3 Future Technologies

3 FUTURE & EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES Described below my three technology choices relating to multimedia and the Internet that I believe are only just emerging and are expected to be a disruptive technology in the industry. Technologies are described in order of preference and an extensive list of sources and research material can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ypwpq4. i.

TECHNOLOGY CHOICE 1; GRAPHICAL PROGRAMMING INTERFACES (GPI)

Summary; Visual Programming (VP) is all about opening up the world of programming to millions of new users by allowing an application to be built using an Interactive Interface that the user manipulates to create code behind the scenes. Justification for choice; Imagine how creative a place the Internet would be if it never evolved to a state where an average person could use it. It wouldn’t be very creative at all. Why? Because the people who would know how to navigate it just wouldn’t be able to come up the ideas. Fortunately the Internet did evolve. I only speculate on what the Internet would have been like because I believe that the programming world is indeed like that but may be about to break out of its daunting image and start attracting ‘the creative crowd’ more than ever before, signs of this being Yahoo’s & Microsoft’s embrace of VP interfaces. The whole idea of Yahoo! Pipes (& Microsoft PopFly), a VP interface is, according to Pasha Sadri, principal software engineer at Yahoo and developer of Pipes “ to significantly lower the barrier to writing simple applications by eliminating the need to write code and by hosting the application for you.” (Greene, A More Personalized Internet?, 2007). As for how far the VP concept can be taken, well, try to imagine as one PC Pro Columnist does (Pountain, 2007), that it is built into windows as a replacement for, or in addition to the scripting language and you can see that the technology is not restricted to influencing the web alone. In my mind it has a very exciting and influential future.

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TECHNOLOGY CHOICE 2; COMPRESSIVE SENSING.

Summary; In basic terms compressive sensing (used within a digital camera) is the use of an algorithm to reconstruct an incomplete set of data that it receives. Justification for choice; Everything is going digital. Everything! In my opinion we need to keep advancing the digital technologies that we use most, for example digital cameras. Digital photography has been a great contributor to modern multimedia. I can’t think of a media project that doesn’t use images in some form or other. So it makes sense to continually try and improve imaging technology.

RICHARD ASHE

So what exactly is compressive sensing? Well it is actually a mathematically algorithm that tries to recalculate incomplete data. As Dr Tao states however “you try to do it in a very dumb way, one that doesn’t require much computer power at the sensor end.” (CHANG, 2007). The algorithm was developed by Emmanuel Candes, Terry Tao and David Donoho. One of the possible uses for compressive sensing will be to allow even a tiny mobile phone to house an extremely capable camera, thus increasing the opportunities for millions of people worldwide to be able to capture truly stunning photos when the chance presents itself. It does this by allowing the camera to capture and process less data because the compressive sensing algorithm can reconstruct any missing data to create a full resolution image. This alone benefits the multimedia industry. As Compressive sensing is an algorithm it could be used in many other industries and for many other uses in the multimedia industry other than digital cameras.

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TECHNOLOGY CHOICE 3; AUDIO BEAMFORMING & IT IMPLICATIONS ON SOUND

Summary; Microsoft research labs are developing a system whereby sound waves can be targeted directly at a user to offer private conversations with the restriction of headphones. Justification for choice; Ivan Tashev is a software architect that is working on the project and he describes the goal of his work as “targeting focused sound so that a person can walk around an office and hear while on a video- or computer-aided audio conference call.” (Greene, Computer Speakers for Your Ears Only, 2007). For me the idea gets more interesting when you look into the future of it. Done with care technology could be integrated into advertising mediums, or educational tools. Imagine as well the use that the Blind could get from it if the technology were to be introduced on the high street to inform what kind of shop they are about to enter etc. Unfettering users from physical shackles to their computers is a step forward and with the increase in use of technologies such as IPTV, VoIP etc it can only help.

RICHARD ASHE

Bibliography CHANG, K. (2007, March Tuesday). Journeys to the Distant Fields of Prime. Retrieved October Tuesday, 2007, from www.nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13prof.html Greene, K. (2007, February 14). A More Personalized Internet? Retrieved October Mon, 2007, from www.technologyreview.com: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18185/ Greene, K. (2007, March Wednesday). Computer Speakers for Your Ears Only. Retrieved October Monday, 2007, from www.technologyreview.com: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18413/page1/ Greene, K. (2007, March Monday). Digital Imaging, Reimagined. Retrieved October Friday, 2007, from www.technologyreview.com: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=emerging&id=1829 3 Pountain, D. (2007, September Wednesday). Has the graphical programming interface finally come of age. Retrieved October Mon, 2007, from http://www.pcpro.co.uk: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/columns/124380/idealog/page1.html

RICHARD ASHE