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An Experimental Hybrid User Interface for Collaboration
We present EMMIE (Environment Management for Multi-user Information Environments), an experimental user interface to a collaborative augmented environment. Users share a 3D virtual space and manipulate virtual objects representing information to be discussed. This approach not only allows for cooperation in a shared physical space, but also addresses tele-collaboration in physically separate but virtually shared spaces. We refer to EMMIE as a hybrid user interface because it combines a variety of different technologies and techniques, including virtual elements such as 3D widgets, and physical objects such as tracked displays and input devices. See-through head-worn displays overlay the virtual environment on the physical environment. Our research prototype includes additional 2D and 3D displays, ranging from palm-sized to wall-sized, allowing the most appropriate one to be used for any task. Objects can be moved among displays (including across dimensionalities) through drag & drop. In analogy to 2D window managers, we describe a prototype implementation of a shared 3Denvironment manager that is distributed across displays, machines, and operating systems. We also discuss two methods we are exploring for handling information privacy in such an environment
Constructing Social Systems through Computer-Mediated Communication
The question whether computer-mediated communication can support the formation of
genuine social systems is addressed in this paper. Our hypothesis, that technology creates
new forms of social systems beyond real-life milieus, includes the idea that the
technology itself may influence how social binding emerges within on-line environments.
In real-life communities, a precondition for social coherence is the existence of social
conventions. By observing interaction in virtual environments, we found the use of a
range of social conventions. These results were analyzed to determine how the use and
emergence of conventions might be influenced by the technology. One factor contributing
to the coherence of on-line social systems, but not the only one, appears to be the degree
of social presence mediated by the technology. We suggest that social systems can
emerge by computer-mediated communication and are shaped by the media of the
specific environment
Space time pixels
This paper reports the design of a networked system, the aim of
which is to provide an intermediate virtual space that will
establish a connection and support interaction between multiple
participants in two distant physical spaces.
The intention of the project is to explore the potential of the
digital space to generate original social relationships between
people that their current (spatial or social) position can
difficultly allow the establishment of innovative connections.
Furthermore, to explore if digital space can sustain, in time,
low-level connections like these, by balancing between the two
contradicting needs of communication and anonymity.
The generated intermediate digital space is a dynamic reactive
environment where time and space information of two physical
places is superimposed to create a complex common ground where
interaction can take place. It is a system that provides
awareness of activity in a distant space through an abstract
mutable virtual environment, which can be perceived in several
different ways – varying from a simple dynamic background image
to a common public space in the junction of two private spaces or
to a fully opened window to the other space – according to the
participants will.
The thesis is that the creation of an intermediary environment
that operates as an activity abstraction filter between several
users, and selectively communicates information, could give
significance to the ambient data that people unconsciously
transmit to others when co-existing. It can therefore generate a new layer of connections and original interactivity patterns; in contrary to a straight-forward direct real video and sound
system, that although it is functionally more feasible, it
preserves the existing social constraints that limit interaction
into predefined patterns
Cloud-based desktop services for thin clients
Cloud computing and ubiquitous network availability have renewed people's interest in the thin client concept. By executing applications in virtual desktops on cloud servers, users can access any application from any location with any device. For this to be a successful alternative to traditional offline applications, however, researchers must overcome important challenges. The thin client protocol must display audiovisual output fluidly, and the server executing the virtual desktop should have sufficient resources and ideally be close to the user's current location to limit network delay. From a service provider viewpoint, cost reduction is also an important issue
The Effect of Haptic Feedback on Basic Social. Interaction within Shared Virtual Environments
This paper describes an experiment that studies the effect of basic haptic feedback in creating a sense of social interaction within a shared virtual environment (SVE). Although there have been a number of studies investigating the effect of haptic feedback on collaborative task performance, they do not address the effect it has in inducing social presence. The purpose of this experiment is to show that haptic feedback enhances the sense of social presence within a mediated environment. An experiment was carried out using a shared desktop based virtual environment where 20 remotely located couples who did not know one another had to solve a puzzle together. In 10 groups they had shared haptic communication through their hands, and in another group they did not. Hence the haptic feedback was not used for completing the task itself, but rather as a means of social interacting – communicating with the other participant. The results suggest that basic haptic feedback increases the sense of social presence within the shared VE
CyberLiveApp: a secure sharing and migration approach for live virtual desktop applications in a cloud environment
In recent years we have witnessed the rapid advent of cloud computing, in which the remote software is delivered as a service and accessed by users using a thin client over the Internet. In particular, the traditional desktop application can execute in the remote virtual machines without re-architecture providing a personal desktop experience to users through remote display technologies. However, existing cloud desktop applications mainly achieve isolation environments using virtual machines (VMs), which cannot adequately support application-oriented collaborations between multiple users and VMs. In this paper, we propose a flexible collaboration approach, named CyberLiveApp, to enable live virtual desktop applications sharing based on a cloud and virtualization infrastructure. The CyberLiveApp supports secure application sharing and on-demand migration among multiple users or equipment. To support VM desktop sharing among multiple users, a secure access mechanism is developed to distinguish view privileges allowing window operation events to be tracked to compute hidden window areas in real time. A proxy-based window filtering mechanism is also proposed to deliver desktops to different users. To support application sharing and migration between VMs, we use the presentation streaming redirection mechanism and VM cloning service. These approaches have been preliminary evaluated on an extended MetaVNC. Results of evaluations have verified that these approaches are effective and useful
Community building and virtual teamwork in an online learning environment
In the world of OTIS, an online Internet School for occupational therapists, students from four European countries were encouraged to work collaboratively through problem based learning by interacting with each other in a virtual semi-immersive environment. This paper aims to explore the issues that there was little interaction between students from different tutorial groups and virtual teamwork developed in each of the cross cultural tutorial groups. Synchronous data from European students was captured during tutorial sessions and peer booked meetings and evidence suggests that communities of interest were established. It is possible to conclude that collaborative systems can be designed, which encourage students to build trust and teamwork in a cross cultural online learning environment. </p
The PISCES 2 parallel programming environment
PISCES 2 is a programming environment for scientific and engineering computations on MIMD parallel computers. It is currently implemented on a flexible FLEX/32 at NASA Langley, a 20 processor machine with both shared and local memories. The environment provides an extended Fortran for applications programming, a configuration environment for setting up a run on the parallel machine, and a run-time environment for monitoring and controlling program execution. This paper describes the overall design of the system and its implementation on the FLEX/32. Emphasis is placed on several novel aspects of the design: the use of a carefully defined virtual machine, programmer control of the mapping of virtual machine to actual hardware, forces for medium-granularity parallelism, and windows for parallel distribution of data. Some preliminary measurements of storage use are included
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