BBC News On Interactive TV

Do you want to catch up with news headlines,get to know whats happening around you,and know hows the weather today,or even find if your team has won..?

Well this has come true,and its your choice to do that by video or text by BBC service through the red button on your digital television.If you have a sattelite at home,you can catch the news in videos whenever you want or see what happened aroun you by reading in text.

Easy To Use:

On the right side of your television,a coloured menu will show up.If the menu has a link to the news Multi screen,its simply to use the arrow keys or you can key in 1001,the news mutiscreen number,on your hand set and press select.

Watching News Interactive:

It include the headlines,sport,the weather forcast,entertainement headlines and deeply coverage new stories,and live news.On freeview,there is a four screen version that offers headlines and detailed news stories.

By Fady Naddour

Interactive Tv Sponsorship

This is an article about interactive tv sponsorships..as we know tv sponsorships is increasing and becoming a part of brands activities.Digital platforms allow brands to get more out of this sponsorship by utilising a new content,and an increasing brand among audience.so when u press the yellow button on the remote control,viewers will have the chance to see further information,wich makes them enjoy and interact through additional content,games and competitions.

The major benefits of Interactive Sponsorship:

-Deeper brand experience.

-Ability to reach more than 15 millions of people through digital sattelite platform.

-Create a dialogue with the audience.

-Strengthen brand experience.

By Fady Naddour

Sky Vegas:a Current Form Of Interactive Games

Sky Vegas is an Interactive entertainement channel that broadcast gambling programming.It allow users to interact from their homes and win.Its a new home of all the favourite slots and table games as well as some special games that is not founf anywhere else.Sky Vegas has 3 products such as: Skybet,Skypoker,and Skybings.

Sky vegas doesn't need any downloads.You can choose from more than 30 games from Roulette and Blackjack to Deal or no Deal and Chain reactor.You should have Sky Tv in order to enhance your entertainement with sky vegas.

By Fady Naddour.

Interactive Tv Games

Interactive Tv games are the newest craze all aover the world.Video and online game lovers are enjoying these new digital games where players can interact with the television in variuos virtual situations.
How interactive games developed??
The idea for this interactive TV games developed to entertain kids and children.It's an educational way for children to spend thier time,but as the development progressed,it was discovered that interactive games is a hit to all ages and generations.The interactive games broadened their spectrum because the potential to make money was recognized.
Some examples of Interactive Games:Sky Vegas Live,Hulk game,Who wants to be a millionaire,skuzzboarding,and the lottery.

by Fady Naddour

Broadband MSN Tv

In the year 2000,a company called Rogers cable partenerd with Microsoft,to produce "RogersInteractive Television ".It had a great impact on its users as the service enabled Rogers users to enter the web through Tv Sets.It also made them create their own websites,shop online,chat,and access mails.This was the first broadband of MSN TV.Later in the year 2005,Microsoft introduced MSN TV2,its the same as MSN,as it allows the use of a mouse,along with that it uses the TV as an output device.For cheap devices,the cost of licensing the operating system is substantial.For microsoft,it is like actualizing a sunk cost,but when microsoft released the MSN TV model,than they got standard PC architecture and used windows software with few changes.This made a standard PC to be used with few changes,this allwed MSNTV2 to stay in current.

by Fady Naddour

MSN Tv:a current form of interactive television

MSN Tv or Web Tv,is a name of a thin client which uses a television for display,and an online service that supports it.It was firstly produced by Microsoft,and taken to MSN.
The MSN Tv product is an adaptor that makes a TV set connected to the net,usually for web browsing and e-mails.The setup includes a web browser,wireless,and a connection to the internet.The concept was founded by Steve Perlman,as he saw a commercial that eneded by displaying the website for the company,he often recalls this as a Campbells Soup Advertisement.It occured that if the television audience were able by a device to augment television viewing with recieving infos through the Tv,then perhaps the web address could be a signal,and the television a conduit.
Since the device was a web browser,the cost of licensing an operating system could be avoided.The box feature such cutting edge technology and the smart card reader,neither of which ever caught on for Internet clients..

