Multimedia Services and Applications J.UCS Special Issue

Due to the latest developments in communication, computing, and storage technologies , multimedia services and applications are being deployed for various applications such as entertainment, health care, smart homes, security and surveillance, and intelligent environments. The special issue focuses on research challenges and issues related to multimedia applications. Scheibe et al. in their paper titled " Pose Estimation of Rotating Sensors in the Context of Accurate 3D Scene Modeling " present the designed calibration and pose estimation techniques for panoramic sensor-line cameras and laser range-finders. The sensor-line cameras for used for panoramic imaging and laser range-finders can generate dense depth maps (of isolated surface points). The authors combined these techniques to reconstruct 3D environments such as large buildings. In " A Service-Oriented Platform for Ubiquitous Personalized Multimedia Provi-sioning " , Yu et al. propose a three-layer software platform, UPmP, to support efficient development and deployment of ubiquitous personalized multimedia services. The platform provides the core functionalities for ubiquitous personalized multimedia provisioning including service management, multimedia recommendation, adaptation, and delivery. Sandnes et al. in their paper, " Near Eyes-Free Chauffeur Computer Interaction with Chording and Visual Text Mnemonics " , investigate a user interface interaction style for in-car user interfaces. The users interact with the in-car computer using three chording keys, where chording pattern sequences are derived based on visual mnemonics. The illustrations include: an in-car multimedia system, a mobile phone, and a GPS-navigation system.