(Nom du fichier) - D1 - 01/03/2000 Le présent document contient des informations qui sont la propriété de France Télécom. L'acceptation de ce document par son destinataire implique, de la part de ce dernier, la reconnaissance du caractère confidentiel de son contenu et l'engagement de n'en faire aucune reproduction, aucune transmission à des tiers, aucune divulgation et aucune utilisation commerciale sans l'accord préalable écrit de France Télécom R&D SoNG portalS of Next Generation Olivier Avaro (France Telecom R&D)

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D2 - 01/03/2000 Project Overview (1) è Partners : ‡ Co-ordinator: FT R&D; ‡ Contractors: Blaxxun Interactive; CSELT; T-Nova; GET; EPFL; GMD; Imperial College; INRIA; Telenor; University of Geneva; Universität Stuttgart; Siemens. è Domain: Virtual worlds, multi-users environments, intelligent agents, simulation and data visualisation, e-commerce applications. è Timeline: Start date on the 01/01/2000 for a duration of 24 months. è Contact Point : Mr. Olivier Avaro France Telecom – CNET tel:

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D3 - 01/03/2000 Project Overview (2) è Goal : The project intends to investigate, develop and standardise the building blocks for the next generation of portals and to demonstrate in a real-time e-commerce application how they allow a more natural access to services. è Building blocks are : ‡ (1) shared, dynamic and real-time virtual spaces; ‡ (2) Animation of realistic synthetic faces and bodies; ‡ (3) Software agents capturing human characteristics and learning user profiles; ‡ (4) Intuitive interfaces for navigation and interaction in information spaces; ‡ (5) Delivery of information with QoS monitoring. è Application is an E-commerce application allowing navigation in synthetic real sites populated with shops. The user can inspect goods, communicate with virtual or real humans, make transaction.

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D4 - 01/03/2000 Project Overview (3) è The project is organised in two areas of work: ‡ (1) the development of a technology, and ‡ (2) the development of an application. è These two areas are linked by an integration activity that releases periodically a consistent Open Source technology platform on which the application can be built.

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D5 - 01/03/2000 Example (1)

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La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D9 - 01/03/2000 Challenges for SoNG (1) è SoNG Portals are multi-users ‡ Development of a unified approach for conferencing and sharing information in real-time virtual spaces and develop specific plug-ins on top of it. ‡ What is the right technology : protocols versus interfaces ? Going beyond the religious wars. ‡ How to integrate with existing architectures (MPEG-4, H.323) ? ‡ What is the right level of standardisation ? Past efforts are limited to very specific areas (ex: H.323) or have failed (ex: Living Worlds).

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Challenges for SoNG (2) è SoNG Portals integrates rich media ‡ Implementation and extension of MPEG-4 representation to allow the construction of integrated portals, including talking virtual humans and synthetic music. ‡ Authoring tools are still lagging behind the standardised technology. There are no commercial non trivial MPEG-4 authoring tool. ‡ Efficient and simple animation of avatars is an issue. Efficient decoders are missing. Efficiency is not realism. ‡ Creation of synthetic audio is an issue.

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Challenges for SoNG (3) è SoNG Portals are intelligent ‡ Adaptation and extension of the FIPA technology for the project's applications, and MPEG-4 embodiment of agents. ‡ What interface(s) between the body and the brain ? What architecture for a truly multimedia agent based portal ? ‡ How to embody FIPA agents with MPEG-4 interfaces ? ‡ How portal personalization impacts representation of content and multimedia data bases ?

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Challenges for SoNG (4) è SoNG Portals are highly interactive ‡ Development of physical interfaces (vision system, motion system, integrated Hypermedia Interface) and their scene description (extension of MPEG-4 BIFS) counterparts. ‡ How to easily navigate in 3D space ? Investigation is needed ! New physical interfaces, new interaction representation. ‡ How to better integrate MPEG-4 content in the Web environment ? MPEG-4 Textual format XMT Integration with SMIL and X3D

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Challenges for SoNG (5) è SoNG Portals are for todays network ‡ Provision of the needed mechanism to deliver the related information with management of QoS (Quality of Service). ‡ How to transport of MPEG-4 content (still an issue !!!) : on the internet; on mobile networks. ‡ How to provide a QoS framework for streamed media over the internet ? ‡ How does the new content representation (ex: conferencing) impact the delivery layers ?

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Architecture Overview (1) MPEG-4 Browser Application Browser Skin MPEG-4 Protocols and Extensions for shared objects Applications Spécific Protocols or Généric Remote Method Invocation MPEG-J/EAI DAI Network

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Architecture Overview (2) RTP/UDP/IP FlexMux Delivery MPEG-2/4 DVB MP4 Media Stream DAI Transport Plug-in Interface Media Stream Decoder Media Object Media Stream Root Scene Object BIFSDecoder Presenter 2D Presenter 3D Presenter Xtended Content (HTML, MPEG-J) Decoder Plug-in Interface IP Multicast H323 mappings

La communication de ce document est soumise à autorisation de France Télécom R&D (Nom du fichier) - D /03/2000 Timeline è T0+2: First Requirements. Technology development starts. è T0+6: First technology platform release, integrating state of the art technology. Applications development starts. è Every six months: releases of the technology platform with new tools developed by the project. Application releases demonstrating functionality supported by the platform. è T0+21: Application beta release. Tests and evaluation begin. Fine tuning of application and technology platform. è T0+24: Project ends.