Digital meets Culture

The prominent project about early photography delivered nearly 454.000 images for Europeana

Europeana Photography: excellent results

The Europeana Photography project sadly has come to its end. The project formally finished on 31 January 2015 and the final technical review took place in Leuven on 11th March 2015.

The review meeting, hosted by the Project Coordinator Fred Truyen at the premises of KU Leuven, welcomed the Project Officer Krzysztof Nichczynski and the reviewers Makx Dekkers and Tom Wachtel with whom the Europeana Photography WP leaders together with Antonella Fresa, the Technical Coordinator from Promoter, had the possibility to illustrate and discuss the project achievements.

Having successfully met all its objectives, the project was evaluated with “Excellent” mark.

Enjoy a selection of Europeana Photography images as available in Europeana at: http://www.allouryesterdays.be/partners.html

Despite the project is finished, all the partners are staying together in a new-born association that was created as a spin off of Europeana Photography: PHOTOCONSORTIUM – International Consortium for Photographic Heritage.

Results of the End of Phase 1 workshop

Presentation of the results of the first design phase

On March 6th 2015, the six suppliers who are currently working in the first design phase of the PREFORMA PCP project presented to the PREFORMA Consortium and to the external experts of the Evaluation Committee the results of their work.

The workshop represented a good opportunity to discuss the outcome of the design phase and at the same time it is the first step in the evaluation of this phase, which will be carried out during March.

The presentations of the workshop, as well as all other results of the design phase, will be made available at the beginning of April, as soon as the evaluation will be completed and the prototyping phase will start.

Stay tuned on the PREFORMA website and on the Open Source Portal!

Brussels, 5 March 2015

Second EC concertation meeting for ongoing PCP projects

Antonella Fresa, Technical Coordinator of PREFORMA, attended the second concertation meeting for on-going PCP projects in DG Connect, organised by the European Commission in Brussels on the 5^th of March 2015.

The event was organised as an opportunity to network and share experiences on common issues that these projects face while implementing PCPs, in particular focusing on practical issues that concern the actual execution of a PCP.

The topics addressed during the workshop were:

The transition from PCP to PPI
How to prepare a PCP call for tender
The link between PCP projects with other innovation policy measures (standardisation, venture capital and others)
The transition between the different phases of a PCP project

Download here all presentations (+ a presentation by Mr. Pierre Marro on access to risk finance), the minutes and the final agenda of this meeting.

impressing progress of the TV Pilot of Europeana Space to work out a SmartTV app

Smart TV Apps at Europeana Space Workshop

by Jaap Blom, Sound & Vision (NISV)

On 25-26th of February, the EuropeanaTV team organized a workshop at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) in Potsdam to work out a SmartTV app. It had to use RBB content about the Berlin wall together with related materials from Europeana.

The idea was to design the app using the LinkedTV editor tool, developed by Sound and Vision R&D, and Noterik’s multiscreen toolkit. The outcomes prepared us for the full-blown EuropeanaTV hackathon, which will be held at Waag Society in Amsterdam on 8-10 May as part of the Europeana Space project.

Day 1: Working on the concept

After a round of introductions, Annette Wilson from RBB started the day by presenting RBB’s initial ideas for the Smart TV app. Their idea was to extend an already developed Berlin Wall HbbTV app with related content – preferably videos – from Europeana. An editor from RBB would use the editor tool to select a number of RBB videos, then select a number of Europeana videos and publish these to the HbbTV app.

The first thing that we noted was that both the capabilities of the editor tool and the multiscreen toolkit could not be fully utilized in the proposed scenario. The editor tool is not currently optimized for selecting, but for the annotation of single videos. Furthermore, the multiscreen toolkit supports HbbTV, but is more interesting to use for applications that involve the interaction with multiple screens.

The Editor Tool

Right from the beginning there was ample ground for discussion, but before we went into that, it was time for us to introduce the editor tool and its capabilities.

In a nutshell, the editor tool is an annotation toolkit that can be configured, or extended, to provide an online dashboard for editors to annotate audiovisual content by either searching for related content through APIs (such as the Europeana API) or by simply providing a desired link and/or information.

