multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different media. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.

Multimedia is usually recorded and played, displayed or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance.  The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.

Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. Linear active content progresses without any navigational control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation. Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as used with a computer game or used in self-paced computer based training. Hypermedia is an example of non-linear content.

Major characteristics of multimedia

Multimedia presentations may be viewed in person on stage, projected, transmitted, or played locally with a media player. A broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be either analog or digital electronic media technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed. Streaming multimedia may be live or on-demand.

Multimedia games and simulations may be used in a physical environment with special effects, with multiple users in an online network, or locally with an offline computer, game system, or simulator.

The various formats of technological or digital multimedia may be intended to enhance the users' experience, for example to make it easier and faster to convey information. Or in entertainment or art, to transcend everyday experience.

The term "multimedia" was coined by Bob Goldstein.

Usage

Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, but not limited to, advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, scientific research and spatial temporal applications. Several examples are as follows:

• Creative industries

Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from fine arts, to entertainment, to commercial art, to journalism, to media and software services provided for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Request for their skills range from technical, to analytical, to creative.

•  Commercial

Much of the electronic old and new media used by commercial artists is multimedia. Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Business to business, and interoffice communications are often developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training. Commercial multimedia developers may be hired to design for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as well.

• Entertainment and fine arts

In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia. In the Arts there are multimedia artists, whose minds are able to blend techniques using different media that in some way incorporates interaction with the viewer. One of the most relevant could be Peter Greenaway who is melding Cinema with Opera and all sorts of digital media. Another approach entails the creation of multimedia that can be displayed in a traditional fine arts arena, such as an art gallery. Although multimedia display material may be volatile, the survivability of the content is as strong as any traditional media. Digital recording material may be just as durable and infinitely reproducible with perfect copies every time.

• Education

In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment.

Learning theory in the past decade has expanded dramatically because of the introduction of multimedia. Several lines of research have evolved. The possibilities for learning and instruction are nearly endless.

The idea of media convergence is also becoming a major factor in education, particularly higher education. Defined as separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video that now share resources and interact with each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies, media convergence is rapidly changing the curriculum in universities all over the world. Likewise, it is changing the availibility, or lack thereof, of jobs requiring this savvy technological skill.

Newspaper companies all over are also trying to embrace the new phenomenon by implementing it's practices in their work.

• Engineering

Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as a collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers.

• Industry

In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technology

• Mathematical and scientific research

In mathematical and scientific research, multimedia is mainly used for modelling and simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance. Representative research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Multimedia.

• Medicine

In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.

• Document Imaging

Document Imaging is a technique that takes hard copy of an image/document and converts it into a digital format

HD Radio

It’s the most significant advancement in radio broadcasting since the introduction of FM stereo more than 50 years ago. HD Radio technology enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally – a tremendous technological leap from the analog broadcasts of the past.

HD radio works on a technology that splits the radio signal into analog and digital channels and then transmit it over the existing AM/FM bands. It’s a process known as In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) Broadcasting. It’s DIGITAL, and it’s FREE.

Basically, digital radio works the same as conventional radio. There’s a signal on one end and a receiver on the other. But there are a few key differences.

 

1. Instead of sending out one analog signal, stations send out a bundled signal – both analog and digital. Because it is digital, textual data such as traffic, stock info and song titles can be sent out, as well.
2.  The digital signal layer is compressed.
3.  The combined analog and digital signals are transmitted.
4.  Inevitably, radio signals bounce off objects, causing what is called multipath distortions. This is what causes the static in conventional radio receivers. HD Digital radio receivers are designed to sort through reflected signals, reducing static, hiss, pops and fades.
5.  Finally, the signals reach their destination. Both broadcasts are free, with no subscription fee. To hear the digital broadcast, all you need is an HD Radio receiver.

Features for the listener:

 

  

• FM stations now with CD-quality sound
• AM stations now with FM-quality sound
• Crystal-clear reception with no audio distortion
• New channels to play more of what you like to hear
• All digital, all the time
• No hiss, distortion or station drop off
• Reception is free, with no subscription costsMore talk and music from the stations you’re plugged into
• More complete sets and more full albums
• More in-depth interviews
• More lengthy talk and more detailed news
• Receives and plays digital HD2 Multicast programming
• Available in tabletop systems and shelf units
• Also available in car and marine stereo units

Assignment III

Submit the assignment on/before 25th March 2010.

