video information to a video file. The video information is edited during the recording of the video information. An index file for the media is generated during the recording of the media, wherein the index file include indices for decoding the media; and periodically updating the index file throughout the recording of the media. After completion of the recording of the media, another index file is generated corresponding to the media for inclusion into the media file.

Method for transporting digital media

Abstract: A networked system is provided for transporting digital media packets, such as audio and video. The network includes network devices interconnected to send and receive packets. Each network device can receive and transmit media signals from media devices. A master clock generates a system time signal that the network devices use, together with a network time protocol to generate a local clock signal synchronised to the system time signal for both rate and offset. The local clock signal governs both the rate and offset of the received or transmitted media signals. The system, which can be implemented using conventional network equipment enables media signals to be transported to meet quality and timing requirements for high quality audio and video reproduction.

System and method for tagging digital media

Abstract: A method for tagging digital media is described. The method includes selecting a digital media and selecting region within the digital media. The method may further include associating a person or entity with the selected region and sending a notification of the association the person or entity or a different person or entity. The method may further include sending advertising with the notification.

Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines

Abstract: Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I. Global Politics and New Media 1. Perfect Transmissions: Evil Bert laden 9 2. Postcolonial Theory and Global Media 26 3. The Information Empire 46 4. Citizens, Digital Media, and Globalization 67 II. The Culture of the Digital Self 5. Identity Theft and Media 87 6. The Aesthetics of Distracting Media 116 7. The Good, the Bad, and the Virtual 139 8. Psychoanalysis, the Body, and Information Machines 161 III. Digital Commodities in Everyday Life 9. Who Controls Digital Culture? 185 10. Everyday (Virtual) Life 211 11. Consumers, Users and Digital Commodities 231 12. Future Advertising: Dick's Ubik and the Digital Ad Conclusion 267 Notes 269 References 281 Index 299

Portable digital media player case

Abstract: A portable digital media player case includes a jacket for holding a portable digital media player. A mounting is connected to the jacket. A flap has a window formed therein for attachment of a clip through the window to the mounting. A cover pivots on the flap between a closed position and an open position for covering and uncovering the jacket.

Generation of Collaborative Playlist Based Upon Musical Preference Data from Multiple Digital Media Players

Abstract: An apparatus, program product, and method collect musical preference data from a plurality of digital media players and generate therefrom a “collaborative” playlist of media files. The collaborative playlist may be used, for example, to identify and play back media files that most, if not all, of the users of the digital media players would likely find enjoyable.

Designing with Blends: Conceptual Foundations of Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering

Abstract: This work talks about how recent research in cognitive science offers new ways to understand the interaction of people and computers and develops a new literacy for well-informed, sensitive software design. The evolution of the concept of mind in cognitive science over the past 25 years creates new ways to think about the interaction of people and computers. New ideas about embodiment, metaphor as a fundamental cognitive process, and conceptual integration - a blending of older concepts that gives rise to new, emergent properties - have become increasingly important in Software Engineering (SE) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). If once computing was based on algorithms, mathematical theories, and formal notations, now the use of stories, metaphors, and blends can contribute to well-informed, sensitive software design. In "Designing with Blends", Manuel Imaz and David Benyon show how these new metaphors and concepts of mind allow us to discover new aspects of HCI-SE. After 60 years, digital technology has come of age, but software design has not kept pace with technological sophistication; people struggle to understand and use their computers, cameras, phones, and other devices. Imaz and Benyon argue that the dominance of digital media in our lives demands changes in HCI-SE based on advances in cognitive science. The idea of embodied cognition, they contend, can change the way we approach design by emphasizing the figurative nature of interaction. Imaz and Benyon offer both theoretical grounding and practical examples that illustrate the advantages of applying cognitive concepts to software design. A new view of cognition, they argue, will develop a cognitive literacy in software and interaction design that helps designers understand the opportunities of digital technology and provides people with a more satisfying interactive experience.

