NEWS In late October, researchers from Digital Media Lab at Umeå University will present the technology behind the futuristic "human animal machine interaction" at a premier international multimedia conference in Italy.
The bold new idea presented in the article is attract digital visitors by changing the focus in which they have contact with the animals – from one-way communication into real understanding and interaction in real-time between humans and animals. The article demonstrates techniques in order to achieve this communication. One of the techniques is based on those currently being applied at Lycksele Zoo (Swedish: djurpark) in the EU Objective 2 regional project Digital djurpark: a wireless multimedia sensor network.
"With use of the new streaming multimedia, these techniques can enhance the physical and the visual experience for both animals and humans," says Shafiq Ur-Rehman, of the authors of the article and whose research is funded by the Swedish Research Council (project: Tactile Facial Expression Appearance Recognition System, 2007-2010).
The conference is titled "ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Multimedia 2010" and will take place on 25-29 October 2010 in Firenze, Italy. The title of the article is "Human Animal Machine Interaction: Animal Behavior Awareness and Digital Experience" and it is one of seven scientific contributions as part of the conference’s "Brave New Ideas" programme. This programme has been implemented as a special sessions track containing papers extending the boundaries of multimedia research and eventually opening new lines of research development with a focus on society in a time perspective of five years or more.
See live images from moose calf area via the Digital Djurpark at Lycksele Zoo
For further information about the conference and article, please contact: Shafiq Ur-Rehman, Senior LecturerPhone: +46 (0)90-786 93 73 73
E-mail: shafiq.urrehman@tfe.umu.se
For additional information about the Digital Djurpark (zoo) project:Johannes Karlsson, Research Assistant Phone: +46 (0)90-786 70 56
E-post: johannes.karlsson@tfe.umu.se
Web: http://www.tfe.umu.se/english/research/dml/research-projects/digital-djurpark/
For further information about the Digital Media Laboratory:Prof. Haibo LiPhone: +46 (0)90-786 67 08
E-mail: haibo.li@tfe.umu.se
Web: http://www.medialab.tfe.umu.se/
Editor: Karin Wikman