In the past few months, I have been working with a few colleagues, including Dr Anastasios Bakaoukas and Ewan Armstrong, at Computing on initialising a VR project. The idea is simple: build our new Waterside Campus (due open in 2018) in virtual reality using game development engine so we can all (virtually) walk around on our new site before it’s fully completed in the physical world. So why have we volunteered to do this?

1. Because we can! Our Game Development/Arts/Design programmes are strong and fast growing. We have expertise in modelling, artistic design and artificial intelligence for developing immersive games.
2. It can potentially help the University to promote our infrastructure/facilities at the new site to prospective students. To this end, we have worked with the marketing team to understand their needs. The tool could also help improving the visitor/student experience once we move to the new campus.
3. Using the new campus as the case for teaching. Students can drop their designs or game logics directly into this VR environment and test their work in a unique context.
4. It will be a great platform for media, AI, and traffic analysis research.

Despite an enormous workload on teaching and marking, the team has worked with an external media company and has committed many many hours transform 3D models for the gaming environment (special thanks to Ewan!). We hope to deliver some interest results very soon!

BTW, if you like one of those “cut-in-half” arts, here are some of my takes on the Creative Hub:

Taking a small slice off and you can see some networking space on the left and entrances to blocks of lecture theatres on the right:

Cutting it further:

It looks like there is a standalone building wrapped inside…

And here is the Engine Shed, a Grade II listed building currently being restored and it will be the home of the Student Union.

http://myvrlearning.wordpress.com

Project title: Transforming online learning experience using virtual reality and gamification.
At UoN, the Innovation Fund has been established by the Vice Chancellor as a way of promoting innovation from amongst staff through the funding of projects which will support Strategic or Operational Plan objectives or whose work contributes towards Northampton’s Changemaker Challenges.

LinkedIn kindly found an article on New Scientist that quotes my comments on near-ultrasound communication (and subsequently spammed all my contacts…). It’s a cool piece of technology and I am glad to praise for its great potential.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230952-900-tv-shows-could-use-ultrasound-to-send-bonus-extras-to-your-phone/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2110762-your-homes-online-gadgets-could-be-hacked-by-ultrasound/

ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on QoE-based Analysis and Management of Data Communication Networks (Internet-QoE 2016)

CFP: http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2016/files/workshops/cfp-qoe.pdf

Abstract (draft):
The emerging network paradigm of Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been increasingly adopted to improve the Quality of Experiences (QoE) across multiple HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) instances. However, there is currently a gap between the research output and reality in this research field. QoE models, which offer user-level context to network management, are often tested in a simulation environment. Such environments do not consider the effects that network protocols, client programs, and other real world factors may have on the outcomes. On the other hand, setting up an experiment that reflects reality is a time consuming process requiring expert knowledge.
This paper shares designs and guidelines of a SDN experimentation framework (SDQ), which offers rapid evaluation of QoE models using real network infrastructures.

A paper is in submission for IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (J-STSP) Special Issue on Measuring Quality of Experience for Advanced Media Technologies and Services. This is a piece of work on cross-device media orchestration using web technologies and human factor modelling, which we started in an EU project (with TNO) and I am interested in steering it towards multi-sensory and multimedia IoT. Collaborations are welcome!

Link to CFP: http://www.signalprocessingsociety.org/uploads/special_issues_deadlines/JSTSP_SI_measuring_quality.pdf

• STEER: Exploring the dynamic relationship between social information and networked media through experimentation
  (by Sylvie Dijkstra, Omar Niamut, Nikolaos Efthymiopoulos, Spyros Denazis, Nicholas Race, Mu Mu and Jacco Taal)
  Abstract: With the growing popularity of social networks, online video services and smart phones, the traditional content consumers are becoming the editors and broadcasters of their own stories. Within the EU FP7 project STEER, project partners have developed a novel system of new algorithms and toolsets that extract and analyse social informatics generated by social networks. Combined with advanced networking technologies, the platform creates services that offer more personalized and accurate content discovery and retrieval services. The STEER system has been deployed in multiple geographical locations during live social events such as the 2014 Winter Olympics. Our use case experiments demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the underlying technologies.

http://stcsn.ieee.net/e-letter/stcsn-e-letter-vol-3-no-2

A paper with the title “A Scalable User Fairness Model for Adaptive Video Streaming over Future Internet” is under recommended revision for IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (J-SAC) Special Issue on “Video Distribution in the Future Internet” (Publication date: Second Quarter 2016). 

Abstract:

The growing demand for online distribution of high quality and high throughput content is dominating today’s Internet infrastructure. This includes both production and user-generated media. Among the myriad of media distribution mechanisms, HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) is becoming a popular choice for multi-screen and multi-bitrate media services over heterogeneous networks. HAS applications often compete for network resources without any coordination between each other. This leads to quality-of-experience (QoE) fluctuations on delivered content, and unfairness between end users. Meanwhile, new network protocols, technologies and architectures, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), are being developed for the future Internet. The programmability, flexibility and openness of these emerging developments can greatly assist the distribution of video over the Internet. This is driven by the increasing consumer demands and QoE requirements. This paper introduces a novel user-level fairness model UFair and its hierarchical variant UFairHA , which orchestrate HAS media streams using emerging network architectures and incorporate three fairness metrics (video quality, switching impact and cost efficiency) to achieve user-level fairness in video distribution. The UFairHA has also been implemented in a purpose-built SDN testbed using open technologies such as OpenFlow. Experimental results demonstrate the performance and feasibility of our design for video distribution over future Internet.

Keywords: Hierarchical resource allocation, adaptive media streaming, QoE utility fairness, network orchestration, software defined networking, human factor