terference errors do not propagate over time), multiview independence (when used in a multiview video context, DVC encoders do not jointly process multiple views and thus do not need inter-camera, inter-encoder communication, saving energy), and codec-independent scalability (in current scalable codecs, a prediction approach from lower to upper layers requires the encoder to know the coding solutions for each layer, and the DVC approach allows each layer to use a discrete codec, unknown to the encoder, as knowledge of every layer is no longer necessary).

These benefits will positively impact video-related applications such as mobile videoconferencing and video email. “The future will tell us in which application domain the dis-

 

Coming Next Month in COMMuNICATIONS

An editorial debate
on e-voting
Natural computing
Topology of
dark net works
Code spelunking
A conversation with
Pat Selinger
GPU architectures
Scene completion using
millions of photographs
Geometry, flows,
and graph partitioning
algorithms
The enrollment crisis
in Canada
Q&A with Daphne Koller,
winner of the first ACM-
Infosys Foundation Award

and the latest news on e2e systems and cryptography, green computing, and the Deep Web

tributed source coding principles will find success,” says Pereira.

Video everywhere

Although Pereira sees important roles for academia and industry, “DVC is still very much an academic exercise with very few companies involved,” he says. “MPEG [the family of standards used for coding audiovisual informa-tion] is not involved at all because it is too early to think about any standardization, and we still don’t know what the best solution may be.”

“With the continuing convergence of Internet, cable-based technologies, and wireless, bandwidth should also increase and we’ll be seeing more on-demand and live video applications very soon,” says Kevin Bee, CEO of Uptime Video, a video encoding firm based in Thousand Oaks, CA. This growing convergence has already led Adobe to include H.264 compatibility in its Flash Player 9, a move that has exponentially extended the codec’s reach.

“We know where DVC may arrive from a theoretical point of view, but we still don’t know how to arrive there in practice,” says Pereira.

Sullivan concurs. “H.264 itself gets easier to implement over time, but it will take a lot of work to make a better compression-capable codec,” he says. “We’re not there yet, and won’t be for several years at least.”

One major area of scientific research is human cognition. “Audio people had to enter this area earlier and deeper because the amount of redundancy in audio is much lower than in video, and they had to deal with irrelevancy in a more efficient way,” says Pereira. Clearly, he concludes, a better understanding of visual perception and the manner in which the human visual system responds to compression are among the most important next steps.

“The bottom line is that it is time for research and hard work,” says Pereira. “We should not go too fast in terms of making products so as to avoid ‘killing the goose that laid the golden egg.’ But, honestly, I don’t even know if there’s a goose yet.”

 

Logan Kugler is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer who writes about business and technology.

Information Technology
Goodbye,
Computer
Mouse

The days of the computer mouse are nearing their end, Gartner analyst Steve Prentice has told the BBC News. Prentice expects the functionality of the mouse to be gradually replaced during the next three to five years by emerging alternative user interfaces that rely on facial recognition, movement, and gestures.

Prentice says the mouse has staying power in the desktop computer environment, but believes that “for home entertainment or working on a notebook, it’s over.”

He notes that Apple,

Intel, and Microsoft are now promoting gestural interfaces for future computer use and that NEC, Panasonic, and Sony are demonstrating applications that use facial and movement recognition.

“With the [Nintendo] Wii you point and shake and it vibrates back at you so you have a two-way relationship there,” says Prentice. “The new generation of smart phones like the iPhone all have tilting mechanisms or you can shake the device to do one or more things. Even the multi-touch interface is so much more powerful and flexible than in the past allowing you to zoom in, scroll quickly, or contract things.”

Of course, not everyone agrees with Prentice. “The death of the computer mouse is greatly exaggerated,” says Rory Dooley, senior vice president and general manager of Logitech’s control devices unit, who notes that much of the developing world has still to get online. “There are around one billion people online, but the world’s population is over five billion.... The mouse will be even more popular than it is today as a result.”

Invented by Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute, the computer mouse will celebrate its 40th anniversary later this year. Engelbart, recipient of the 1997 ACM A. M. Turing Award, never received any royalties for his invention, in part due to its patent expiring in 1987 before the widespread popularity of personal computers.