Tuesday, December 6, 2011

SkyMedia Interactive application test at Turin Marathon 2011

During the technological pre-test carried out at Turin Marathon 2011, the interactive application developed within the framework of the SkyMedia project was tested.

The Interactive application was designed to allow users to constantly follow the event, even with augmented and interactive information. In order to guarantee a complete immersive experience, both during and after the race, for spectators and VIP audience, three different modes for the application have been designed: the Live, Director, and Offline mode.

During the pre-test carried out at Turin Marathon 2011, only the Offline application was shown to the audience. This application allows spectators to watch highlights and runners’ performances after the race.

The SkyMedia Interactive application will be shown with full functionalities, together with the Live and the Director mode, during the second pre-test at Tutta Dritta 2012 (April 22, 2012) and during the final demonstration at Turin Marathon 2012.

For this demonstration of the Interactive application, a 42’’ HD touchscreen was mounted in the dedicated SkyMedia booth, at the Expo area in Piazza Castello in Turin. The interactive application was exposed for all the three days event and every people interested in was invited to test it.


The SkyMedia 42'' Full HD Touch Screen monitor

Through the application it was possible to see pre-recorded video from the previous year edition of the race, along with the six SkyMedia runners' personal data and performance such as heartbeat, race time, pace, running distance, and calories burned.

SkyMedia Offline Interactive application

It was also available the Touristic Information page, where end users could navigate a map with the route of the marathon and highlighed point of interest, with historical and touristic information.

SkyMedia Offline Interactive application - Touristic Information view

The testers of the Interactive application was invited to fill in and submit a questionnaire on their user experience. Their feedback was really impressive: the application received indeed high marks in all aspects: usefulness, usability, and graphics.

The SkyMedia questionnaire



Friday, November 25, 2011

SkyMedia presented at the SMAT-F1 workshop

The SkyMedia partner Nimbus presented a talk entitled "Acquisizione dati da UAV a bassa quota ed integrazione con WSN e social network: il Progetto FP7-SkyMedia e il test case Turin Marathon" (Data acquisition from low altitude UAV and WSN and social network integration: the SkyMedia FP7 Project and the Turin Marathon test case) at the SMAT-F1 Workshop.

The workshop, organised in the framework of the dissemination activities of the SMAT-F1 project, has been held on the 22nd of November 2011, at ALTEC premises, co-organised by the Computer Science department of the University of Turin and ALTEC.

Monday, November 21, 2011

SkyMedia at Turin Marathon 2011

The EC-FP7 project SkyMedia has carried out a technological pre-test during the 25th Marathon of Turin, which has been held on November 13, 2011.

The Turin Marathon is a classical and important sport event that, in this year edition, has attracted more than three thousands of professional and amateur runners. The marathon starts and ends in the centre of the city of Turin, in the beautiful Piazza Castello, and touches along its course also seven villages in the nearby of Turin. 

A set of SkyMedia sub-systems has been pre-tested during the three-day event: the Interactive application, the Mobile application with QR codes, the runners' Application, the Wi-Fi ad-hoc network, the 3D cameras, and the Multimedia Service Platform.

SkyMedia booth in Piazza Castello


The focus of the test has been also on evaluating the end users response to these technologies, which has been enthusiastic. For this reason, several people, external to the project, have been involved: 
  • 6 amateur runners have directly participated using the runners' application during the race and wearing the QR code.
  • 30 end users tested the Interactive application and gave feedback through a questionnaire.
This pre-test has been also important in order to arrange and to evaluate logistical details in the same scenario where the final project demonstration will take place.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Turin Marathon 2011 pre-test at Italian newscast

The RAI TG Leonardo, one of the most distinguished newscasts on the Italian public television, dedicated to technological and scientifical topics, mentioned the technological pre-test carried out by the SkyMedia project during the Turin Marathon 2011, in a report dedicated to this important sport event.

The full broadcast is available here (in Italian, from minute 6:44 to minute 9:12).

Saturday, November 5, 2011

SkyMedia pre-test at Turin Marathon 2011

On November 13, 2011, the EC-FP7 project SkyMedia will carry out a technological pre-test during the 25th Marathon of Turin.
The SkyMedia project will pre-test a set of key technologies in the immersive and interactive entertainment media field including the use of live 3D processing, sensors on runners, mobile applications, interactive digital signage, and video capture from the sky using an innovative hybrid metaplane concept. These tests will be instrumental and propedeutic to prepare for the final project demonstration.
This year marathon (www.turinmarathon.it) is indeed special as it falls within the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy, and will thus be at the centre of the media focus. One of Italy largest and most respected newspapers, "La Stampa", dedicated this week special articles to the marathon and to the participation of SkyMedia at the event (read the full article, in Italian).

Saturday, October 22, 2011

SkyMedia at SMAU fair

The SkyMedia consortium has participated to the SMAU fair, which has been held in Milan, from 19th to the 21th of October. 

