Landscaping Future Interaction: Special issue on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia

B ecause multimedia is becoming ubiquitous, we will soon be able to count on access to any multimedia content, from anywhere in the world. This special issue of IEEE MultiMedia addresses the most recent developments in this area and looks at the current technologies enabling mobile and ubiquitous multimedia. In particular, this special issue presents articles that discuss novel and future-oriented research that focuses on the architectures, protocols, and algorithms developed to cope with mobility. The articles presented in this special issue cover not only novel application domains, but also a wide variety of methods, including case studies, field trials, and evaluations of new applications and services; research in novel mobile user interfaces; and research in design and use of intelligent, aware, proactive, and attentive environments. Mobile and ubiquitous multimedia is an expanding field of research that covers middleware and distributed-computing support for mobile and ubiquitous multimedia; mobile computer graphics, games, and entertainment; and mobile and ubiquitous multimedia in intelligent transport systems. This area also covers novel, adaptive, context-aware, and wireless multimedia applications and systems, along with mobile media management and mobile and ubiquitous multimedia in ad hoc networks. This special issue outlines the trends, major challenges, and perspectives related to these exciting topics.