Content

AICOS primarily will not produce new content but will offer services to potential content providers to adapt their content to the specific demands of the addressed users. This includes consulting for the generation of new content and media formats for the future. Initially offered for free, the content adaptation might become a commercial service later.

Public & Personal End-Systems, User-Interfaces and Front-End Applications

One of the main obstacles, not only relevant to users with lower qualification, is the usability of services and applications. Target of this cluster is to provide robust and easy-to-use access to content. This includes design and implementation of integrated IP-Multi-Play Front-End Applications, specific for the targeted end-systems (public terminals, standard PCs and embedded systems). Intuitive graphical user-interfaces will help to address illiterate persons as well. A larger scale roll-out of public terminals might lead to significant external revenues as well

Economic Broadband Access

Financial barriers are a main factor that opened the digital divide. Public-private DSL access over WLAN might help to provide broadband access in highly populated areas without increased CAPEX and OPEX on the carrier side. Other solutions might include rural versions of Internet Cafes, which can be operated remotely. Work within the cluster will develop and evaluate business models and technologies suitable to support the spread of the IKS through low cost broadband access

Aligned Back-End Systems

Certain types of content adaptation might require network-based on-line services for pre-processing (e.g. Web on TV or transcoding & transrating of user generated content) to reduce end-system costs by replacing the requirement of a home PC with the option to use a low-performance STB (Set-Top-Box). Remote management and maintenance of public and personal end systems based on back-end system solution will contribute to the availability of the systems in environments with limited possibilities for local access and thus is crucial for the commercialization as well.