FEATURES & INNOVATIONS
through a concerted cross-fertilization of ideas between biology and chemistry. Te biggest challenge remains the ability to accurately depict and profile complex liv- ing systems in their natural state, in order to unravel the mysterious and fascinating molecular underpinnings of life.” Chen Yuan, another recipient of the 2011
Awards in the Physical, Information and Engineering Sciences category, comments, “It is a great honor to be recognized by the A*STAR/SNAS Young Scientist Awards. It offered an excellent opportunity for me to interact with fellow recipients, as well as recipients of the President’s Science and Technology Awards through various events organized by A*STAR/SNAS.” Chen adds, “Te award has provided me with fresh aspirations — it inspires me to
Chen Yuan, Young Scientist Award winner, 2011
work hard, and make real contributions to society.” Since receiving the award for his outstanding research on carbon nanotube and nanotoxicology of carbon nanomateri- als, Chen has been continuing his research as Associate Professor at the School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. “My
Video-on-demand goes one step further
A*STAR’s Scalable Multimedia Platform technology enters a new phase of commercialization, bringing its ‘anytime, anywhere’ high-quality video streaming solution to a wider audience.
W
ith the ever-increasing popu- larity of on-demand media and the continued rise of
video hosting sites such as YouTube, which streams upwards of four billion videos per day, there has been a growing need to find innovative and affordable solutions to store, manage and playback multimedia for different devices. Te Scalable Multimedia Platform (SMP) technology,
developed at the
A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), is one of the first of its kind to provide an adaptable media coding, management and delivery system that offers enhanced end-user experience. Te technology uti- lizes a single ‘layered’ source file that can adapt automatically to devices ranging from smartphones and personal computers to
high-definition televisions. Now, the game- changing SMP software technology enters new ground with the announcement that Reachfield IT Solutions, a leading-edge Singapore-based IT business solutions provider, has signed an agreement with Ex- ploit Technologies Pte Ltd, the technology transfer arm of A*STAR, to develop and market the technology. “I believe the Scalable Multimedia Plat-
form (SMP) has the potential to transform how media content is encoded, managed and distributed over the Internet. It brings significant benefits to content producers such as broadcasters and content aggrega- tors by greatly reducing their total costs of operation and ownership,” says Tan Geok Leng, Acting Executive Director of I²R. “With a single encoding process, the
A*STAR RESEARCH OCTOBER 2011–MARCH 2012
current research focuses on two aspects,” explains Chen.
“From a fundamental
understanding aspect, I am working with researchers from Yale and Cambridge to elucidate the chirality selectivity in carbon nanotube growth. And from an engineer- ing application aspect, I am working with researchers from the Singapore Membrane Technology Centre to incorporate func- tional carbon nanotubes in membranes for water treatment applications. I am also exploring the applications of novel carbon nanomaterials in flexible energy storage devices.” Based on his wide-ranging experiences in both basic and applied research, Chen has the following words of advice for bud- ding scientists: “Focus on what you are good at, and make it excellent.”
scalable files will simplify management of files while slashing expensive server storage space and uplink bandwidth usage. SMP also offers the best quality of viewing ex- perience via its dynamic scalable streaming capability to the end users, on any networks and on any device ranging from mobile, tablet, PC to a full-fledged HDTV.”
A one-stop, scalable solution
Designed from the ground up to be scal- able, the SMP technology eliminates the need for the creation of multiple files to cater to a range of bandwidths and device resolutions. Conventional video streaming systems depend on non-scalable video codec such as H.264 (AVC), VP8 and WMV. By relying on a single compressed video file, non-scalable video codec cannot support the type of uninterrupted, high- quality playback experience that users have come to expect in both domestic and busi- ness settings. Te SMP avoids this problem by providing an intelligent client plug-in, leading to a more sophisticated, adaptive approach to video streaming. “Scalable Multimedia Platform clients
achieve real-time quality-of-experience adaptation for a smooth viewing experience without re-buffering in almost all reason- able conditions,” explains Jo Yew Tam, principal investigator of the SMP projects at I²R. “Tis is in contrast with many ex- isting video solutions on the market that cause video players to stall and re-buffer repeatedly; as a stop-gap solution, some service providers generate many different
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