What is Heterogeneous

The number of consumer devices that are being equipped with networking capabilities is increasing rapidly. This is seen as a fundamental strategy within the consumer electronics domain where failure to provide such support may result in a considerable loss in market share. As end users become more comfortable with the idea of networking the devices they own, there will be a need to allow the heterogeneous devices they own to seamlessly work together irrespective of their capabilities or conventional usage scenarios. Addressing this challenge means that next generation mobile multimedia will be highly multidisciplinary where advances from many research domains will be included. In parallel, users will be empowered where they will not only be able to generate user content, but also interact with it. Content itself will become increasingly more influenced by the environment, where new technologies, such as sensor networks, will play a significant part. Social networks and immersive environments are commonplace, where users now choose to socialise within these environments. Many mobile multimedia solutions will capitalise on the benefits social networking technologies provide to help change the face of next generation mobile multimedia, where real-time interaction with content at anytime and anyplace will become standard. In this chapter we provide a discussion on the state-of-the-art research initiatives that are trying to address these challenges. A discussion is presented on some of the more recent background work and a view of what future mobile multimedia might look like. Throughout the discussion we present the challenges faced by many research communities and the likely trends that will emerge given such challenges.