{"id":308291,"date":"2006-08-23T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2006-08-23T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=308291"},"modified":"2016-10-19T01:46:55","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T08:46:55","slug":"zcast-broadcasting-data-based-services-mobile-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/zcast-broadcasting-data-based-services-mobile-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"zCast: Broadcasting Data-Based Services to Mobile Devices"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research<\/em><\/p>\n Have you seen the one about \u2026?<\/em><\/p>\n From time immemorial, mankind has maximized its ability to share information orally. Whether it is passing along a recounting of a movie, recapping last night\u2019s sporting event, or simply telling a joke, that tradition continues today. It\u2019s easy, it\u2019s expedient, it\u2019s socially engaging.<\/p>\n But, as we all know, there are drawbacks to this sort of information exchange. We might not be as good at explaining a movie as enjoying one. Perhaps, in the retelling, we forget a key play in the game. Maybe our joke-telling skills need a bit of polish.<\/p>\n Maybe zCast can help.<\/p>\n zCast, a research project out of Microsoft Research\u2019s lab in Cambridge, England<\/a>, is exploring the possibilities of using datacasting\u2014sending various associated files along with broadcast signals\u2014to provide services to mobile devices. Tim Regan<\/a>, a research software-design engineer with the Socio-Digital Systems group within that lab, is fascinated by the potential such a technique could offer.<\/p>\n \u201czCast is looking at how to get media content to handheld devices,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat kind of media would people want on the move on their mobile phones? When and why? How do we get it to them?\u201d<\/p>\n The answers to those sorts of big questions could, before long, enable you to share a movie trailer, send a game clip, or e-mail a late-night talk-show anecdote to friends or colleagues as easily as if you were telling them about it\u2014without having to burnish your skills as a film critic, a play-by-play announcer, or a professional quipster.<\/p>\n The latter scenario is one that, Regan\u2019s research has revealed, could have particular social value.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will download a funny video clip to their mobile device,\u201d he says, \u201cand then, when they meet their friends in a bar later on that night, they\u2019ll say, \u2018Have you seen this?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing is they\u2019re demonstrating that they\u2019re slightly ahead of the curve, because they\u2019ve seen the content that you haven\u2019t, and that they\u2019re socially cool, because they know what will make you laugh. And then they can give it to you. I can Bluetooth you a copy of the joke. That kind of use you don\u2019t get on standard TVs.\u201d<\/p>\n The datacasting concept, of course, is far broader than a joke-delivery mechanism.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are two sides of the research interest,\u201d Regan says. \u201cThere is the human-computer interaction side: What kinds of user experiences does this enable over different networks? And there\u2019s the underlying network side: If you do have different ways of getting stuff to devices, how do you manage those different channels, and how do you balance across them?\u201d<\/p>\n Such is the interest in zCast that the project actually turned the usual research model on its ear.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that\u2019s really intriguing about the project is it breaks the model of what usually happens in research,\u201d Regan says. \u201cMy experience with industrial research is you have a cool idea, you research it in some depth, and then you go to the product groups.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was very different. Product groups, including eHome, Windows Media\u2122, and devices, were looking to do a project in this area. It sounded so interesting we got involved. It was really kind of product pull, which was very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n The zCast project began in 2003, when Regan and colleagues received permission to use a portion of the digital radio spectrum in the United Kingdom to experiment with datacasting.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kind of applications we were thinking about,\u201d Regan recalls, \u201cwere additions to radio. You might be listening to a radio program, and you could get additional information without having to make a point-to-point connection across the Web, because you\u2019re browsing files that have been downloaded to you already.\u201d<\/p>\n In the process, the researchers became fascinated with what they termed an \u201casymmetric user experience,\u201d in which lots of information is pushed to a user, but little or none is sent by<\/em> a user.<\/p>\n \u201cThe archetypes of that are things like TV, where it\u2019s all one way,\u201d Regan explains, \u201cor things like buying or voting, where you need a lot of information to make up your mind, but once you\u2019ve made up your mind, you need to pass very little information back the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n The model could work in one of two ways. The information could be streamed so that everyone receives it at the same time, such as TV, or it could be delivered via a carousel: A number of files are downloaded, and a user could check the carousel for a desired file.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what makes it interesting,\u201d Regan says. \u201cThe market hype would be that everyone wants this all the time, whereas more realistic people might say, \u2018No, that\u2019s not true; there are some times when it might be useful and plenty of times when it isn\u2019t.