Exhausted by EC

EC projects are problematic. At the same time they (or many of them) are interesting but usually they are a) reported by engineers which is no good and they are often b) badly presented. As it was at the 'Networked Audiovisual Systems Concertation (somewhat the same as cooperation between projects) Meeting', held on 24.-25. October is Brussels.

After warm weather and relaxed, inspiring and elevating days in Istanbul I landed Brussels. I exit Gare du Nord at the 'wrong' side and in the next breath I was looking through windows where girls were posing on their underwears. On my way to the hotel I got a snapshot of the situation in Iran. One guy was collecting money to hire lawyers for students who were arrested and tortured in Iran. Unfortunately I live in a country where one can/will pay literally everything with a payment card. Next morning I felt sick -- due to food poisoning or virus (?). So I was vomiting through the EC meeting.

Despite lack of food/sleep/energy, I managed to take part most of the discussions. This is a short summary, the hall of fame of EC projects :) presented at the meeting. So if you are interested in what's happening, check out these projects:NEMI, Citizen Media, Content and GamesatLarge.

NEM (Networked and Electronic Media) Initiative focus on an innovative mix of various media forms, delivered seamlessly over technologically transparent networks, to improve the quality, enjoyment and value of life. Citizen Media developes a solution to enable multiple non-professional users to co-create networked application and UGC. Content is a network of excellence focusing on content delivery networks and home users. GaL intends to design a platform for running interactive rich content multimedia applications.

It is a pity that most of these (1-15 Million €) projects do not really generate any solutions that will be commercially utilized. Certainly they generate some new information but unfortunately too often new ideas are disguised as academical mumbo-jumbo covered with technical details and blurry graphs. Europeans really have a lot to learn from the US (oral presentation and pitching) and Japan (visualizing information). For example OLGA project focuses on interesting issues but I doubt the results will generate the next Google or WoW. BUT perhaps the above mentioned projects will do differently!