TeamSearch: comparing techniques for co-present collaborative search of digital media

Abstract: Interactive tables can enhance small group colocated collaborative work in many domains. One application enabled by this new technology is copresent, collaborative search for digital content. For example, a group of students could sit around an interactive table and search for digital images to use in a report. We have developed TeamSearch, an application that enables this type of activity by supporting group specification of Boolean style queries. We explore whether TeamSearch should consider all group members' activities as contributing to a single query or should interpret them as separate, parallel search requests. The results reveal that both strategies are similarly efficient, but that collective query formation has advantages in terms of enhancing group collaboration and awareness, allowing users to bootstrap query specification skills, and personal preference. This suggests that team centric ills may offer benefits beyond the "staples" of efficiency and result quality that are usually considered when designing search interfaces.

Digital doctoring: how to tell the real from the fake

Abstract: Seeing is no longer believing. The technology that allows digital media to be manipulated and distorted is developing at breakneck speed. How do we contend with the implications? Hany Farid describes the impact of digital tampering and the development of mathematical and computational algorithms to expose digital fakes.

Online news production in Flanders: how Flemish online journalists perceive and explore the internet's potential

Abstract: The Internet provides the online journalist with a vast range of new opportunities for feedback, customisation of content, instant publishing, archiving, (hyper)linking, the use of audio and video, etc., all of which can have serious implications for online media production and in particular online news presentation. This study examines how online journalists take advantage of the ‘added values’ of the Internet: interactivity, hypertextuality and multimediality. After a discussion of these key features of online media, the article presents a general profile of online journalists in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) as well as a first understanding of their perceptions of their role. A Web survey was conducted in spring 2001 among 73 Flemish online journalists. The survey results show, among other things, that most respondents believe that the future of online journalism lies in interactivity, hypertext and multimedia. Building on this suggestion, a second study explores the ways in which 20 Flemish news Websites actively use the added values of the Internet. A checklist was developed to analyse the use of the aforementioned Internet-specific facilities by Flemish online media professionals. The main conclusion is that there is a gap between the (perceived) potential and actual use of the Internet's added values in online news production.

Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication

Abstract: Contents: Paul Messaris/Lee Humphreys: Introduction - Julianne H. Newton: Influences of Digital Imaging on the Concept of Photographic Truth - Paul Messaris: Viewers' Awareness of Digital F/X in Movies - Stephen Prince: The End of Digital Special Effects - Lee Humphreys: Photographs and the Presentation of Self through Online Dating Services - David Perlmutter: Hypericons: Famous News Images in the Internet-Digital-Satellite Age - Lemi Baruh: Music Of My Own? The Transformation from Usage Rights to Usage Privileges in Digital Media - Rodney Whittenberg: Using Computers to Create Music - Timothy D. Taylor: Music + Digital Culture: New Forms of Consumption and Commodification - Jonathan Sterne: What's Digital in Digital Music? - Mark J. Butler: Everybody Needs a 303, Everybody Loves a Filter: electronic Dance Music and the Aesthetics of Obsolescence - Paul Levinson: The Hazards of Always Being in Touch: A Walk on the Dark Side with the Cell Phone - Kwan Min Lee: Phenomenological Understanding of Social Responses to Synthesized Speech - Barbara Warnick: Rhetoric on the Web - Sidney E. Berger: The Future of Publishing in the Digital Age - Alex Brymer Humphreys: The Past, Present, and Future of Immersive and Extractive E-books - James Paul Gee: Learning by Design: Good Video Games as Learning Machines - Mark J. P. Wolf: On the Future of Video Games - Jennifer Stromer-Galley/Rosa Leslie Mikeal: Gaming Pink: Gender and Structure in The Sims Online - C. Shawn Green/Daphne Bavelier: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Video Games - John L. Sherry: Would the Great and Mighty Oz Play Doom?: A Look Behind the Curtain of Violent Video Game Research - Annie Lang: Motivated Cognition: The Influence of Appetitive and Aversive Activation on the Processing of Video Games - Jeremy N. Bailenson: Transformed Social Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environments - Margaret L. McLaughlin: Simulating the Sense of Touch in Virtual Environments: Applications to Learning in the Health Sciences - Jeffrey Huang: Inhabitable Interfaces - Geri Gay: The Role of Social Navigation and Context in Ubiquitous Computing - Cory D. Kidd: Human-Robot Interaction Recent Experiments and Future Work - Sherry Turkle/Cynthia Breazeal/Olivia Daste/Brian Scassellati: First Encounters with Kismet and Cog: Children Respond to Relational Artifacts.