To support the editor, the tool supports loading various kinds of pre-generated metadata to enhance the options for segmenting and annotating content. For example, when connected to the LinkedTV platform, editors using the tool can select named entities and keywords extracted from subtitles as input for queries to find related content – using for example one of LinkedTV’s enrichment APIs. Applying shot segmentations extracted from the video, the editor tool adds the option to select a range of camera shots to define chapter boundaries.

For this workshop, there unfortunately was no time to extract such information from the Berlin wall related videos. Fortunately these videos are mostly only a couple of minutes long and there was no need to segment each video prior to adding annotations. Having no access to automatically extracted keywords or named entities, the user in this case would be limited to using free-text search.

Example of a Berlin wall video, about Ronald Reagan is visiting West-Berlin, loaded in the editor tool Image credit: Sound and Vision CC-BY-SA.

Using the editor tool to search Europeana for content on ‘Reagan’ – Beeld en Geluid CC-BY-SA.

The Multiscreen Toolkit

Next up was the introduction of the multiscreen toolkit by Pieter van Leeuwen from Noterik. He explained that the toolkit enables programmers to quickly build prototypes to be able to quickly experience whether your billion dollar multiscreen application idea works or needs serious reconsideration. Considering the complexity of multiscreen applications, having access to this open source toolkit is great for testing out new ideas before starting a possibly expensive project.

Following the presentations, RBB showed the HbbTV app, implemented by Exozet, that was developed to browse the Berlin wall video collection using the remote control. The app supports navigating videos by selecting a decade, followed by a year in that decade, followed by cycling through a list of videos that fall within the selected year.

Shaping & Pruning Ideas

After the presentation of RBB’s initial idea – using the editor tool as a Europeana content selection tool and using the multiscreen toolkit to mimic the existing HbbTV app – the workshop participants decided to try and come up with an idea that would enable getting more out of the editor tool and multiscreen toolkit in order to be well prepared for the May hackathon, where Europeana Space offers participants will get the possibility to experiment with the same tools.

After some discussion, where we also took into account the feasibility of actually implementing the application the next day, we came up with the following idea:

Wireframes for the EuropeanaTV pilot, created using the Sqetch Toolkit Image credit: Pieter van Leeuwen CC-BY-SA.

In a nutshell, the idea is to extend the current HbbTV app with a new form of navigating the content, namely by selecting one of the tours available on the RBB web page dedicated to the Berlin wall. Instead of playing a single video, selecting a tour will result in the playout of a series of Berlin wall videos accompanied by related images from Europeana.

The related Europeana images are linked to each video by using the editor tool to search the Europeana API for images and having an editor select appropriate ones to be added as annotations.

To demonstrate the capabilities of the multiscreen toolkit, the user can select tours by using a second screen, which can be a tablet, phone or any other device with a browser. After making a selection the tour is played on the main screen, in this case the television; on the second screen the user can consult the location of the video on a map and inspect the related Europeana images in detail.

Day 2: Elevator Pitch & Implementation

On the second day we split up in two groups: RBB would focus on working out an elevator pitch to promote the app and work on searching Europeana to find content related to the Berlin wall. Noterik and Sound and Vision worked on the implementation, where Noterik would work on setting up the desired interaction model using the multiscreen toolkit as well as implement the user interface.

Developers from Sound and Vision enhanced the configuration options of the editor tool to enable the specification of certain content licenses when searching through the Europeana API. To help out, Sound and Vision also worked on writing a piece of code that could read the output of the editor tool and show it in the multiscreen toolkit. Unfortunately there was no time to integrate this by the end of the day.

To be in compliance with RBB policy, for the EuropeanaTV pilot the new configuration for searching the Europeana API was set to include all Public Domain licenses and the following variants of the creative commons licensing model: CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-NC and CC-NC-SA (Note that the non-commercial variants are also included as RBB is a non-profit organization).

