Paul Hoffert - Research Projects Post 1992

paulhoffert.ca research projects post 1992

RECENT RESEARCH, 2005-2008 Patent (Pending), P. Hoffert, Co-Inventor, 2007 Methods, media, and systems for tracking content consumption on devices such as computers, mobile phones, and mp3 players over a network Patent (Pending), P. Hoffert, Co-Inventor, 2007 Methods, media, and systems for payment determination using individual user consumption data Patent (Pending), P. Hoffert, Co-Inventor, 2007 Methods, media, and systems for recording and reporting content usage over a network Digital Media Exchange (DMX), P. Hoffert, Co-Principal Investigator, 2005-2006 The Digital Media Exchange (DMX) is a P2P online service, operated as a cooperative of content subscribers and suppliers. DMX provides content and license aggregation, marketing, and distribution, as well as usage accounting and royalty distribution. DMX subscribers have permission for the unlimited exchange (downloading, streaming, and copying) of music, movies, television programs, photos, games, documents, and the spoken word, with no technical protections or DRM constraints. In addition, many DMX content titles allow users to make derivative works from the content. DMX’s Peer to Peer (P2P) service allows users to share files amongst each other, without the intervention of a central server. DMX is fully copyright compliant, with oversight by the Harvard University Law School - Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The owners and administrators of DMX content authorize DMX and its subscribers’ activities. DMX has clear privacy and dispute resolution policies procedures. DMX does not use technical systems that can limit subscribers from playing, copying, or distributing content. This allows any subscriber to make his or her content available to other subscribers, without the need for special encoding. CULTECH RESEARCH CENTRE (1992-2000) 1. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH CulTech Research Centre (1992-2000), P. Hoffert, Research Director, Executive Director Founded in 1992 by Paul Hoffert, CulTech Research Centre focused on understanding the use of digital media. CulTech became a world leader in developing and testing broadband user applications and content. CulTech has had links with York University and Sheridan College, structuring partnerships and consortia among educational institutions, governments, and companies. CulTech wound down operations in July 2000, when Mr.Hoffert moved his research operations to Sheridan College. Following are some of CulTech's projects, described within its six research programs. 2. DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT DMX - Digital Media Exchange , 2005 - 2007, P.Hoffert, Co-Director Digital Media Exchange (DMX) is a new model for the entertainment business that solves the problem of illegal file sharing by monetizing it. DMX provides content licenses to broadband, mobile, and university networks, converting previously illegal file-sharing and copying into legal activities while inoculating the networks against copyright infringement litigation. End-users need not change their current file-sharing behaviors. Copyright owners license their audio, video, and text works to the DMX service in return for license fees that are collected from the networks on behalf of all of their end-users. The DMX system creates digital fingerprintsto identify each media file, linked to its ownership and metadata. File usage is tracked on end-user devices and is used to pay all the content fees (minus an administration fee) to the content owners. The service is fully copyright compliant, with strong privacy policies. The file distribnution technology is a hybrid of P2P and central file services. No encryption is used, so users can share files in standard formats, such as mp3, wav, mov, doc, pdf, jpg, and mov. DMX is part of the Digital Media Project at Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. Rights Clearing House, 2001 - 2004, P.Hoffert, Director R&D Rights Clearing House is a web portal for licensing rights to music and other content. It provides a unique Licensing Wizard that leads users through a series of questions that determine whether the desired content is in the public domain or protected by copyright. In the latter case, the Wizard determines which types of rights (performance, distribution, mechanical reproduction, synchronization, etc) are required for the requested use and automatically links to the databases of copyright societies, agencies, and publishers to clear those rights. Supported by Canadian Heritage, the website is the first of its kind to make the licensing process easy and frequently automatic, with e-commerce capability for payment with credit cards. See www.rightsclearinghouse.ca Clearing Rights and Wrongs (CRAW), 2003 Clearing Rights and Wrongs is a Guide for clearing rights to Canadian learning objects at universities, colleges, and other educational institutions. The utility will be in the form of a Wizard – software that, by triage, guides a user through the complex area of copyright laws and current practices in a much simplified manner to deliver answers to practical questions such as “I would like to use materials in my classroom (or online). What