System and method for digital media navigation and recording

Abstract: Describe are systems and methods for receiving, navigating, selecting and viewing data (including personalized content recommendations generated by the UGuide Recommendation Engine, television program listings and program descriptions) on handheld wireless communication devices and/or internet browsers. The invention also provides the ability to remotely control the scheduling of recordings on digital recording devices through a variety of transfer mediums, including broadband or dial-up internet connectivity as well as cable and satellite television systems.

An investigation into the effects that digital media can have on the learning outcomes of individuals who have dyslexia

Abstract: The effects that media can have on task performance have been greatly debated over the years. Whilst agreement has begun to emerge on the effects media have on cognitive performance, little is understood about the relationship between such media effects and individual differences such as individuals who have dyslexia. This paper presents findings from a study that investigated the effects computer-based media can have on the learning outcomes of individuals who have dyslexia. The purpose of the study was to obtain data that informed the development and design of e-learning and distance learning materials for universal use. The research process was based on Dual Coding Theory and refined by current theories on dyslexia. Findings from the research are intended to help academics and providers of e-learning materials to improve the design and delivery of their learning contents.

The Online Public Sphere in the Arab World: The War in Iraq on the Al Arabiya Website

Abstract: Many aspects make online media attractive to news readers, including low cost, ease and speed of access, and the opportunity for readers to ask questions, provide feedback, participate in discussions, and interact with other readers in ways not previously possible. Given that traditional media in the Arab world generally are subject to strict government control, the participatory features that accompany the new online media should make these sources even more attractive to users. However, comments posted by readers of online media in the Arab world are still subject to some monitoring and content regulation. This study explores the potential of online media in the Arab world to foster civic engagement. The online source selected for study is www.alarabiya.net, the official website for the popular TV station Al Arabiya in Dubai. Ethnographic observation and analysis of the content of articles published during the Iraq War on Al Arabiya’s site and the responses they received show that Arabs not only challenged the views of the Al Arabiya site about the war, but they also offered their own versions of the truth.

Browsing sports video: trends in sports-related indexing and retrieval work

Abstract: This paper aims to identify the current trends in sports-based indexing and retrieval work. It discusses the essential building blocks for any semantic-level retrieval system and acts as a case study in content analysis system design. While one of the major benefits of digital media and digital television in particular has been to provide users with more choices and a more interactive viewing experience, the freedom to choose has in fact manifested as the freedom to choose from the options the broadcaster provides. It is only through the use of automated content-based analysis that sports viewers will be given a chance to manipulate content at a much deeper level than that intended by broadcasters, and hence put true meaning into interactivity

Playing the videotext: A media literacy perspective on video-mediated L2 listening

Abstract: Adopting a literacy perspective towards student interactions with digital media can extend and develop views of second language (L2) listening comprehension. In this case study, variations in play are grounded in a media literacy perspective as a way to frame student work with authentic videotext. Twenty-two Australian students of Japanese watched three digitized news clips as they talked aloud. Qualitative analysis of their immediately retrospective verbal reports showed that learners do indeed play and replay the media texts as they, for example, perform, fool around, and establish signposts. The article concludes with a discussion urging language teachers and researchers to adopt media literacy perspectives in their use of electronic media.

Digital media methods

Abstract: Many digital media methods are detailed. In one, consumers are provided incentives for viewing commercials. In another, charges for entertainment content are assessed based on the percentage actually rendered to a consumer. Signature data can be derived from the advertisements and entertainment content to implement such methods. A variety of other features and arrangements are also disclosed.