After using this new configuration, we worked on annotating the Berlin wall videos of the first tour on the website. Being restricted to the aforementioned licenses we found out that there was not so much useful content remaining and we ended up adding mostly images from the Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität Berlin in der Universitätsbibliothek.

The End result

The first end result of the day was the elevator pitch:

Europeana Space TV pilot elevator pitch from Sound and Vision R&D

Concerning the app itself, the basic interaction was implemented, so that it was possible to click a link, representing a Berlin wall tour, on your second screen after which the main screen, i.e. the tv, would show the tour being loaded. Unfortunately there was no time to show the actual videos being played or the related Europeana content that was linked to each video in the editor tool.

Fortunately Pieter was so gracious to spend some time after the workshop to finish this fully functional result:

[Show as slideshow]

Summary & outlook

We can definitely say the two workshop days proved to be a very interesting experience where each partner learned about each other’s stand points and through discussion and working together, we ended up with an idea that was feasible to work out in a technical sense and something that could serve as the basis for a new RBB Smart TV application.

Lastly it was good to find out this experience gave us the confidence that the upcoming 3-day hackathon in May would definitely give participants enough time to come up with ideas and work them out into working prototypes, possibly using the multiscreen toolkit and/or the editor tool we developed.

More Info

Read about the other EuropeanaTV prototype Rewind
Read about the EuropeanaTV app Fall of the Berlin Wall
Visit the Europeana Space project website for more info about the project
Sign up for the EuropeanaTV hackathon here

This article originally appeared on Sound and Vision’s R&D blog.

Organized by University of Exeter and University of Coventry, this workshop was intended to present technical frameworks and advances to support license managing.

Europeana Space IPR Workshop

article by Marieke Guy (Open Knowledge Foundation)

Coventry Cathedral by Marieke Guy, CC0

Last week, 2 March 2015, the Europeana Space (ESpace) Project co-opted the beautiful St. Mary’s Guildhall in Coventry for a one-day workshop on Intellectual Property and related technologies. The ESpace Project aims to create new opportunities for employment and economic growth within the creative industries sector based on Europe’s rich digital cultural resources including Europeana. As is naturally the case when looking at reuse of content, IPR and copyright issues are at the forefront of the minds of many involved. The IPR workshop was an opportunity to begin to explore some of the issues that are likely to arise during the project as pilots and tools are developed and as open content is monetised. After Project Manager Tim Hammerton had introduced us to Coventry, with tales of Lady Godiva, peeping Tom and bombed cathedrals, Project Co-ordinator Sarah Whatley from Coventry University officially opened up the event. She highlighted that the ESpace Project brings together 29 partners from 13 European countries representing research groups, artists, broadcasters, cultural institutions, museums, collections, SMEs, technology companies and more, to develop best practice with using digital tools to enrich users’ experience of, and engagement with, Europe’s cultural heritage. The 6 pilots from the project (Europeana TV, Photography, Dance, Games, Open and Hybrid Publishing, Museums) have now begun development and dates for the forthcoming series of hackathons are emerging (the TV hackathon takes place in early May 2015 in Amsterdam).

Tim Hammerton and Sarah Whatley, photo by Kelly Mostert, CC0

Open Licensing

The first module of the day “Beyond the question of All or Some Rights Reserved – Identifying Rights Clearance and Hybrid Licensing Models for the Creative Industries” was led by Prodromos Tsiavos from LSE, PostScriptum and Associate at Avgerinos and Partners Law Firm. Prodromos gave a highly comprehensive overview of how IPR exploitation works for those wanting to use open content: covering licensing, orphan works and the chains of activities involved. He used the Greek Parthenon Frieze which forms part of the Elgin Marbles as an example. Officially people can’t take pictures of the frieze without agreement from government. However this has to be weighed up alongside a need to encourage interest in the frieze and highlight current ownership struggles. Prodromos explained that “you increase ‘value’ of cultural heritage objects by increasing access” and that “when there are licensing issues the flow stops“. Understanding IPR is so essential “when every act on the internet is related to copyright licences” and stakes are raised by money being involved. For those approaching the licensing problem in Europeana there are main two steps: knowing the licence of a digital object and knowing who is responsible for that digital object. Prodromos explained that users are left in a worse position not knowing a digital object’s licence than if the object has clearly licensing restrictions. This is primarily due to the costs incurred for searching and negotiation. To conclude Prodromos advocated for tools such as the public domain calculator that aid clarity to licenses and data visualisation tools that support enrichment of data.

