SMARTLAB / Laboratory overview

SMARTLAB - Social Media Application Research & Tagging Laboratory
SmartLab is the laboratory established by CSP together with the Università di Torino, IT Department, to investigate and test digital contents and media in ‘digital environments.’

The laboratory is the place where new opportunities offered by digital media and the Web evolution, and different approach to users are examined and experimented.

SmartLab designs and tests Web 2.0 applications, identifies innovative application solutions and environments to use new media with particular attention to re-using applications and content syndication with RSS in multi-channel form.

The main objects of the research are:

Digital Media Evolution & Social Media
 

Study of and trials with new tools for users in a digital environment with particular attention to the semantics of contents and advanced and localised publishing applications.

  • Urban Blog, dedicated to the localisation of contents in an urban environment (with use of maps and geo-localisation)
  • Interactive map:  experiments with geo-references of contents in a multi-channel environment
  • Social tagging and Social book-marking: studies on the semantics of ‘bottom-up’ digital contents (users)
    Design of collaboration and digital identity models
     

Digital contents in different environments

Application scenarios, methodologies and applications that allow to create, distribute and manage different forms of digital contents.  Key elements are the aggregation and the multi-channel system, in the framework of re-using and sharing information in different environments and for different users.

  • BlueTo: trials in town with push Bluetooth technologies for services to people equipped with compatible mobile telephones in various parts of the city
  • Multi-channel Hub: multi-channel aggregating tool for different contents in different digital formats (rss, xml, xhtml, pdf, mp3,…)
  • Digital Semantic Assistant:  multi-channel ubiqua guide trial based on intelligent agents and user groups able to refer to contents and assign them a semantic value (iCITY program)

Information Architecture and HCI

Study of and trials with special tailor-made applications for the user.  Study of the Human Computer Interaction applied to specific situations and contents organisation frameworks.
Research and assessment of compliance with the ‘Stanca’ Law in Piedmont and Italy (according to an ad-hoc methodology)

  • Research and guidelines on MHP usability for digital TV
  • Usability research and trials for mobile applications (pda, mobile phones)
  • Usability of Web-oriented interactive maps
  • Investigation on Web navigation advance assistance systems (accessibility for the blind and disabled wheelchair bound people)

References

Università di Torino and Città di Torino

  • Research programme on multi-channel content supply, ubiquitous computing, and Web 2.0 for PA and iCITY applications for local people.
  • Thorough investigation and prototyping of a multi-channel and ubiquitous ‘Digital Assistant’ able to learn from the user and users’ community of re-use and information aggregation with usable and adaptive interfaces and semantic contents partly derived from social tagging.
  • Contact and Information: info@socialmedialab.it