Work problems? Let your virtual persona take the strain

Sun Microsystems is working on technology which it hopes will improve teamwork within companies and which will also allow employees to shield information from their boss.

Dubbed "Virsona" - short for 'virtual persona' - the software is designed to let people preserve their privacy while maintaining a network 'presence'.

Those trying to contact a person on the network by phone, email or instant message will reach that person's Virsona which, among other things, serves as a kind of gatekeeper, deciding whether to give out information on the person's availability.

Virsona is built on a peer-to-peer software architecture, meaning users may decide to share details of their work schedule with colleagues while keeping it private from central systems administrators or supervisors.

Employees "have more direct control of their own information," said James Begole, a researcher at Sun Microsystems Laboratories in Palo Alto, California. "Bosses might be willing to make that trade-off," he said.

The technology was one of several communication products which Sun showcased on Thursday.

Other projects in the company's All Ways Connected research program include a set of tools for improving distributed meetings, software for integrating wireless personal digital assistants into corporate computing environments and a Java-based speech-recognition program.