Open source column: Deep learning in the browser

Having already discussed MatConvNet and Keras, let us continue with an open source framework for deep learning, which takes a new and interesting approach. TensorFlow.js is not only providing deep learning for JavaScript developers, but it's also making applications of deep learning available in the WebGL enabled web browsers, or more specifically, Chrome, Chromium-based browsers, Safari and Firefox. Recently node.js support has been added, so TensorFlow.js can be used to directly control TensorFlow without the browser. TensorFlow.js is easy to install. As soon as a browser is installed one is ready to go. Browser based, cross platform applications, e.g. running with Electron, can also make use of TensorFlow.js without an additional install. The performance, however, depends on the browser the client is running, and memory and GPU on the client device. More specifically, one cannot expect to analyze 4K videos on a mobile phone in real time. While it's easy to install, and it's easy to develop based on TensorFlow.js, there are drawbacks: (i) developers have less control over where the machine learning actually takes place (e.g. on CPU or GPU), that it is running in the same sandbox as all web pages in the browser do, and (ii) that in the current release it still has rough edges and is not considered stable enough to use in production.

PhD thesis: Quality of experience characterization and provisioning in mobile cellular networks

Traditionally, previous generations of mobile cellular networks have been designed with Quality of Service (QoS) criteria in mind, so that they manage to meet specific service requirements. Quality of Experience (QoE) has, however, recently emerged as a concept, disrupting the design of future network generations by giving clear emphasis on the actually achieved user experience.

QoE column: Solving complex issues through immersive narratives

A transdisciplinary dialogue and innovative research, including technical and artistic research as well as digital humanities are necessary to solve complex issues. We need to support and produce creative practices, and engage in a critical reflection about the social and ethical dimensions of our current technology developments. At the core is an understanding that no single discipline, technology, or field can produce knowledge capable of addressing the complexities and crises of the contemporary world. Moreover, we see the arts and humanities as critical tools for understanding this hyper-complex, mediated, and fragmented global reality. As a use case, we will consider the complexity of extreme weather events, natural disasters and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, which are the risks with the highest likelihood of occurrence and largest global impact (World Economic Forum, 2017). Through our project, World of Wild Waters (WoWW), we are using immersive narratives and gamification to create a simpler holistic understanding of cause and effect of natural hazards by creating immersive user experiences based on real data, realistic scenarios and simulations. The objective is to increase societal preparedness for a multitude of stakeholders. Quality of Experience (QoE) modeling and assessment of immersive media experiences are at the heart of the expected impact of the narratives, where we would expect active participation, engagement and change, to play a key role [1]. Here, we present our views of immersion and presence in light of Quality of Experience (QoE). We will discuss the technical and creative considerations needed for QoE modeling and assessment of immersive media experiences. Finally, we will provide some reflections on QoE being an important building block in immersive narratives in general, and especially towards considering Extended Realities (XR) as an instantiation of Digital storytelling.

MPEG column: 125th MPEG meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated here to focus on and highlight research aspects. The 125th MPEG meeting concluded on January 18, 2019 in Marrakesh, Morocco with the following topics: Network-Based Media Processing (NBMP) - MPEG promotes NBMP to Committee Draft stage 3DoF+ Visual - MPEG issues Call for Proposals on Immersive 3DoF+ Video Coding Technology MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC) - MPEG starts work on MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding ISOBMFF - MPEG issues Final Draft International Standard of Conformance and Reference software for formats based on the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) MPEG-21 User Description - MPEG finalizes 2nd edition of the MPEG-21 User Description The corresponding press release of the 125th MPEG meeting can be found here. In this blog post I'd like to focus on those topics potentially relevant for over-the-top (OTT), namely NBMP, EVC, and ISOBMFF.

Report from ACM ICMR 2018

Multimedia computing, indexing, and retrieval continue to be one of the most exciting and fastest-growing research areas in the field of multimedia technology. ACM ICMR is the premier international conference that brings together experts and practitioners in the field for an annual conference.

ACM Multimedia 2019 and Reproducibility in Multimedia Research

The first months of the new calendar year, multimedia researchers traditionally are hard at work on their ACM Multimedia submissions. (This year the submission deadline is 1 April.) Questions of reproducibility, including those of data set availability and release, are at the forefront of everyone's mind. In this edition of SIGMM Records, the editors of the "Data Sets and Benchmarks" column have teamed up with two intersecting groups, the Reproducibility Chairs and the General Chairs of ACM Multimedia 2019, to bring you a column about reproducibility in multimedia research and the connection between reproducible research and publicly available data sets. The column highlights the activities of SIGMM towards implementing ACM paper badging. ACM MMSys has pushed our community forward on reproducibility and pioneered the use of ACM badging [1]. We are proud that in 2019 the newly established Reproducibility track will introduce badging at ACM Multimedia. Complete information on Reproducibility at ACM Multimedia is available at: https://project.inria.fr/acmmmreproducibility/

JPEG column: 82nd JPEG meeting in Lisbon, Portugal

JPEG has been the most common representation format of digital images for more than 25 years. Other image representation formats have been standardised by JPEG committee like JPEG 2000 or more recently JPEG XS. Furthermore, JPEG has been extended with new functionalities like HDR or alpha plane coding with the JPEG XT standard, and more recently with a reference software. Another solutions have been also proposed by different players with limited success. The JPEG committee decided it is the time to create a new working item, named JPEG XL, that aims to develop an image coding standard with increased quality and flexibility combined with a better compression efficiency. The evaluation of the call for proposals responses had already confirmed the industry interest, and development of core experiments has now begun. Several functionalities will be considered, like support for lossless transcoding of images represented with JPEG standard.