The next generation of Internet technologies offers new and sophisticated communications services capable of supporting interactive multi-media applications. The objective of this research theme is to investigate and develop natural language interfaces, innovative new Web services, new approaches to knowledge management, and collaboration and conferencing environments. The Networked Media Laboratory has been set up to implement, test and demonstrate those prototype application technologies. Some of this work is carried out in partnership with the NCIT, the BADLab and the Virtual Classroom.

Shared Virtual Worlds

The aim of this activity is to investigate the virtual reality systems that can be supported with multicasting, real time support & qualtiy-of-service management and other emerging advanced Internet technologies, and the use of shared virtual reality systems for education and collaborative work. CRC has received national and international attention for the shared virtual world technology (FreeWRL) developed for Linux systems. The current focus is on improving multicast conferencing support in FreeWRL and integrating a natural language interface and new input devices.

Internet Applications Infrastructure

The aim of this project is to conduct research on the infrastructures that support new applications for future generations of the Internet. The Networked Media Laboratory is developing an infrastructure that consists of software to create content for applications, software to present the content to users (the human interface) and software to monitor the acceptance of that content (human factors). The principle method of work is to test prototypes with candidate user communities in experimental trials on leading edge Internet technologies. The majority of the resources are directed toward the development of infrastructures to support three applications research areas: training in virtual environments; web-based collaborative work; and distributed knowledge management.