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THD: Serious Games via Open High Speed Broadband Digital Services

Beta-test iTowns THD

Via: ceFIMS ProjectFrance: Tres Haut Debit (THD) or Very High Bandwidth Experimental Platform

The THD experimental platform is an open platform for digital content and services in the Ile-de-France region, running up to April 2011.

This is a cooperative project piloted by the Cap Digital competitiveness cluster which brings together many public and private partners. The THD platform seeks to accelerate the prototyping and industrialization of online innovative services. It comes into play for the final stage of R&D, the technological adjustment of the interface or the ergonomics of the service, via experimentation in real utilization conditions with optical fiber users.

More than thirty companies are already using the THD platform via 28 experimental digital services and content projects in domains such as e-learning, video games, Serious Games, 3D, HD video, videophones, search engines, IPTV, web 2.0…

Highlights

The project aims currently at offering the best development environment to companies and especially SMEs of the media & learning industries that want to test innovative services.

THD platform is actually planning to widen the range of the services to professional ones, and to other domains addressed by the cluster, such as e-health.

Expected Impact

The user panel is spread across the Ile de France Region. So as to be more representative, and anticipate the switch to very high speed equipments, it not only includes FTTH subscribers but also ADSL and cable subscribers. Many services deal with asymmetric exchanges between different connection equipment.

Involved Constituency

THD platform is a successful example of collaborative project. It gathers many partners that work closely together:

• 9 public funders
• 1 cluster in the Ile de France region: Cap Digital, which focuses on digital content and services. This cluster is the operator of the Platform.
• 2 associations, one of which is Silicon Sentier, which focuses on internet and cyber culture.
• 5 academics, mainly focusing on the panel, the datacenter and the test-bed
• about 30 SMEs, mostly leading experimental projects on the platform
• 2 big companies, Sony and Orange
• 2 cultural institutions: the Cité des Sciences and the Centre Pompidou, which host demonstrations of the platform experimental services
• 2,300 households that experiment the services and give feedbacks

Beta-test iTowns THD

Portal THD offers users to participate in the beta test of the online experiment conducted by IGN, referred to as THD iTowns.

Application Deadline: 21 Feb 2011
Early Beta Test: 25 Feb 2011

iTowns THD is an immersive urban browser developed in the research laboratories of the National Geographic Institute.

The very high bandwidth offered by the THD platform increases the immersion sensation and gives it full dimension through image loading speed and information gathering.

About Cap Digital

Cap Digital is the French business cluster for digital content and services in Paris and the Ile de France region. It’s a non-profit organization whose 600 members are primarily innovative SMEs but also count major universities, higher education establishments, research labs, and corporations.

Those members represent the industry most active players in digital content. Nine vibrant member communities make a vital contribution to the strategy and direction of the cluster: Image, Sound and Interactivity, Video Games, Knowledge Engineering, Culture, Press, and Media, e-Learning and e-Training, Collaborative Technology & Intelligence, Mobile Lifestyle & Services, Robotics and Communicating Objects, and Digital Design.

Cap Digital provides members with essential information, networks, and resources. These include ongoing competitive intelligence, training, partnerships, funding solutions, and project reviews.

Partnerships with other leading European clusters, at a structural and project level are an essential element of Cap Digital's strategic activities.