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The sharing of application windows among multiple PCs is needed to support collaborative works. It enables users to manipulate windows from different PCs when using their own PCs. However, creating native applications with a sharing function is time consuming. We therefore developed an application window sharing system using web technology. Moreover, we developed a dongle interface for an application sharing system. This enables users to start the sharing of application windows smoothly. We tested and evaluated the practically of our system. The time required to start the application window sharing was shown to be less than 2,000 ms. The present paper describes how the system can be used for practical applications.

The capacity and capability of mobile devices continue to increase enabling the emergence of a wide variety of apps that are previously only possible with more powerful computing devices, such as laptops, desktops and even (cloud) servers. However, despite a rich set of resources in today’s mobile devices, the platform-level support for mobile distributed computing remains limited. In this paper, we demonstrate textbf Single Application Multiple Device (SAMD), a mobile platform-level framework designed for “instant” mobile distributed computing. The idea is that the great amounts of mobile devices pervasive in today’s connected world could be harnessed and managed cooperatively for a common objective, such as mobile collaboration. SAMD enables a mobile app to run its portions across multiple devices without the prior installation. We have implemented a proof-of- concept prototype of SAMD on Android and demonstrated the development of two example SAMD apps.

Internet provides a lot of tools and technologies designed to help people collaborate and communicate with each other. Collaboration tools are a category of tools such as chat, application sharing, videoconferencing and e-mail (Dobre, Seria Matematica - Informatica – Fizica LVIII:51–56, 2006). In additition, online collaboration tools are based on webpages, clients and servers, so all the aspects of a competitive webpage should be considered in order to make a good collaboration tool. Modelling is the process of representing a physical system, or natural phenomenon, or even an idea. In this paper we will simulate the process of developing a web-based collaboration tool, in order to find how the available resources should be properly distributed.

In recent years, we have witnessed the rapid advent of cloud computing, in which remote software is delivered as a service and accessed by users using a thin client over the Internet. In particular, a traditional desktop application can execute in the remote virtual machines of clouds without re-architecture and provide a personal desktop experience to users through remote display technologies. However, existing cloud desktop applications have isolated environments with 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 application sharing, based on a cloud and virtualization infrastructure. CyberLiveApp supports secure application sharing and on-demand migration among multiple users or equipment. To support VM desktop sharing among multiple users, we develop a secure access mechanism to distinguish their view privileges, in which window operation events are tracked to compute hidden areas of windows in real time. A proxy-based window filtering mechanism is also proposed to deliver desktops to different users. To achieve the goals of live application sharing and migration between VMs, a presentation redirection approach based on VNC protocol and a VM cloning service based on the Libvirt interface are used. These approaches have been preliminary evaluated on an extended MetaVNC. Results of evaluations have verified that these approaches are effective and useful.

The advent and wide adoption of smartphones in the second half of '00s has completely changed our everyday mobile computing experience. Tens of applications are being introduced every day in the application markets. Given the technology progress and the fact that mobile devices are becoming strong computing devices, mobile applications are expected to follow suit and become computation-heavy, bandwidth-hungry and latency-sensitive. In this paper, we introduce a new mobile computing paradigm to alleviate some of the network stress that mobile applications are already putting into the network, e.g., in case of crowded areas and events, where the mobile network effectively collapses. According to this paradigm, users can share the applications that they have on their mobile devices with nearby users that want access to processed information, which their own applications cannot provide. In a sense, then, the client application instance is also acting as a server instance in order to serve requests from nearby users. A representative example is a route-finder application in a busy station, airport, stadium or festival, or a gaming application onboard a flight. Our paradigm builds on Information-Centric Networking (ICN) and uses keyword-based requests to discover shared applications in the vicinity.

With advances in hardware and networking technologies and mass manufacturing, the cost of high end hardware had fall dramatically in recent years. However, software cost still remains high and is the dominant fraction of the overall computing budget. Application sharing is a promising solution to reduce the overall IT cost. Currently software licenses are still based on the number of copies installed. An organization can thus reduce the IT cost if the users are able to remotely access the software that is installed on certain computer servers instead of running the software on every local computer. In this paper, we propose a generic application sharing architecture for users' application sharing in a cluster of closed operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. We also propose a broker-mediated solution where we allow multiple users to access a single user software license on a time multiplex basis through a single logged in user. An application sharing tool called ShAppliT has been introduced and implemented in Microsoft Windows operating system. We evaluated their performance on CPU usage and memory consumption when a computer is hosting multiple concurrent shared application sessions., 17 pages

International audience; A lot of professionals or hobbyists at home would like to create their own immersive virtual reality systems for cheap and taking little space. We offer two examples of such "home-made" systems using the cheapest hardware possible while maintaining a good level of immersion: the first system is based on a projector (VRKit-Wall) and cost ≈ 1000€, while the second system is based on a head-mounted display (VRKit-HMD) and costs between 600€ and 1000€. We also propose a standardization of those systems in order to enable simple application sharing. Finally, we describe a method to calibrate the stereoscopy of a NVIDIA 3D Vision system.

