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Virtual Environments and the Future of Collaboration
Ralph SchroederOxford Internet InstituteTACTiCS, April 8 2011
Overview
• Real World Applications• Why are Virtual Environments Important?• Definition of Virtual Environments and Two End‐states
• Some Findings• Different Media For Being there Together• Outlook for Technology, Society, and Collaboration• Useful Tools for Thinking about the Future• The Future of Distributed Collaboration
Real World Applications
• Business Meetings – time and travel
• Training– if difficult otherwise
• Design and Visualization– Exploring spaces
• Online worlds– For socializing
• Education– Classes and co‐visualizations
Why are Virtual Environments Important?
• They are the most ‘extreme’ form of mediated being there together
• Technologies for ‘being there together’ are proliferating
• There are many preconceptions that mediated ‘being there together’ is not as good as face‐to‐face
• Virtual Environments can help us to understand the future of mediated collaboration
Definition of Shared Virtual Environments and two End‐states
• Definition: presence, plus interacting, plus Copresence – Sensory experience of being in a place other than the one you are physically in, and being able to interact with it, and being there and interacting with others
• There are only two End‐States: totally immersive video vs. computer‐generated
• We can work backwards from these ‐ to less immersive forms of being there together
Blue‐C: the video captured immersive end‐state
Courtesy of Markus Gross, The blue-c project, ETH Zürich
Blue‐C
Courtesy of Markus Gross, The blue-c project, ETH Zürich
CAVE‐like Systems: the computer generated end‐state
Chalmers’ Tan VR-CUBE UCL’s Trimension ReaCTor
London – Gothenburg ‘Caves’
Doing the Rubik’s cube
Task: The Rubik puzzle
FtF
Other Tasks
With Anthony Steed and Dave Roberts
Some Findings
• Collaboration is as good as face‐to‐face• The more immersive, the more sense of the being there together (other things equal!)
• Technology determines ‘leadership’• Following and not following conventions (going through avatars, leaning, pointing)
Activeworlds
Onlive Traveler
HP Halo
More Findings
• videoconferencing has been available for decades, but is not widely used– the ‘I’m having a bad hair day’ problem– Findings about skype and grandparents and distributed couples: realism doesn’t matter, being there together does
• In online virtual worlds, some social cues are not needed, some forms of non‐verbal communication have limited uses
• online virtual worlds are enjoyable for socializing and joint spatial activity
• Avatars need consistency• Voice is a reality check• People develop a stake in their world
Different Media for Being Together
• Instant Messaging• Social Networking• Videoconferencing• Mobile Phones• Shared workspaces• All have
– High‐Low Spatial Component– Self‐presentation component– Large or Small Group Interaction
Tools for Thinking about the Future
• Only Two End‐States (video versus computer‐generated), with different affordances
• Online spaces support spatial interaction, social norms, and engaging content
• There are limits to the number of others that can be focused on
• Mixed or Augmented Reality are subject to attention limits
• All mediated forms of togetherness approximate the two end‐states
Technology and Social Outlook
• Technological problems are solvable• the technology for large 3D displays and interaction is
becoming cheap and widespread • Users adapt to modality and self‐representation • co‐visualization and co‐manipulation of spaces works well• lots of things can be done together in online worlds that can’t
be done in the real world• online sociability be can better than real world sociability • online spaces can be more imaginative and interesting than
real ones• Convergence and mixing of modalities
Collaboration Outlook
• How much face, body and space is needed?• Facial photorealism/videoconferencing versus Spatial computer generated environment?– Not quite
• Large population worlds, small groups of faces?
• How different is collaborating from socializing?
• Time, money and environmental reasons dictate less travel
Observing education in action through scripting classes
The Future of Distributed Collaboration
• Face‐to‐Face interaction is not the Gold Standard• Combining the Two (and only two) End‐States with Mixed and
Augmented Realities, Sensors, Geolocation, Tagging, Crowdsourcing…
• Social networking and mobiles: ‘always on’ ‘availability’ and ‘awareness’
• Collaboration is becoming more multi‐modal, with greater need for managing overload, and sharing and distributing work
• The future consists of effective and enjoyable mixing and matching of modes of being there together