Volume 51, Issue 6 -

Media Informatics is one of the more recent fields of computer science. Since 1990 conceptions, curricula and research agendas have been defined or implemented to clarify and develop this interdisciplinary field. In this contribution it will be discussed, which role media informatics can play for the next generation, which is currently being prepared for the university or the job. It will be discussed, how children and youth can be prepared and motivated for this current interdisciplinary branch of computer science. Instead of just concentrating on algorithms and data structures or mathematical foundations, we should qualify this generation for the interactive media of tomorrow. Through the research and transfer initiative KiMM (Kids in Media and Motion) we provide since 2001 educational programs for German schools and preschools in the area of bodily and ambient computing by allowing the children and youth to build and use interactive multimedia systems by themselves. The teaching takes place within the framework of the available and predefined curricula in practically all fields of teaching by performing projects across these fields. This introduces media informatics as a new interdisciplinary school subject.

Photos and 3D Scans of objects and scenes may help to create digital media content in photorealistic quality and at a low cost. However, only sophisticated software can integrate these data into digital data sets and allow users to modify them. The article presents a statistical, learning-based approach that reconstructs, modifies, animates and exchanges human faces in images.

Art projects allow the free exploration of media without the need to achieve a specific result or goal. Since the sixties, artists and engineers explored into the medium computer in a creative and artful way to gain insight into the potential of the computer. A current example for this is SoundVision, an audio-visual multi-user installation, using the interactive capabilities of modern computers and allowing immediate interaction between people. Several connected workstations provide various input devices to create so called “SoundPictures”. Music creates an according picture and images from drawings and a video stream are concurrently set to sound. Together, they form SoundPictures which cooperatively can be arranged in a shared space to form a shared, public SoundPicture. In the sense of a conversation, several participants work together to create a joint piece. The piece materializes like a concert in a fleeting, non-permanent way. What stays is the necessarily developed new language of the participants while using the new medium, as well as the new understanding about the interrelation of sound and images, their aesthetics, about communication and the medium itself — experience with the medium, maybe also insight is developed, the medium is researched. This kind of experience and insights from art inspired projects is useful for research, even though results can hardly be quantified or rated. Experimental, playful, artful methods play an important part in the emergence of innovation. Thus it is suggested that these methods also receive adequate attention and resources in our research projects.

Tangible, embedded, and reality-based interaction are among novel concepts of interaction design that will change our usage of computers and be part of our daily life in coming years. In this article, we present an overview of the research area of tangible, embedded, and reality-based interaction as an area of media informatics. Potentials and challenges are demonstrated with four selected case studies from our research work. Zusammenfassung Begreifbare, eingebettete und realitätsbasierte Interaktionen zählen zu einer Reihe von neuen Konzepten des Interaktionsdesigns, die in den kommenden Jahren unsere Verwendung von Computern verändern und unser tägliches Leben immer mehr begleiten und unterstützen werden. Dieser Artikel beschreibt das Forschungsgebiet der Begreifbaren, Eingebetteten und Realitätsbasierten Interaktion als Gebiet der Medieninformatik und erläutert seine Potentiale und Herausforderungen anhand ausgewählter Fallstudien aus unseren Forschungsarbeiten.

Human conversational partners usually try to interpret the speaker´s or listener´s affective cues and respond to them accordingly. Recently, the modelling and simulation of such behaviours has been recognized as an essential factor for more natural man-machine communication. The implicit emotion channels of human communication such as speech, facial expression, gesture, and physiological responses are used in general to extract emotion-relevant features for the computational perception of emotion. So far, research on emotion recognition has mostly dealt with offline analysis of recorded emotion corpora, and online processing (in realtime or near realtime) has hardly been addressed. Online processing is, however, a necessary prerequisite for the realization of human-computer interfaces that analyze and respond to the user´s emotions while he or she is interacting with an application. In this paper, we first describe how we recognize emotions from various modalities including speech, gestures and biosignals. We then present Smart Sensor Integration (SSI), a framework which we developed to meet the specific requirements of online emotion recognition. Zusammenfassung Menschliche Gesprächspartner versuchen in der Regel, emotionale Regungen ihres Gegenübers zu erkennen und entsprechend darauf zu reagieren. Mit dem Ziel, die Mensch-Maschine Interaktion einfacher und natürlicher zu gestalten, beschäftigen sich zunehmend Forschergruppen damit, emotionales Verhalten maschinell zu simulieren. Zur maschinellen Erkennung der Emotion werden die impliziten Kommunikationskanäle menschlicher Emotion wie z. B. Sprache, Gesichtsausdruck, Gesten und physiologische Reaktionen am häufigsten verwendet, um affektive Merkmale zu extrahieren. Allerdings konzentrierte sich die Forschung bisher auf die Offline-Analyse emotionaler Korpora, und eine Online-Verarbeitung (in Echtzeit oder Nah-Echtzeit) wurde selten angestrebt. Eine Integration von Methoden zur Erkennung von Emotionen in praktische Anwendungen setzt jedoch voraus, dass ein System in der Lage ist, auf Emotionen eines menschlichen Nutzers zu reagieren, während dieser mit dem System interagiert. In diesem Papier skizzieren wir zunächst, wie Emotionen aus Sprache, Gestik und Biosignalen erkannt werden können. Anschließend stellen wir Smart Sensor Integration (SSI) vor, ein Werkzeug, das auf die besonderen Bedürfnisse der Online-Emotionserkennung zugeschnitten ist.

