Presenting Information in a Conference

• US 20100306674A1
• Filed: 08/10/2010
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pixion Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Pixion Incorporated
• Inventors: Flower, Jon, Wells, Benjamin, Madams, Peter, Kaul, Clint, Salesky, Joseph, Janne, Edward Arthur Ho-Ming
• Granted Patent: US 8,682,972 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1415 with means for detecting differences between the image stored in the host and the images displayed on the displays
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

An improved networked computer communications system handles arbitrary streams of data, and transports at varying speeds those steams where intermediate updates can be dropped if they are obsoleted by later arriving data updates, optimizing the utilization of network and node resources. Complex buffering by system server software allows distributed, parallel, or redundant processing, transmission, and storage for performance, reliability, and robustness. Various parameters of the system can be monitored, and the system can be reconfigured automatically based on the observations. Varied techniques reduce the perceived end-to-end latency and take advantage of software and hardware capabilities that assets connected to the system may possess. One conferencing system allows conference participants to share all or a portion of the display seen on their computer screens. The conferees may be at sites removed from each other, or may view a recorded presentation or archived conference at different times. Conference participants are either “presenters” who can modify the display or “attendees” who cannot modify the display. A pointer icon, which can be labeled to identify the conferee, is displayed on the shared image area. Each conferee can modify the position of his or her own pointer, even when not presenting, so that every participant can see what each conferee is pointing to, should a conferee choose to point to an element of the display. These and other features apply to other data streams shared in the conference or in meetings where there is no shared-image data stream.

Claims

1. A method for presenting information in a conference, the method comprising:

receiving a command from an attendee in the conference indicating a desire to present information to the conference;

receiving the information to be presented in the conference, the information received from the attendee;

matching the form of the information to one or more of the other attendee clients in the conference; and

transmitting the information to the other attendee clients in the conference.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is presented as a bitmap of device-dependent pixels.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein matching the form of the information to the other attendee clients in the conference includes transcoding the information subsequent to receipt and prior to transmission.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein matching the form of the information to the other attendee clients in the conference includes fitting the information to CPU capability of a particular attendee.

5. A method for presenting information in a conference, the method comprising:

receiving a command from an attendee in the conference indicating a desire to present information to the conference;

sending a message to a current presenter in the conference, the message indicating that an attendee desires to present information to the conference;

receiving approval from the current presenter to allow the attendee to assume the presenter role; and

exchanging attendee-presenter roles between the current presenter and the attendee desiring to present information to the conference.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein exchanging attendee-presenter roles includes assignment of one or more privileges from the current presenter to the attendee desiring to present information in the conference, the one or more privileges not otherwise extended to a non-presenting attendee in the conference.

7. A method of transporting video over a network, the method comprising:

compressing video into a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of levels, a plurality of the levels corresponding to a particular degree of compression;

estimating bandwidth of the network;

selecting one of the plurality of levels of each of the plurality of frames to transmit over the network in accordance with the bandwidth estimate, whereby the level selected optimizes the use of the bandwidth of the network; and

sending the selected level of each of the plurality of frames over the network.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for operating a presenter client in a conferencing network, the method comprising:

retrieving at least a portion of a capture rectangle from display memory; and

generating a delta block from a copy of a next most recent capture rectangle in display memory.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, the method further comprising checking whether the update to the capture rectangle can be transmitted based on at least a central processing unit load at the presenter client.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, the method further comprising checking whether the update to the capture rectangle can be transmitted based on at least a limit on computing resources at the presenter client.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, the method further comprising checking whether the update to the capture rectangle can be transmitted based on at least a transmission rate of a network connection for the presenter client.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, the method further comprising checking whether the update to the capture rectangle can be transmitted based on at least a flow control command from a conference server.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the portion of the capture rectangle retrieved from display memory encompasses the entirety of the capture rectangle.