METHOD FOR CONTROLLING DATA STREAMS OF A VIRTUAL SESSION WITH MULTIPLE PARTICIPANTS, COLLABORATION SERVER, COMPUTER PROGRAM, COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT, AND DIGITAL STORAGE MEDIUM

• US 20150365244A1
• Filed: 02/22/2013
• Published: 12/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: RingCentral Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Unify GmbH & Co. KG (Atos SE)
• Inventors: Schmitz, Ulrich
• Application Number:
  US14/399,083
• Publication Number:
  US 20150365244A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• 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 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 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/08 specially adapted for terminal emulation, e.g. Telnet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for controlling data streams of a virtual session with several participants who access at least access one application in the virtual session. A selected media processing and a signaling mode is used in a centralized process for each participant according to the individual requirements of the participant. The participants are represented by clients and the process is controlled by a server. The selection of the media processing and/or signaling mode is made on the basis of an evaluation of the terminal of the respective participant and the network bandwidth available to the respective participant. An evaluation scheme with a plurality of evaluation criteria is provided for the evaluation, and possible media processing and/or signaling modes are ascertained for the respective participant, said evaluation scheme being applied to each possible media processing and/or signaling mode. A media processing and/or signaling mode determined using a comparison of the evaluations for each possible media processing and/or signaling mode according to the applied evaluation scheme is selected for the respective participant. The invention further relates to a collaboration server, a computer program, a computer program product, and a digital storage medium with the corresponding functional features.

Claims

1-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A method for the control of virtual session data streams with several participants, said participants accessing at least one application during a virtual session, comprising:

for a plurality of participants in a centralized process, wherein each participant is represented by a client, and wherein the process is controlled by a server;

evaluating a plurality of evaluation criteria for each participant for selecting an individual mode, said plurality of evaluation criteria comprising evaluation of a terminal of each participant and evaluation of a network bandwidth available to each participant;

comparing the evaluation criteria according to applied evaluation matrices for possible media processing and signaling modes; and

performing a media processing and signaling mode for each participant according to the media processing and signaling evaluation.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one application is selected from the group consisting of an audio conference, a video conference, a shared desktop data exchange between participants, a shared whiteboard data exchange, and a webcast.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the media processing is selected from the group consisting of adjustment of image formats, conversion of text into speech, and conversion of speech into text.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the signaling mode is selected from the group consisting of session initiation protocol (SIP), H.323, hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), Web/http, and WebRTC.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

deploying a generic signaling protocol for the abstraction of at least one signaling mode;

abstracting a data stream from a virtual room into the generic signaling protocol; and

transferring the generic signaling protocol to the signaling mode for each participant.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

abstracting the data stream into the generic signaling protocol; and

transmitting the generic signaling protocol into a signaling type required by the at least one application.

21. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

awarding points during the evaluation step for selected evaluation criteria;

adding points of all evaluation criteria; and

obtaining an evaluation of a potential media upsampling.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the evaluation criteria are selected from the group consisting of a browser resolution, an audio quality, a computing power, and a conversion effort.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the centralized process manages the virtual session.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein the virtual session is presented to the participants in a virtual room.

26. A computer program containing computer program instructions that, when executed, performs the method of claim 15.

27. A computer-readable storage medium comprising the computer program of claim 26.

25. A collaboration server to control the data streams of a virtual session with multiple participants, said collaboration server executing steps comprising:

for a plurality of participants in a centralized process, wherein each participant is represented by a client, and wherein the process is controlled by a server;

evaluating a plurality of evaluation criteria for each participant for selecting an individual mode, said plurality of evaluation criteria comprising evaluation of a terminal of each participant and evaluation of a network bandwidth available to each participant;

comparing the evaluation criteria according to applied evaluation matrices for possible media processing and signaling modes; and

performing a media processing and signaling mode for each participant according to the media processing and signaling evaluation.