Watermarking: state of the art and applications

The following 2 modules were led by the iMinds team – iMinds is a Flanders’ based digital research center with expertise in image security-related standardisation activities. The first presented by Ann Dooms and Frederik Temmermans looked at the application of watermarking. Ann explained that the need for watermarking comes from a requirement for authenticity and provenance sometimes driven by photo scandals. Watermarking is effectively “getting your name in the pixels”, a form of ‘CSI multimedia’! Examining an image more closely shows the pixels within it and variation in colour. Every pixel represented by 3 numbers RGB, offering 256 possibilities. When you photoshop an image these numbers are changed. You need to know particular key and can then read the value within. It is important to remember that watermarking changes your raw image data, not your metadata. Many in the commercial sector are interested in watermarking in an effort to curb stealing of images. Despite many viewing online images as ‘fair game’ Ann was keen to point out that “stealing images is the same as stealing chocolate“. iMinds are advocates of embedding watermarking in the workflow process, avoiding it as a laborious after thought. Frederik Temmermans went on to explain how Linked Data approaches are being used in this area. iMinds have recently been involved with the JPSearch framework which decouples image metadata from images and provides better interoperability during image search.

Frederik Temmermans, photo by Kelly Mostert, CC0

Jpeg Standards

In the final module of the day Peter Schelkens also from iMinds talked about Jpeg standards and technologies for security and interoperability related to ISO, IEC and ITU-T ecosystems. Peter looked at privacy and control issues: for example sensor data is often coupled with images, which has serious implications. As part of the ESpace Project specifications to ensure the security of transaction, protection of contents (IPR), and protection of technologies (IP), and that allow applications to generate, consume, and exchange JPEG Secured bitstreams will be investigated and deployed. Peter spoke of the paradigm shift caused by computational imaging approaches, a change he sees as disruptive for the photography markets as the migration from analog to digital pictures.

Break-out Groups

Post plenaries we were given the opportunity to discuss some of the challenges that had emerged through the course of the day and opportunities to think about how we could add IPR activities to existing workflow. A number of the break-out groups pointed out that while Cultural Heritage Institutions may not necessarily want to police the use of their images many are interested in tracking content and monitoring reuse. There was some enthusiasm for the idea of a ‘Google analytics for image reuse’. During discussions some interesting case studies were highlighted:

In the Netherlands there has been much discussion about the Reclaim app, a tool which allows you to place a watermark on your photos to make them less attractive for possible reuse. The tool specifically targets Facebook and their terms and conditions, which allow them to use Facebook content for commercial use in a different country of origin. The reclaim app has faced serious opposition from Facebook and the watermarking process is reversed.
In some countries there has been use of watermarking for medical photographs when used as part of insurance claims. This is due to issues of claimants manipulating photographs so they can be used as evidence during a claim.
The British Library have put effort into monitoring reuse of their images. Peter Balman has tracked the 1 million Flickr images and gauging their impact using various techniques for the ‘Visibility’ project funded by the Technology Strategy Board. Methods include Googling using image search, using TinEye reverse image search, looking at the taxonomy of website using dmoz, searching for information on the domain the images are on using Whois.net, detecting the language using Alchemy language API, Dbpedia for more info about the URL.
In late 2014 Yahoo (owners of Flickr) sold canvas prints of photos licenced openly. These photos were under CC-BY allowing for commercial use of the images however it became clear that many photographers didn’t understand the implications of the licence they were using. The situation provided an opportunity for further discussion and education but actually caused a media panic. Note that Flickr capture a lot of data when images are uploaded however much of this data is stripped out and stored internally (so users can’t access it).