In order to meet the requirements of product information sharing and exchange in collaborative design, a design model sharing method was put forward for multidisciplinary domains cooperation. The creation and release mechanism of shared information model were represented. A collaborative product design framework was established based on the sharing model. An application sharing mode of message-driven design was achieved in which information expression approach is built by XML. So packaging and transmission of the shared design information were implemented in collaborative process. An effective solution of information interaction interdisciplinary domains was proposed for collaborative design process.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of incorporating Web-based application sharing of virtual medical simulation software within a multipoint video teleconference (VTC) as a training tool in graduate medical education.National Capital Consortium Radiation Oncology Residency Program resident and attending physicians participated in dosimetry teaching sessions held via VTC using Acrobat Connect application sharing. Residents at remote locations could take turns designing radiation treatments using standard three-dimensional planning software, whereas instructors gave immediate feedback and demonstrated proper techniques. Immediately after each dosimetry lesson, residents were asked to complete a survey that evaluated the effectiveness of the session. At the end of a 3-month trial of using Adobe Connect, residents completed a final survey that compared this teaching technology to the prior VTC-alone method.The mean difference from equality across all quality measures from the weekly survey was 0.8, where 0 indicated neither enhanced nor detracted from the learning experience and 1 indicated a minor enhancement in the learning experience. The mean difference from equality across all measures from the final survey comparing use of application sharing with VTC to VTC alone was 1.5, where 1 indicated slightly better and 2 indicated a somewhat better experience.The teaching efficacy of multipoint VTC is perceived by medical residents to be more effective when complemented by application-sharing software such as Adobe Acrobat Connect.

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel file and application sharing system that enables a group of mobile stations that do not have any prior security association and infrastructure support, to form a secure collaboration workspace, and share files and application content instantly with minimal human intervention.Design/methodology/approachThe paper looks at the system implementation and experimentation.FindingsWShare can automatically establish a peer‐to‐peer network among the participating mobile stations, and provides a transparent shared file repository through which the mobile stations can securely exchange files with simple drag‐and‐drop operations. This file sharing application can also be specialized to support the same file beaming service over wireless LAN as that provided by Palm PDAs over infrared links. On the application sharing front, WShare supports a general remote execution mechanism that can synchronize the state of multiple instances of a standard productivity application, such as PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, across different machines. Finally for sharing generic applications, WShare also integrates virtual network computing with reliable wireless broadcast to provide a user‐interface level sharing mechanism. Performance measurement on the fully operational WShare prototype shows that a collaboration workspace among five mobile nodes can be set up within 3.5 seconds.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a new communication paradigm and presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a fully‐working prototype.

Today's fusion experiments are geographically and institutionally dispersed collaborations. This makes the need for good remote collaboration tools particularly acute. Informal interactions between scientists are particularly important and hard to realize with traditional communications approaches. We are testing existing packages based on the IETF SIP (session initiation protocol) standard and integrating them into our applications to address these issues. Development of additional tools may be needed to provide better integration and enhanced functionality. By providing a spectrum of tools encompassing instant messaging, voice, video, presence, event notification and application sharing, we hope to overcome technical hurdles and a natural reluctance, among researchers, to interact with colleagues who are not on site. Existing web pages, which support integrated and shared workspaces, such as electronic logbooks, code and experimental run management, records of presentations and publications, personnel databases, and physical site maps will be ‘communications enabled’, so that just as currently there are ‘mailto’ links we will be able to have ‘speak to:’, ‘instant message to:’, ‘video to:’, and ‘share with:’ links. Mechanisms will be provided for session portability; a conference might be moved from a hard phone to a soft phone so that video or application sharing could be enabled. This paper discusses our ongoing efforts in these areas, including a prototype implementation of some of these tools.

Previous application sharing systems have no unified communication protocols. The well known application sharing protocols include RFB (Remote FrameBuffer), RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and ITU-T T.128. A generic application sharing architecture is proposed for providing the capability of connecting various application sharing servers with the same application sharing client. A communication standard for application sharing systems is defined based on the Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM). To compare with previous application sharing systems, there are many advantages including easy to use, easy to connect, easy to integrate, higher scalability and less bandwidth consumption.

Cloud computing is based on network and computer applications. In cloud data sharing is an important activity. Small, medium, and big organization are use cloud to store their data in minimum rental cost. In present cloud proof their importance in term of resource and network sharing, application sharing and data storage utility. Hence, most of customers want to use cloud facilities and services. So the security is most essential part of customer's point of view as well as vendors. There are several issues that need to be attention with respect to service of data, security or privacy of data and management of data. The security of stored data and information is one of the most crucial problem in cloud computing. Using good protection techniques of access control we can resolved many security problems. Accept that managing privacy and security of information in web highly challenging. This paper describes how to secure data and information in cloud environment in time of data sharing or storing by using our proposed cryptography and steganography technique.

The empirical study reported in this article is based on a pilot experiment conducted in a foundation course in Computer Science at the University of Toronto (Canada) with a webcasting system called ePresence; a system that builds upon a webcasting infrastructure through the addition of interactive slides, application sharing, and communication tools in order to enhance students' engagement during on-line webcasts. While watching on-line lectures, learners were given both an audio and a text channel to communicate within their study groups. The results of the pilot study indicated that students could engage in coherent threaded conversations using both modes simultaneously. While evaluating the impact of audio communication on student engagement during on-line lectures, we observed the phenomenon of bimodal conversations or medium switching. Mode selection and mode switching are seen to impact conversations at various levels, and yet students are able to intuitively negotiate both modes simultaneously du...

