Augmented collaborative spaces

Abstract

As collaborative environments evolve beyond the desktop, we see the emergence of a new class of augmented collaborative spaces that employ various devices and technologies to merge electronic information with physical space to support collaboration, both local and remote. To be effective, such spaces should give people the flexibility to combine their individual resources with the resources available in the space, while presenting appropriate information, taking into account the larger process within which a collaborative activity takes place. This demands richer ways of capturing content and actions, new ways of presenting multimodal information, and developing an architecture and infrastructure that unifies individuals, spaces, and processes to facilitate collaboration. Our work in steerable interfaces represents a first step in this direction. Copyright 2000 ACM.