Discussions also surfaced some interesting tools including: Elog.io which provides a way to search that collection by a perceptual hash, which matches an image even if it’s been moved away from Commons, resized, and had its format changed. Culture Cam is a web cam based similarity search tool with the aim of stimulating creative people to access and reuse Europeana content in a fun and playful way.

Conclusions

The main conclusion from the break-outs was that there is a need for further clarity regarding IPR and privacy. Many users are unsure of the expectations of different situations and the ESpace Project has a role to play in sharing more explicit ‘rules’ and guidance related to sharing content (here social rules, ideas on boundaries and case-studies were seen to be useful). It was suggested that a tool that it might be pertinent for ESpace pilots or hackathons to develop is an app which shows what data is being collected when an image is uploaded or used. The ESpace IPR workshop offered some really interesting talks and was a great networking event. As Charlotte Waelde, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University Of Exeter and Rights management lead for the ESpace Project, finished the day by saying – it had allowed project partners and others outside of the project to consider the tensions the monetisation of Cultural Heritage content is likely to surface and to begin to develop contingency plans for dealing with such challenges.

Read the article on OKF blog

Open Knowledge is a consultant on the Europeana Space project supporting activities related to open licensing.

Fotografia digitale, camera oscura e molto altro...a Pisa!

Corsi e Workshop IMAGO 2015

IMAGO: Corsi e Workshops 2015

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Corso di fotografia Digitale

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20 ore

La macchina fotografica digitale

Principali impostazioni e funzioni della reflex digitale. L’obiettivo, il diaframma, l’otturatore.

I temi e gli stili: composizione, still life, ritratto, reportage, notturno, paesaggio e natura.

La post-produzione del file digitale: l’elaborazione e l’archiviazione dell’ immagine.

Corso di camera oscura

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12 ore

Introduzione all’uso dei materiali negativi, supporti e carte, sviluppi, fissaggi e viraggi.

Stampa di provini a contatto, ingrandimenti 24×30 con tecnica di bruciatura e mascheratura.

In dotazione: rulli b/n, camera oscura con ingranditori, timer, carta fotografica 12×18, 18×24, 24×30, sviluppo e fix.

Workshop di fotografia di medio e grande formato

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12 ore

Introduzione generale al medio e grande formato.

Decentramenti diretti e indiretti, variazione della profondità di campo nei basculaggi, legge di Scheimpflug, difetto di reciprocità, allungamento del soffietto.

Prove pratiche in studio e in esterno, sviluppo dei negativi e lastre, stampa.

Corso base di ripresa e montaggio
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Durata del corso: 20 ore (10 lezioni di 2 ore ciascuna)
LEZIONI I-V: TECNICHE DI RIPRESA
I LEZIONE: LA TELECAMERA
Struttura e componenti della videocamera, formati e supporti (minidv-dv- dvcam-hdv-hd-full hd), modalità di ripresa automatiche e manuali, messa a fuoco, esposizione, bilanciamento del bianco, filtri ND, ripresa audio.
II LEZIONE: IL LINGUAGGIO DEL VIDEO: LA TECNICA COME MEZZO PER LA NARRAZIONE Nozioni di semiotica del video e di scrittura cinematografica (La sce- neggiatura, la storia e il racconto, Il tempo e lo spazio nella narrazione, l’inquadratura, la relazione tra le inquadrature, Sapere e vedere)
III LEZIONE: COME SI REALIZZA UN’INTERVISTA (RIPRESE IN STUDIO) Realizzazione di un’intervista (Ripresa video, audio e luci)
IV LEZIONE: RACCONTARE L’AMBIENTE CHE CI CIRCONDA (I USCITA) Come descrivere l’ambiente che ci circonda attraverso il video. L’utilizzo del cavalletto e della camera a spalla. Documentario e reportage.
V LEZIONE: RACCONTARE L’AMBIENTE CHE CI CIRCONDA (II USCITA) Le cinque variazioni. Raccontare un soggetto da punti di vista diversi.
LEZIONI VI-X: IL MONTAGGIO
VI LEZIONE: INTERFACCIA DI FINAL CUT
Strutturare un progetto di final cut, le impostazioni, acquisizione video, gli strumenti, nozioni di montaggio.
VII-X LEZIONE: MONTAGGIO DEL MATERIALE VIDEO GIRATO DURANTE IL CORSO. Ogni partecipante lavorerà sul proprio progetto video al fine di realizzare una serie di piccoli documentari.
Alla fine del corso verrà organizzata una serata in cui verranno proiettati i lavori svolti dai partecipanti.