By Fady Naddour

TiVo: a Current Form Of Interactive Television

Tivo is a brand of digital video recorder.It is a device that attracts television programming to hard disk storage inorder to view later.The main functions TiVo provides is that it provide television programming schedule,and a recording option based on this schedule,it also gets infos about the programs for the next two weeks,description of programs,regular and guest actors whether the programs are repeated or new.
Tivo recording programs based on viewing habits,called TiVo suggestions.Users can rate programs from 3 ways and are combined to create a recommendation,based on what tivo users with similar viewing habits watch.For instance,if the watcher likes the simpsons and Family Guy then another Tivo user who watched just the Simpsons might get a recommendations for the other two shows.

By Fady Naddour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivo

The Obstacles that face Interactive Television

Commercial Broadcasters that serve the market are facing some obstacles that prevent them from adopting interactive television,and interactive technologies because they must serve the desires of their customers,earn a return on investment for their investors,in collaboration with many factors:

-Implementing a return path in far areas that have no technology

-Implementing a return path interaction in areas that have lack in infrastructure.

-coding of set top boxes by cable operators and box manufactureres.

-The cable monopoly rules that are followed in many countries served by cable Tv operators.

-The competition from service providers and Internet based content.

-Technical and bussiness road blocks

By Fady Naddour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_television

Interactive Television:impact on wireless industry

The wireless industry had a great effect on Interactive Television,because there was a great opportunity for interactive television applications to be delivered on mobile devices.First,Tv networks had offered its viewers a content whom they can interact with through wireless devices,and wireless iTV gave networks the chance to interact with multiple viewers on a single TV,and keep viewers interacting with the content whenever they want.The wireless iTV is alwayz an "on" connection that allow television networks to reach the viewers.The wireless industry through wireless devices provide a return path for interactivity,and many viewers to interact with a program or show.
"Wireless devices can act as a personal devices for a specific viwere and can manage his entertainement experience by interacting with television programming."(wireless business and technology).

By Fady Naddour

http://wbt.sys-con.com/read/41142.htm

Interactive Television spies on Viewers

By using Interactive Television,when clicking on the remote control,the information goes into a database called "click stream".The click stream can be used to create an image or picture of you"the viewer"(who are you,what you like/dislike,and what motivates you).This buildup or profile of a certain individual(viewer) can be used to target customers by marketing techniques such as sales and publication or through your mails and phones.The television will publish something and than publish something else,and than monitor how you act and react with what you see.In other words,the interactive television will work on your way of thinking until you exhibit the desired behaviour,it will be used to invade the viewer privacy.

Therefore,if you never order an item through your TV or never played with an interactive commercial,your iTV will be interactive in both ways,but what really matter is the "click stream".

Peer to Peer Networks Connect Drivers

Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles are working on a wireless communication network that will allow cars to talk to each other, while at the same time downloading information such as road safety warnings, entertainment content and navigational tools.

The wireless network would allow moving vehicles within 100 meters and 300 meters of each other to connect and create a network with a wide range. The network would then allow drivers to download information from internet access points simply by driving by, and then share that information with other cars on the road.

There will be benefits in driving safety and in content distribution. Car-to-car communications can be used to avoid accidents by warning the drivers of danger that is about to come. Vehicles will be equipped with sensing devices, such as radars and video cameras.

The most important feature of this network is that it is not subject to memory, processing, storage and energy limitations like the current sensor networks. Instead, it depends on the resources of the vehicle itself and the vehicles around it.

Cars would be able to use their radios to exchange three types of information: safe navigation (such as icy road conditions, traffic jams and accidents ahead), content distribution (local information, advertisements and videos of approaching attractions) and urban surveillance (collecting information which could be used later by police for investigations).

The research team is already working with car manufacturers such as Toyota and BMW to bring the project to life. However, costs and industry standards are important obstacles that this network is facing.

