Telepresence for the Teleworkplace: Living-in versus visiting Cyberspace… Making Telepresence a Reality

1. Telepresence for the Teleworkplace:Living-in versus visiting Cyberspace…Making Telepresence a Reality Gordon Bell (gbell@microsoft.com) Bay Area Research Center Microsoft Research http://www.research.microsoft.com/barc/gbell

2. Outline • Telepresence and Telework • Teleworking environment • Overhead: Support & Administrivia • The “work” • Telepresence dimensions • Telepresentations: the 2nd killer app! • Telecollaboration: killer app to come? • “The work” • Is it for everyone?

3. “Therapy from long distance debated”- SJ Mercury 5 April 1998http://www.sjmercury.com/breaking/headline1/056580.htm

4. What is Telepresence? • Being there without really being there or then • Injecting your presence into tele-space • Being immersed in the tele-space

5. Telepresence Components • Video • Audio • Slides, images, web pages • Text chat • Shared applications • Whiteboards • Voting, question taking

6. Time-shifting beats Space-shifting • Gets around scheduling problems • World’s time zones! • Lets me pause, rewind, browse, play at faster speeds • Immortality • Time-shifting requires STORAGE !!!

7. Today’s killer app : Telepresentations • One-way mostly • Not meeting or collaboration settings • forget the network latencies and messy social issues • Presenter and/or audience telepresent • Slides and audio get you 99% and are bandwidth cheap • Practical and low cost now

8. Telework = (cyber) work + telepresence … being there while being here, and at some other time. • Goal: teleoffice/teleworkplace = workplace office • The teleworkplace is ideally just a “remote office” W/O • Communication, computer, and network support! • Team interactions for work! CSCW is a “rat hole”! • Interaction at coffee, meeting rooms, … in offices • Administrative support for phones, information (especially paper) management, keeping track of • Always on & always connected to intranet/intranet ...! • Telecommunication aka phone & email -- the first, “killer apps” • Telepresentations -- the 2nd “killer app” • Tele-collaboration -- the “killer app” to come

9. Videotaped Lectures convert to Video On Demand for Telepresentations

10. Telecommuting versus time

11. Teleworking CW 9/1/97 • 15% 2 yr increase, 11 Mpeople, avg. 19 Hr/wk • 42% of US Co’s; 22% have policies (screening, worker expectations, liability, IP protection, etc. • Are telecommuters more productive? • 30% yes • 50% same • 4% no • 16% don’t know • Are telecommuters more accessible? • 13% yes • 40% same • 40% no • 7% don’t know

12. Living in Cyberspace: the environment for telepresence / telework

13. SOHO (small office, home office)network computing environment POTS (legacy services) IP Dial tone (Internet, phone, videophone) >1.5 Mbps NT Server for: comm/network, POTS/IP gateway, file, print, compute LAN NC* PC PC *NC, NetPC, Xterm, etc. ... ... Phone Phone Phone

14. Intrastructure

15. Tecra & Libretto Replacement… at 3#

16. A Teleworkplace

17. A Whiteboard

18. SOHO AKA COMOHO Teleworking Environment or is it?Guardian Angel:intercom,records what we read, see, and hear… protects us fromourselves and others

19. Not shown: ECG; GPS; Libretto, .5mm PCS; Pilot Compass; altimeter Libretto PS, Ricoh Camera; Swiss Army Knife

20. Audio, pix, T, P, ECG, location, physiological parameters…1 GB

21. Conference Rooms with Teleconferencing

23. Telemeeting clone

24. Telework clones… being in more than one place at the same time

25. Animatron...

26. Telework & communications dimensions • Who and how many are interacting? • What is the nature of the interaction? • Which professions? • Mechanisms: How are they interacting?

27. Mechanisms (how) Synchronous Asynchronous ICQ, Internet phone & phone conf. RealAudio & simple graphics Workspace for remote program control Whiteboard (groups)... Videophone Remote Rover (Robot Videophone) The Space of Telepresencefor work email Formal presentations sans video ... Voice & Videomail Video lectures & courses Profession person-computer 1:1 personal communication 2 site-site conferencing; n site conferencing 1:p broadcasts computer management distributed groups with >2, 10, <100, view (troll) hallways with “informal” interaction 1: 1 videophone calls for (problem solving, authoring) interviews classes formal meetings (lectures, conferences, stockholder meetings, town halls, etc..) Type of Work (What) Group Interaction (Who)

28. WHO 1:1 person-person communication n:m 2-site-site video conference 1:n-site broadcasting or Mbone narrowcasting distributed group. >2 - 5 - 10 - 100 ---- person-computer computer management (no persons) What view (troll) hallways, “seeking interaction” 1:1 interview, status report, etc. 1-6 videophone calls for (design, problem solving, authoring) hold staff meetings with 1 or more members distributed attend classes formal meetings (lectures, conferences, stockholder meetings, town halls, etc..) Telepresence: who and what

