System and interactive methods enabling communication and collaboration in blended ecosystems

Abstract

A blended communication engine helps bridge a gap amongst users in the blended ecosystem by allowing a multi-channel platform for shared, real-time interaction amongst the users, system, and environment. This engine can provide three different forms of interaction between the user and the ecosystem: Share and Alert—The ability to alert another user or group by sharing an information block; Instruct and Assign—The ability to highlight segments of interest within an information block and direct the corresponding instructions to specific people; Converse and Collaborate—The involved members' ability to have contextual discussions about shared information blocks and instructions. Users interact with each other in virtual reality and augmented reality platforms over communication links using annotations on real objects in an environment thereby enabling efficient information tagging of real-world objects, and communication between personnel managing the objects.