Editorial for intelligent interactive multimedia systems and services

Users worldwide are spending more and more of their time on smart device platforms providing ubiquitous multimedia experience. Smart phones, tablets, e-Readers, web enabled television sets and other device platforms are all participating in this revolution. From the point of view of human-system interaction, however, such platforms pose distinct research problems. A consumer engaged in playing fantasy football has different interaction needs to one researching an address on a cell phone. Today, the vast majority of publishers simply do not have the ability to provide both the scale and quality of rich content to offer a usage experience targeted for multiple platforms. This special issue of MTAP devoted to "Intelligent Interactive Multimedia Systems and Services” is aimed at providing an overview of recent research results in this hot area, highlighting interdisciplinary aspects as well as the links between basic multimedia techniques and smart device applications. We believe that all papers featured in this special issue, while providing outstanding research contributions, succeeded in remaining clear and understandable enough to have a string appeal for non-specialists wishing to understand the state of the art in this field