- Government Client to Discuss Applications for Communications and Training -

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 29 - Technology experts from the public and private sectors will meet tonight at the Renaissance Washington Hotel to discuss the latest innovations in interactive video and their potential impact on communication, training and intelligence. Leading the session is Howard Wactlar, associate dean and vice provost for research computing at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, and co-founder and chairman of MediaSite, Inc., the Pittsburgh-based pioneer in developing software and applications for converting video into an interactive medium.

Sponsored in conjunction with this week's Government Video Technology Expo 2000, the invitation-only event also will feature a consultant for Fort Bragg, one of the organizations now using MediaSite applications, which are based largely on Wactlar's research. By focusing on both real-world applications and new research directions, the presentation promises to spark an open exchange for guests to explore new uses for interactive video technology.

"It's impossible to overstate how important this type of dialogue is," says Wactlar. "We're in an age when an organization can only perform as well as it communicates, so the pressure is on technology to get the right information to the right person at the right time-and in a form they can understand as quickly as possible. In government, the need for this technology is even more critical; communication is not just a matter of doing more with a smaller budget but of earning and maintaining public trust."

A New Paradigm in Communication

Wactlar adds that the research and applications on tonight's agenda respond directly to this need: "The presentations we've planned will show how our work at Carnegie Mellon and the resulting solutions by MediaSite are giving government agencies video-based communication solutions that not only will improve their current performance but will prepare them for a new paradigm in communication-one that's only beginning to emerge but will likely dominate how people share knowledge in the future."

Just what is this new paradigm? According to Wactlar, the easiest way to envision it is as a complete fusion of digital information and video: "Video's synchronous presentation of sound and image is critical for agencies gathering intelligence or communicating training and other complex information. But traditionally, it's not been a very flexible medium and consequently hasn't been easy to manage. Our research is aimed at infusing video with the same capabilities that make other digital media so powerful-on-demand, user-driven access to information-and giving it a way to integrate with information in other formats."

The new communication model is much different from the online video experience offered today, Wactlar adds. "What we're discussing tonight is not just plug-and-play with some ability to fast-forward a downloaded video segment. This is about being able to accurately search, scan and navigate hundreds or thousands of hours of video with scene-specific precision and to make intelligent decisions about what you view. Moreover, the video is not to be experienced in a vacuum but in a way that advances a user's understanding of what they see from a spatial or temporal perspective."

About Howard Wactlar

In addition to his corporate and university duties, Wactlar is project director and primary architect of the Informedia Digital Video Library, one of the national Digital Library Initiative projects being sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His research spans the areas of symbolic mathematics, distributed operating systems, multi-technology network architectures and multimedia platforms. His current research centers on multimedia information systems; learning and intelligent systems including speech, image and natural language processing; and high-performance networks. Wactlar co-founded MediaSite in 1997, and has served as chairman of the board since its inception.

About MediaSite, Inc.

MediaSite, Inc. is a leading provider of software and services to enhance digital video production, video asset management and video publishing to the Web. Founded in 1997, the company derives its core technology from research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University's world-renowned School of Computer Science.

For more information, visit www.mediasite.com.