A synchronous cooperation model between institutes of higher learning for course development was implemented at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and at the Far East College (FEC) in Taiwan. Synchronous computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) tools such as videoconferencing, application sharing, electronic whiteboard, and file transfer, through hybrid ISDN/Internet network services, were adopted for communication, coordination, and sharing of knowledge and equipment in two joint engineering laboratory course: ‘Remote collaborative reverse engineering’, based at the FEC, and ‘Computer-integrated manufacturing’, based at the NCKU. The major teaching objective of both courses was to present examples of complete industrial processes, rather than to demonstrate the hardware and software used to support the presentation between the two institutions. These industrial examples were presented synchronously and interactively to students at both the FEC and the NCKU to illustrate the importance of knowledge sharing and device integration with diverse synchronous CSCW methods. The industrial processes related to mold design and the forging of a metal part. The framework of the layered, synchronous, collaborative course presentation described in this paper also applies to the collaborative course development model, which has advantages over conventional engineering laboratory courses. The adoption of this model will relieve the cost of investment in teaching resources and equipment, as these may thereby be shared between institutions. The model has proved both feasible and extensible.

Data conferencing is a computing technique that helps people to communicate in realtime and to share information with others simultaneously. The T. 120 standard provides a base for: (1) multipoint data sharing; (2) interoperability; (3) reliable data transfer; (4) scalability, transparency and independence; (5) platform independence; (6) application independence. A review of the health-care data-conferencing literature identified 25 articles. Ten articles provided detailed information about data-conferencing applications. Of these, eight focused on application sharing, seven on whiteboards, two on chat and one on screen sharing. Articles published before the year 2000 typically focused on the use of NetMeeting and Intel ProShare with low-bandwidth network connections. After 2000, high-speed Internet connections became more popular and Web-based multimedia data conferencing became feasible. While there are undoubted benefits of data conferencing, more research and evaluation are required before the technique is widely implemented in health care.

We conducted a study to determine whether application sharing and desktop videoconferencing using the Internet constituted a viable method for remotely configuring a microprocessor-controlled lower-extremity prosthesis. A DSL broadband connection (operated at 256 kbit/s) was used to connect two prosthetic care facilities over the public Internet. PC-based videoconferencing was used with application sharing for the remote configuration of the prosthesis and to view information on the load and angle of the prosthetic knee. Fifteen people with trans-femoral amputations had the settings for their prosthesis scrambled before a specialist at another site remotely configured the device. There were no significant differences between the original and online settings. Clinicians at both sites considered that 14 out of 15 sessions were successful (one trial involved technical problems with the knee unit that were unrelated to the telemedicine trial). The clients rated their satisfaction with the technique as excellent (47%), above average (33%) or average (20%). The present study shows that a combination of desktop videoconferencing and T.120 application sharing can be used for the remote configuration of assistive devices.

This paper describes the concept, prototypical implementation, and usability evaluation of the Augmented Virtuality (AV)-based videoconferencing (VC) system cAR/PE!. We present a solution that allows three participants at different locations to communicate over a network in an environment simulating a traditional face-to-face meeting. Integrated into the AV environment are live video streams of the participants spatially arranged around a virtual table, a large virtual presentation screen for 2D display and application sharing, and 3D geometry (models) within the room and on top of the table. We describe the general concept and application scenario as well as the actual hardware setup, the implementation, and the use of the system in its current state. Results of two usability studies with 87 subjects are presented that show the general usability of our approach as well as good overall satisfaction. Parts of the work described here were presented as a poster at the second International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (Regenbrecht, Ott, Wagner, Lum, Kohler, et al., 2003. An Augmented Virtuality Approach to 3D Videoconferencing. Poster at 2nd Int. Symp. on Mixed and Aug. Reality, Tokyo.).

The growth of computer resource and network speed has increased requests for the use of remotely located computer systems by connecting through computer networks. This phenomenon has hoisted research activities for application service provision that uses server-based remote computing paradigm. The server-based remote computing paradigm has been developed as the ASP (Application Service Provision) model, which provides remote users through application sharing protocol to application programs. Security requirement such as confidentiality, availability, integrity should be satisfied to provide ASP service using centralized computing system. Existing Telnet or FTP service for a remote computing systems have satisfied security requirement by a simple access control to files and/or data. But windows-based centralized computing system is vulnerable to confidentiality, availability, integrity where many users use the same application program installed in the same computer. In other words, the computing system needs detailed security level for each user different from others, such that only authorized user or group of users can run some specific functional commands for the program. In this paper, we propose windows based centralized computing system that sets security policies for each user for the use of instructions of the application programs, and performs access control to the instructions based on the security policies. The system monitors all user messages which are executed through graphical user interface by the users connecting to the system. Ail Instructions, i.e. messages, for the application program are now passed to authorization process that decides if an Instruction is delivered to the application program based on the pre-defined security polices. This system can be used as security clearance for each user for the shared computing resource as well as shared application programs.