The use of digital media in mobile surroundings has a massive influence on the type of content consumed and produced, its presentation form and how interactive access is guaranteed in such mobile contexts. To fully leverage the possibilities that digital media offer in mobile use, it is necessary to understand this influence and approach it with appropriate concepts. This article gives an overview of the impact of novel devices, diverse contexts of use, and changed demands on digital content and the interaction with it. Works of the authors and others are presented as examples for how possibilities are created and used to produce digital media optimised for mobile use. Zusammenfassung Die Verwendung digitaler Medien in mobilen Umgebungen hat einen massiven Einfluss darauf, welche Art digitaler Inhalte Nutzer konsumieren oder erstellen, wie diese Inhalte präsentiert werden und wie der interaktive Zugang zu diesen Inhalten in mobilen Situationen gelingt. Um die Möglichkeiten, die innovative digitale Medien für den mobilen Einsatz bieten, optimal zu nutzen, ist es erforderlich, diese Einflüsse zu verstehen und ihnen mit entsprechenden Konzepten zu begegnen. Dieser Artikel gibt einen Überblick über die Auswirkungen neuartiger Endgeräte, verschiedener mobiler Nutzungskontexte und geänderter Anforderungen an digitale Inhalte und die Interaktion mit diesen. Arbeiten der Autoren und anderer werden vorgestellt, um exemplarisch zu zeigen, wie neue Möglichkeiten geschaffen und genutzt werden können, um für den mobilen Einsatz optimierte digitale Medien zu entwickeln.

The extent to which multimedia data are available is steadily increasing. This is true for the Internet as well as for the data on a local PC or on a PDA. A major challenge in this respect is the search for media objects. The present article deals with fundamental concepts and issues of search for media objects and multimedia documents, and gives an overview of the approaches existing for the different media types.

Media informatics is a young and dynamic area in the field of computer science, which is more and more present in our universities and polytechnics. New programs and special subjects with emphasis on media topics have been created and established in many computer science departments. This article presents the different opinions and views on how a curriculum of media informatics should be designed. We have a look at the different instantiation of media informatics we find, also with a view at the targeted occupational field for computer scientists with a focus on media informatics.

In an interdisciplinary approach Research Training Group 722 investigates methods and technologies for a site-specific and efficient control of weeds, pathogens, and nematodes in agricultural crops. By utilizing and developing innovative sensor techniques, geo-information systems, data processing and control techniques, pest control measures are applied only if, when and where economically needed. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of incidence and distribution of pests in the field is assessed using remote sensing techniques and global positioning systems. For on-line and off-line applications these data are analysed in decision support systems considering a spatial component. Spatially and temporally precise pest control is achieved by using sensor-guided equipment. The short-term effects, i. e., the efficacy of control of weeds and diseases, and long-term effects of site-specific control strategies on the incidence and distribution of pests in the field are monitored by using technical sensors again. The documentation of all steps in these pest management systems may contribute to develop new production standards and to demonstrate the ecologic benefits of this crop protection strategy. The generation and management of information on the incidence of pests with high spatial resolution and its implementation in precise control systems will enable a targeted and resource-preserving integrated pest management system under high productivity conditions, which is economically successful, environmentally sound and socially acceptable. Zusammenfassung Das DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 722 erarbeitet in einem interdisziplinären Ansatz Methoden und Verfahren für einen teilschlagspezifischen und effizienten Schutz von Nutzpflanzen vor Ertragsverlusten durch Unkräuter, Pathogene und Nematoden. Durch die Nutzung bzw. Entwicklung innovativer Methoden der Sensortechnik, von Geoinformationssystemen, der Informationsverarbeitung und Regeltechnik soll es ermöglicht werden, Pflanzenschutzmaßnahmen im Bestand nur durchzuführen, wo und wann sie ökonomisch erforderlich sind. Mit Methoden der Nah- und Fernerkundung sowie des Global Positioning Systems wird zunächst die Heterogenität des Auftretens der Schaderreger bzw. deren Symptome im Bestand georeferenziert erfasst. In Offline- bzw. Online-Verfahren werden diese Informationen in Schaderreger-spezifischen Expertensystemen analysiert und für die Ableitung ortsspezifischer Bekämpfungsentscheidungen herangezogen. Der Erfolg der Maßnahmen bzw. die längerfristigen Auswirkungen eines präzisierten, teilschlagspezifischen Pflanzenschutzes auf das Schaderregerauftreten werden wiederum mit den Sensoren erfasst. Diese neue Qualität des Pflanzenschutzes kann durch die Dokumentation aller Teilschritte belegt werden und soll dem Anwender dadurch die Entwicklung neuer Produktstandards bzw. eine ökologischen Bilanz seiner Tätigkeiten ermöglichen.

The paper analyses the role of electronic procurement auctions using narrative interviews in multiple industry sectors. Pathologies in communication processes are identified and interpreted with approaches from the Language Action Perspective (LAP) and Game Theory.