Per frequentare il corso i partecipanti dovranno disporre della seguente attrezzatura:
Telecamera DV o HDV o Full HD Cavalletto Computer portatile

Per info:
VIA BOVIO, 10 PISA
mail: imagopisa@tiscali.it – tel:3286610814

Brussels, 12-13 March 2015

Beyond 3D Digitisation: Applications of 3D Technology in Cultural Heritage

As a new stage of the Digital Museum Expo, this colloquium and workshop focuses on the impact of 3D digital assets for cultural heritage. Digitisation of museum objects is not a final stage, but only a start for research, conservation and interpretation. 3D offers us a new set of tools and methodologies that will change the cultural heritage domain significantly. New visualisation technologies, both online and in the museum, and new interaction technologies open a wide range of opportunities for museum curators and cultural heritage experts to share the results of their work and the value and beauty of their collection.

Royal Museum for Art and History, venue of the meeting

This event contains three parts. In the colloquium on the first day, digital heritage experts from Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy will present different applications of 3D digitisation and virtual reconstruction in research, collection management, publication, education and public presentation. In the second day, several applications are elaborated through a series of workshops. During the colloquium and workshop, a Digital Museum Expo will take place. This is a series of hands-on demonstrations of innovative applications, such as the museum installations that have been developed in the V-MusT project for the multi-museum exhibition Keys2Rome or the online visualisation of 3D digital assets in Europeana, developed in the 3D-ICONS project. Other heritage institutions and companies will be present also.

You can register for the colloquium, the workshop or both.

Please fill and send the registration form, the payment will take place on site before the beginning of the event. It will be possible to have a receipt of your payment.

Download the full programme of the event here

Download the registration form here

VENUE: Brussels, Royal Museum for Art and History

Brussels, 12-13 March 2015

Beyond 3D Digitisation: Applications of 3D Technology in Cultural Heritage

Royal Museum for Art and History, venue of the meeting

You can register for the colloquium, the workshop or both.

Please fill and send the registration form, the payment will take place on site before the beginning of the event. It will be possible to have a receipt of your payment.

Download the full programme of the event here

Download the registration form here

VENUE: Brussels, Royal Museum for Art and History

At school children should be taught digital literacy alongside English and maths, UK report says

Digital skills have the same importance as English and Maths

by Raffaele Pavoni

Children should be taught “digital literacy” as a core skill alongside maths and English, a report by a Committee on Digital Skills says. The Select Committee was appointed by the House of Lords on 12 June 2014 “to consider and report on information and communications technology, competitiveness and skills in the United Kingdom”. Computer technology brings “huge opportunities for the UK, but also significant risks”, the Committee warns. The internet should be viewed as a utility service, alongside water and electricity, it says. But without action, the UK may fall behind in the new digital era.

Among the key topics are the following:

