Introduction In Einige Gespenster gehen um in der Welt - die Gespenster der Zauberlehrlinge I described the case of an apprentice who operates in an environment that practices some mysterious arts (that in the past could have been called sorcery). Soon the apprentice wakes up at the importance of what he is learning/doing and thinks he has learned enough to go his own way. The reality is that the apprentice has not learnt yet the art not because he has…

In quite a few of my articles on this blog I have described how well MPEG has managed to create generic standards for the media industry, how many new standards keep on being produced to support the expansion of the media business and how much the expansion has brought benefits to that industry. The first part of the title, however, reminds us that MPEG is an organisation created by humans and populated by humans. As MPEG is not and cannot…

Introduction The title of this article is inspired by two masterpieces of German philosophy and literature. The first is Karl Marx’s “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” with the metaphor of the spectre (of communism) going around in Europe while the powers of conservation try to stop it. The second is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”, the story of an apprentice who thinks he can enchant a broom and get it to do some work for him, because…

Introduction Most readers will answer yes to the question asked in the title. Indeed, very often we see that success of a human organisation breeds success. Until, I mean, the machine that looked like it could produce results forever “seizes”. But don’t look elsewhere for the causes of failure: it's not the machine, the causes are humans inside and/or outside. In an age when things move fast and change, MPEG has been in operation for three decades. Its standards have…

Introduction In Book 2 of the Georgics, the Latin poet Virgil writes “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas”. This maxim was true in 29 BC when the Georgics was written and remains true 2030 years later. For those who did not have the chance to study Latin, the verse means “Fortunate who could know the causes of things”. Virgil's maxim will be used in this article to draw some conclusions on current matters. Before getting to the things, however, I…

Introduction MPEG has developed standards in many areas. One the latest is compression of DNA reads from high-speed sequencing machines and is now working on Compression of Neural Networks for Multimedia Content Description and Analysis. How could a group who was originally tasked to develop standards for video coding for interactive applications on digital storage media (CD-ROM) get to this point? This article posits that the answer is in the same driving force that pushed the original settlers on the…