Laure Bashour

Interactivity with TV program content

Interactivity with TV program content is " interactive tv",and is a challenged thing to generate and produce.It is the idea that the program or show the viewer is watching can change according to the viewer.Developed kinds of interactive televisions still have uncertain impact for becoming a main thing, including dramas where the viewer get to change or plot details and endings for the program. For instance,in Accidental Lovers viewers can send mobile messages to the broadcaster and the plot change based on the words of the messages.Another interactive content is the Hugo game on the television where the viewer control the game character using phone buttons.

"Another forms of interactivity include programs that incorporate polls,questions,comments and virtual audience response back into the show"(Wikipedia.com).Some kinds of interactive television will be popular more than others,but that viewing of a defined content with a scripted narrative arc,will remain a major part of the TV experience.

Commercial broadcasters are somehow constrained from getting interactive technologies,because they must serve the desire of their customers and have the ability to implement return path in some areas that have lack of technological infrastructure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_television

By Fady Naddour

Interactive Television

The Future of Interactive Tv

While mixing e-mails,e-commerce,web browsing and much more into interactive tv,providers and users think that Europe will be the ground for iTV.Many reasons make Europe the next place for this iTV's growth.First,there is less PC penetration in Europe than the United States.Second,Europeans use net services like shopping,buying....Third,operators are pushing digital television much in Europe than the U.S...Many Europeans already use the teletext service which shows text info on the TV screen...Britain is the head of iTV services,and estimation show that over 3 million of the British are using iTv..
"Interactive Television is expected to creat a 25$ billion in revenue in the US by 2008,and the US has less than 10% of the 101 billion housholds with iTV in the world.Studies also show that commerce via internet could beat commerce via PC"(geeks.com)

by Fady Naddour

www.geeks.com

News on Peer to Peer Technology

A range of public broadcasting firms, commercial TV stations and cable and telecommunications companies are all enthusiastic about distributing television programs via the Internet. While the existing technique makes use of centrally located computer systems, research is now being done into TV distribution through peer-to-peer systems. This type of distribution is carried out through large groups of PCs operated by normal users.
This technique enables TV programs to be transmitted almost free of charge and opens the way to new TV stations working through the Internet. In addition, this technique promises a straight connection between the program makers and the viewers. If the public broadcasting companies make use of peer-to-peer technology, the high costs of data distribution would be a thing of the past.
When using this method of transmission it is critical that the rights to the visual material be cautiously handled and protected. The use of Creative Commons licenses presents one possible solution to several legal issues.

Laure Bashour

Interactive Television

The average person in Western countries spends much of their time infront of the TV,majorely they spend half of their life infront of this set.Its like having someone in the room with the watcher.Television had a great impact on us,which made us have fewer conversation with people and less involved wityh them.But there was a new type of television being produced(Interactive Television-Tommorrow's Television)."Mathew Timms,head of programming at two way tv in London describes it as a digital revolution,he claims that its somehow they feel they're sitting there,it's just them and the television,eventhough the reality is its got a wire leading straight back to somebody's computer".
So what's an Interactive Television?"its a television with return path".Infos not only flowing from broadcaster to viewer,but also vice-versa.It represent low interactivity(on/off,volume) to modern interactivity(simple movies on demand without player controls),and high interactivity for instance,(an audience member affect the program being watched).

Forms of interaction:
Interactivity with TV Set:its the use of remote control and than this had evolved to video on demand,commercial skipping,and and VCR-like pause.
Interactivity with Tv Program:Its the idea that the program itself might changed based on viewer input.
Interactivity with Tv related contents:getting more infos about what is on TV.

People are talking about Interactive TV for some reasons:T-commerce(people will be able to buy pizza without dialling a phone).Interactive Goodies(you'll be able to pause live tv shows).

Posted By Fady Naddour

Peer to Peer Networks... My Theme

A peer-to-peer (or "P2P") computer network uses various connectivity between members of a network and the collective bandwidth of network members rather than the traditional centralized resources where a comparatively low number of servers provide the core value to a service or application. Peer-to-peer networks are generally used for connecting nodes through exclusive connections. Such networks are valuable for many functions. Sharing files that contain audio, video, data or anything in a digital form is very common, and real-time data, such as telephony traffic, is also shared through P2P technology.

