Call for papers

Abstract

IEEE COMMUNICATIONS MAGAZINE FEATURE TOPIC: ENTERTAINMENT EVERYWHERE: System and Networking Issues in Emerging Network-Centric Entertainment Systems BACKGROUND: The experience of bringing the Internet into our lives deeply is now shared by millions of people. Take the USA, for example. It is reported that more than a fifth of American households has a high-speed, always-on, Internet access, and an increasing number of them is exploiting wireless technologies to distribute the broadband connection throughout the rooms of their homes. With such a high-speed, always-on, connection a drastic revolution is coming in the way people watch movies and news, listen to music, and play games. This change has been driven fundamentally by two dominant factors: First, the technological advances of computer-based digital multimedia technology (high quality video and sound) have provided consumers with good motivations to upgrade their home entertainment systems (e.g., from mechanical VHS tape drives to digital DVD). Second, (wireless) networking technologies have enabled the possibility to shift what they first consumed on their desktop PC in the office to their digital TV equipment in the living room, as well as to the front pockets in their jackets. All these mean that in an entertainment-equipped house we might easily find a broadband entertainment center built on the top of a Cat-6 Ethernet cable infrastructure or on a Wi-Fi network. Such an entertainment platform might be comprised, for example, of a connection from the computer to the digital stereo or the TV devices, as well as of an interconnected PlayStation2 or XBox governed by programmable TiVo equipment for online play. In essence, what is really new, nowadays, is that we know what tomorrow's entertainment technology will bring to us: a "magic box" where every game ever thought, every movie ever made, every song ever sung, plus news, sport events and shows, will be available for instant enjoyment with just one click on a button. While interest for conducting research in this area was moderate for a long time, recently, instead, great opportunities have arisen in academia, as well as in industry, for developing researches in the field of computer-based entertainment systems, especially focused on the provision of networking and system support to entertainment. Obviously, all these exciting technological advances have raised a number of interesting research questions: How can the Internet native language (i.e. the TCP/IP protocol) take over this complex scenario for scaling the delivery of entertainment contents to very large numbers of users? How can digital entertainment be delivered efficiently to small devices such as PDAs and cell phones? How can new system development styles, like the peer-to-peer style for example, have influence on the architecture of computer-based entertainment systems? How can the employed protocol be integrated to optimize the distribution of entertainment contents? SCOPE OF CONTRIBUTIONS: This Feature Topic solicits paper submissions from all researchers involved in the field of computer-based entertainment to provide an opportunity to publish state-of-the art original papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Networking and System Support for Entertainment Systems Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Entertainment Wireless Multimedia for Entertainment Networked Systems for Music and Movie Distribution Architectures, Platforms and Protocols for Networked Multiplayer Games Games on Mobile and Resource-constrained Devices Games and Wireless Technologies Networked In-Home Entertainment Systems Networked In-Car/Flight/Train Entertainment Systems Interactive TeleVision and Interactive Digital Storytelling Networked Technologies for Sport and Entertainment Wearable Networked Technologies for Entertainment Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality Technologies for Entertainment Integration and Interoperability Issues in Entertainment Systems Prospective authors should e-mail their manuscripts as a postscript or pdf attachment to the guest editors by November 01, 2004. (Please see http://www.comsoc.org/~ci for the authors guidelines.) The following is the timetable for this feature topic publication: SCHEDULE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Manuscript Submission: November 01, 2004 Acceptance Notification: January 15, 2005 Final Manuscript Due: March 01, 2005 Publication Date: May 2005 Guest Editors Barcin Kozbe Ericsson Inc, 11121 Willows Rd, NE Suite 101 Redmond, WA 98052 USA barcin.kozbe@ericsson.com