Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090113053 | AUTOMATED REAL-TIME DATA STREAM SWITCHING IN A SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - In one aspect, one or more real-time data stream connections that deliver a set of real-time data streams to a given network node are determined based at least in part on bandwidth capabilities of the given network node. In another aspect, for each of one or more recipient network nodes, a respective link over which to transmit a respective transmission set of one or more real-time data streams is determined. For each of the links, the respective link bandwidth is apportioned between one or more channels that are respectively allocated to the one or more real-time data streams in the respective transmission set. | 04-30-2009 |
20090113066 | AUTOMATED REAL-TIME DATA STREAM SWITCHING IN A SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - Switching real-time data stream connections between network nodes sharing a virtual area is described. In one aspect, the switching involves storing a virtual area specification. The virtual area specification includes a description of one or more switching rules each defining a respective connection between sources of a respective real-time data stream type and sinks of the real-time data stream type in terms of positions in the virtual area. Real-time data stream connections are established between network nodes associated with respective objects each of which is associated with at least one of a source and a sink of one or more of the real-time data stream types. The real-time data stream connections are established based on the one or more switching rules, the respective sources and sinks associated with the objects, and respective positions of the objects in the virtual area. | 04-30-2009 |
20090254842 | INTERFACING WITH A SPATIAL VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - A spatial layout of zones of a virtual area in a network communication environment is displayed. A user can have a respective presence in each of one or more of the zones. Navigation controls and interaction controls are presented. The navigation controls enable the user to specify where to establish a presence in the virtual area. The interaction controls enable the user to manage interactions with one or more other communicants in the network communication environment. A respective presence of the user is established in each of one or more of the zones on response to input received via the navigation controls. Respective graphical representations of the communicants are depicted in each of the zones where the communicants respectively have presence. | 10-08-2009 |
20090254843 | SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT BASED APPARATUS AND METHODS - Improved systems and methods for navigating and interacting in virtual communication environments. At least some of these systems and methods provide a framework that includes one or more virtual areas and supports realtime communications between the communicants. At least some of these systems and methods provide an interface that includes navigation controls that enable a user to navigate virtual areas and interaction controls that enable the user to interact with other communicants in the one or more virtual areas. | 10-08-2009 |
20090288007 | SPATIAL INTERFACES FOR REALTIME NETWORKED COMMUNICATIONS - A current realtime communication session is established between communicants operating on respective network nodes. A spatial visualization of the current realtime communication session is displayed. The spatial visualization includes a graphical representation of each of the communicants in spatial relation to a graphical representation of a virtual area. During the current communication session, visual cues are depicted in the spatial visualization that show current communication states of the communicants, where each of the communication states corresponds to a state of a respective communication channel over which a respective one of the communicants is configured to communicate. | 11-19-2009 |
20100142542 | PERVASIVE REALTIME FRAMEWORK - A pervasive realtime framework supports the execution of realtime software applications with high-level functions that significantly reduce the effort and time needed to develop realtime software applications in a new operating environment paradigm in which realtime connections between network nodes are pervasive. The pervasive realtime framework handles the complex tasks of connecting to communicants, virtual areas, and other network resources, as well as switching those connections in response to user inputs and thereby enables software application developers to focus on developing high-level realtime software application functionality. | 06-10-2010 |
20100146085 | REALTIME KERNEL - A realtime kernel supports realtime communications between communicants operating on respective network nodes. The realtime kernel handles the complex tasks of connecting to communicants, virtual areas, and other network resources, switching those connections in response to user inputs, and mixing realtime data streams. The realtime kernel enables developers to focus on developing high-level communications functionality instead of low-level plumbing code. The realtime kernel imposes relatively low computational resource requirements so that realtime communications performance can be achieved using a wide range of computing devices and network connections that currently are available. | 06-10-2010 |
20100146118 | MANAGING INTERACTIONS IN A NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS ENVIRONMENT - A network communications environment has advanced interaction management functionality that enables the opportunities for users to interact with one another to be expanded beyond the opportunities that exist with closed interaction management approaches while still providing reasonable privacy and security protections that are not available with open interaction management approaches. The advanced interaction management functionality also encourages the proliferation of trust-based interactions. | 06-10-2010 |