A pure peer-to-peer network does not have the concept of clients or servers, but only equal peer nodes that function as both clients and servers to the other nodes on the network. This form of network array differs from the conventional client-server form where contact usually takes place to and from a central server. A classic example for a non peer-to-peer file transfer is an FTP server where the client and server programs are discrete, and the clients commence the downloads and uploads and the servers accomplish these requests.

The idea of peer to peer is progressively advancing to an extended custom as the relational dynamic active in distributed networks, i.e. not just computer to computer, but also human to human.

Laure Bashour

Geographic Information System - GIS

What is GIS

GIS is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing and displaying geographically referenced information; that is data identified according to location. Practitioners also define GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system.

History

What is now GIS began around 1960 with the discovery that maps could be represented with simple computer programming code stored in a computer for later modification to the map. Early versions of GIS involved simple lines representing land features. Later, the concept of overlaying different map features on top of each other was used to investigate patterns and causes of spatial phenomenon.

Applications

GIS is a very important tool in modern management and development practices. It can be applied in the fields of:
Geography
Demographics
Land use
Utilities
Agriculture
Environment
Public health
Tourism
Safety and security

This is going to be the topic of my blog for the coming three months.

Laure Bashour

E - Publishing

Since the invention of the Internet, books and written publications became increasingly less popular. People prefer reading on the Internet because it is easily accessible, free of charge – except, of course, for some journals and articles that cannot be accessed without purchasing.


Electronic publishing includes the digital publication of books and articles, as well as the creation of digital libraries. It has become common in the scientific field and in all other realms. There are also many electronic publications on CD and DVD such as Encyclopedias.



Electronic publishing is increasingly popular in works of fiction as well as with scientific articles. Electronic publishers are able to provide quick fulfillment for late-night readers, books that are not found in standard book shops and books by new authors that are not beneficial for traditional publishers.

PROS:

There are several benefits to e-publishing. First, it saves a lot of time by terminating the need of going to the library or bookshop. Second, anyone can publish their ideas on the Internet, so this helps the poor and less privileged to share there writings with the public.
E publishing costs are almost negligible because one saves printing, shipping and inventory costs, plus the writer does not have to share the profits with a publishing company.
Besides, with the current Green Revolution, e publishing is a great thing for environmentalists since it saves so much paper :)

CONS:

Disadvantages are mostly faced by publishing companies because less and less books are being published in the traditional way. Soon the publishing industry will be old news ;)

Ways of e publishing:
E bookstores that sell only electronic books;
Databases that publish electronic articles and journals;
Publishing house sites that sell both paper and electronic books.

Online book stores:
http://www.amazon.com/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
http://www.powells.com/


Laure Bashour

SteamPunk

In general, steampunk is category of fantasy and speculative fiction (which includes science fiction, horror fiction, fantasy fiction, superhero fiction and supernatural fiction, as well as alternate history and magic realism). It includes science fiction that has taken place in a definite time in history after the start of the Industrial Revolution but before electricity becoming popular. It focuses on steam-propelled gadgets. The most common steampunk takes place during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The next most common is "Western steampunk", which is an American Western science fiction seen in The Wild Wild West, Legend, and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_fiction

Laure Bashour

CyberPunk

Cyberpunk is a category of science fiction that focuses on the most advanced technology available at the time and low life, i.e. people like prostitutes, drug addicts, drug dealers, alcoholics and pimps. It is characterized by advanced science, like information technology and cybernetics, as well as some breakdown in the social order. It replaces human functions with robotic movements, hence the word Cyber in its name. Punk comes from the music used in the background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

Laure Bashour

Mind exoskeleton

Computers are considered to be exoskeletons of the human mind because they perform all the work and do all the thinking for us.
They act as physical extensions to the human brain that we can never again live without.

By Laure Bashour

Body exoskeleton

These wearable robots fit around the person's arm or leg like an exoskeleton and enable the person wearing them to perform extraordinary functions. Their flexible joints mimic every movement of the person's arm or leg, and providing flexibility. They are portable and run on battery power.

