Personalcasting - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Personalcasting is an application that uses news-on-demand algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

s to deliver tailored broadcast news (from radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

or television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

) on a wide range of computing platforms including mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

s and PDAs

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

. Unlike podcasting

Podcasting

A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

, which is a series of digital media

Digital media

Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...

files (either audio or video) that are typically downloaded through web syndication

Web syndication

Web syndication is a form of syndication in which website material is made available to multiple other sites. Most commonly, web syndication refers to making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary or update of the website's recently added content...

, personalcasting automatically indexes, clusters and extracts information from news sources.

Application

With personalcasting technology, users can create complex queries combining keywords, named entities (e.g., people, organizations, and places), sources (e.g., CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

, ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

) or time intervals (e.g., specific days, weeks or years). These queries result in selected video stories specific to user interest . Conversely, there are companies that offer personalcasting services directly to news outlets - allowing the organizations to create customized, around-the-clock programs for listeners.

By personalizing

Personalization

Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Once confined mainly to the Web, it is increasingly becoming a factor in education, health care Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Once confined...

the selection of stories and the platforms from which they are delivered, users are afforded a more individual and enhanced news experience based on their predilections. This is an especially beneficial application for people wanting to listen to personalized information during their commutes to and from work. According to a U.S. Census Bureau analysis, driving to work was the favored means of commute

Commuting

Commuting is regular travel between one's place of residence and place of work or full time study. It sometimes refers to any regular or often repeated traveling between locations when not work related.- History :...

of nearly nine out of 10 American workers (87.7 percent), with most people (77 percent) driving alone.

In addition, algorithms can be created to follow a user’s personalcast sessions to capture user interest. The system can then automatically broaden a user’s queries and selections to include additional content based on preferences.

Personalcasting technology was developed by a community of scientist

Scientist

A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

s and individual technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

companies during the late 1990s and early 2000s as a way to provide more convenient access to broadcast news. Earlier systems required content to be manually annotated. However, more recent systems automatically extract information from a variety of news sources.

History

The first known reference to personalcasting was in 1999 by a technology company named VoicePress. Shortly thereafter, Mark T. Maybury, editor of Intelligent Multimedia Interfaces and Intelligent Multimedia Information Retrieval used the term personalcasting at an international conference on user modeling

User modeling

User modeling is a subdivision of human–computer interaction and describes theprocess of building up and modifying a user model. The main goal of user modeling is customization and adaptation of systems to the user's specific needs. The system needs to "say the 'right' thing at the 'right' time in...

in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

and he also included the term in several research paper

Academic publishing

Academic publishing describes the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in journal article, book or thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called...

s.

In Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

applied this concept to television programming in 2000, launching a site called PercasTV that provides live personal video distribution service on the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

.

Building upon content based news understanding algorithms that simultaneously analyzed multiple media streams (e.g., audio, video, textual), a personalization system that automatically generated both content and media tailored to individual queries and preferences was invented to personalize broadcast news. A US Patent on personalcasting was awarded in 2008 for "Personalized broadcast news navigator".

Application

History

Further reading