20100268843 | AUTOMATED REAL-TIME DATA STREAM SWITCHING IN A SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - Switching real-time data stream connections between network nodes sharing a virtual area is described. In one aspect, the switching involves storing a virtual area specification. The virtual area specification includes a description of one or more switching rules each defining a respective connection between sources of a respective real-time data stream type and sinks of the real-time data stream type in terms of positions in the virtual area. Real-time data stream connections are established between network nodes associated with respective objects each of which is associated with at least one of a source and a sink of one or more of the real-time data stream types. The real-time data stream connections are established based on the one or more switching rules, the respective sources and sinks associated with the objects, and respective positions of the objects in the virtual area. | 10-21-2010 |
20100274848 | MANAGING NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN NETWORK NODES AND STREAM TRANSPORT PROTOCOL - A stream transport protocol supports realtime network communications between communicants operating on respective network nodes. The stream transport protocol supports remote management of client communication sessions, including provisioning of each pair of client network nodes with a respective session definition defining a respective peer-to-peer session over a network connection between the constituent client network nodes of the pair. The stream transport protocol has relatively low computational resource requirements so that realtime communications performance can be achieved using a wide range of computing devices and network connections that currently are available. | 10-28-2010 |
20100318662 | Automated Real-Time Data Stream Switching in a Shared Virtual Area Communication Environment - In one aspect, one or more real-time data stream connections that deliver a set of real-time data streams to a given network node are determined based at least in part on bandwidth capabilities of the given network node. In another aspect, for each of one or more recipient network nodes, a respective link over which to transmit a respective transmission set of one or more real-time data streams is determined. For each of the links, the respective link bandwidth is apportioned to between one or more channels that are respectively allocated to the one or more real-time data streams in the respective transmission set. | 12-16-2010 |
20110185286 | WEB BROWSER INTERFACE FOR SPATIAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENTS - A web browser interface for visualizing realtime network communications in spatial communication environments allows communicants to interact with other communicants in an immersive spatial communication environment without having to install any specialized communication software and without requiring special proxies or firewall additions or exceptions. | 07-28-2011 |
20110274104 | VIRTUAL AREA BASED TELEPHONY COMMUNICATIONS - A persistent virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective network nodes connected to the virtual area even after all network nodes have disconnected from the virtual area is maintained. A presence in the virtual area is established for a user of a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) terminal device. Transmission of data associated with the virtual area to the PSTN terminal device. | 11-10-2011 |
20110302509 | PROMOTING COMMUNICANT INTERACTIONS IN A NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS ENVIRONMENT - In a network communication environment in which communicants operating from respective client network nodes connect to different server applications, communicants who are related to a target communicant are ascertained, statuses of the related communicants with respect to the different server applications are determined, and indications of the related communicants and the determined statuses of the related communicants are transmitted to the target communicant. Graphical representations of the related communicants and graphical indications of the statuses of the related communicants with respect to connections to the different server applications may be displayed on a display. A contact list including a respective graphical representation of each of one or more of the communicants also may be displayed in association with visual cues representing the ascertained types of current interaction activities respectively engaged in by the one or more communicants. A single universal user identifier may be used to identify each communicant. | 12-08-2011 |
20120066306 | RELATIONSHIP BASED PRESENCE INDICATING IN VIRTUAL AREA CONTEXTS - A user's presence is established in a particular zone of a virtual area that is assigned to the user. An indication of the user's presence in the particular zone is transmitted to each communicant who has a respective relationship tie with the user that satisfies a governance rule that is associated with the particular zone. | 03-15-2012 |
20120159354 | Automated Real-Time Data Stream Switching in a Shared Virtual Area Communication Environment - Switching real-time data stream connections between network nodes sharing a virtual area is described. In one aspect, the switching involves storing a virtual area specification. The virtual area specification includes a description of one or more switching rules each defining a respective connection between sources of a respective real-time data stream type and sinks of the real-time data stream type in terms of positions in the virtual area. Real-time data stream connections are established between network nodes associated with respective objects each of which is associated with at least one of a source and a sink of one or more of the real-time data stream types. The real-time data stream connections are established based on the one or more switching rules, the respective sources and sinks associated with the objects, and respective positions of the objects in the virtual area. | 06-21-2012 |
