Eugene Fiume on New Media, podcast
By Anjali Baichwal, for Edge - December 2008
Professor Eugene Fiume of U of T's department of computer science, and the dynamic graphics project, appeared in Edge's special issue on Digital Media.
Eugene Fiume. Photo: Fredo Durand
Tags: Eugene Fiume, new media, podcast
Hello Eugene,
I could not agree with you more on the issue of “big bucks” involved. I am currently doing a lot of independent (for now) research on mobile learning. While you are correct that people get in a tizzy over the formats, one of the major challenges of making this delivery channel as ubiquitous as possible, so that more users will adopt it, is the fact that the bulk of the mobile handsets today are limited to video formats that consume a large amount of bandwidth and, consequently, the cost becomes prohibitive for the average person (mpeg as opposed to Flash video).
The slow processors in mobile devices, which is is a necessary evil to reduce power consumption and make the batteries last longer, also limits most devices’ ability to take advantage of the latest web features. M-Learning today is therefore limited to very simple, literally boring pages that are small, download fast and do not significantly increase the cost of web usage from a mobile device.
Apple with the iPhone and iPod touch are currently the frontrunners in terms of engaging display capability. Wi-Fi capabilty has begun to appear on many devices, at the cost of higher power consumption. However, this has freed users from having to be attached to their computers and provided them with greater ability to download content that would otherwise be very costly over a cellular network.
I am very curious as to how much some of these issues have influenced your research and would be very interested in learning more. If you could provide some links to resources I will be very grateful.
Thanks in advance,
Jorge Olenewa
George Brown College
jolenewa@georgebrown.ca