Expand the following abbrevations:

1. ISDN
2. DSL
3. TCP/IP
4. HTML
5. HTTP
6. CTI
7. LAN,WLAN,MAN
8. SNS
9. MPEG
10. BMP
11. JPEG
12. MP3

Assignment II

Complete the following assignment and submit on/before 22nd March 2010:

1. Write the names of any 10 popular SNS and the country of its origin.
2. Write the names of any five Indian SNS.
3. List down the 5 popular uses of Multimedia at (a) Home, (b) in Business, (c) in Entertainment.

Telephony

In telecommunication, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other.

Telephones were originally connected directly together in pairs. Each user had separate telephones wired to the various places he might wish to reach. This became inconvenient when people wanted to talk to many other telephones, so the telephone exchange was invented. Each telephone could then be connected to other local ones, thus inventing the local loop and the telephone call. Soon, nearby exchanges were connected by trunk lines, and eventually distant ones were as well.

In modern times, most telephones are plugged into telephone jacks. The jacks are connected by inside wiring to a drop wire which connects the building to a cable. Cables usually bring a large number of drop wires from all over a district access network to one wire center or telephone exchange. When the user of a telephone wants to make a telephone call, equipment at the exchange examines the dialed telephone number and connects that telephone line to another in the same wire center, or to a trunk to a distant exchange. Most of the exchanges in the world are connected to each other, forming the public switched telephone network (PSTN). By the end of the 20th century almost all were Stored Program Control exchanges.

After the middle 20th century fax and data became important secondary users of the network created to carry voices, and late in the century parts of the network were upgraded with ISDN and DSL to improve handling of such traffic.

Digital telephony is the use of digital technology in the provision of telephone services and systems. Almost all telephone calls are provided this way, but sometimes the term is restricted to cases in which the last mile is digital, or where the conversion between digital and analog signals takes place inside the telephone. Telephony was digitized to cut the cost and improve the quality of voice services, but digital telephony was then found useful for new network services (ISDN) to transfer data speedily over telephone lines.

IP telephony is a modern form of telephony which uses the TCP/IP protocol popularized by the Internet to transmit digitized voice data. Contrast this with the operation of POTS (an acronym for "plain old telephone service").

Computer telephony integration (CTI) enables computers to know about and control phone functions such as making and receiving voice, fax, and data calls with telephone directory services and caller identification. The integration of telephone software and computer systems is a major development in the evolution of the automated office.

CTI is not a new concept. Such links have been used in the past in large telephone networks but only dedicated call centers could justify the costs of the required equipment installation. Primary telephone service providers are offering information services such as automatic number identification (ANI) and Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) on a scale wide enough for its implementation to bring real value to business or residential telephone usage. A new generation of applications (middleware) is being developed as a result of standardization and availability of low cost computer telephony links.

Fundamental Computer Networks Concepts

In the world of computers, networking is the practice of linking two or more computing devices together for the purpose of sharing data. Networks are built with a combination of computer hardware and computer software.

Types of Computer Networks

Networks can be categorized in several different ways. One method defines the type of a network according to the geographic area it spans. Alternatively, networks can also be classified based on topology or on the types of protocols they support.

One way to categorize the different types of computer network designs is by their scope or scale. For historical reasons, the networking industry refers to nearly every type of design as some kind of area network. Common examples of area network types are:

• LAN - Local Area Network
• WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network
• WAN - Wide Area Network
• MAN - Metropolitan Area Network
• SAN - Storage Area Network, System Area Network, Server Area Network, or sometimes Small Area Network
• CAN - Campus Area Network, Controller Area Network, or sometimes Cluster Area Network
• PAN - Personal Area Network
• DAN - Desk Area Network

The building blocks of a home computer network include adapters, routers and/or access points. Wired (and hybrid wired/wireless) networking also involves cables of varying types. Finally, large-scale enterprise networks in particular often employ other advanced equipment for specialized communication purposes.

Ethernet is a physical and data link layer technology for local area networks. Homes, schools and offices around the world all commonly use Ethernet standard cables and adapters to network personal computers.

Wi-Fi is the most popular wireless communication protocol for local area networks. Private home and business networks, and public hotspots, use Wi-Fi to networks computers and other wireless devices to each other and the Internet. Bluetooth is another wireless protocol commonly used in cellular phones and computer peripherals for short range network communication.