No child should leave school without basic digital literacy. Everyday activities—such as shopping, using a telephone and banking— increasingly require interaction with technology. Digital skills (the skills needed to interact with digital technologies) are now necessary life skills. Individuals and businesses alike will need skills to protect themselves online. It is not acceptable for any group to be excluded from access to digital technologies. UK must aspire for the vast majority of the population to achieve the level of digital literacy needed to fully participate in society.
Universities should ensure all graduates are “digitally competent”. There is widespread support for the expansion of apprenticeship programmes, but the UK’s interests and ambitions need increased scale. There are not enough apprenticeships in digital subjects or apprenticeship schemes with digital featuring as an important element of content. Apprenticeships need to be seen as a viable alternative to higher education and the more traditional education routes.
Apprenticeships should have a greater emphasis on digital skills. Apprenticeships can help plug the short- and medium-term skills gap. The Committee believe 16–19 year-olds must be targeted by employers, teachers, and careers guidance professionals to enable them to choose and take up good apprenticeships. There is also a need to tackle negative perceptions of vocational education among schools, teachers, head teachers and parents.
The “paucity” of women in digital careers and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics generally risks holding back UK competitiveness. “Girls have to be engaged earlier and across all education levels” and the perception of these jobs as “male-oriented” must be addressed, the report says. The paucity of women in digital and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is holding back UK competitiveness. Girls have to be engaged earlier and across all education levels. The perception of digital and STEM jobs and subjects as male-orientated must be addressed.

The report says 35% of current jobs in the UK could be automated within 20 years. It urges an ambitious approach to secure the UK’s digital economy, with the government acting as the “conductor of the orchestra”, focusing on business and education. “We are at a tipping point,” it says. “Digital businesses can locate anywhere in the world, and if we fail to provide the right conditions for them to flourish in the UK, we will become a branch economy, much less prosperous and influential than we could be.” The impact of new digital technology is all encompassing—from public transport to agriculture and from household goods to financial services. Analysis of ‘Big Data’ is transforming healthcare and medicine, as well as consumer and public services. The 3D printing of organs assists surgeons, whilst robotic arms can be controlled by the mind. “We are becoming more reliant on technologies for personal use, from social media and entertainment, to older people and those with long-term conditions now able to monitor their health from home”, the report says.

A digital divide persists in the UK, with some six million citizens never having used the internet and 9.5 million lacking adequate digital skills, partly because they have been “poorly served at school”, the report warns. In particular, it says, a shortage of medium and high-level digital skills “needs immediate attention” if the UK is to remain globally competitive. It urges action at all levels of the “talent pipeline – primary, secondary, further and higher education”. “The combination of poor connectivity and limited ICT skills can lead to digital exclusion for many people. It can also (…) reduce access to public services and inhibit business growth”, the report says. In turn, rural areas may “lose their competitive advantage and be seen as less attractive places to do business”, it adds. The recent “Speak Up for Rural Scotland” consultation, after all, already highlighted broadband as the key issue, recognising broadband as a vital measure to support economic growth in rural areas.

Download the “Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future” report here.

Tirana, 13 March 2015

‘Aerial photogrammetry with drones’ Workshop

The workshop “Aerial photogrammetry surveys with drones” was held at Tirana’s National Museum on Friday, 13^th of March 2015.

Antigonea, © photo: GeoInformatiX&DroneSense-Univ. Macerata

It presented examples of aerial photogrammetry surveys conducted by means of drones in the Albanian Drino Valley, Valona Region, in the Hellenistic sites of Hadrianopolis, Jergucat, Frashtan and Antigonea. The surveys were carried out in the framework of the project ReBeD of Macerata’s University – organiser of the workshop together with the Italian Institute of Culture – for the documentation and promotion of the Drino valley’s cultural heritage.

The frames were elaborated with the Structure from Motion (SfM) method in order to obtain high-resolution 3D models.

Hereafter the workshop programme:

Coordinated by: Roberto Perna

9.30 – Greetings

M. Kumbaro
(Ministry of Culture)
S.E.M. Gaiani
(Ambassador of Italy)
A. Frisenna
(Head of the Italian Institutes of Culture in Tirana)
C. Pesaresi
(Adriatic Project, Marche Region)
L. Perzhita
(Head of the Albanian Archaeological Institute)

10.30 – Interventions

R. Perna
(University of Macerata)
D. Condi
(Head of the Albanian Archaeological Institute)
A. Antinori
(Geoinformatix, University of Macerata)
A. Kasi, M. Kocollari
(Regional Management Gjirokaster’s Cultural Monument)
M. Sargolini, C. Gamberoni, R. Caprodossi (Terrepuntoit, University of Camerino)