MPEG news: a report from the 84th meeting in Archamps, France

The 84th MPEG meeting was held in Archamps, France (next to Geneva) and a few topics discussed at this meeting I'd like to briefly review here.

MPEG Representation of Sensory Effects

I've reported on that recently and this topic is maturing to a Call for Proposals (CfP) and the proposed technologies will be evaluated during the July meeting in Hannover, Germany. In this CfP MPEG is requesting technologies for the following items to be standardized:

• Sensory Effect Metadata: description schemes and descriptors representing Sensory Effects.
  
• Sensory Device Capabilities and Commands: description schemes and descriptors representing characteristics of Sensory Devices and means to control them.
  
• User Sensory Preferences: description schemes and descriptors representing user preferences with respect to rendering of sensory effects.
  

Microsoft has adopted MPEG-21 Digital Item Declaration and Identification

Microsoft has adopted MPEG-21 technology within their Interactive Media Manager that is a collaborative media management solution that extends Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 for media and entertainment companies. Interestingly, their have adopted the Digital Item Model - an abstract model expressed in EBNF - and defined their own implementation of this model using RDF/OWL. Note that MPEG's implementation of the model is called Digital Item Declaration Language (DIDL) which is based on XML Schema.

Note: also UPnP has adopted MPEG-21 DIDL but in some kind of dialect called DIDL-lite.

Multimedia Extensible Middleware (MXM)

The Multimedia Extensible Middleware (MXM) aims to define APIs for various purposes. The requirements and also a Call for Proposals (requirements) have been issued at this meeting. It's very interesting to see that it should also accommodate for peer-to-peer technologies, i.e., storage/consumption of content in a distributed environment (P2P infrastructure based, e.g., distributed hash tables).

Other issues discussed at the meeting

• Presentation of Structured Information: For this item a Call for Proposals (requirements) has been issued. One use cases and overall model is to include a presentation description into Digital Items that upon receipt of a Digital Item automatically extracts this information asset which is used to present the Digital Item.
  
• MPEG User Interface Framework: personalize, adaptable and exchangeable rich user interfaces based on the use of a presentation format (BIFS, LaSER, ...), a language for describing the personalization context (UED, CC/PP, DCO, ...), and home network protocols (DLNA, UPnP, ...).
• MPEG-V: This new project item defines interfaces between virtual worlds and between virtual worlds and the real world. An extended call for requirements has been issued.
• Multimedia Value Chain Ontology (MVCO): aims to define an ontology for the whole multimedia value chain and a Call for Proposals (requirements) has been issued. However, the main focus is on rights-related issues at this moment.

Key Technologies for Wireless Networking in the Next Decade

Report of a keynote given by Ian F. Akyildiz at AICCSA2008.

The keynote was very interesting as it provided a very good overview about existing/emerging technologies which are as follows:

• xG Networks also referred to as dynamic spectrum access networks
• Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN)
  
• WiMAX
• Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)

xG Networks
The next generation (xG) networks will follow a dynamic spectrum assigned (versus fixed spectrum assignment as exists today) where so-called unlicensed users may make use of any available spectrum in cases where licensed users do not use them. That is, they'll jump from one 'spectrum hole' to another based on their availabilities. To me, the concept is very similar to connection-oriented vs. connection-less services or circuit-switched vs. packet-switched networks ... it seems, history repeats again ;-)

In any case, the framework elements for dynamic spectrum assignment (aka cognitive radio) has been presented:

• Spectrum sensing: what's available?
• Spectrum decision: select the best channel available
• Spectrum sharing: coordinate with other users
• Spectrum mobility -> hand-off: in case the licensed user appears the unlicensed one has to jump to another hole...

I.F. Akyildiz, W.-Y. Lee, M. C. Vuran, S. Mohanty, "NeXt generation/dynamic spectrum access/cognitive radio wireless networks: A survey", Computer Networks, vol. 50, no. 13, September 2006, pp. 2127-2159.

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN)
This technology seems to be researched very well and there's a trend to merge channel allocation and routing. Also, cross-layer designs are making their way towards WMNs. The remaining challenge is how to manage the dynamics of WMNs?

I.F. Akyildiz, X. Wang, W. Wang, "Wireless mesh networks: a survey", Computer Networks, vol 47, no. 4, March 2005, pp. 445-487.

WiMAX
Should be a cheap alternative to cable/DSL but research is rare because it's difficult to get funding therefore, at least in the US...

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)
Basically, they've adopted (tweaking) tools from ad-hoc networks for WSNs which has become a paper writing race

As for WMNs, it seems it's heading towards cross-layer designs where the traditional layers are merged to a single communication module with the application layer sitting on-top.

M.C. Vuran, O.B. Akan, I.F. Akyildiz, "XLM: Cross Layer Module for Efficient Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks", submitted for journal publication, October 2007.

I.F. Akyildiz, T. Melodia, K.R. Chowdhury, "A survey on wireless multimedia sensor networks", Computer Networks, vol. 51, no. 4, March 2007, pp. 921-960.

Nano-Communication Networks
Finally, the next step will be the communication between nano devices that opens a huge amount of (new) research areas in the same way it was introduced when mirco devices began to communicate...

S. Hara, H. Yomo, P. Popovski, K. Hayashi, "New Paradigms in Wireless Communication Systems", Wireless Personal Communications, vol. 37, no. 3-4, May 2006, pp. 233-241.