We present a control model, which provides response time and bandwidth requirement adaptation in audio, video, and application sharing multipoint IP teleconferences for emerging wireless multimedia communications. The model is based on revealing feedback controls for multimedia call preparation and subsequent real time connection control. Case-based reasoning memory is used to associate real time congestion (connection) controls with call preparation controls and user QoS profiles. Web agents are used to capture user and application multimedia call profiles observed at the application layer and transfer them into the case memory. RTP statistics are used to identify the connection management feedback controls for the network layer. Real-time adaptation at the network layer and above is made possible by using hierarchical coding techniques. The proposed adaptive management architecture is illustrated by a case memory representation of call preparation feedback controls, RTP feedback control tests for providing audio stream bandwidth adaptation, and configuration of integrated experiments.

An experiment was conducted in which teams of geographically distributed students used groupware tools to complete three tasks typically performed by the members of an engineering design team: generating ideas, co-editing reports, and negotiating agreements. Four groupware-supported team meeting formats using various combinations of audio, video, file-transfer, and application-sharing support were compared against each other and against a conventional face-to-face meeting. The results, measured as task completion time, quality of task outcome, and subjective user satisfaction, suggest that limitations of the hardware, software, and network bandwidth available at the time the study was conducted diminished any potential benefits of video connectivity and application sharing for distributed collaboration; however, audio connectivity was observed to be of great utility. The teams that used audio communication and file transfer alone between geographically distributed members achieved task completion times and task outcome qualities that were not significantly different from those of the teams working together in the same room.

There is little doubt that the creation and enhancement of awareness is a critical factor for the implementation and use of telecooperation systems. However, in a broader view, which includes the perspective on cooperative work processes, awareness turns out to be even more important. Awareness information-or the lack of awareness information-is also a crucial factor for the effectiveness and efficiency of cooperative work. Three projects are briefly described to show the broad spectrum of possible target groups and goal orientations: Teams and Tess inkontakt are projects of the Institute for Work and Technology in Gelsenkirchen with a task-oriented business-to-business and a business-to-customer focus, respectively; the Poliwork project represents an infrastructure-oriented approach for the support of cooperative work in public administration. To describe the crucial factors of projects like these, a perspective on awareness is needed that goes beyond the immediate communication situation and the use of ...

The use of social media and other electronic communication has exploded as the number of social media outlets and applications continue to increase. These are exciting and valuable tools when used wisely, but pose risks when inappropriately used. The purpose of this article is to consider what comprises social media, its benefits and concerns, and guidelines for use that protect patients, employees, and organizations.Social media and other forms of electronic communication are exciting and valuable tools when used wisely, as demonstrated by the communication among the public, health care workers, and patients during the recent Boston Marathon bombing. Because social media is largely technology-driven and given to buzzwords, the terminology used to describe it can be confusing. The following terms and definitions will help us to understand its value.Social technologies refer to any technology that facilitates social interactions and is enabled by a communications capability, such as the Internet or a mobile device. Examples are social software (e.g., wikis, blogs, and social networks) and communication capabilities (e.g., web conferencing) that are targeted at and enable social interactions (Gartner, 2012).Social media are broadly described as forms of electronic communication (e.g., websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content such as videos (Merriam-Webster, 2012).Social networking refers to systems that allow members of a specific site to learn about other members' skills, talents, knowledge, or preferences. Commercial examples include Facebook and LinkedIn. Some companies use these systems internally to help identify experts (Gartner, 2012).Other social technology terms include the following in alphabetical order:Blogs (short for web logs) are websites designed to facilitate users' entries in chronological order. The entries are then displayed in reverse chronological order and are usually archived on a periodic basis. Blogs are mostly used to express opinions on topical events such as sports or politics, but in the past few years they have emerged as established communication channels for businesses as well as individuals. Blogs are often distributed to other sites or readers using Really Simple Syndication (RSS; Gartner, 2012).Bring your own device (BYOD) is a strategy allowing employees, business partners, and other users to employ personally selected and purchased client devices such as cell phones, tablets, and laptop computers to execute enterprise applications and access data (Gartner, 2012).Collaborative/peer editing allows groups of people to edit the same document simultaneously. This can be done face-to-face or remotely using collaborative tools such as instant messaging (IM), breakout rooms, application sharing, and whiteboards. Collaborative editing can also be accomplished asynchronously via tools such as discussion boards, change-tracking, and e-mail. Collaborative/ peer editing assignments can include projects, papers, presentations, and wikis (Collaborative/Peer Editing, 2012).Mashups are web-based aggregations of content from different online sources that leverage consumer-oriented sites to create a new service. Mashups rely partly on data and services from public websites, such as Google Maps, Craigslist, eBay, Amazon.com, and others. An example is a program that pulls job listings from one site and displays them on a Google map to show job locations (Gartner, 2012).Microblogging is a form of multimedia blogging (such as Twitter) that allows users to send and publish brief text updates of up to 140 characters or micromedia such as photos or audio clips, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group chosen by the user. Authors and journalists can use microblogs to drive awareness of new posts, articles, announcements, and so forth (Gartner, 2012). …

Summary Academic libraries now provide reference service for the remote user in at least two ways: by the telephone and by electronic mail. The remote user at a computer workstation, however, may not have access to a telephone and may be poorly served by the asynchronous nature of electronic mail. New technologies and collaborative software for serving remote users in real-time such as Internet chat, paging and instant messaging, whiteboard, application sharing, and audio and video conferencing offer new possibilities for remote access to reference services. In this article we review these technologies and report the results of a trial project at Temple University. The results are promising for real-time reference services.

