Communications Media

A team of University of Surrey scientists led by Professor Ahmet Kondoz has developed new technology which will enable companies and organisations to ensure that their GSM mobile phone conversations are totally secure and confidential. Previous attempts to make such conversations totally secure have been successful, but relied on a special GSM data service which resulted in some operational problems. In particular these solutions require expensive dedicated handsets and subscriptions, and calls betw

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS announces its latest MPEG-4 AV solutions – now available as free evaluation software. At IBC 2004, Fraunhofer IIS will present “DSL-TV”, a combination of MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding and the most advanced low bit-rate multi-channel audio coding scheme.

To introduce recent developments within the open multimedia standard MPEG-4 to the public, Fraunhofer IIS offers a public download of an MPEG-4 AV evaluation software suite today. The d

Recent research conducted by scientists at the University of Surrey in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen and the BBC, shows that surround sound can be delivered to the consumer more efficiently by taking into account the results of perceptual tests. Although improvements in the audio quality of consumer entertainment systems such as DVDs, CDs, digital TV, home cinema and computer games are technically possible, they may no longer be necessary. In fact, the intelligent limiting of sound quality, bas

’But I’ve just told you my postcode, damn you!’

We all know the frustrations of talking to computers down the phone. But don’t panic, help is at hand.

Scientists the world over are converging on the University of East Anglia next week to bang the stroppy robots to rights. The two-day workshop on August 30-31 will brainstorm ideas for improving human-to-machine communication of all types.

“Speaking to machines does tend to irritate people – especially when w

Just because a big company owns all the media outlets in town doesn’t necessarily mean newspapers and broadcast stations will look and sound alike, according to a review of the research in this area published in the summer issue of the journal Contexts.

While media consolidation does have adverse effects, as described in a literature review, the reduction in content diversity does not appear to be one of them. In fact, the research suggests that media content is no less diverse tha

Viewers of future Olympic Games will enjoy the marriage of two entertainment industries – sports television and sports computer games – when a highly immersive and fully interactive TV system is being developed by the IST project.

PISTE comes to life. PISTE represents the most advanced and immersive interactive sports television experience created to date. Using digital video processing, computer vision, 3D-visualisation and animation techniques, the PISTE system will eventually al