VTT Media Technologies Newsletter

Media technologiesN E W S L E T T E R | 2 0 1 2

Editorial June 6, 2012:

Media is changing and so are we, page 3

Page 16:Smart interaction in mobile and media

Media technology event on Tuesday 25.9.2012

at 14:00

Contents Page

Gettingthemessageright 5

Tabletdevicesineducation 7

Socialreadingenrichesreadingexperience 8

Fromdatatodecision-VisualAnalytics 9

Personalprofileeconomywithsemantics 10

MunicipalityreforminOwela 11

Findingkeymomentsinvideo 12

Alookisworthathousandwords 13

Atoolforurbanandconstructionplanning-

AugmentedReality 14

Futuretravelcatalogue 15

2 | Copyright © VTT 2012 3 | Copyright © VTT 2012

2 | Copyright © VTT 2012 3 | Copyright © VTT 2012 3 | Copyright © VTT 2012

The media and communication industry is changing fast. Especially the tablet and smartphone revolution is accelerating the migration towards

digital media, which more and more often is mobile. This poses a big pressure also on research. As a consequence, VTT is reorganising its research in media and context topics to better meet the changing customer needs. Research in user behaviour and business models is enhanced, as well as research in new interaction technologies.

This newsletter reflects the topics that we at VTT are currently focusing on. Finding the optimal media mix for efficient advertising is one such item. Despite the trend toward digital media, it is important to remember that print still is a central – if not the major – channel for advertisements and editorial content. Understanding the user is the key to success here as elsewhere. Social media is currently a megatrend and it is fascinating how it can be applied to something as traditional as – book reading. Our research shows, that social networks of like-minded readers clearly

increase the reading experience. In another project, our social media platform Owela was successfully applied for citizen discussion concerning the municipality reform in Finland.

As noted above, tablets are spreading everywhere; also into schools. There, they grant a smoother integration to the classroom setting than traditional laptops. Together with our customers and partners, we have a lot of efforts going on around managing content and data. Our long-time work in personal profile economy is guided by a vision to provide individuals better control over their personal data as well as to create privacy preserving, trusted ways of exchanging profile information between the private and public sector. Visual analytics is another approach that gives novel insights into large data masses. When it comes to video content, we presented a novel solution at the Mobile World Congress for creating video summaries.

Using augmented reality as a tool to urban planning and construction is an area where we possess world leading skills, that has

accumulated over several years. We have identified this area as our foremost growth arena. Collaboration tools are newer to us, but we see collaboration as a very potential field as work over distance is becoming more and more central in our work lives. Currently we are concentrating on visual tools increasing the thrust between participants in video conferences.

The stories in this newsletter are meant to be short and easy-to-read snapshots of our current research. Hopefully you will find them interesting and relevant. We are always ready to explain the results further and to find out ways to utilize them as well as to create totally new ideas.

Summer Greetings!

Caj SödergårdResearch ProfessorDigital Media

Editorial

Media is changing and so are we



Getting the message rightAdvertisers expect that their

messages and advertisements

will be planned and executed

in the right media at the right

moment in time and space, in

order to effectively and efficiently

reach the target group in the

right mood. However, having

the right media mix is getting

more and more complicated.

New alternatives compete for

consumers’ time – and thus for

advertisers money – and new

technologies are changing media

consumption habits.

In respect of media advertisement

buying and selling activities, the

discussion is shifting from different

media or channels into different media

brands. Thus, there is a need for better

understanding of how to reach and

impact consumers with advertisements

regardless of the platform on which they

are consumed. Not only is it important

to understand how many people have

exposed to a certain media, but also

who have exposed to the advertising

message, and more importantly, what

was the response to the message.

Print Power and VTT are carrying out a

study on how European consumers from

13 countries perceive print advertising.

The objective of the study is to better

understand the role of print products in

the lives of Europeans. The first results for

Finland, Norway and UK were presented at

Drupa in May (www.drupa.com), and more

results will be available after the summer.

MoreinformationAnu [email protected]

Anna [email protected]

7 | Copyright © VTT 2012


Mobile devices provide fast access

to the internet and to versatile

digital learning materials regardless

of time and place. However,

new technological solutions and

practices need to be introduced step

by step, with a good understanding

of the users and the learning

contexts.

Tablet devices in education

Our study on the use of tablet

devices in school showed

that the smooth integration to

the current classroom setting is a clear

advantage of the tablets over the laptops.

Furthermore, the results indicate that the

technology supports adoption of new

approaches to teaching and learning and

may promote informal and self-directed

learning. To increase the efficient use of

technology in schools, investments on

infrastructure and training are necessary.

