Multimedia access and retrieval (panel session): the state of the art and future directions

Several years have passed since the research topic of content based multimedia retrieval emerged. We have witnessed the burgeoning research activities into a plenitude of new indexing, retrieval, and filtering tools for images, video, audio, music, graphics, and their combinations with text-based information. Exciting research opportunities arise when integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, such as media content processing, database, information retrieval, and machine user interface. In the commercial domain, we have also witnessed several impressive efforts moving technologies into practical arenas.