News Future Applications and Media

On May 16 and 17, about 200 participants from 22 countries met at the 6th FOKUS Media Web Symposium (MWS) at the Fraunhofer-Institute FOKUS in Berlin. International experts presented and discussed current trends in the fields of Internet delivered Media, 360° video/ Virtual Reality, Multiscreen Solutions, HbbTV, Smart Media, standardization and market developments.

Fraunhofer FOKUS business unit FAME attends the exposition “Virtual Reality: The Interactive Science Hub” at Avant Première on February 13, 2017, in Berlin.

The IEEE Standards Association published a press release on the joint white paper “Semantic Interoperability for the Web of Things”. Louay Bassbouss of Fraunhofer FOKUS contributed to the paper as one of over 30 experts in the field of Internet of Things (IoT).

Berlin's regional broadcaster rbb launched “Band Camp Berlin” series. It will be shown on German TV channel KIKA with additional HbbTV based material. Fraunhofer FOKUS provides the technical basis and developes an editor toolkit for the HbbTV App within the project MPAT. As a worldwide first, the series offers the opportunity to watch 360°video on common HbbTV devices.

Louay Bassbouss of our business unit FAME won an award for his paper “High Quality 360° Video Rendering and Streaming”. At NEM Summit 2016, it was awarded as best paper.

At IFA, Innovisions TV, a rapporteur for news on research and development in the IT industry, interviewed Alexander Futasz on the Broadcast Probing System.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle launched a Smart TV App developed by Fraunhofer FOKUS. The FAME Lab provided different testing devices for implementation and quality assurance. The app is compatible with LG and Samsung TVs.

Two papers of our business unit “Future Applications and Media – FAME” on Smart Learning Recommender (SLR) were awarded and nominated at different conferences in April and May 2016. SLR extends traditional Learning Management Systems with the time value in order to respect the changing knowledge level in a continuous time interval.

On the 2nd and 3rd of May 2016, at Media Convention, Fraunhofer FOKUS in cooperation with ARTE showcased 360 degree technologies. With these technologies high-definition movies of the ARTE360-App have been shown on a dome as well as on a television.

As part of the South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conferences and Festivals, that took place between the 11th and 20th of March 2016 in Austin/Texas, Prof. Ina Schieferdecker (Director of the institute Fraunhofer FOKUS) and Dr. Stephan Steglich (Director of the Business Unit FAME) gave a lecture on “Without Borders: Social TV-App Supports Mega Events”. The lecture was held in the “German Haus”.