Introduction The rapid rate at which new technologies and related products are invented or updated is certainly one of the defining characteristics of our time. This phenomenon is both a result of, and a driver for, more efficient and effective modes of education. Clearly without a well-educated work force we would not have the kinds of advances that are commonplace today; but it is equally clear that the pace of these advances make education and re-education ever more important to everyone, both as workers as well as consumers. Just at the time that education and training have taken on increased importance in society due to the pace of technology, we now find that education itself is a prime candidate for reinvention via new technology. The technologies that have brought us the personal computer, the Internet, and multimedia, have made revolutionary change in education a real possibility (Laws, 1996; Lawrence, 1996). The use of the Internet is expected to dramatically decrease education costs. For example, in the case of corporate training, online education means less traveling for employees, hence lower costs. The Internet should also make it possible for remote students to have access to the renowned instructors in a subject, as well as allow for broader student interactions: instead of just interacting with their local peers, students can interact with their counterparts anywhere in the world. (Unless otherwise noted, we use the term "Internet" to include intranets as well.) Some of the functionality needed for interactive internet-based education is obvious, such as the use of shared audio, video, and objects, such as whiteboards, or applications in a "virtual classroom." Other functionality, such as multimedia recording and indexing (see below), may appear more exotic, but may eventually become commonplace features of such environments. The system discussed in this paper, Persyst, currently supports all the functionality discussed above as well as additional functions. In this paper, however, we will not discuss video or application sharing at all, since these have been added to the system only recently. Clearly new technology can impact the ways things are done, and equally clearly, people are often resistant to change. Common sense tells us that users are more likely to accept innovation if they perceive it as arising within a familiar context. For education this means trying to preserve activities such as live interaction among students and instructors, the role of the instructor as lecturer, etc. Therefore, the challenge for internet-based education systems during a transitional era is to allow educators and trainers to work from known models, while simultaneously letting them experiment with innovations without requiring frequent retooling. Providing non-programmers with the power to easily create and customize instances of distance learning environments is just as important as providing them with such environments at all. Indeed, distance learning is just one example of a remote collaboration environment using multimedia technologies for which the notion of providing a flexible platform for user customization makes a lot of sense. The same considerations apply to areas such as online customer service, technical support services, and so on. Work in distance learning, of interest in its own right, is also a test bed for our attempt to define a set of "primitive" classes for building remote collaboration environments, and then to build toolkits using these classes, and other more specific classes, that will address the particular requirements of various collaboration environments. Our basic premise is that the virtual room concept (Ahuja, Ensor, and Horn, 1988), together with other fundamental concepts, provides such a foundation. The first step in achieving this goal is to build a software development platform using these basic general concepts, and then show how specific instances of collaboration environments, such as distance learning systems, can be built on top of this platform. …

In this paper, we describe the 'Telemedicine Benchmark' (TMB), which is a set of standard procedures, protocols and measurements to test reliability and levels of performance of data exchange in a telemedicine session. We have put special emphasis on medical imaging, i.e. digital image transfer, joint viewing and editing and 3D manipulation. With the TMB, we can compare the aptitude of different video conferencing software systems for telemedicine issues and the effect of different network technologies (ISDN, xDSL, ATM, Ethernet). The evaluation criteria used are length of delays and functionality. For the application of the TMB, a data set containing radiological images and medical reports was set up. Considering the Benchmark protocol, this data set has to be exchanged between the partners of the session. The Benchmark covers file transfer, whiteboard usage, application sharing and volume data analysis and compression. The TMB has proven to be a useful tool in several evaluation issues.

Summary Computer technology has progressed to the point where desktop videoconferencing with personal computers and remote application sharing software can be employed in remote reference library service. These technologies can be used to provide personal and effective distant reference and library instruction services to library users, in addition to such traditional methods as mail, telephone, and e-mail service. This article presents scenarios in which videoconferencing and remote applications sharing software can be used in distant reference service. Free software discussed includes CU-SeeMe for videoconferencing and NetMeeting for videoconferencing and remote applications sharing.

This article presents a critique of conventional collaboration transparency systems, also called “application-sharing” systems, which provide the real-time shared use of legacy single-user applications. We find that conventional collaboration transparency systems are inefficient in their use of network resources and lack support for key groupware principles: concurrent work, relaxed WYSIWIS, and group awareness. Next, we present an alternative approach to implementing collaboration transparency that provides many features previously seen only in collaboration-aware applicaitons. Our approach is based on a replicated architecture where selected single-user interface components are dynamically replaced by multiuser versions. The replacement occurs at run-time and is transparent to the single-user application and its developers.. As an instance of this approach, we describe its incorporation into a Java-based collaboration transparency system for serializable, Swing-based Java applications, called Flexible JAMM (Java Applets Made Multiuser). To validate that the flexible collaboration transparency system is truly an improvement over conventional systems, we conducted an empirical study of collaborators performing both tightly and loosely coupled tasks using Flexible JAMM versus a representative conventional collaboration transparency system, Microsoft NetMeeting. Completion times were significantly faster in the loosely coupled task using Flexible JAMM and were not adversely affected in the tightly coupled task. Accuracy was equivalent for both systems. Participants greatly preferred Flexible JAMM.