20120179672 | SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT BASED APPARATUS AND METHODS - Improved systems and methods for navigating and interacting in virtual communication environments. At least some of these systems and methods provide a framework that includes one or more virtual areas and supports realtime communications between the communicants. At least some of these systems and methods provide an interface that includes navigation controls that enable a user to navigate virtual areas and interaction controls that enable the user to interact with other communicants in the one or more virtual areas. | 07-12-2012 |
20120207290 | TELEPHONY INTERFACE FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENTS - A telephony interface for realtime network communications in virtual communication environments allows telephony communicants to interact with other communicants in an immersive communication environment. | 08-16-2012 |
20120215900 | PERSISTENT NETWORK RESOURCE AND VIRTUAL AREA ASSOCIATIONS FOR REALTIME COLLABORATION - Apparatus and methods relating to persistent network resource and virtual area associations for realtime collaboration include managing and displaying an object associated with a virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective client network nodes. Examples of the object include an object that has one or more user-modifiable property fields and an object that is associated with screen sharing functionality of the client network node. | 08-23-2012 |
20120216131 | PERSISTENT NETWORK RESOURCE AND VIRTUAL AREA ASSOCIATIONS FOR REALTIME COLLABORATION - Apparatus and methods relating to persistent network resource and virtual area associations for realtime collaboration include managing and displaying an object associated with a virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective client network nodes. Examples of the object include an object that has one or more user-modifiable property fields and an object that is associated with screen sharing functionality of the client network node. | 08-23-2012 |
20120226987 | REALTIME COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORK BROWSING CLIENT - A graphical user interface is displayed. The graphical user interface includes at least one communication control for managing communications with other network nodes and at least one browser control for navigating to different network resource addresses. Human perceptible realtime output is generated from realtime communication data relating to a realtime communication session with at least one other client network node. In the process of generating of at least some of the human perceptible realtime output, operation of the client network node is managed based on at least one performance target. In the graphical user interface, a graphical representation of a network resource identified in connection with the browser control is displayed. | 09-06-2012 |
20120246582 | INTERFACING WITH A SPATIAL VIRTUAL COMMUNICATIONS ENVIRONMENT - In a network communications environment supporting realtime communications between respective network nodes of a user and other communicants in virtual areas associated with respective sets of communicant members, a graphical user interface (GUI) is provided in connection with the user's network node. The GUI includes controls for establishing presence in respective ones of the virtual areas, managing realtime communications with other communicants in respective ones of the virtual areas, and presenting different views of communicants associated with the network communications environment. Based on user input in connection with the GUI, a presence is established for the user in a selected one of the virtual areas, realtime communications are administered between the user and one or more communicants who are present in the selected virtual area, and a visualization that shows graphical representations, locations of presence, and realtime activities of communicants across respective ones of the virtual areas is displayed. | 09-27-2012 |
20120254858 | CREATING VIRTUAL AREAS FOR REALTIME COMMUNICATIONS - Examples that are described herein provide systems and methods for creating virtual areas for realtime communications. Some examples provide a quick and easy process for creating a virtual area for a set of communicants and provisioning those communicants for realtime communications in the virtual area. Some examples provide a quick and easy way for a user to wrap a realtime communications framework around a network service. Through seamless integration of realtime communications (e.g., realtime audio, video, chat, screen sharing, and file transfer) in persistent virtual areas, these examples are able to enhance and improve communicants' experiences with a network service relative to traditional browser based methods of collaborating on network service based projects. | 10-04-2012 |
20120324001 | RELATIONSHIP BASED PRESENCE INDICATING IN VIRTUAL AREA CONTEXTS - Other communicants in a network communications environment who have relationship ties with a user that satisfy a particular relationship predicate and who are present in a zone of a respective other virtual area that is assigned to the other communicant are determined. Indications of presence of the determined other communicants in the zones of the other virtual areas is transmitted to the user. Each virtual area is associated with a respective communicant who is present in the virtual area and has a relationship tie with the user that satisfies a relationship predicate. Responsive to user input referencing a selected virtual area, a request to establish a presence for the user in the selected virtual area is transmitted. Responsive to user input referencing a particular communicant, a request to establish a network communications link between the respective network nodes operated by the user and the particular communicant is transmitted. | 12-20-2012 |