29. Synchronous Internet phone & phone conferencing Internet Videophone RealAudio & Overhead graphics Shared applications Whiteboards CU SeeMe on POTS… IP Videophone Mbone Video conferencing Room Video conferencing Remote Rover (Robot Videophone) Asynchronous voice mail…STT email ... TTS Home pages replace bulletin boards, file transport, and document distribution Schedule & “Notes” Voice and Video “email” Telepresentations (meetings, presentations, & courses) Telepresence Mechanisms (for Work)

30. Voice* TTS (synthetic or speaker driven) 4 Kb-64 Kb codec of real voice Stereo of real voice Stereo with sound source identification Projection into arbitrary virtual world environment *variable speed Visual AKA Video* Text avatar (simple… photo) Avatar with voice sync Avatar of real person Video codec based projection “Postage stamp” … POTS “Mailing label” … ISDN or 2x POTS Compressed VHS (200 Kbps) MPEG 2 (1- 4 Mbps) Speaker tracking, 1-n cameras VR image of a large space 3d images “holodeck” Animatron e.g. Barney Mobile Animatron *Meeting in real or virtual world Voice and Visual Alternatives (in order of increasing B/W)

31. Telepresentations: The 2nd killer app?

32. Telepresentations“Being There (e.g. meeting, lecture, confererene) Without Really Being There (or Then)” • Presenter or audience need not be physically present • Reach a wider audience • “I have a schedule conflict.” • Anybody with a web connection can participate • Reduce costs • No need to travel to attend or participate in a presentation • Education & training, corporate communication

34. Motivation:Telepresentations • Presenter and/or audience telepresent • NOT: meeting or collaboration settings • Forget the nasty social issues! Mostly one-way

35. TelepresentationElements • Slides • Audio • Video • Script, text comments, hyperlinks,etc.

36. Telepresentations:The Essentials • Slide and audio a must • Add some video (low quality) to make us feel good • Storage and transmission costs low

37. Telepresentations:The Killer App • Increased attendance & lower travel costs • Practical and low-cost NOW • e.g. ACM97 - 2,000 visitors in real space, 20,000 visitors on Internethttp://research.microsoft.com/acm97

38. This talk • Would you like to pause, rewind, browse? • Do you wish you could have seen this • At home? • At another time? • How much does a present speaker add? How much would you pay for real presence?

40. About storage: one CD holds four, “near VHS quality” hours of video

41. Telepresentation Structure

42. Telecollaboration: The next “killer app” interacting to achieve a common objective … basically, its communications enabling or disabling people

43. Tools for telecollaboration • Powerpoint: conference & record, Precept: mbone multicasting • NetShow: On demand viewing of video 28.8 - 100 Kb • CuSeeMe: audio, video, whiteboard • NetMeeting: audio, 2 way video, chat, whiteboard, program sharing • Placeware for large scale meetings, presentations, and collaborations • Latitude MeetingPlace phone & data conference • Active Touch web-based phone & data conference

44. Active Touch Live Collaboration Architecture Collaboration Clustering Server Data Collaboration Server Data Collaboration Server Data Collaboration Server CTI Server CTI Server

45. Active Touch Data Collaboration Services Data Collaboration Server Chat Doc Review Interactive Forms Application Sharing Desktop Sharing To CTI Servers Presentation Web Tour Application Viewing Launch NetMeeting Conf. Control Multipoint Comm. Service HTTP TCP/IP Web Server

46. Active Touch Administration and Enterprise Integration Admin and EI Archive Module Billing & Accounting Directory Service Module Object Storage Security Module Public Key Infrastructure Enterprise Data Repository Active Directory Service (LDAP) Database Database Third Party Repository Database

47. Collaboration Application Server: Criteria • Robust, scalable • Data & Telephony Tight Integration • Web Integration • Easy-To-Use • Security • Open Standards (HTTP, TSAPI, LDAP, T.120, Encryption) • Enterprise Application Integration • Performance • High Availability • Customizable

48. Telecollaboration • Low latency, high bandwidth for interactivity, feeling, nuances • Channels: • speech (including spatialization) • the “work” I.e. document, diagram, program, presentation, etc. • video output: forces attendance and holds attention • video input: “state” of the receiver cues • whiteboard • chat channels

49. Telework: It takes screens, sound, and bandwidth, stupid http://research.microsoft.com/barc/GBell/

50. By April 1, 2001 videophones will ship in 50% of the PCs and be in use. “ Gordon Bell vs Jim Gray1996 (one paper, loser gets fed) ”