Supporting Adaptive Multimedia

Supporting intelligent multi-media multi-modal systems is a broad problem that has many facets. One of these facets is defining the phrase `intelligent multi-media multi-modal systems': where one puts the intelligence, when one supports the multi-modality and how one provides multi-media capabilities depend greatly on one's perspective and assumptions about how information is to be manipulated and presented within a user/computer environment. From the perspective of the user, the entire problem may be paraphrased as follows: "how can information be presented (and extracted) to make the solution of a set of problems more accessible." From the perspective of the `system,' the problem can be paraphrased as being: "how can information be manipulated and presented to aid in the development of a solution." In both cases, an emphasis exists on transforming information so that it can be used to better suit the needs of a (phase of an) application. In general, we refer to these transformations with respect to various static and dynamic data types as adaptive multimedia.