Newsletter
IMSC eNews, September 2003
Contact: Nichole Phillips, (213) 740-3237 nicholep@imsc.usc.edu
AUDYSSEY LABS FOCUSES ON MORE REALISTIC AUDITORY EXPERIENCE - Audyssey Laboratories, Inc., an IMSC spin-off, is focused on developing technologies for processing sound to provide a more realistic auditory experience for multiple listeners and to commercialize them for licensing purposes by major consumer electronics manufacturers worldwide. The company was founded by USC Professor and Audyssey Chief Technology Officer Chris Kyriakakis, IMSC's Research Area Director for Sensory Interfaces; USC Ph.D. and Audyssey President Dr. Sunil Bharitkar; and USC Master's graduate and Audyssey Chief Executive Officer Phil Hilmes. USC Prof. Tomlinson Holman, a key IMSC investigator, also serves on the company's Board of Directors. More information about the company can be found on its Web site at http://www.audysseylabs.com.
NSF AWARDS ITR GRANT ON SPEECH RECOGNITION - A $2.9 million, four-year grant to develop speech recognition technology for automating the assessment of literacy and math skills of young children has been awarded to a team of researchers from IMSC; the University of California, Los Angeles; and UC Berkeley. The Information Technology Research grant from the National Science Foundation focuses on children from four to eight years old. The project aims to advance the state of the art in speech processing, wireless communications, data mining and human-computer interface design. IMSC key investigator Shri Narayanan, associate professor of electrical engineering, computer science and linguistics, will be the USC Principal Investigator. Prof. Narayanan directs IMSC's Speech Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory http://sail.usc.edu.
IMSC PRESS PUBLISHES TWO NEW BOOKS - IMSC Press, a partnership between IMSC and Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, has published two new books, Quality of Service for Internet Multimedia and iTV Handbook: Technologies and Standards. Quality of Service for Internet Multimedia is co-authored by Jitae Shin, assistant professor at Sungkyungkwan University in Korea; Daniel C. Lee, assistant professor of electrical engineering at USC; and C.-C. (Jay) Kuo, professor of electrical engineering at USC and a key IMSC investigator. The authors discuss optimizing performance, content classification and quality control in continuous media applications, such as digital video and audio. In the iTV Handbook, Dr. Edward Schwalb, presents the latest issues on the concept of interactive television-an evolutionary merging of digital television and the Internet. Dr. Schwalb is a consultant, inventor and executive with wide-ranging expertise in computing technologies. To order, go to http://imsc.usc.edu/bookseries.
IMSC IN THE NEWS - ARD, the largest public television station in Germany, aired an extensive, three-part report on IMSC's research in an Aug. 26 show on the future of television. ARD's Morgenmagazin, a popular morning show, spotlighted IMSC's research projects on Remote Media Immersion, haptics and virtual reality for journalism. The ARD team spent two and a half days at IMSC preparing the report. IMSC Director Ulrich Neumann was interviewed, as well as IMSC key investigators Prof. Margaret McLaughlin, Prof. Larry Pryor and Prof. Roger Zimmermann. Prof. Zimmermann spoke German for the interview. Less than two weeks later, Deutschlandradio Berlin broadcast a report on IMSC's virtual reality for journalism project highlighted in the ARD report.
On Sept. 4, the New York Times featured IMSC Director Ulrich Neumann discussing IMSC's research on digital techniques for making animated characters appear more human-like, which will be especially relevant for use in films. The Times article pointed out that eventually computer animators will be able to select "Edward G. Robinson's anger" from a drop-down menu and create a virtual actor that can sneer in a way reminiscent of Little Caesar. http://imsc.usc.edu/press/pdfs/03_09_04.pdf.
In a Sept. 10 article, "Touch Technology Comes of Age Online," the Web site, E-Commerce Times, reported on IMSC's research on haptics technology that would allow people to use the sense of touch with art objects over the Internet. http://imsc.usc.edu/press/pdfs/03_09_10.pdf.
The Integrated Media Systems Center is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center at the University of Southern California.