Prof. Marc Davis' work is focused on creating the technology and applications that will enable daily media consumers to become daily media producers. His research and teaching encompass the theory, design, and development of digital media systems for creating and using media metadata to automate media production, sharing, and reuse. Prof. Davis and his students in Garage Cinema Research are working on: Mobile Media Metadata (context-aware mobile media technology and applications that leverage contextual metadata-spatial, temporal and social-to infer media content and support media sharing and reuse); the Social Uses of Personal Media (social science and design research to learn how and why people use digital imaging in order to support the design of next generation mobile media applications); Media Streams Metadata Exchange (media metadata framework for annotating, retrieving, sharing, and remixing media on the Web); Active Capture (interactive cameras that use signal processing and computer-human interaction to capture high quality, reusable, annotated media assets); and Adaptive Media (adaptive media templates and automatic editing functions to mass customize and personalize media). Working together, these research projects and their related technologies will radically simplify, decentralize, and personalize media production, sharing, and reuse, bringing about a "Garage Cinema" revolution in which people use computational media to communicate with each other every day.

Garage Cinema Research, UC Berkeley, and Yahoo! Inc. have launched Yahoo! Research Berkeley, a new research partnership to explore and invent social media and mobile media technology and applications that will enable people to create, describe, find, share, and remix media on the web. Prof. Marc Davis is the Founding Director of Yahoo! Research Berkeley and many Garage Cinema Research students, alums, and faculty will be involved in this exciting new lab.