Towards a Natural Internet-Based Collaborative Environment with Support of Object Physical and Social Characteristics

Objects in this article refer to sharable applications, such as a whiteboard and a video player, used by multi-users who are in different sites and have computers connected to networks. The objects are important elements in our Internet-based desktop collaborative system, called virtual collaboration room (VCR). We argue that a natural collaborative environment should be developed in a framework of using both a room metaphor and an object metaphor, i.e., emulating the fundamental characteristics of real rooms and real objects, respectively. This article gives the first systematic specifications of object physical and social characteristics, and discusses how to exploit and implement the object characteristics in VCR. A preliminary prototype of platform independent real-time audio/video communications among multiple users is also described. It can be used together with VCR.