\u2019 From a researcher\u2019s perspective, that\u2019s what I wanted to understand in some depth: When is it that things like this would be useful?\u201d<\/p>\n He learned that video on a mobile device could prove a common usage.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a bunch of scenarios where the way people will want to consume video on a mobile device is analogous to watching TV at home,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you want to catch the next episode of Lost<\/em>, and, when it\u2019s on, you happen to be on a train, it would be really nice if you could just watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n The project is now in its third phase. The first included platform-level work done by Microsoft\u2019s eHome team, which was interested in the potential of datacasting.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did some work to determine the key scenarios to show to people to make them understand what this is all about,\u201d Regan says. \u201cOne was the augmented radio service, where you have the ability to vote on the track you were listening to and move it up the playlist of the radio station\u2014or buy the track.\u201d<\/p>\n Other first-phase work included designing a movie-download service and an enhanced electronic program guide.<\/p>\n The second phase concentrated on showing the technology to governmental and industry leaders and educating them about the innovative potential of alternative uses of the broadcast spectrum.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important,\u201d Regan says, \u201cthat regulators realize that the spectrum usages they\u2019ve undertook in the past are not the ones that will be useful in the future, not necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n Apparently, the effort paid off.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was phenomenally successful,\u201d Regan says. The broadcast industry, in particular, has been impressed by the project\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of them are excited about the mobile space,\u201d Regan says, \u201cso they\u2019d love to get a deeper handle on how their content and their model of the consumer reaches beyond their current platforms out into the mobile.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, a leading communications provider has tested the technology within London\u2019s M25 motorway and is planning to launch a mobile broadcast entertainment service based on zCast later this year. The service, which broadcasts using the digital-audio broadcasting network, is navigated through an electronic program guide on a mobile phone. Virgin Mobile has agreed to act as the mobile-operator partner for the effort.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, phase-three work continues to refine the technology. The U.K. digital-TV standards body has devised an alternative datacasting standard, and the two will be compared in a Cambridge network. Scenarios are being tested among users, such as ways to enhance events.<\/p>\n \u201cIt may be that when you\u2019re at a baseball game, there\u2019s related content being delivered to your mobile device,\u201d Regan says. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t have to be at a live event. It could be a fun contest associated with a momentous TV program that we\u2019re all going to watch, or it could be a soccer game that we all choose to view on a big screen at a bar. There are a number of those social settings where content to enhance a shared event would be really nice to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n The potential for such enhanced, shared experiences are what Regan relishes about the project.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to see the use of media\u2014the way I watch a bit of TV or listen to a bit of music\u2014made a part of my social experience, made much more easy for me to share that with my friends, made part of the barter and banter between us.\u201d<\/p>\n And, he says, it\u2019s gratifying to see his work start to take off.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to influence not just industry, but the fabric of European regulation,\u201d Regan says. \u201cBeing able to do that and, at the same time, having written the code that does it \u2026 There are not many companies where you get to do all of that. I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Have you seen the one about \u2026? From time immemorial, mankind has maximized its ability to share information orally. Whether it is passing along a recounting of a movie, recapping last night\u2019s sporting event, or simply telling a joke, that tradition continues today. It\u2019s easy, it\u2019s expedient, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39507,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194480,194460],"tags":[215750,215747,215744,215741,215738],"research-area":[13551,13555],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-308291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphics-and-multimedia","category-search-and-information-retrieval","tag-asymmetric-user-experience","tag-broadcast-signals","tag-datacasting","tag-information-exchange","tag-zcast","msr-research-area-graphics-and-multimedia","msr-research-area-search-information-retrieval","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[199561],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[],"related-projects":[],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","byline":"","formattedDate":"August 23, 2006","formattedExcerpt":"By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Have you seen the one about \u2026? From time immemorial, mankind has maximized its ability to share information orally. 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