The SkyMedia stand is hosted in the Municipality of Turin booth and presents the whole set of trials that will be demonstrated during Turin Marathon 2011.


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

SkyMedia application in video surveillance

SkyMedia partner Nimbus partecipated to the Seminar on Video-surveillance, organized by Axis Communications at the Province of Turin premises on October 10, 2011.

Nimbus presented SkyMedia capabilities in surveillance: the SkyMedia architecture has shown indeed great potential in the security field for several reasons:
- Low cost aerial video shooting, in security conditions and without environmental disturb
- Monitoring through sensors of ground areas
- Centralized multimedia data collection and processing
- Direct interface with citizens' mobile phones
- Direct interaction with citizens' through touch screen interfaces

For more information about the seminar, please visit the web site (in Italian).

Friday, October 14, 2011

SmatF1: Italy Demonstrates UAV Ops in Civil Airspace

The SkyMedia partner Nimbus is involved in the SMAT F1 project, whose aim is to simulate a joint land-monitoring mission for civil purposes and to study and test a monitoring system for the prevention, emergency and territorial protection phases in a wide range of events such as floods, fires, landslides, traffic, town planning, pollution and farming. The monitoring system is to operate in an integrated manner with the authorities responsible for managing these events, providing them with timely information and real-time updates through a monitoring and coordination station.

This video represents the trials of the demonstration of Italy's SMAT F1 project (advanced land monitoring system, phase 1) with aircraft flying over Levaldigi (Cuneo-Italy), Benevagienna (Cuneo-Italy) and Turin (Italy).

Saturday, October 1, 2011

SkyMedia at the NEM Summit 2011


The SkyMedia project has participated to the 2011 NEM Summit exhibition, which took place on 27-29 September 2011, in Torino, Italy.

The project exhibited in a dedicated area for R&D projects funded under the FP7 programmes of the European Commission, addressing network and electronic media technologies and ICT.

Massimo Neri, the SkyMedia technical coordinator, has also been interviewed by "Onde Quadre", the Turin Polytechnic multimedia portal (in Italian):
http://www.ondequadre.polito.it/podcast_video.php?id_puntata=328








For more information about the NEM Summit follow the link to the official web site:
http://nem-summit.eu/


Thursday, July 21, 2011

SkyMedia at ICME2011

SkyMedia consortium has presented the publication  “Skymedia – Uav-Based Capturing of HD/3D Content with WSN Augmentation for Immersive Media Experiences” showing the novel multimedia end-to-end architecture that can provide unique immersive media experiences to audience during live events in the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME2011) held in Barcelona, Spain from July 11 to 15, 2011.

The presentation has been accepted in the Workshop on Hot Topics in Multimedia Delivery (HotMD 2011) in the track of Multimedia-Aware Networking.

ICME is considered one of the most important conference in the field of multimedia sponsored by four IEEE societies since 2000. It serves as a forum to promote the exchange of the latest advances in multimedia technologies, systems, and applications from both the research and development perspectives of the circuits and systems, communications, computer, and signal processing communities.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

SkyMedia and Nimbus at PROTEC 2011

SkyMedia project activities were presented at the PROTEC 2011 event in Turin on June 30, 2011, within a conference session on light UAVs as enabling technologies for public protection and security.

The SkyMedia presentation focused on how the enabling technologies deployed within the SkyMedia project in the entertainment field can be used to deliver public protection and security applications as well. In particular, they allow to:

  • Perform low cost aerial captures, silently and safely;
  • monitor the most critical terrain areas through the use of sensor networks, using the UAV as a relay; 
  • collect and process in a centralized manner all multimedia data collected on field; 
  • interact with citizens directly on their mobile phones, enabling prompt alerts and signaling of important events; 
  • interact with citizens using simple touchscreen interfaces deployed in strategically placed points of presence.



The Nimbus Metaplano

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

FogScreen on discover magazine

David H. Freedman has dedicated an article on the section Future Tech of the Discover magazine to FogScreen. Read it!


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Turin Marathon visit

SkyMedia consortium partners visited Turin marathon race premises, where the live demonstration will take place on November 2012.

The visit has been really fruitful in order arrange the logistics of the final demonstration event.

Monday, May 30, 2011

SkyMedia meets Turin Marathon

On May 26 Turin Marathon participated to one of the Progress Meetings of the EU-funded project SkyMedia, coordinated by Mavigex. Eight Partner companies coming from six different countries (Italy, Portugal, France, Hungary, Greece, and Finland).


The event has been also reported by one of the most important Italian newspaper, La Stampa. Read here the article (in Italian).






Friday, April 15, 2011

SkyMedia paper accepted at ICME HotMD 2011

The SkyMedia paper "Skymedia – UAV-Based Capturing Of HD/3D Content with WSN Augmentation for Immersive Media Experiences" has been accepted at the ICME 2011 conference, which will be held in Barcelona, Spain, from July 11 to 15.


The paper will be presented at the special session HotMD2011 of the workshop WoMAN'11 - Workshop on Multimedia-Aware Networking 2011.