CALL FOR PAPERS

                        IEEE Communications Magazine

                               Feature Topic:

     Entertainment Everywhere: System and Networking Issues in Emerging
                   Network-Centric Entertainment Systems

   Background

   The  experience  of bringing the Internet into our lives deeply is now
   shared  by  millions  of  people.  Take  the  USA,  for example. It is
   reported  that  more  than  a  fifth  of  American  households  has  a
   high-speed,  always-on,  Internet  access, and an increasing number of
   them  is  exploiting wireless technologies to distribute the broadband
   connection   throughout   the  rooms  of  their  homes.  With  such  a
   high-speed,  always-on,  connection  a drastic revolution is coming in
   the way people watch movies and news, listen to music, and play games.
   This  change  has  been  driven fundamentally by two dominant factors:
   First, the technological advances of computer-based digital multimedia
   technology (high quality video and sound) have provided consumers with
   good  motivations  to  upgrade their home entertainment systems (e.g.,
   from  mechanical  VHS  tape drives to digital DVD); Second, (wireless)
   networking  technologies  have  enabled  the possibility to shift what
   they first consumed on their desktop PC in the office to their digital
   TV  equipment  in  the living room, as well as to the front pockets in
   their  jackets. All these mean that in an entertainment-equipped house
   we might easily find a broadband entertainment center built on the top
   of  a  Cat-6 Ethernet cable infrastructure or on a Wi-Fi network. Such
   an  entertainment  platform  might  be  comprised,  for  example, of a
   connection  from the computer to the digital stereo or the TV devices,
   as  well  as  of  an  interconnected  PlayStation2 or XBox governed by
   programmable  TiVo  equipment  for  online  play.  In essence, what is
   really  new,  nowadays,  is that we know what tomorrow's entertainment
   technology  will  bring  to  us: a ``magic box'' where every game ever
   thought, every movie ever made, every song ever sung, plus news, sport
   events  and  shows,  will be available for instant enjoyment with just
   one  click on a button. While interest for conducting research in this
   area   was   moderate  for  a  long  time,  recently,  instead,  great
   opportunities  have  arisen  in  academia, as well as in industry, for
   developing  researches  in  the  field of computer-based entertainment
   systems,  especially focused on the provision of networking and system
   support  to entertainment. Obviously, all these exciting technological
   advances  have  raised a number of interesting research questions: How
   can  the Internet native language (i.e. the TCP/IP protocol) take over
   this  complex  scenario  for  scaling  the  delivery  of entertainment
   contents to very large numbers of users? How can digital entertainment
   be  delivered  efficiently  to  small  devices  such  as PDAs and cell
   phones?  How  can new system development styles, like the peer-to-peer
   style   for   example,   have   influence   on   the  architecture  of
   computer-based entertainment systems? How can the employed protocol be
   integrated to optimize the distribution of entertainment contents?

   Scope of Contributions

   This  Feature  Topic  solicits  paper submissions from all researchers
   involved  in  the  field of computer-based entertainment to provide an
   opportunity to publish state-of-the art original papers.

   Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
     * Networking and System Support for Entertainment Systems
     * Wireless and Mobile Technologies for Entertainment
     * Wireless Multimedia for Entertainment
     * Networked Systems for Music and Movie Distribution
     * Architectures,  Platforms  and Protocols for Networked Multiplayer
       Games
     * Games on Mobile and Resource-constrained Devices
     * Games and Wireless Technologies
     * Networked In-Home Entertainment Systems
     * Networked In-Car/Flight/Train Entertainment Systems
     * Interactive Tele-Vision and Interactive Digital Storytelling
     * Networked Technologies for Sport and Entertainment
     * Wearable Networked Technologies for Entertainment
     * Augmented,    Virtual   and   Mixed   Reality   Technologies   for
       Entertainment
     * Integration and Interoperability Issues in Entertainment Systems

   Prospective  authors  should  submit  their manuscripts via Manuscript
   Central  (http://commag-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com/)  by  November 01,
   2004.  You  will  need to create an account if you do not already have
   one.  Select  "Entertainment  Everywhere"  from the pulldown menu when
   submitting   files.  (Please  see  http://www.comsoc.org/~ci  for  the
   author's  guidelines.) The following is the timetable for this feature
   topic publication:

   Schedule for Submissions

   Manuscript Submission: November 01, 2004
   Acceptance Notification: January 15, 2005
   Final Manuscript Due: March 01, 2005
   Publication Date: May 2005

   Guest Editors

   Barcin Kozbe
   Ericsson Inc.
   11121 Willows Rd, NE Suite 101
   Redmond, WA 98052 USA
   barcin.kozbe@ericsson.com

   Marco Roccetti
   University of Bologna

   Mura Anteo Zamboni, 7
   40127 Bologna ITALY
   roccetti@cs.unibo.it

   Mehmet Ulema
   Manhattan College
   Riverdale, NY 10471-4098 USA
   mehmet.ulema@manhattan.edu