In the great digital era, we are witnessing many rapid scientific and technological developments in human-centered, seamless computing environments, interfaces, devices, and systems with applications ranging from business and communication to entertainment and learning. These developments are collectively best characterized as Active Media Technology (AMT), a new area of intelligent information technology and computer science that emphasizes the proactive, seamless roles of interfaces and systems as well as new media in all aspects of digital life. An AMT based computer system offers services that enable the rapid design, implementation, deploying and support of customized solutions.

The first International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT01) was held in Hong Kong in 2001, the second International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT03) was held in Chongqing, China in May 29–31 of 2004, and the third International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT05) was held in Kagawa, Japan in May 2005. The 4^th International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT06) follows the success of AMT01, AMT03 and AMT05.

AMT06 is the leading International Conference focusing on Active Media Technology. It aims to bring together researchers from diverse areas, such as Web intelligence, data mining, intelligent agents, smart information use, networking and intelligent interface. It also encourages collaborative research in these areas to provide best services for enabling the rapid design, implementation, deploying and support of customized solutions.

The conference includes the following topics:

• Active Computer Systems and Intelligent Interfaces

• Adaptive Web Systems and Information Foraging Agents

• Web mining, Wisdom Web and Web Intelligence

• E-Commerce and Web Services

• Data Mining, Ontology Mining and Data Reasoning

• Network, Mobile and Wireless Security

• Entertainment and Social Applications of Active Media

• Agent-Based Software Engineering and Multi-Agent Systems

• Digital City and Digital Interactivity

• Machine Learning and Human-Centred Robotics

• Multi-Modal Processing, Detection, Recognition, and Expression Analysis

• Personalized, Pervasive, and Ubiquitous Systems and their Interfaces

• Smart Digital Media

• Evaluation of Active Media and AMT Based Systems

AMT06 is sponsored by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society and Queensland University of Technology. It attracted 123 submissions from 19 countries and regions: Algeria, Australia, China, Canada, England, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States of America. The review process was rigorous. Each paper was reviewed by two reviewers at least, and most of them reviewed by three reviewers.

The Program Committee accepted 39 regular papers (the approximate acceptance rate is 32%), 33 short papers (the approximate acceptance rate is 39%) and 9 industry/demonstration papers.

We would like to thank the members of Program Committee and Organization Committee and reviewers who contributed to the success of this conference.

Yuefeng Li, Mark Looi and Ning Zhong, 17 March 2006