20130024785 | COMMUNICATING BETWEEN A VIRTUAL AREA AND A PHYSICAL SPACE - Apparatus transmits an identifier for association with a virtual area by an administering network service, generates output data from human perceptible stimulus in a physical space, transmits the output data in connection with the virtual area, receives input data associated with the virtual area, and generates human perceptible stimulus in the physical space from the input data. A persistent association is created between the apparatus and a virtual area. A respective presence is established in the virtual area for a communicant operating a client network node connected to the virtual area. A respective connection between each active pair of complementary sources and sinks of the client network node and the apparatus are administered in association with the virtual area. A client network node displays a graphical user interface, establishes the administered connections, and presents interaction controls associated with the object for interacting with communicants in the physical space. | 01-24-2013 |
20130061158 | INTERFACING WITH A SPATIAL VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - A spatial layout of zones of a virtual area in a network communication environment is displayed. A user can have a respective presence in each of one or more of the zones. Navigation controls and interaction controls are presented. The navigation controls enable the user to specify where to establish a presence in the virtual area. The interaction controls enable the user to manage interactions with one or more other communicants in the network communication environment. A respective presence of the user is established in each of one or more of the zones on response to input received via the navigation controls. Respective graphical representations of the communicants are depicted in each of the zones where the communicants respectively have presence. | 03-07-2013 |
20130073707 | CAPABILITIES BASED MANAGEMENT OF VIRTUAL AREAS - Apparatus and methods of managing a virtual area based on communicant capabilities are described. The communicant capabilities are updated based on rules in response to events in the virtual area. An action by one communicant can affect the capabilities of another communicant. Communicant capabilities can be stored in respective server-side proxies and the virtual area can be managed without transmitting any of the capabilities to the communicants' client network nodes. Capability-based permissions checks can be performed against communicant capabilities with wildcarded attribute fields. | 03-21-2013 |
20130073978 | CAPABILITIES BASED MANAGEMENT OF VIRTUAL AREAS - Apparatus and methods of managing a virtual area based on communicant capabilities are described. The communicant capabilities are updated based on rules in response to events in the virtual area. An action by one communicant can affect the capabilities of another communicant. Communicant capabilities can be stored in respective server-side proxies and the virtual area can be managed without transmitting any of the capabilities to the communicants' client network nodes. Capability-based permissions checks can be performed against communicant capabilities with wildcarded attribute fields. | 03-21-2013 |
20130100142 | INTERFACING WITH A SPATIAL VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - A spatial layout of zones of a virtual area in a network communication environment is displayed. A user can have a respective presence in each of one or more of the zones. Navigation controls and interaction controls are presented. The navigation controls enable the user to specify where to establish a presence in the virtual area. The interaction controls enable the user to manage interactions with one or more other communicants in the network communication environment. A respective presence of the user is established in each of one or more of the zones on response to input received via the navigation controls. Respective graphical representations of the communicants are depicted in each of the zones where the communicants respectively have presence. | 04-25-2013 |
20130104057 | INTERFACING WITH A SPATIAL VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT - A spatial layout of zones of a virtual area in a network communication environment is displayed. A user can have a respective presence in each of one or more of the zones. Navigation controls and interaction controls are presented. The navigation controls enable the user to specify where to establish a presence in the virtual area. The interaction controls enable the user to manage interactions with one or more other communicants in the network communication environment. A respective presence of the user is established in each of one or more of the zones on response to input received via the navigation controls. Respective graphical representations of the communicants are depicted in each of the zones where the communicants respectively have presence. | 04-25-2013 |
20130132058 | CREATING AND MANAGING VIRTUAL AREAS - Systems and methods of managing communications in a virtual area are described. Examples of the systems and methods provide services for creating highly customizable virtual area applications that support realtime virtual area communications. In some examples, these services manage communications between network nodes that are linked to a virtual area according to rules embodied in a virtual area application defining the virtual area. Examples of the systems and methods provide a generic framework for transforming a designer's specification of a virtual area into instructions that dynamically configure service functionality for acting on messages that are received from network nodes in connection with the virtual area. | 05-23-2013 |
20130174059 | COMMUNICATING BETWEEN A VIRTUAL AREA AND A PHYSICAL SPACE - Examples of systems and methods of communicating between a virtual area and a physical space bridge the virtual area into the physical space and bridge the physical space into the virtual area through physical apparatus located in the physical space. A virtual area may include a zone that defines a respective persistent context for realtime communications between network nodes of respective communicants who are present in the zone. A respective presence in the zone typically is established for each of a physical apparatus and a communicant associated with a network node. An object represents the physical apparatus in the virtual area and an avatar represents the communicant in the virtual area. The object typically is associated with an interface for interacting with the physical apparatus. At least one data stream connection typically is provisioned between the physical apparatus and the network node. | 07-04-2013 |