By Laure Bashour

Second Life

Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world, developed by Linden Research, Inc, which became internationally popular in late 2006. Its users, called Residents, can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, have virtual sex, and create and trade items and services from one another.

While Second Life is often thought of as a game, but this is not really appropriate since it does not have scores, winners or losers, levels and other properties of regular games. However, there are many games within Second Life.

Residents are human in appearance, they can be either male or female, they can have a wide range of physical characteristics, and they can be either clothed or take a wide variety of humanoid and other forms.

Within Second Life, there are two ways of communication: local chatting, and global instant messaging (known as IM). IM is used for private conversations. There are many websites that can be used to help Residents find each other from outside Second Life.

Second Life has its own economy and its currency is Linden Dollars (L$). Residents create goods and services, and buy and sell them in the virtual world. Also, Residents can exchange real world currencies for L$.

There are two types of accounts: basic and premium. Basic accounts are free of charge, but their Residents cannot own land on Second Life. Residents of Premium accounts pay $9.95 per month, including a monthly fee for a small piece amount of land (worth $5 a month), which must be bought either from another player or from Linden Lab by auction.

By Laure Bashour

Second Life is one of several irtual worlds that have been inspired by the cyberpunk literary movement.It is referred as a game.It doesn't have pts,scores winners and losers.It allow users to interact with each other through motional avatars providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of metaverse.Residents can explore,meet other residents,socialize,and participate in individual and group activities.In general,it is a virtual world in which people can interact,play and do businees.
By Fady Naddour

Exoskeleton

If we examine the evolution of computers, we will see a clear meta-trend, going from one computer for many people (the mainframe) to one computer for a single person (the PC), and finally to many interconnected computers for everyone.

The three rules underlying this meta-trend are Moore’s law on the exponential growth of transistors at constant cost (processing speed and storage capacity double every 18 months); Metcalfe’s law on the square value of a network (the usefulness of a network equals the square of the number of users) and Gilder’s law on bandwidth growth (the total bandwidth of communication systems triples every twelve months). The combination of these three laws has resulted in what we know as cyberspace and digital economy, where value has shifted from atoms to bits. The cyberspace consists of networks of networks of networks. These networks connect a range of intelligent devices; they can increase our human potential, acting as an exoskeleton. From the standpoint of applications and services, it is more suitable to think in terms of exoskeleton rather than in terms of cyberspace, because the exoskeleton transmits an improved reality, and consequently it concerns our real lives. It is not just virtual reality as Cyberspace suggests.

Researchers have developed an exoskeleton that helps firefighters, hikers, soldiers and travellers with their backpacks. It lessens the load of their luggage. Furthermore, there is ongoing research that promises amputees with robotic limbs that will improve their strength and mobilty. These are examples of how computers can be used as exoskeletons not only for the human mind, but for the human body as well.

The exponential development in speed, communication bandwidth, material sciences, efficiency and sensor technology is leading to a New Era, the Era of amplified reality. Computing technologies will have a great economic, social and cultural influence on our society. It will be an era where we can have a new external body: the “computational exoskeleton”.

A.L.I.C.E.

We had a rather interesting conversation with the robot Alice, about a variety of issues.
She is quick and often answers our questions, although sometimes she manages to twist the answer in a smart way when she cannot answer.
When we started the conversation, we were expecting direct answers to difficult questions, rather like an encylopedia. Later we realised that she does not really know a lot. She is skillful in throwing the question back at us stated differently. Or she might tell us to wait while she searches for answers or asks her manager, who is always unavailale, she claims.
There are a few things that she answers immediately, although not quite to the point. For example, we asked her "Who is Karl Marx?" She said, "Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital and co-wrote the Communist Manifesto, though his compatriot Engels actually wrote most of the prefaces."
We also noticed that she gets mad easily, especially if we ask her the same question more than once. For example, we asked her about desertification twice, so the second time she said, "Are you testing me?" She also got mad when we asked her about Karl Marx's philosophy and she told us to try another program, but we insisted that she answered us but she did not.