Image and Video Retrieval from a User-Centered Mobile Multimedia Perspective

Mobile applications beyond pure mobile telephony are becoming more and more popular for everyday users. In recent years, with the advent of 3G mobile networks such as UMTS and also higher computing power and storage capabilities of mobile devices, multimedia has reached the mobile user. The user’s individual usage context and needs are becoming more and more important for the design of mobile applications. However, the concepts needed to achieve real comprehensiv user-centric mobile applications are just evolving. In this paper, we present selected concepts and prototypes from our research in the field of mobile multimedia systems that specifically address the mobile user’s needs. We shortly discuss the aspects of user-centered mobile applications and the challenges we see. Our selected research approaches and prototypes show different concepts towards better supporting the concrete user by mobile applications. In this context, we take a look on the specific challenges of image and video retrieval that arise from placing the user in the center of the mobile application design. In our point of view, user-centered mobile multimedia applications pose interesting challenges not only to the retrieval of multimedia content but introduce new challenges and potentials from acquisition, enhancement, storage, retrieval and delivery to the usage of mobile multimedia content.