Watch our video ”Mobile technology in

education” (VTTFinland) on YouTube:

MoreinformationMaija [email protected]

See the full report of the user study

on the website of Next Media-research program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JOqYTqi5ik&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JOqYTqi5ik&feature=plcp

http://virtual.vtt.fi/virtual/nextmedia/Deliverables-2011/D1.2.2.2_MuMuMeSe_%20User%20study%20with%20tablet%20devices%20in%20school.pdf


Social reading enriches reading experience

Digital social reading services

have the possibility to expand both

traditional and digital reading. VTT,

together with Bonnier Books, studied

book club members’ attitudes

towards different social reading

concepts.

The study was conducted within

Next Media research programme.

Many respondents of the questionnaire

(N=1316) saw that online networks of

like-minded readers enhance social

interaction around books and thus enrich

the reading experience. The concepts

that support finding new books and

social hobby-related problem solving are

the most desired ones.

The near future prospects are

promising for digital social reading

services: While only 3,5% of the

respondents were currently (autumn

2011) reading eBooks on mobile

devices, 26% plan to do that within

2 years. In 4 years, 48% of the

respondents imagine they will read both

printed and digital books depending on

the context.

MoreinformationTimo [email protected]

See the report at Internet.

http://virtual.vtt.fi/virtual/nextmedia/Deliverables-2011/D%201.1.4.3_2%20SocialReading.pdf


Visual Analytics – From data to decisionVisual Analytics is a recent approach

for finding knowledge and insight

from data masses. It is a new multi-

disciplinary research area, defined as

“the science of analytical reasoning

facilitated by interactive visual

interfaces”. It provides visual tools

to support analytical reasoning and

decision making. Visual Analytics

uses the human capacity to perceive,

understand and reason from visual

representations. Data management

and data mining techniques are

utilized to derive information from

massive, dynamic, complex and

often conflicting data.

Visual Analytics uses the human capacity

to perceive, understand and reason from

visual representations. Data management

and data mining techniques are utilized

to derive information from massive,

dynamic, complex and often conflicting

data.

Visual analytics has been an active research

area in VTT since 2007. In addition, VTT

has long expertise in the building blocks

of Visual Analytics: user interfaces and

interaction technologies, information

visualisation, both in 2D, 3D and virtual

environments, data management and

integration, and data mining.

The attached pictures are from a Visual

Analytics pilot, constructed for analysis of

energy efficiency and indoor conditions of

buildings.

MoreinformationPaula Järvinen [email protected]

Social reading enriches reading experience


VTT has been actively developing

new technologies for recommending

content easily and intelligently to the

users of digital services. This goes

hand in hand with the idea of semantic

profiling systems, which allow the

users to define their interests with the

help of semantic web. These methods

have been tested and demonstrated

already in various pilot projects. Our

Semantic Portable Profile service

supports the creation and utilisation

of semantic user profiles that can be

used in multiple services with the user

in control.

Our future vision is to provide individuals

better control over their personal data

as well as to create privacy preserving,

trusted ways of exchanging profile

information between private and public

sector. We supply content providers with

consulting, design and implementation

services in using semantics to facilitate

better matching of content with users’

true needs and requirements.

For a related video, see YouTube

MoreinformationAsta Bä[email protected]

Sari [email protected]

Personal profile economy with semantics

Profile service at

profile.vtt.fi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKCse-ZKdXk. You can also test the Semantic Portable

profile.vtt.fi


Personal profile economy with semantics

Profile service at

profile.vtt.fi

The Ministry of Finance used VTT’s

Owela platform for two months for

public citizen discussion concerning

the municipality reform in Finland.

Each of the 18 regions had their

own discussion space that aimed at

helping decision makers and citizens

to share thoughts and opinions. For

the Ministry of Finance, the online

discussions provided material

that can be used in the further

preparation of the municipality

reform.

Municipality reform in Owela

A lot of activity was expected, since the

topic has been heavily debated in media.

More than 300 people participated in the

discussion and contributed thousand

comments. This indicates that there is

room for online citizen discussion and this

opportunity could be advertised more.

Online collaboration also requires strong

commitment and active participation of

the “challenge owners”.

The Owela platform has been used in

more than 60 co-creation projects with

companies and public sector. It provides

good means for direct interaction

between different stakeholders in various

development processes.

MoreinformationPirjo Nä[email protected]

owela.vtt.fi

profile.vtt.fi

owela.vtt.fi


Our lives are more and more

captured on video. We meet video

devices daily; surveillance cameras

control our safety, the surprising

events of our lives are often

captured with smart phones and

the most important moments are

recorded with camcorders for later

reminiscing. Creating video content

is easy, but finding a specific event

and editing the content is still a

difficult and time consuming task.

