Intelligent Transport Systems - Telenor

Telektronikk 1.2003
playlist exchange streaming
Play-list Exchanger Prototype
As part of the work on the information bubble
concept, researchers at Telenor R&D have
developed a simple proof-of-concept prototype
that may be suited to enhance the music listening
experience of travellers. Today, travellers rely
on broadcast radio or on a limited number of
personal CDs or tapes for musical entertainment
while on the move. Our information bubble prototype
exposes travellers to new musical impulses,
i.e. new artists or songs, within a favourite
genre. Basically, a traveller can associate a play
list of favourite songs with his or her music
device (e.g. an in-car player or a portable
device). Whenever two music devices encounter
each other, i.e. when their information bubbles
overlap, they exchange play lists. Therefore, during
the course of a journey, travellers will likely
encounter a range of different play lists. Notification
of play list encounters may be governed
by pre-compiled profile detailing musical preferences,
allowing less interesting play lists to be
ignored. When an interesting play list is discovered,
the traveller may choose to start streaming
the corresponding songs. Each song has a URL
as meta-data that points to a streaming server for
that song, typically the server will run on the
play-list owner’s music device. As long as the
connection with the streaming server is not broken,
the user will be able to enjoy the song on
the play-list owner’s player. However, should
the connection be cut, e.g. when the streaming
server moves out of the information bubble, the
streaming will stop. Alternatively, songs from
play lists could be downloaded instead of being
streamed, or one could perform a handover to
UMTS and move the streaming session to a commercial
music streaming service, see Figure 3.
We need to stress that issues pertaining to business
models and copyright need to be resolved
prior to launching a service similar to our play
list exchanger prototype. Much effort is currently
directed toward finding viable business
models for music distribution over data networks
that do not compromise the rights of copyright
holders. The outcome has yet to be seen, though.
Challenges
We have argued that the information bubble
concept exhibits several desirable characteristics
and at the same time does not depend on huge
infrastructure investments. However, the concept
does pose several challenges that need to be
addressed, including ensuring data quality, performing
appropriate information filtering, and
protecting privacy. A detailed treatment of these
challenges falls outside the scope of this article;
the interested reader is referred to [1]. When data
obtained in the information bubble are employed
in safety applications, ensuring the integrity and
quality of such data becomes paramount.
Telenor can take the role as trusted third party
for this type of applications. The section on distraction-free
user interfaces above stressed the
importance of ITS systems not demanding a
high load, cognitive or otherwise, on users, in
particular on drivers. Due to the intrinsic anarchistic
nature of information bubbles, i.e. they
naturally support open, free-for all information
spaces with a very low barrier to participation, it
becomes increasingly important to filter out
irrelevant information. Work on the GeoNotes
system [22] suggests that personal profiles may
be used to filter information in open, locationbased
information spaces. It is very important
that privacy issues be thoroughly considered
Figure 3 Enhancing musical entertainment experience:
- spontaneous interaction
- playlist exchange
- streaming
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