Multimedia Applications discusses the basic characteristics of multimedia document handling, programming, security, human computer interfaces, and multimedia application services. The overall goal of the book is to provide a broad understanding of multimedia systems and applications in an integrated manner. A user enjoys a multimedia application only if all pieces of the end-to-end solution fit together. This means that a multimedia application and its user interface must be developed in an integrated fashion with underlying multimedia middleware, operating systems, networks, security, and multimedia devices. In this book we will present fundamental information and properties of hypermedia document handling, multimedia security and various aspects of multimedia applications. Especially of interest to the readers will be information about document handling and their standards, programming of multimedia applications, design of multimedia information at human computer interfaces, multimedia security challenges such as encryption and watermarking, multimedia in education, as well as multimedia applications to assist preparation, processing and application of multimedia content. Ralf Steinmetz is Professor of Multimedia Communications at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, and he is chairman of the Board of the Telemedia Center httc.. Together with more than 20 researchers, he is working towards his vision of "truly seamless multimedia communications". He has co-authored over 200 refereed publications, serves as a member of the board of numerous professional committees, is an ICCC Governor, and is a Fellow of both the IEEE and the ACM. Klara Nahrstedt is the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor at the department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urban-Champagne, USA. She is an expert in the area of multimedia systems and networks and focuses on quality of service management problems. Currently, she serves as the editor-in-chief of the ACM/Springer Multimedia Systems Journal.