In this paper, we propose a World Wide Web based conference minute system which preserves important information in the conference as web documents and maintains hyperlinks to related minutes to accelerate the progress of the project. This system, based on our Java application sharing framework, provides capabilities to record and replay the audio/video data of the video conference and operations of the shared applications used in the meeting in a synchronous manner. Through the hyperlinks, people can quickly understand the logic flow of every meeting held in the project duration and select any part in a meeting for replay to know what has actually happened. Furthermore, when a new meeting is held, a minute template is generated by the system to inherit the hyperlinks from its predecessors. Other related minutes and the execution status of the resolutions in the project can be easily accessed through the hyperlinks between them. Through the help of the system, execution of the project and management of its organizational memory could be easily achieved to increase the productivity of the collaborative groups with geographically dispersed members.

The results of the evaluation of use of low-cost video conferencing systems (VCSs) in telemedicine is presented. Applications sharing, a new feature of these systems, recently has allowed high-quality computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW). The video conferencing (VCing) equipment used was Intel ProShare 200 v2.0a. It is representative of other low-cost VCSs. The areas of application are epidemiology and telemedicine (orthopaedics and radiology). Potential end users filled out 58 evaluation questionnaires concerning user profiles, contents and benefits of the sessions, organizational aspects, user friendliness, user acceptance, cost effectiveness, technical and multipoint related aspects. Although the end users had a lot of computer experience, their knowledge in VCSs was rather limited. The users assessed the system capable of being integrated into routine work, despite a high organizational impact. The VCS is user friendly, application sharing being used in almost every session. Audio quality was not always sufficient. The remote video was sufficient, as was the quality of medical images such as CT, MRI or X-ray. The user acceptance of the system was high. Multipoint sessions require a structured protocol to be effective. Some technical problems with MCUs (Multipoint Control Units) occurred. The use of low-cost standard VCSs in telemedicine is advisable and is a good substitute for real meetings.

The Networked Expertise, Advice and Tuition (NEAT) project has produced and evaluated a networked computer-based system that lets students contact and communicate remotely with help desk staff, tutors, or advisors over the Internet. The system uses public domain technology that facilitates video, audio, and text-based communication, whiteboarding, and application sharing. We discuss the system requirements, architecture, evaluation and usability.

Collaborative environments supporting point to point and multipoint videoconferencing, document and application sharing across both local and wide area networks, video on demand (broadcast and playback), and interactive text facilities will be a crucial element for the development of the next generation of HEP experiments by geographically dispersed collaborations. We discuss recent developments in packet videoconferencing and their integration with circuit switched systems over the past two years, with a focus on the needs of HENP and other scientific fields, and the work of the Caltech and LBL groups in collaboration with the HEPNRC in particular. We also briefly review the move towards international standards, developments on the open market, and remark on the likely impact on collaborative research and the key issues for the immediate future.

VNC is an ultra thin client system based on a simple display protocol that is platform independent. It achieves mobile computing without requiring the user to carry any hardware. VNC provides access to home computing environments from anywhere in the world, on whatever computing infrastructure happens to be available-including, for example, public Web browsing terminals in airports. In addition, VNC allows a single desktop to be accessed from several places simultaneously, thus supporting application sharing in the style of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). The technology underlying VNC is a simple remote display protocol. It is the simplicity of this protocol that makes VNC so powerful. Unlike other remote display protocols such as the X Window System and Citrix's ICA, the VNC protocol is totally independent of operating system, windowing system, and applications. The VNC system is freely available for download from the ORL Web site at http://www.orl.co.uk/vnc/. We begin the article by summarizing the evolution of VNC from our work on thin client architectures. We then describe the structure of the VNC protocol, and conclude by discussing the ways we use VNC technology now and how it may evolve further as new clients and servers are developed.

Communication theories and technology have tended to focus on extended, formal meetings and have neglected a prevalent and vital form of workplace communication—namely, lightweight communication. Unlike formal, extended meetings, lightweight interaction is brief, informal, unplanned, and intermittent. We analyze naturalistic data from a study of work-place communication and derive five design criteria for lightweight interaction systems. These criteria require that systems for lightweight interaction support conversational tracking, rapid connection , the ability to leave a message, context management, and shared real-time objects . Using these criteria, we evaluate existing interpersonal communications technologies. We then describe an implementation of a system (TeleNotes) that is designed to support lightweight interaction by meeting these criteria. The interface metaphor allows communications to be based around desktop objects, resembling “sticky notes.” These objects are also organized into “desktop piles” to support conversational threads and provide mechanisms for initiating real-time audio, video, and application sharing. We conducted informal user testing of several system prototypes. Based on our findings, outstanding issues concerning theory and systems design for communication systems are outlined—in particular, with regard to the issue of managing conversations over time.

