This paper presents a model, called the StoryToCode, which allows designing iTV programs focusing on using software components. First, StoryToCode allows transforming a storyboard into an abstract description of an element set. After this, this model transforms these elements into a specific programming language source code. In StoryToCode a software component is treated as a special element that can be reused in other contexts (web, mobile, and so on). StoryToCode is based on Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and allows designing and implementing applications, with context free, considering iTV program specific characteristics.

The emergence of Interactive Digital Television (iDTV) opened a set of technological possibilities that go beyond those offered by conventional TV. Among these opportunities we can highlight interactive contents that run together with linear TV program (television service where the viewer has to watch a scheduled TV program at the particular time it is offered and on the particular channel it is presented on). However, developing interactive contents for this new platform is not as straightforward as, for example, developing Internet applications. One of the options to make this development process easier and safer is to use an iDTV simulator. However, after having investigated some of the existing iDTV simulation environments, we have found a limitation: these simulators mainly present solutions focused on the TV receiver, whose interactive content must be loaded in advance by the programmer to a local repository (e.g., Hard Drive, USB). Therefore, in this paper, we propose a tool, named BiS (Broadcast iDTV content Simulator), which makes possible a broader solution for the simulation of interactive contents. It allows simulating the transmission of interactive content along with the linear TV program (simulating the transmission of content over the air and in broadcast to the receivers). To enable this, we defined a generic and easy-to-customize communication protocol that was implemented in the tool. The proposed environment differs from others because it allows simulating reception of both linear content and interactive content while running Java applications to allow such a content presentation.

Over the years some models for multimedia spatio-temporal synchronization has been proposed. In most of these models, a known drawback is that they generally abstract the media content and consider only start and end events content presentation. Thus, it is not possible to specify synchronization relations involving "within" media content events. Highlights in a live TV show are examples of these events. In such cases, it may be expected that highlights "may occur", but it is not possible to determine "when". In order to solve this drawback, this article presents an approach for modeling live Interactive TV shows that support the definition of synchronization constraints related to events not known at authoring time. These events are structured in objects, using an object oriented paradigm, and broadcasted to TV receivers as way to assure the synchronization relations.

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Identifying potential victims to avoid alert people who are not in danger is an open challenge to crisis communications systems. In an emergency situation alerting individuals out of danger can overload dissemination systems and lead to loss of system credibility because people can be overwhelmed with irrelevant information. This paper aims to investigate how to improve the message dissemination process in crisis communication by using context-aware computing concepts. We propose a system to identify potential victims and define a strategy with a better way to contact them. For evaluation we performed two case studies with real emergency messages. Finally, we discuss ways to identify potential victims of emergency situations.

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