Out and about - real world teleconferencing

Videoconferencing has traditionally been confined to desktop or office envi ronments. However, a large percentage of the workforce is engaged in mobile occupations away from the desktop. In this paper we describe how augmented reality can be used to develop new forms of teleconferencing to support th ese workers. To provide an example of one approach, we have developed an au gmented reality system that allows virtual avatars and live video of remote collaborators to be superimposed over any real location. Viewed in a light weight headmounted display, the remote collaborators appear as part of the user's real environment. We present results comparing conferencing in this setting with traditional desktop audio and video conferencing.