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Ubimedia based on readable and writable memory tags

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Abstract

Ubimedia is a concept where media files are embedded in everyday objects and the environment. We propose an approach where the user can read and write these files with his/her personal mobile phone simply by touching the physical objects. This facilitates easy access and storage of, e.g. video and audio files related to the physical object in question. This paper describes our work in developing a technical solution for ubimedia and studying user acceptance of forthcoming ubimedia services. Our technical development of the ubimedia concept has been focused on a mobile phone platform with a tag reader/writer, memory tags with large storage capacity, and the communication between the phone and the tags. Currently, the technical design is in test and evaluation phase. The preliminary results show that the concept works and it can be implemented technically. In parallel with the technical development, we have studied usage possibilities for ubimedia and user acceptance of future ubimedia services. User acceptance has been studied in a web survey and in user evaluations of proofs-of-concept. In addition, an ethical assessment has been carried out. The users appreciated especially the simplicity, speed, low cost and reliability of ubimedia. Ethical concerns were related to control over the download with regard to viruses and other unwanted content.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank all the partners of MINAmI project, who have contributed to our goal of developing mobile-phone-based Ambient Intelligence solutions that will be accepted by users. We also want to thank the Ethical Advisory Board of our project as well as the test users for their voluntary work. This study is a part of MINAmI project under EU FP6 contract IST-034690. This research was also supported by the Finnish Academy under grant no 129446.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1300, 33101, Tampere, Finland

    Eija Kaasinen, Marketta Niemelä, Timo Tuomisto & Pasi Välkkynen

  2. Helsinki University of Technology, TKK, P.O. Box 3000, 02015, Espoo, Finland

    Iiro Jantunen

  3. Telefónica I+D, C\ Emilio Vargas 6, 28043, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Sierra & Miguel Angel Santiago

  4. Nokia Research Center, P.O. Box 407, 00045, Nokia Group, Finland

    Harald Kaaja

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  1. Eija Kaasinen
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  2. Marketta Niemelä
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Correspondence to Eija Kaasinen.

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Kaasinen, E., Niemelä, M., Tuomisto, T. et al. Ubimedia based on readable and writable memory tags. Multimedia Systems 16, 57–74 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-009-0171-3

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