Many distance learning systems claim to be interactive, but few can offer two-way video, on-the-fly interaction and application sharing. To address these limitations, our research group built the Interactive Remote Instruction (IRI) system, which links sites over a high-speed intranet, allowing students at geographically dispersed satellite campuses and community colleges to take a class together. Access from home PCs through a Windows NT port is planned but not yet available. IRI improves on the Old Dominion University's Teletechnet system in five areas: video resolution, asymmetrical video presence, interaction, teacher support and computer simulations.

In this paper, we construct the future classroom learning support service system based on cloud computing technology. Under the support of the cloud computing technology, the system can guarantee intelligent control, high-capacity data storage, security management, easily data and application sharing between different devices, thus it can effectively support the individualized independent learning.

Most people own multiple computing devices such as laptops, desktops, tablets, servers etc. sometimes geographically dispersed. Each such computing device may have a different operating system (OS) with its own native apps and data. Often these applications can be used only by the local users that have physical access to such machines thus limiting the application's utilization. As of today there is no adequate solution which allows the users to have a unified view of all or a subset of apps and data from multiple machines, at one place. The remote graphical desktop sharing systems such as Virtual Network Computing (VNC) viewer etc. do not fully address the problem. We call this ability to operate a native application from a remote foreign platform as lifting the application into that foreign platform. We define the semantics for liftability from an application's perspective, and propose a framework that allows lifting native applications. Using this framework a set of native applications residing on disparate machines can be composed into a single app-cluster. Such a virtual desktop offers native experience of the lifted applications. This concept is demonstrated through a prototype implementation working on Ubuntu platforms.

When academics and computer technicians do not work in unison a dissonance can occur in the learning provided to students as the best software application or technical solution and the most appropriate or engaging learning experience may not be harmoniously orchestrated. At CQUniversity, Australia, out of the cacophony of experiences, frustration and limitations approaches have been developed and implemented to enable successful and innovative learning and teaching approaches. For the last ten years academics and computer technicians have collaborated to instigate Ed-Tech solutions, including interactive technologies into the classroom and for academics on the move, needing to access resources or communicate with students and colleagues in delivering its undergraduate Engineering programs. These innovations extend to web based communications (web conference between students through ‘ScopiaTM’), application sharing (CitrixTM Main Frames Application Delivery via http for applications such as MatlabTM, Microsoft OfficeTM, AutoCADTM and other CAD applications, Strand 7TM and Visual StudioTM — on both Apple and Microsoft platforms for students and academics) and secure access outside of university networks. The collaborative relationship, the ‘symphony’, between technical staff and academics, has ensured ‘outside the box’ thinking and far more realistic Information Technology outcomes have been implemented to improve lecturer delivery and student learning.

An important aspect in multimedia computer mediated collaboration is to sustain the attention and engagement of remote participants during project meetings. This paper presents preliminary findings of a comparative study of two types of collaborative multimedia environments (ICT) — Webconferencing with application sharing and 3D Team Neighborhood virtual world - by evaluating the syntactic levels of micro-awareness that consist of locus of attention and attention span. These metrics provide insights into what key ICT interaction characteristics and how people attend to content presented through a collaboration interface will generate awareness, establish and sustain attention and engagement of remote participants. We used the 2009–2010 “Architecture, Engineering, construction Global Teamwork” program as the testbed. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected through field observation and EyeTracker data. Preliminary results show that meetings held in the 3D Team Neighborhood kept participants' attention 24% more time on screen vs. meetings held in Webconference with application sharing. In addition, multitasking was the typical behavior during Webconference with application sharing, whereas none or minimal multitasking was observed in the 3D Team Neighborhood.

The application sharing mechanism in multi-application smart cards facilitates corroborative schemes between applications in a secure and reliable manner. Traditional application sharing can only be realised if both applications are installed on the same device. In this paper, we extend the smart card firewall to include the application sharing mechanism between applications installed on different smart cards. We propose Platform and Application Binding Protocols that enables two smart-cards / applications to authenticate and ascertain the trustworthiness before sharing resources. Furthermore, we provide an informal analysis of the protocols along with comparison with existing protocols. Subsequently, mechanical formal analysis based on the CasperFDR, and the implementation experience is presented.

An X multiplexor allows a single X Window System client to be displayed and interacted with on several X servers simultaneously. Such a service is necessary for the construction of a computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) environment such as JVTOS (Joint Viewing and Tele-Operation Service) which is being implemented within RACE II project CIO 1 . This paper describes several existing X multiplexors and evaluates their usefulness for JVTOS.

Archiving video conferences is an important feature that allows storing conferences for later playback or for any other possible usage. This part of videoconferencing has never been an active area for most conferencing solutions. Many aspects of archiving conferencing solutions, including application sharing as well as document sharing among the participants, are not properly considered. In this paper we discuss IBM Streaming Engine based archiving solution. This recording and archiving facility leverages IBM Sametime collaborative conferencing solution. Apart from the discussion on the archiving facilities, a brief description of IBM Streaming Engine as well as its features is presented.

Companies and organisations caring about the protection of critical data or critical systems have long struggled with the burden of maintaining separate computers. Commercial grade operating systems and virtualization solutions such as Windows, Linux, and VMware are unsuitable for security assurance to the high levels required for this kind of application sharing on a single PC platform. Custom solutions have failed to gain acceptance as cost containment pressures favour commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms. In addition, common PC hardware has had serious security limitations that prevent even a high assurance software solution from achieving the required domain separation. The hope for a truly high assurance, multi-level secure PC is coming closer to reality by virtue of recent innovations, both in software and hardware.