20130227437 | VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATIONS - A virtual area has a spatial visualization and includes zones that are associated with respective geometric boundaries located in relation to the spatial visualization. Realtime data stream connections between sources and sinks of network nodes in the zones of the virtual area are administered to provide a wide variety of virtual area applications, including virtual area applications that implement spatial rules for one or more synchronous conferencing services (e.g., instant messaging, such as text chat, audio conferencing, video conferencing, application sharing, and file sharing). | 08-29-2013 |
20130263017 | ENCAPSULATING VIRTUAL AREA BASED COMMUNICANT ASSEMBLIES - Realtime communications between communicants in a virtual area are administered. Assemblies of copresent communicants in the virtual area are detected. For each of respective ones of the detected assemblies, a respective meeting object linked to information relating to communicant interactions in the assembly is generated. Respective meeting summary data is determined based on the information linked to selected ones of the meeting objects meeting objects. The determined meeting summary data is transmitted to a network node for display. A visualization of summaries of respective assemblies of copresent communicants in the virtual area is presented on a display. | 10-03-2013 |
20130283166 | VOICE-BASED VIRTUAL AREA NAVIGATION - Examples of systems and methods for voice-based navigation in one or more virtual areas that define respective persistent virtual communication contexts are described. These examples enable communicants to use voice commands to, for example, search for communication opportunities in the different virtual communication contexts, enter specific ones of the virtual communication contexts, and bring other communicants into specific ones of the virtual communication contexts. In this way, these examples allow communicants to exploit the communication opportunities that are available in virtual areas, even when hands-based or visual methods of interfacing with the virtual areas are not available. | 10-24-2013 |
20130283169 | VOICE-BASED VIRTUAL AREA NAVIGATION - Examples of systems and methods for voice-based navigation in one or more virtual areas that define respective persistent virtual communication contexts are described. These examples enable communicants to use voice commands to, for example, search for communication opportunities in the different virtual communication contexts, enter specific ones of the virtual communication contexts, and bring other communicants into specific ones of the virtual communication contexts. In this way, these examples allow communicants to exploit the communication opportunities that are available in virtual areas, even when hands-based or visual methods of interfacing with the virtual areas are not available. | 10-24-2013 |
20140115059 | BRIDGING PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL SPACES - Examples of systems and methods for bridging virtual and physical spaces are described. In some of these examples, a particular communicant's real world state drives changes in one or more of the communications connections, virtual state, and communications interface of the particular communicant or another communicant. | 04-24-2014 |
20140115502 | BRIDGING PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL SPACES - Examples of systems and methods for bridging virtual and physical spaces are described. In some of these examples, a particular communicant's real world state drives changes in one or more of the communications connections, virtual state, and communications interface of the particular communicant or another communicant. | 04-24-2014 |
20140136726 | REALTIME KERNEL - A realtime kernel supports realtime communications between communicants operating on respective network nodes. The realtime kernel handles the complex tasks of connecting to communicants, virtual areas, and other network resources, switching those connections in response to user inputs, and mixing realtime data streams. The realtime kernel enables developers to focus on developing high-level communications functionality instead of low-level plumbing code. The realtime kernel imposes relatively low computational resource requirements so that realtime communications performance can be achieved using a wide range of computing devices and network connections that currently are available. | 05-15-2014 |
20140237393 | SHARED VIRTUAL AREA COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT BASED APPARATUS AND METHODS - Improved systems and methods for navigating and interacting in virtual communication environments are described. At least some of these systems and methods provide a framework that includes one or more virtual areas and supports realtime communications between the communicants. At least some of these systems and methods provide an interface that includes navigation controls that enable a user to navigate virtual areas and interaction controls that enable the user to interact with other communicants in the one or more virtual areas. | 08-21-2014 |
20150039743 | PERVASIVE REALTIME FRAMEWORK - A pervasive realtime framework supports the execution of realtime software applications with high-level functions that significantly reduce the effort and time needed to develop realtime software applications in a new operating environment paradigm in which realtime connections between network nodes are pervasive. The pervasive realtime framework handles the complex tasks of connecting to communicants, virtual areas, and other network resources, as well as switching those connections in response to user inputs and thereby enables software application developers to focus on developing high-level realtime software application functionality. | 02-05-2015 |