Virtual Me: a virtual communication method that enables simultaneous multiple existence as an avatar and/or agents

The paper proposes a new communication method, called “Virtual Me”, that enables a user to simultaneously participate in multiple events such as meetings or lectures as a virtual-metamorphosed avatar controlled by the user and/or as a computer-controlled autonomous agents. By interpreting non-verbal data generated by the other participants at each event, the system determines when to switch between using virtual metamorphosis or employing agents. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in a prototype of the Virtual Me system. It is the authors´ hope that this technology may be in the interest not only of time efficiency but also of enriched human communication