05181 Preface -- Mobile Computing and Ambient Intelligence: The Challenge of Multimedia

Mobile computing gains in last years an increasing importance. It penetrates into new areas of everyday life. With increasing computing power that is available in recently developed mobile devices the mobile computing approach is used in new areas (where its use would not be possible few years ago). Due to specific properties of mobile devices the traditional approaches to the traditional schemes for communication between users and the devices are not applicable. Another important issue that is linked with new applications in the field of mobile computing is derived from the fact that portable information appliances are pervading the everyday life and ambient intelligence is starting to surround us. Adapting multimedia applications and services to these delivery environments and enabling ensembles of multimedia appliances to organize themselves spontaneously and ad hoc will be major technical issues that have to be solved in near future. These problems were discussed during the Dagstuhl Seminar 05181 that took place in Schloss Dagstuhl from 01.05.05 to 04.05.05