The ubiquitous nature of communication in computer networks, firmly manifested in the Internet era, provided a context for the introduction of different collaborative tools widely accepted by the on-line community, such as textual chats, white boards, shared editors, video conference systems, shared spaces for the exchange of multimedia documents or even simple e-mail based collaborative systems.

The concept of a weakly intrusive ambient soundscape (WISP) is presented as a means to provide a peripheral awareness of processes beyond a user's immediate attention. The WISP is a component in a larger environment for ubiquitous computing, centered around a conference room scenario. The experiences from a demonstration prototype indicate that the choice of sounds and the intensity of their presentation can greatly influence the way the WISP is perceived. The work relates in various ways to the sonification of data and audio-based techniques for maintaining peripheral awareness.

Distributed physical models of musical instruments have been used to acoustically “ping ” Internet connections between two network hosts. Sound waves propagated through Internet acoustics behave just as in air, water or along a stretched string. In this case, a musical synthesis technique creates waves on the Internet path between two hosts. When waves recirculate between two endpoints, a musical tone is created if the round trip travel time lies within the range of our pitch sense (roughly  ¢¡¤£¤¥§¦ to ¡¤£©¨� ¦). The result-ing tones provide a quick and intuitive evaluation of quality of service (QoS), displaying its significant aspects including latency, jitter and packet loss. Stable, clear tones with high pitch indicate good end-to-end capabilities that a path must support for immersive, real-time applications. A “network harp ” recently demonstrated 320 synthesized strings oscillating across the Western half of the Internet2 Abilene Network. 1.

This paper questions and examines the validity and future of interactive network performance. The history of research in the area is described as well as experiments with our own system. Our custom-built networked framework, known as GIGAPOPR, transfers high-quality audio, video and MIDI data over a network connection to enable live musical performances to occur in two or more distinct locations. One of our first sensor-augmented Indian instruments, The Electronic Dholak (EDholak) is a multi-player networked percussion controller that is modelled after the traditional Indian Dholak. The EDholaks trigger sound, including samples and physical models, and visualisation, using our custom-built networked visualisation software, known as veldt. 1.

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The native time delay of audio transmission over high speed networks is used to create musical devices to play on and with the network. Different strategies that have been part of the practice of the Net vs. Net collective— a permanent network ensemble playing exclusively over wide area digital networks—are discussed. A tool to synchronize displaced musicians visually cue the performers and the audience. It also activates synchronized musical processes. The latency is used to create delay effects and reverbs embedded on the bidirectional path using feedback delay network filters. We also present a technique to play distributed rhythmic patterns over the network that are designed to sound different—with diverging rhythmic and phase structures—on each location. 1.

The design of a platform for bi-directional musical performance using modern WAN networks poses several challenges that are different from related applications, e.g., synchronous LAN studio systems or uni-directional WAN streaming. The need to minimize as much as possible audio latency and also maximize audio quality requires specific strategies which are informed, in part, by musical decisions. We present some of the key design elements of the Jack-Trip application which has evolved through several years of deployment in musical work over wide-area networks. 1.

Abstract — Todays network managers and system administrators are challenged by a rapidly growing mass of status information and an increasing volume of data sent through networks. Analysing this data can reveal weaknesses in the performance and security of the system. Performing this task with text-based tools in real time is slow,difficult and inefficient. Preventing overloads in the capacity of connections or taking immediate action on possible attacks is almost impossible, without spending an inappropriate period of time. Network visualisations are powerful if basic rules of data illustration are considered and the information is well prepared. Implementing effective filters, as well as aggregating and averaging information, can reduce the data volume strongly and help to gain a mental map of the network administrators have to manage. Nevertheless, details should be available depending on the users demands. Visualisation tools should support the user in fields of security handling, flow monitoring and the status of the system. Monitoring the system is often only one out of many daily tasks of an (system or network) administrator. Alternative monitoring methods with sound or ambient illustrations can keep the network administrators informed but offer the possibility to focus on other tasks at the same time. Index Terms—Network, Visualisation, Data 1

Music can significantly effect game play and help players understand underlying patterns in the game, or the effects of their actions on the characters. Conversely, inappropriate music can have a negative effect on players by creating additional difficulties. While game makers recognize the effects of music on game play, solutions that provide users with a choice in personal music are not forthcoming. We design, implement and evaluate an algorithm for automatically adapting an arbitrary music track from a personal library and synchronizing play back to the user, without requiring any access to the video game source code. 1