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SoNG portalS of Next Generation. Olivier Avaro (France Telecom R&D). Project Overview (1). Partners : Co-ordinator : FT R&D; Contractors : Blaxxun Interactive; CSELT; T-Nova; GET; EPFL; GMD; Imperial College; INRIA; Telenor; University of Geneva; Universität Stuttgart; Siemens.
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SoNGportalS of Next Generation Olivier Avaro (France Telecom R&D)
Project Overview (1) • Partners : • Co-ordinator: FT R&D; • Contractors: Blaxxun Interactive; CSELT; T-Nova; GET; EPFL; GMD; Imperial College; INRIA; Telenor; University of Geneva; Universität Stuttgart; Siemens. • Domain:Virtual worlds, multi-users environments, intelligent agents, simulation and data visualisation, e-commerce applications. • Timeline: Start date on the 01/01/2000 for a duration of 24 months. • Contact Point :Mr. Olivier Avaro France Telecom – CNET e-mail: olivier.avaro@francetelecom.fr tel: +49 173 66 27 445
Project Overview (2) • Goal : The project intends to investigate, develop and standardise the building blocks for the next generation of portals and to demonstrate in a real-time e-commerce application how they allow a more natural access to services. • Building blocks are : • (1) shared, dynamic and real-time virtual spaces; • (2) Animation of realistic synthetic faces and bodies; • (3) Software agents capturing human characteristics and learning user profiles; • (4) Intuitive interfaces for navigation and interaction in information spaces; • (5) Delivery of information with QoS monitoring. • Application is an E-commerce application allowing navigation in synthetic real sites populated with shops. The user can inspect goods, communicate with virtual or real humans, make transaction.
Project Overview (3) • The project is organised in two areas of work: • (1) the development of a technology, and • (2) the development of an application. • These two areas are linked by an integration activity that releases periodically a consistent Open Sourcetechnology platform on which the application can be built.
Challenges for SoNG (1) • SoNG Portals are multi-users • Development of a unified approach for conferencing and sharing information in real-time virtual spaces and develop specific plug-ins on top of it. • What is the right technology : protocols versus interfaces ? • Going beyond the religious wars. • How to integrate with existing architectures (MPEG-4, H.323) ? • What is the right level of standardisation ? • Past efforts are limited to very specific areas (ex: H.323) or have failed (ex: Living Worlds).
Challenges for SoNG (2) • SoNG Portals integrates rich media • Implementation and extension of MPEG-4 representation to allow the construction of integrated portals, including talking virtual humans and synthetic music. • Authoring tools are still lagging behind the standardised technology. • There are no commercial non trivial MPEG-4 authoring tool. • Efficient and simple animation of avatars is an issue. • Efficient decoders are missing. • Efficiency is not “realism”. • Creation of synthetic audio is an issue.
Challenges for SoNG (3) • SoNG Portals are intelligent • Adaptation and extension of the FIPA technology for the project's applications, and MPEG-4 embodiment of agents. • What interface(s) between the “body” and the “brain” ? What architecture for a truly multimedia agent based portal ? • How to embody FIPA agents with MPEG-4 interfaces ? • How portal personalization impacts representation of content and multimedia data bases ?
Challenges for SoNG (4) • SoNG Portals are highly interactive • Development of physical interfaces (vision system, motion system, integrated Hypermedia Interface) and their scene description (extension of MPEG-4 BIFS) counterparts. • How to easily navigate in 3D space ? • Investigation is needed ! • New physical interfaces, new interaction representation. • How to better integrate MPEG-4 content in the Web environment ? • MPEG-4 Textual format XMT • Integration with SMIL and X3D
Challenges for SoNG (5) • SoNG Portals are for today’s network • Provision of the needed mechanism to deliver the related information with management of QoS (Quality of Service). • How to transport of MPEG-4 content (still an issue !!!) : • on the internet; • on mobile networks. • How to provide a QoS framework for streamed media over the internet ? • How does the new content representation (ex: conferencing) impact the delivery layers ?
Architecture Overview (1) Applications Spécific Protocols or Généric Remote Method Invocation Application Network MPEG-J/EAI Browser Skin MPEG-4 Browser MPEG-4 Protocols and Extensions for shared objects DAI
Architecture Overview (2) Delivery RTP/UDP/IP FlexMux 2D Presenter Media Stream BIFSDecoder Root Scene Object MP4 3D Presenter Media Object IP Multicast H323 mappings Xtended Content (HTML, MPEG-J) Media Stream Decoder Media Stream MPEG-2/4 DVB Presenter DAI Transport Plug-in Interface Decoder Plug-in Interface
Timeline • T0+2: First Requirements. Technology development starts. • T0+6: First technology platform release, integrating state of the art technology. Applications development starts. • Every six months: releases of the technology platform with new tools developed by the project. Application releases demonstrating functionality supported by the platform. • T0+21: Application beta release. Tests and evaluation begin. Fine tuning of application and technology platform. • T0+24: Project ends.