The IP Multicast service model extends the traditional best effort Internet datagram delivery service for efficient multi-point packet delivery. However, in spite of a decade of research on multicast protocols and applications, a globally deployed multicast service is nowhere in sight, hindered by multitudes of problems such as manageability, lack of a robust inter-domain multicast routing protocol, scalability, and heterogeneity. In this work, we propose a new model for Internet multicast where we view multi-point delivery not as a network primitive but rather as an application-level infrastructure service. Our architecture relies on a collection of strategically placed network agents that collaboratively provides the multicast service for a session. Clients locate a nearby agent and tap into the session via that agent. Agents organize themselves into an overlay network of unicast connections and build data distribution trees on top of this overlay structure. This model effectively pa...

In a student project over the summer of 2004 teams of computer science and product design students worked together to develop new forms of interfaces for media control in living room contexts. In this paper we describe the design process from collecting first ideas of design choices and iteratively evolving (low-fidelity) prototypes to fully functional products, partially even meeting mass production requirements. We discuss how the interdisciplinary collaboration influenced the creative process in such a way, that the solutions were more realistic than purely design-informed solutions and more inspired than purely technology-informed ones. We experienced that the combination of skills lead to a much more focused design process, which produced fully functional prototypes in a short time. The resulting designs include one interface installed in the room, two autonomous interaction objects which can be freely moved around, and a two-handed interface. While these are only small spotlights into a large design space, they nicely show the possible diversity. We also learned that fully functional and aesthetically pleasing prototypes can be developed with technologically relatively simple means.