FP7 Networked Media Concertation Meeting

On April 16 and 17, 2008 Touradj Ebrahimi (EPFL) and I attended the first FP7 networked media concertation meeting, representing the NoE PetaMedia. On the first day, the cluster meeting on AV search engines was held. What did I take away from that first day?

(Vilamoura, south of Portugal, location of the first FP7 Networked Media concertation)

First, being present at such concertation gave me a lot of insight in the inner workings of FP7 program. A lot of information and upcoming developments and choices in FP7 calls can be inferred from the discussions during the concertation. This is pretty useful making sure you are in the right (sweet) spot for future calls and projects.

Second, three issues were quite interesting to me.

1. A lot of momentum is being created around evaluation methodolodies and standards for AV search engines. In other words, the challenge is not to design 'yet another' AV search engine, but to come up with means to evaluate the existing ones (and the ideas about new ones). I guess I witnessed the conception of a new FP7 project? Along the same lines, the question is if we can come up with a standard architecture for search engines, so that research and new development can be placed within the context of such architecture.


2. With the increasing power of search engines privacy becomes more and more of an issue. Ramon Campano of the EC gave a very powerful presentation showing that the challenge is not to design yet another AV search engine, but to focus research on the privacy and trustworthiness aspects of the current and future AV search engines. This presentation actually connected very well to my dies natalis presentation, entitled "Get Real: Refelctions on Trustworthy Virtuality", see http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/pub/inald/Dies_Inald_Lagendijk_22min.wmv for the reording of the presentation and http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/pub/inald/ScriptDiesNatalis2008.pdf for the script.


3. A lot of momentum is being created around the larger European Technology and Innovation platforms, the JTI's and EIIT's. It seems that these European platforms -- connected to national initiatives -- are going to play an important role in FP8?

The second day was the Network Media concertation. The head-of-unit Networked MediaSystems (D.2), DG-INFSO European Commission - Luis Rodríguez-Roselló - gave an interesting overview of current projects and the challenges for the years to come (Future Internet, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL, http://www.aal-europe.eu/). I guess privacy and trustworthiness is also going to be high on the agenda. FYI, have a look at the following two (technology-push) solutions:

• http://www.speedproject.eu/


• http://www.emitall.com/

After Luis' presentation, things became less interesting. I had a nice chat with Gary Sullivan (Microsoft) about the ongoing MPEG video standardizations, and with Narciso Garcia (UPM) about an upcoming visit to Madrid.

Some excitement was generated by the french-dominated project Quaero (http://www.quaero.org/). This project is said to become the European counterpart of Google, and/but is heavily funded by the EC (99 MEuro) and French government. Taking into account other French national initiatives (such as the poles de competitivite -- http://www.competitivite.gouv.fr/spip.php?rubrique36&lang=en), it is clear that France is heavily investing in innovation and is on its way to taking the (at least financial) lead in several information society areas. The Netherlands would do well to follow this example and allocate substantial budgets to the Innovation Platforms. There is no time to waste!