Application and desktop sharing allows sharing of any application with one or more people over the Internet. The participants receive the screen-view of the shared application from the server. Their mouse and keyboard events are delivered and regenerated at the server. Application and desktop sharing enables collaborative work, software tutoring, and e-learning over the Internet. We have developed an application and desktop sharing platform called BASS which is efficient, reliable, independent of the operating system, scales well via heterogeneous multicast, supports all applications, and features true application sharing.

Collaborative browsing and markup of product models is an important research direction of computer supported collaborative design. To develop a collaborative browsing and markup system, designers usually run into some problems, such as network transmission of complex product data and data exchange and sharing resulting from the use of different 3D modeling software. In order to resolve the above mentioned problems, a synchronized collaborative markup model is developed based on the analysis of the collaborative markup process, and application sharing mechanism of collaborative markup is also proposed based on message-driven mode. Furthermore, the need to of transmit, exchange and share 3D model data is satisfied by the application of the extensible virtual world description language (XVL). At last, a real time collaborative design management system based on XVL is developed and confirms that this scheme is feasible and able to tackle the three problems encountered in the process of collaborative design.

Wireless and mobile communication networks offer organizations and users several benefits, such as portability, mobility and flexibility, while increasing everyday business productivity, and reducing installation cost. Wireless local area networks, for instance, have been used in various environments, such as business, home, conference centers, airports and many more, allowing users to move from place to place, avoiding cabling restrictions and without being disconnected from the network. Ad hoc networks are collections of wireless computers communicating among themselves over possibly multi-hop paths, without the help of any infrastructure such as base stations or access points; these networks allow data synchronization with network systems and application sharing between devices. Mobile ad hoc networks are autonomous collection of mobile entities that communicate over relatively bandwidth constrained wireless links, establishing survivable, efficient, dynamic communication for emergency operations. Wireless ad hoc sensor networks consist of a number of sensors spread across a geographical area, offering certain capabilities and enhancements in operational efficiency in civilian applications, as well as assisting in international effort to increase alertness to potential threats. However, although wireless and mobile communication environments eliminate many of the problems associated with traditional wired networks, the new security and privacy risks introduced by such environments need to be reduced by exploiting appropriate security measures and safeguards, ensuring an acceptable level of overall residual hazard. The objectives of the SecPri WiMob 2008 Workshop are to bring together researchers from research communities in wireless and mobile computing, networking and communications, security and privacy, with the goal of fostering interaction. SecPri WiMob 2008 attracted high-quality, unpublished, original research, and technological development contributions on all theoretical and practical aspects of security, privacy and trust in wireless and mobile computing, networking and communications. In response to the SecPri WiMob 2008 call for papers, 45 papers were submitted. Each paper was reviewed by three or more members of the program committee, on the basis of the significance, novelty, technical quality, and relevance of the work reported therein. At the end of the review process, 20 papers were selected for presentation, resulting in an acceptance rate of 44%.

Software as a service (SaaS) provides software application vendors a Web based delivery model to serve big amount of clients with multi-tenancy based infrastructure and application sharing architecture so as to get great benefit from the economy of scale. Though SaaS application is usually developed with highly standardized software functionalities to serve as many clients as possible, many clients still ask for function variants according to their unique business needs through easy configuration and customization. Due to the subscription based model, SaaS vendors need take a well designed strategy to enable self serve configuration and customization by their customers without changing the SaaS application source code for any individual customer. In this paper, we will explore the configuration and customization issues and challenges to SaaS vendors, clarify the difference between configuration and customization. A competency model and a methodology framework have been developed to help SaaS vendors to plan and evaluate their capabilities and strategies for service configuration and customization.

The use of web enhanced curriculum to teach and reinforce science concepts based on specific learning objectives has been a positive experience for faculty and students. This chapter provides a review of the rapid development of web enhanced science courses as a teaching-with-technology alternative to the traditional approach. The main theme of the article is a step by step introduction to the design, implementation, and usage of a computer-aided system in teaching undergraduate science (physics, mathematics, electronics, and chemistry) courses with an adequate laboratory experience. These steps are (i) the learning management system evaluation and selection; (ii) computerized course curriculum adjustment to a web-based format; (iii) the simulations (virtual labs) and animated illustrations if needed; (iv) the establishment of threaded discussion board where each student is expected to participate in discussions moderated by a professor; (v) computerized test set ups; (vi) student feedback summarization and analysis.

At the beginning of 2007 the University of Washington opened the Odegaard Videoconference Studio which allowed groups on campus to communicate with colleagues that were physically in different locations. The opening of this facility inspired all sorts of collaborating on a more frequent basis as traveling, and more importantly the time and expense involved with traveling, was now not as necessary in order to have a meeting. Many boundaries for collaboration were removed through the use of different types of technology that allowed for video and audio conferencing, and, data and application sharing. This provided for a way to share ideas in more detail, make decisions, and receive feedback quicker, making the overall process more efficient, personal, and overall more effective.