The technologies used to connect to the Internet are different than those used for connecting devices on local area network. DSL, cable modem and fiber provide fixed broadband Internet service, while WiMax and LTE additionally support mobile connectivity. In geographic areas where these high-speed options are unavailable, subscribers are forced to use older cellular services, satellite or even dial-up Internet instead.

Network Design

Computer networks also differ in their design. The two types of high-level network design are called client-server and peer-to-peer. Client-server networks feature centralized server computers that store email, Web pages, files and or applications. On a peer-to-peer network, conversely, all computers tend to support the same functions. Client-server networks are much more common in business and peer-to-peer networks much more common in homes.

A network topology represents its layout or structure from the point of view of data flow. In so-called bus networks, for example, all of the computers share and communicate across one common conduit, whereas in a star network, all data flows through one centralized device. Common types of network topologies include bus, star, ring and mesh.

Network Protocols

In networking, the communication language used by computer devices is called the protocol. Yet another way to classify computer networks is by the set of protocols they support. Networks often implement multiple protocols to support specific applications. Popular protocols include TCP/IP, the most common protocol found on the Internet and in home networks.

Technology of Networks - Wireless

Benefits of Networking

The benefits of networking (either wired or wireless) in homes are:

• 
  
  file sharing - Network file sharing between computers gives you more flexibity than using floppy drives or Zip drives. Not only can you share photos, music files, and documents, you can also use a home network to save copies of all of your important data on a different computer. Backups are one of the most critical yet overlooked tasks in home networking.
• 
  
  printer / peripheral sharing - Once a home network is in place, it's easy to then set up all of the computers to share a single printer. No longer will you need to bounce from one system or another just to print out an email message. Other computer peripherals can be shared similarly such as network scanners, Web cams, and CD burners.
• 
  
  Internet connection sharing - Using a home network, multiple family members can access the Internet simultaneously without having to pay an ISP for multiple accounts. You will notice the Internet connection slows down when several people share it, but broadband Internet can handle the extra load with little trouble. Sharing dial-up Internet connections works, too. Painfully slow sometimes, you will still appreciate having shared dial-up on those occasions you really need it.
• 
  
  multi-player games - Many popular home computer games support LAN mode where friends and family can play together, if they have their computers networked.
• 
  
  Internet telephone service - So-called Voice over IP (VoIP) services allow you to make and receive phone calls through your home network across the Internet, saving you money.
• 
  
  home entertainment - Newer home entertainment products such as digital video recorders (DVRs) and video game consoles now support either wired or wireless home networking. Having these products integrated into your network enables online Internet gaming, video sharing and other advanced features.

Advantages of a wireless home network instead:

1. Computer mobility. Notebook computers and other portable devices are much affordable than they were a few years ago. With a mobile computer and wireless home network, you aren't chained to a network cord and can work on the couch, on your porch, or wherever in the house is most convenient at the moment.

2. No unsightly wires. Businesses can afford to lay cable under their floors or inside walls. But most of us don't have the time or inclination to fuss with this in our home. Unless you own one of the few newer homes pre-wired with network cable, you'll save substantial time and energy avoiding the cabling mess and going wireless.

3. Wireless is the future. Wireless technology is clearly the future of networking. In building a wireless home network, you'll learn about the technology and be able to teach your friends and relatives. You'll also be better prepared for future advances in network technology coming in the future.

Wireless networking represent the future of computer and Internet connectivity worldwide. Wi-Fi continues to be the pre-eminent technology for building general-purpose wireless networks.

Wireless Networks

Wireless networks utilize radio waves and/or microwaves to maintain communication channels between computers. Wireless networking is a more modern alternative to wired networking that relies on copper and/or fiber optic cabling between network devices.

A wireless network offers advantages and disadvantages compared to a wired network. Advantages of wireless include mobility and elimination of unsightly cables. Disadvantages of wireless include the potential for radio interference due to weather, other wireless devices, or obstructions like walls.

Wireless is rapidly gaining in popularity for both home and business networking. Wireless technology continues to improve, and the cost of wireless products continues to decrease. Popular wireless local area networking (WLAN) products conform to the 802.11 "Wi-Fi" standards. The gear a person needs to build wireless networks includes network adapters (NICs), access points (APs), and routers.