IBDG creates “neutral playground” for interactivity testing in mobile environment

A Ryerson University-based research group is using new funding from the Ontario government and a new experimental DTV licence from Industry Canada, to create close ties between broadcasters, new media content producers, and hardware manufacturers working on next-generation interactivity. IBDG PROJECTSByte Size Media: EC Interactive To work with an advertising agency and other stakeholders in creating a T-Commerce application for a television commercial. Global News: Enhanced Broadcast Journalism To create an enhanced journalism broadcast that gives audiences a full, in-depth understanding of a news story. By clicking on a remote control while a Global newscast is airing, viewers will be provided with the option of "digging down" into the content presented. Marblemedia: Toothpaste A five-minute humorous "domestic opera", combining interactive technologies with digital high definition video. Snap Media: Enhanced Fashion Television To create a prototype for interactive television, built around the international television show Fashion Television. Snap Media will enhance the Fashion Television viewer experience through the addition of an interactive layer of content, community and commerce. Vision Television: The Residential Schools Project Hosted by Newsworld, Vision Television, and Aboriginal Peoples Television, this two-hour live program will utilize opportunities for interactivity with its audience to enhance the social dialogues. Vivid Group: Digital Gladiators To create a digital set-top box application that is a digital game site which provides Olympic/American gladiator-style games played in virtual reality, with contestants competing against other online gamers as 3D animated superhero personalities.The Interactive Business Development Group (IBDG) is putting $1.2 million in first-round funding from the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology’s Interactive Digital Media Fund to work on nine projects which explore audio and video interactivity over the next two years. The projects include work with Pangaea New-Media Inc, Oberon Interactive, Planetcast Presentations Inc and WorkdayTV.com. Each project, and the organization itself, has been set up as a "neutral playground" where broadcasters, producers and academics can experiment with new technologies and content forms without hurtful competition between the private sector partners. The group recently worked with broadcasters as diverse as Global Television, the CBC, and Vision Television. For example, IBDG was an active partner in Vision’s application for a new digital specialty TV channel. In another example, the research group worked with both Vision and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network to create a two-hour live interactive TV program about residential schools and the healing process necessary there. Besides technical issues arising from creating an interactive program, the head of IBGD says broader issues were at stake such as the commercial potential of such programming, and the role of interactivity when dealing with social issues. In December, the group put a new tool in its belt with the acquisition of an experimental licence to use the digital television transmitter on the CN Tower in Toronto to launch a new trial of a wireless project dubbed "Renegade". The project, done in conjunction with the not-for-profit Canadian Digital Television, will target teens in a community-building exercise taking advantage of new hardware from Nokia Corp and Unique Broadband Systems to provide wireless interactivity. Teens will create content of interest to them, and broadcast two or three pilot programs in a multipoint environment. Milligan says the trial is expected to last around 18 months. The temporary licence took effect Jan.4, and will expire on June 30, 2002.

IBDG creates “neutral playground” for interactivity testing in mobile environment

News | 01/24/2001 5:00 am EST

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