Examples disclosed herein provide the ability for remote participants in a collaborative workspace to hear and view specified participants in a conference room. In on example, a computing device may receive streams of content from devices located in a room, and receive requests from users. As an example, each user request is for accessing a subset of the streams of content. For each user request, the computing device may join the requested subset of the streams of content into a single multimedia stream, and transmit each single multimedia stream to respective users.

A method for conducting a communications session comprising: displaying, by a client device, a communications interface including a first canvas, a second canvas, and a content browser, wherein: the first canvas is arranged to display a media stream, the second canvas is arranged to display a sequence of content items provided by a communications system, and the content browser is arranged to display identifiers for one or more document files that are associated with the communications session; detecting a first input that selects a document file from the content browser; in response to the first input, transmitting, from the client device to the communications system, an instruction to provide a new sequence of content items that corresponds to the document file; and displaying the new sequence of content items in the second canvas, wherein each content item in the new sequence is generated by converting a different portion of the document file from a document format to another format, wherein at least one of the document files identified in the content browser is associated with the communications session before the communications session is started, and the content browser is displayed during the communications session.

The present disclosure relates to a method and system for managing a meeting session. In accordance with one example, there is provided a method of managing a meeting session on a server that manages the meeting session, the meeting session comprising one or more participant devices and a presenter device. The method comprises receiving one or more break request messages from the participant devices, and sending a break message to the participant devices, the break message causing a break notification to be displayed on a display of the participant devices.

The present disclosure relates to a method and system for managing a meeting session. In accordance with one example, there is provided a method of managing a meeting session on a server that manages the meeting session, the meeting session comprising one or more participant devices and a presenter device. The method comprises receiving one or more break request messages from the participant devices, and sending a break message to the participant devices, the break message causing a break notification to be displayed on a display of the participant devices.

Aspects of this present disclosure relate to hybrid conference user interface. The hybrid conference interface provides an establishing shot before the meeting begins that places meeting attendees in a specific spatial arrangement, such as in specific seats around a conference table. Upon starting the conference, the hybrid user interface renders an appropriate perspective view of the meeting that is tailored to each attendee's perspective while also being spatially consistent for the entire group of attendees. Allowing attendees to place themselves where they want gives attendees a sense of physical space that helps them stay spatially oriented relative to the other people and resources in the room.

Aspects of this present disclosure relate to hybrid conference user interface. The hybrid conference interface provides an establishing shot before the meeting begins that places meeting attendees in a specific spatial arrangement, such as in specific seats around a conference table. Upon starting the conference, the hybrid user interface renders an appropriate perspective view of the meeting that is tailored to each attendee's perspective while also being spatially consistent for the entire group of attendees. Allowing attendees to place themselves where they want gives attendees a sense of physical space that helps them stay spatially oriented relative to the other people and resources in the room.

Improved virtual collaboration environments allow participants in a primary collaboration session to initiate side conversations with fellow participants based on virtual locations of each participant within a virtual collaboration layout. The virtual collaboration layout defines virtual locations of each participant in the collaboration session. If a virtual distance between two participants a below a threshold, the participants are able to engage in a side conversation. Management information is provided to a collaboration session host. The management information indicates, for example, a volume or frequency of communication occurring on each side conversation, or an elapsed time since the side conversation was initiated. The host is also provided with controls that allow the host to issue a warning to side conversation participants, to mute the side conversation, or to change a participant's position within the virtual collaboration layout, thus changing the participant's eligibility to participate in the side conversation.

Improved virtual collaboration environments allow participants in a primary collaboration session to initiate side conversations with fellow participants based on virtual locations of each participant within a virtual collaboration layout. The virtual collaboration layout defines virtual locations of each participant in the collaboration session. If a virtual distance between two participants a below a threshold, the participants are able to engage in a side conversation. Management information is provided to a collaboration session host. The management information indicates, for example, a volume or frequency of communication occurring on each side conversation, or an elapsed time since the side conversation was initiated. The host is also provided with controls that allow the host to issue a warning to side conversation participants, to mute the side conversation, or to change a participant's position within the virtual collaboration layout, thus changing the participant's eligibility to participate in the side conversation.

A system for managing a conference call, the system comprising a call answering server configured to receive a call from an attendee device that has been forwarded from a host device, identify a conference call associated with the host device for the attendee device to join, receive a request from the attendee device to join the conference call, and connect the attendee device to the conference call.

Methods and devices for aggregating hardware loopback streams of a plurality of display devices in communication with a computer device may include a plurality of hardware loopback streams with rendered audio data from the plurality of display devices in communication with the computer device. The methods and devices may include combining the rendered audio data from the plurality of hardware loopback streams into a loopback buffer to create aggregated loopback audio data. The methods and devices may include providing the loopback buffer with the aggregated loopback audio data to one or more applications executing on the computer device.