Finding key moments in video

VTT has created video technology to

automatically analyse series of video

clips in order to find the key moments.

The analyses results can be combined

to other existing information such as

context. The technology can be adopted

for different application domains from

media entertainment to industry and

security.

An example of the developed technology

was presented in Mobile World Congress

2012. The Finnish tourism related content

on the video wall was automatically

summarised to summer, winter and night

video presentations. This was done

using advanced automatic video analysis

algorithms and video coding tools.

MoreinformationJohannes [email protected]

Sari Jä[email protected]


Communication is in key role when

collaborating either face-to-face

or over network. For successful

communication, it is necessary

for the participants to understand

at each time instant, who is the

source and who are the targets of

the information, whether in aural

or written form. This refers to the

need of supporting awareness. A

special case of awareness is gaze

awareness, which is known to help

communication e.g. by indicating

turn taking, and to build trust

between participants.

A look is worth a thousand words

VTT is developing a teleconferencing

system “Hydra” in the on-going project

“ColPro” (Collaboration Environments for

Global Distributed Product Processes).

This system simulates a meeting, where

the participants are sitting around a table

face-to-face. The focus is in investigating

possibilities to maintain gaze awareness

between multiple remote users. Gaze

awareness between participants will be

supported by using multiple displays

and cameras. In the demonstration, the

participants can also collaboratively

interact and make comments e.g.

on a common document, image or

3D representation. In ColPro, the

technologies are planned to be applied

particularly to industrial production and

maintenance applications.

Welcome to see the demonstration at our

Media Technology Day in September!

MoreinformationSeppo Valli [email protected]


Would you like to know what kind of

view of the neighboring block you will

have from your back garden, or your

balcony, when the planned housing is

eventually completed? And how will

that yet-to-be-built office building look

standing on that empty plot you can

see on the screen of your smart phone

or iPad? This is the cue for Augmented

Reality applications that VTT has

been getting to grips with. Combining

technology originally developed

for video and mobile games with

positioning software has created new

application areas that include urban

and construction planning and interior

design.

A tool for urban and construction planning

Augmented Reality

The practical applications developed

by VTT are the first of their kind in the

world, and have caused a considerable

stir both at home and abroad. Examples

of recent applications, produced in co-

operation of VTT and Finnish Consulting

Group FCG Oy, are the visualizations for

the Kämp Tower building in Helsinki and a

projected hotel to Raseborg city officials

in demanding decision making cases. In

MoreinformationCharles Woodward [email protected]

both cases the VTT-developed technology

was used to place a sketch of the building

in its natural environment. The same images

could be examined on site by using, among

other means, a smart phone camera display.

For related videos, see: www.youtube.com/user/VTTAugmentedReality

www.youtube.com/user/VTTAugmentedReality


MoreinformationCharles Woodward [email protected]

Together with UPM and Finnish Tourist

Board, VTT created a unique cross-

media concept for binding printed

media together with digital content.

Concept was demonstrated at UPM

stand at the Drupa print media fair

(www.drupa.com) with an installation

consisting of big screens, specially

designed reading chairs and Insider’s

Guide to Finland travel catalogues.

Future travel catalogue

In the demonstrator, users could relax on

the chair, at the same time experiencing

an audiovisual ride through Finland.

Audiovisual experience was automatically

orchestrated by a software, which

followed the pages of the catalogue, as

users flipped through them.

Detection of the catalogue pages is

based on a VTT-developed visual

detection method, which is able to

identify small tags added to the pages.

MoreinformationTatu [email protected]

http://www.drupa.com

VTT welcomes you to our annual

Media technology event on Tuesday 25.9.2012 at 14:00in the address Innopoli 1, Leonardo auditorium, Otaniemi, Espoo

Our guest speaker this year will be Dr.Ville-VeikkoMattilafromNokiaResearchCenterMediaLaboratory.

Other interesting presentations cover topics such as the foresights to the future of broadcasting, thoughts and tools of digital content providing, and how users can be involved in developing new digital services. We will also hear news from the current research in the media and mobile technology arena, and have the opportunity to watch and play with a number of demonstrations provided by our researchers. Last but not least, the buffet will be open until late afternoon.

You will receive a separate invitation but please make a note in your calendar already now!

Smart interaction in mobile and media

Business from technology

Technology and market foresight • Strategic research • Product and service development • IPR and licensing • Assessments, testing, inspection, certification • Technology and innovation management • Technology partnership

MoreinformationHarri Nurmi [email protected]

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