Managing ephemeral locations in a virtual universe

• US 9,940,648 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2017
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, II, Rick A., O'Connell, Brian M., Pickover, Clifford A., Sand, Anne R., Walker, Keith R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Augustine, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US15/716,574
• Publication Number:
  US 20180018715A1
• Time in Patent Office: 195 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/003 Navigation within 3D models or images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/024 Multi-user, collaborative environment
• 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 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• 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

Abstract

Systems and methods for advertising, and, more particularly, systems and methods for managing ephemeral locations in a virtual universe. A method for managing ephemeral locations in a virtual universe (VU) includes causing a computer infrastructure to: render an ephemeral location upon a triggering in the VU; teleport a VU user avatar to the ephemeral location; permit the user avatar to interact in the ephemeral location; teleport the user avatar out of the ephemeral location; and un-render the ephemeral location.

Claims

1. A method for advertising in a virtual universe (VU), comprising causing a computer infrastructure to:

render an ephemeral location in the VU by creating a mapping between a VU grid of the VU and the ephemeral location;

transport a user avatar from the VU grid to the ephemeral location;

present a VU-ad to the user at the ephemeral location;

transport the user avatar from the ephemeral location back to the VU grid; and

un-render the ephemeral location to cause the ephemeral location to disappear from the VU;

wherein the ephemeral location is one of a plurality of ephemeral locations, and the plurality of ephemeral locations are managed simultaneously.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the rendering further comprises:

assigning creation of the ephemeral location to one of a plurality of servers based upon a determined availability of each of the plurality of servers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the assigning and creating are performed by a manager application stored at a host of the VU.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the ephemeral location in the VU is rendered upon a triggering in the VU.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising causing the computer infrastructure to permit the user avatar to interact in the ephemeral location.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising causing the computer infrastructure to determine an amount of compensation based upon at least one of time and processing power utilized during the rendering.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the manager renders and un-renders aspects of the ephemeral location based upon actions of the user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the ephemeral location and the VU grid location are different locations in the VU.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the rendering further comprises:

saving data associated with the ephemeral location to a state table.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the state table includes information defining:

an identity of the ephemeral location that is currently rendered;

the one of the plurality of servers associated with the rendering of the ephemeral location;

the user associated with the ephemeral location; and

the VU-ad associated with the ephemeral location; and

the mapping between the VU grid location and the ephemeral location.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the rendering further comprises:

providing compensation associated with the ephemeral location including determining an amount of processing time and processing power required to render the ephemeral location, and charging an amount to an advertiser associated with the VU-ad based on the determining.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the saving is performed by a manager application stored at a host of the VU.