The CBC Newsworld Holodeck Exploratory Demonstration Martha J. Ladly OCAD University Toronto, Canada mladly@oca du.ca Gerald Penn Universi ty of Toronto Toronto, Canada gpenn@ cs. toronto. edu Bryn A. Ludlow York University Toronto, Canada bludlow@yor ku.ca Siavash Kazemian University of Toronto Toronto, Canada kazemian@cs.toron to.edu Ana Jofre OCAD University Toronto, Canada aj13mj@student.oc adu.ca Laura Wright OCAD University Toronto, Canada lw13cn@student.oc adu.ca ABSTRACT For the past 73 years, the CBC has disseminated a unique Canadian perspective across the world, producing a phenomenally rich multimedia record of the country and our social, political and cultural heritage, and news. This project proposes novel methods to display and browse through an enormous historical CBC Newsworld data corpus to enable an “on this day” experience for viewers. Employing natural language processing technologies, the interface displays keywords and key phrases identified in the video transcripts, enabling serendipitous video search and display and offering a unique browsing opportunity within this rich “big data” corpus, spanning a 24-year period (1989-2013). This project has three interconnected preservation and research goals: 1) Digitize, visualize, and make available this collection of 23 years of Canadian news broadcasts through a state-of-the-art multimedia search and browsing system. This will ensure the preservation and use of this material, making it available as a valuable resource for researchers and students. 2) Design a real‐world project as an arena in which to conduct exploratory research [1], develop and test new technologies for video browsing, search and visualization, and spoken document and video retrieval. 3) Design and test an immersive environment and aesthetic interface design, employing gestural and touch interfaces for browsing this incredible corpus. Author Keywords Video Browsing; Big Data; Gesture-based Interface; Interactivity; Immersive Environment; Natural Language processing ACM Classification Keywords H.5 information interfaces and presentation; H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems; Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities; Video (e.g., tape, disk, DVI) INTRODUCTION We propose to demonstrate (herein referred to “demo”) the CBC Newsworld Holodeck installation, in which we will give participants access to the CBC materials with our gestural interface and natural language processing technologies. Participants will learn how to use this new tool and they will be allowed time to experiment with it. We encourage participants to discover new ways to interact with and organise the video archive, and to present their ideas to the group. Participants will be encouraged to exchange ideas and information about video browsing technologies, as well as knowledge about gesture-based technologies. We will ask participants to share how these technologies function in their current practice and research. We hope that through this demo, new ways of using this tool might emerge. At this stage of development, these potential new uses for the CBC Newsworld Holodeck will serve as a valuable gauge to discover the tool’s potentials, as well as the areas that need further development. DESCRIPTION OF THE CBC NEWSWORLD HOLODECK Within the CBC Newsworld Holodeck, users navigate the footage from January 1, 1993—a significant date in global history when Czechoslovakia split into two countries. In the Holodeck installation, they will see 24 screens on adjacent walls showing various broadcast segments and news stories from the selected day, covering world news, local stories, arts and culture, entertainment, sports, and advertisements. A Microsoft Kinect sensor is used to track user’s gestures, as they browse and select from the 24 videos to view. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). TVX 2015, Jun. 3-5, 2015, Brussels, Belgium ACM XXXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/XX.