I am in final stages of agreeing to do a text book on Multimedia computing. This is a serious project that will require good amount of time to finish. I am thinking of doing it with a very energetic young fellow — Gerald Friedland.
Multimedia has become a way of life in computing. Yet mulimedia computing is one of the most frquently misunderstood ‘elephant’ in computing where computer scientists look at it only from a very narrow perspective and consider that to be the real problem. Understanding how multimedia is interpreted and what are the implications of having mutimedia data in many aspects of computing is really essential. I feel that in many applications, but find it a bit frustrating that most people love to deal sith only a limired aspect of information in one medium and ignore other key sources of information from other medium.
Now it is impossible to bring in all these aspects in just one book, but at least one could try to make people sensitive to these. ANd if a simple step could be taken to make computer scientists, particularly incoming computing oriented people, then we will make good long term progress. This project is motivated by this desire. Don;t know how far we can go in that direction, but it will be nice to make as effort in this right direction.