rights, if any, need to be cleared in order to do so and how would I go about clearing them?” In addition, the Guide will contain links to many relevant sources of information at government, NGO, and private organizations. The Guide is accessed as a button on standard web pages. Changing Relationships in Cultural Industries, 2001 A study prepared for the Canadian Ministry of Heritage and the inter-relationships among creators, production and publishing companies, and large distribution companies. The study concludes that, as a result of the changing infrastructures (to digital formats and distribution channels) creators and distributors have been empowered at the expense of independent production companies and independent publishing companies. This trend is disturbing in part because the independents are the traditional mode of government supports for the expression of local culture. Digital Music Library - Requirements Study and Plan, 2000 This research study was prepared for the Canadian Music Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts. It analyzes the structural and operational elements of the CMC national classical music repository of paper scores and music CD recordings and describes in detail how they may be transformed into an online digital archive, searchable and accessible from any browser on the Internet. IVY, 1993-1999, P. Hoffert, Principal Investigator The IVY Digital Property Management System is a comprehensive framework for networked delivery of digital content. It was one of the first to be deployed on digital networks, delivering media-rich digital content including music and CDROMs on demand, educational courses, community activities, information, and health care in a secure, authorized and authenticated environment. Content use is tracked accurately and reports are generated for users, content owners, and distributors. Varying permissions for use (stream, download, edit) may be specified for each file and IVY accommodates encryptions, data tagging, watermarking, user fingerprinting, and copy prohibition. The IVY system was used for more than two years (as part of the Intercom Ontario Trial) to track CD-ROMs, music, health, education, and Internet use. 3. NETWORK ENABLED COMMUNITIES OnDisC Alliance, 2000 - 2003, P. Hoffert, Research Director, Executive Director OnDisC Alliance, a not for profit consortium of content companies, rights management companies, colleges, universities and other schools headquartered at Sheridan College in Toronto. OnDisc prototyped the delivery of media-rich digital course materials to students. OnDisC is an acronym for Online Distributed Content, the architecture that is used to test e-commerce models for delivering books, journals, photographs, videos, television programs, music, CDs, and the like to students in electronic formats, metered within a secure electronic environment. See www.ondisc.ca Intercom Ontario, 1994-1998, Executive Director, Researcher Intercom Ontario was a field trial of a suburb connected by a community broadband network and serviced by a wide range of online content and applications. The Intercom consortium included more than seventy telephone companies, governments, broadcasters, computer companies, real estate developers, copyright collectives, retailers, educators, health companies, software developers and researchers. Research focused on content use and changes in work, play, and family activities. Beginning December 1996, approximately one hundred households in the Stonehaven West neighborhood of Newmarket Ontario were connected by a 10 megabit/second symmetrical network and content infrastructure. Each home was fitted with a LAN for computer, video, and appliance connectivity. A full range of applications, from CD-ROMs and music on-demand to health care and education was delivered to each home. Researchers from York University and University of Toronto monitored users and usage to determine how future communities might be optimally designed. In most cases, the deployment of applications and content resulted in the first information gathered about actual use by ordinary people in a residential community. The Intercom Ontario network was decommissioned at the end of 1998 but the data gathered continues to be analyzed. Cyber Soirée, 1996-1997, P. Hoffert, Producer, Host, Performer Cyber Soirée demonstrated a distributed low-latency live performance network using symmetrical audio and video feeds to four sites across the continent in two countries (US and Canada). Cyber Soirée 96 featured jazz musicians, dancers, and painters collaborating in real time at four locations in Quebec and Ontario. Cyber Soirée 97 expanded the horizons to Los Angeles at the official residence of Canada’s Consul General where one hundred Hollywood denizens were partied (virtually) with suburban residents in Newmarket Ontario, conference attendees in downtown Toronto and one thousand party-goers at Citytv’s ShmoozeFest - a party for Toronto’s International Film Festival. Videophones at Calumet College, 1994-1995, P. Hoffert, Co-Principal Investigator One hundred students in residence at Calumet College were connected with videophones and wireless PDAs (Apple Newtons). The video conferencing operated on a broadband network among the college dorms and the PDAs were modified for operation on a wireless infrared network within the dorms, using the IP protocol to connect them. Research focused on finding appropriate screen resolutions, window sizes, and frame rates for satisfactory video communications and on understanding the social contexts for use, such as privacy and gender differentiation. 4. DIGITAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS Jukeboxx,1995-2000, P. Hoffert, Principal Investigator Jukeboxx is a music-on-demand application that serves compressed music files to client software on Windows and Macintosh platforms where the music stream is decompressed in real-time and played at high fidelity. It allows a user to make lists of songs from a large collection of titles and play them back in a prescribed or random order. Users can program their own radio stations, music for housework, homework, or for entertaining guests. Their music play lists are saved on a network server and are accessible at other homes and offices. A search engine allows users to find songs by composer, lyricist, artist, record company, music category, and the like. The application has is compliant with digital rights management - DRM - systems such as DCMS (see IVY Research). Jukeboxx was deployed in the Intercom Ontario trial using music content from SONY, Warner, EMI, Attic, Anthem, Marquis, and other record companies. Within the first six months of making the application available to sixty-seven households, users accessed more than eight thousand song selections. VITAL - Varied and Integrated Teaching and Learning, 1995-1999, P. Hoffert, Research Director VITAL is a system for creating new interactive media-rich courses and materials for education and training. It also can VITALize legacy courses and materials so they may be effectively distributed on digital media. VITAL courses are interactive, available online, and rich in graphics, video, simulations, animations, music and voice. They require high-speed networks for delivery. VITAL courses use HTTP protocols and integrate URLs from the World Wide Web for a balance of author designed and up-to-date Internet materials. Initial courses were licensed by York University to Bell Canada for off-campus non-credit distribution. NICE - Networked Interface for CD Edutainment, 1995-1997, P. Hoffert, Researcher NICE was the first technology that allowed users to mount and access CD-ROMs over a broadband network without the need for local CD-ROM players or disks. CD-ROMs are transferred to hard disk using proprietary processes that maintain serial number verifications, multiple CD sets, and the like. From a user's perspective, the disks seem to be resident in the local computer. The NICE system has been extremely robust, allowing dozens of users to access the same disk simultaneously without degrading system performance. On high-speed networks, the performance over the network is better at the user's computer than if the user had a local CD-ROM disk mounted. Vid-IO, 1993-1997, P. Hoffert, Researcher Vid-IO is an easy-to-use inexpensive video telephone and video messaging system designed by CulTech researchers. It uses the power of PCs and high-speed networks plus an inexpensive video camera to deliver smooth motion video and good audio synchronization with a minimum of user intervention. Making a video call is as simple as clicking on a picture of the recipient, which may be modified by each user. A click of the mouse a answers a call (a window with ringing phone image comes to the front of the monitor). Recipients can see and identify the caller but need not pick up the receiver to have a video-message recorded. All settings are automatic, with no menus to configure. There are and the application does not resemble typical computer software interfaces. Vid-IO was tested in the Calumet and Intercom Ontario connected community trials with messages stored on a server in the former case and on the users' computers in the latter. 5. USER INTERFACES Interactive Television Interfaces, 1999-2000 , P. Hoffert, Co-Principal Investigator Interactive television research centred on user interfaces and using set-top box technologies to integrate analog television programs and commercials with digital content and interactivity. Demos were created for the 1998 National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. EasyNav, 1995-1998, P. Hoffert, Principal Investigator, GUI Designer EasyNav is a user interface for navigating content and applications on broadband networks. It allows easy selection of more than 1,000 applications with no more than two mouse clicks. EasyNav works equally well on computer screens and on TV sets. It provides excellent access for vision-impaired users and may be navigated entirely by sound. A contextual self-help and tutorial of streamed videos and balloon-type text help users learn the system. Color is used thematically to track user choices and to keep track of users’ navigational locations. Users can personalize their interface by substituting their own graphical icons and sounds for the defaults. The underlying technology is http, but the interface replaces the common browser look with a unique full-screen environment that looks like neither a computer OS nor a television program screen.