Recent leaps in eye tracking technology have made it possible to enable eye tracking as a cheap, reliable and efficient addition to the human computer interaction technologies. This thesis looks into the possibility of utilizing it for client aware video streaming. Increasingly people are consuming high quality video content on wireless network devices, thus there is need to optimize bandwidth consumption for efficient delivery of such high resolution content, both for 2D and 360°videos.This work proposes SEEN (Smart Eye-tracking Enabled Networking), a novel approach to streaming video content using real time eye tracking information. This uses HEVC video tiling techniques to display high and low qualities in the same video frame depending on where the user is looking. The viability of proposed approach is validated using extensive user testing conducted on a Quality of Experience (QoE) testbed which was also developed as part of this thesis. Test results show significant bandwidth savings of up to 71% for 2D videos on standard 4K screens, and up to 83% for 360°videos on Virtual Reality (VR) headsets for acceptable QoE ratings. A comparative study on viewport tracking and eye tracking for VR headsets is also included in the thesis in order to further advocate the necessity of eye tracking.This research was conducted in collaboration with Ericsson, Tobii and KTH under the umbrella project SEEN: Smart Eye-tracking Enabled Networking. / Nya framsteg inom ögonstyrningsteknologi har möjliggjort att betrakta ögonstyrning (o.k.s. eyetracking) som ett billigt, pålitligt och effektivt tillägg till teknologier för människa-dator interaktion. Det här examensarbetet utforskar möjligheten att använda ögonstyrning för klientmedveten videoströmning. Allt fler personer förbrukar videoinnehåll av hög kvalitet genom trådlösa nätverk, därmed finns det ett behov av att optimera bandbreddskonsumtionen för effektiv leverans av ett sådant högkvalitativt innehåll, både för 2Doch 360°-videor.Det här arbetet introducerar SEEN (Smart Eye-tracking Enabled Networking), en ny approach för att strömma videoinnehåll, som bygger på realtidsinformation från ögonstyrning. Den använder HEVC-metoder för rutindelning av video för att visa högkvalitativt och lågkvalitativt innehåll i samma videoram, beroende på vart användaren tittar. Lönsamheten av den föreslagna approachen validerades med hjälp av omfattande användartester utförda på en testbädd för upplevelsekvalité (Quality of Experience, QoE) som också utvecklades som en del av det här examensarbetet. Testresultaten visar betydande bandbreddsbesparingar på upp till 71% för 2D-videor på vanliga 4K-skärmar samt upp till 83% för 360°-videor på VR-headset för acceptabla QoE-betyg. En komparativ studie om viewport tracking och ögonstyrning i VR-headset är också inkluderad i det här examensarbetet för att ytterligare förespråka behovet av ögonstyrning.Denna forskning genomfördes i samarbete med Ericsson, Tobii och KTH under paraplyprojektet SEEN: Smart Eye-tracking Enabled Networking.

In an organization such as a university with many institutions and new employees the onboarding process is a key activity for the employee life cycle. This study examines the possibilities and limitations of further digitalization of the process by including new formats for information.  The format in question is 360-videos. These videos can be viewed both on head mounted displays which are used to create a 3D environment but also on computer screens which allows the content to be accessible to those that lack the 3D equipment. Based on semi-structured interviews with HR-employees at the university the study has found there to be many activities that are suitable for the format but also a few limitations concerning planning for and executing the development of new content for the onboarding process. The conclusions drawn from the results in this study and previous studies on the topic shows that implementation of 360-videos would lead to standardized content concerning many of the activities that cannot be done digitally by conference calls or two-dimensional videos. These activities are today done in person and at the responsibility of the new hires closest manager which leads to the activities being time consuming and can vary in terms of content.

<p dir="ltr">Ensuring a high quality of experience for Internet applications is challenging owing to the significant variability (e.g., of traffic patterns) inherent to both cloud data-center networks and wide area networks. This thesis focuses on optimizing application performance by both conducting measurements to characterize traffic variability, and designing applications that can perform well in the face of variability. On the data center side, a key aspect that impacts performance is traffic burstiness at fine granular time scales. Yet, little is know about traffic burstiness and how it impacts application loss. On the wide area side, we focus on video applications as a major traffic driver. While optimizing traditional videos traffic remains a challenge, new forms of video such as 360◦ introduce additional challenges such as respon- siveness in addition to the bandwidth uncertainty challenge. In this thesis, we make three contributions.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>First</b>, for data center networks, we present Millisampler, a lightweight network traffic char- acterization tool for continual monitoring which operates at fine configurable time scales, and deployed across all servers in a large real-world data center networks. Millisampler takes a host-centric perspective to characterize traffic across all servers within a data center rack at the same time. Next, we present data-center-scale joint analysis of burstiness, contention, and loss. Our results show (i) bursts are likely to encounter contention; (ii) contention varies significantly over short timescales; and (iii) higher contention need not lead to more loss, and the interplay with workload and burst properties matters.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Second</b>, we consider challenges with traditional video in wide area networks. We take a step towards understanding the interplay between Content-Delivery-Networks (CDNs), and video performance through end-to-end measurements. Our results show that (i) video traffic in a session can be sourced from multiple CDN layers, and (ii) throughput can vary signifi- cantly based on the traffic source. Next we evaluate the potential benefits of exposing CDN information to the client Adaptive-Bit-Rate (ABR) algorithm. Emulation experiments show the approach has the potential to reduce prediction inaccuracies, and enhance video quality of experience (QoE).</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Third</b>, for 360◦ videos, we argue for a new streaming model which is explicitly designed for continuous, rather than stalling, playback to preserve interactivity. Next, we propose Dragonfly, a new 360° system that leverages the additional degrees of freedom provided by this design point. Dragonfly proactively skips tiles (i.e., spatial segment of the video) using a model that defines an overall utility function that captures factors relevant to user experience. We conduct a user study which shows that majority of interactivity feedback indicating Dragonfly being highly reactive, while the majority of state-of-the-art’s feedback indicates the systems are slow to react. Further, extensive emulations show Dragonfly improves the image quality significantly without stalling playback.</p>