Systems, communication endpoints, and related methods for distributing images corresponding to communication endpoints

• US 9,959,014 B2
• Filed: 11/07/2016
• Issued: 05/01/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sorenson Ip Holdings, LLC
• Original Assignee: Sorenson Ip Holdings, LLC
• Inventors: Thelin, Brett, Walters, Lane, Lalor, Tara, Blackham, James, Selman, Kevin, Dadgari, Cameron
• Primary Examiner(s): ZHAO, DON GORDON
• Application Number:
  US15/345,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20170052661A1
• Time in Patent Office: 540 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4594 Address books, i.e. directories containing contact information about correspondents telephone directories in user terminals H04M1/27453
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• 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: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for distributing images corresponding to communication endpoints. A system includes one or more servers configured to determine whether image privacy settings corresponding to images of communication endpoints permit the images to be transmitted to others of the communication endpoints for display with contacts lists of the others of the communication endpoints. A method includes transmitting the data corresponding to the images to the others of the communication endpoints as permitted by the image privacy settings. A communication endpoint is configured to present a contacts list displaying the images corresponding to communication endpoints listed in the contacts list to a user, if permitted by the corresponding image privacy settings. A method of transforming a computing device into a communication endpoint includes storing computer-readable instructions directed to performing actions the communication endpoint is configured to perform, and transmitting the computer-readable instructions to the computing device.

Claims

1. A communication endpoint configured for use by an audibly impaired user, the communication endpoint comprising:

one or more communication elements including at least one interface configured to enable the communication endpoint to communicate with;

a plurality of other communication endpoints associated with other audibly impaired users; and

one or more servers, each of the communication endpoint and the plurality of other communication endpoints having an image and a corresponding image privacy setting associated therewith stored remotely at the one or more servers, the communication endpoint also having a contacts list corresponding thereto stored remotely at the one or more servers, the contacts list including a list of contacts corresponding to a subset of the plurality of other communication endpoints associated with the other audibly impaired users;

a data storage device configured to locally store image data and at least one privacy setting corresponding to the image of each of a selected portion of the plurality of other communication endpoints; and

a user interface;

control circuitry operably coupled with the one or more communication elements, the data storage device, and the user interface, wherein the control circuitry is configured to;

enable the communication endpoint to engage in communication sessions with the plurality of other communication endpoints; and

cause the user interface to present the contacts list to a user of the communication endpoint;

cause the user interface to display the corresponding image associated with each contact in the contacts list responsive to the one or more servers determining that the corresponding image privacy setting permits the communication endpoint to present the image;

receive instructions from the one or more servers to change at least one privacy setting corresponding to a contact in the contacts list responsive to one of the other audibly-impaired users initiating the change in the at least one privacy setting from their respective communication endpoint; and

removing the corresponding image by deleting the image data from the data storage device of the communication endpoint to no longer be stored locally on the communication endpoint in response to the instructions received.

2. The communication endpoint of claim 1, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to enable the user to interact with the user interface to modify the contacts list, the image, and the corresponding image privacy setting corresponding to the user'"'"'s communication endpoint to send instructions to the one or more servers to cause a change in the images stored by the other audibly-impaired users'"'"' respective communication endpoints.

3. The communication endpoint of claim 1, further comprising an image capturing device, wherein the control circuitry is configured to enable the user to interact with the user interface to capture a captured image using the image capturing device, and transmit the captured image to the one or more servers to be the image associated with the communication endpoint for use by the other communication endpoints.

4. The communication endpoint of claim 1, wherein each contact of the contacts list includes contact information selected from the group consisting of a telephone number, an IP address, a MAC address, a serial number, and any combination thereof.

5. The communication endpoint of claim 1, wherein the at least one interface includes at least one of a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a Bluetooth interface, a WiFi interface, an Ethernet interface, an SD card interface, or any combination thereof.

6. A video communication device for an audibly impaired user, the video communication device comprising:

communication elements;

an electronic display;

an image capturing device;

a data storage device; and

control circuitry operably coupled with the communication elements, the electronic display, the image capturing device, and the data storage device, the control circuitry configured to;

manage a first contacts list for the video communication device and communicate changes to the first contacts list with a remote server, wherein the first contacts list includes contacts corresponding to other video communication devices of a network;

receive images from the remote server, the images corresponding to the contacts in the first contacts list;

store the images and a corresponding image privacy setting locally in the data storage of the video communication device;

display the images with the first contacts list on the electronic display; and

remove one or more of the images from being associated with first contacts of the contacts list and deleting the one or more images from its local image database stored in the data storage of the video communication device responsive to receiving instructions from the remote server indicating a change in the image privacy setting for the one or more images responsive to a user input from another user of one or more of the other video communication devices of the network.

7. The video communication device of claim 6, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

capture, with the image capturing device, a first image associated with the audibly impaired user; and

transmit the first image and its corresponding privacy setting to the remote server for use by at least some of the other video communication devices of the network in their local contacts lists.

8. The video communication device of claim 7, wherein the first image and the first contacts list associated with the video communication device is also shared with at least one additional video communication device that is associated with a same user account for the audibly impaired user.

9. The video communication device of claim 8, wherein at least one of the first image or the first contacts list associated with the video communication device is different than a respective image or contacts list associated with another video communication device that is associated with the same user account for the audibly impaired user.

10. The video communication device of claim 7, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

capture, with the image capturing device, a second image associated with the audibly impaired user; and

transmit the second image and its corresponding privacy setting to the remote server, wherein the privacy setting for the second image is different than the privacy setting for the first image.

11. The video communication device of claim 6, wherein the control circuitry is configured to communicate changes to the first contacts list with the remote server according to a data exchange with the remote server to reconcile a contacts database managed by the video communication device with a contacts database maintained by the remote server.

12. The video communication device of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is configured to communicate changes to the first contacts list with the remote server according to the data exchange with the remote server to reconcile changes to the images and image privacy settings for the contacts of the first contacts list and update the corresponding data stored by the data storage device of the video communication device.

13. The video communication device of claim 12, wherein the image privacy settings for each image is selected from the group consisting of share with everyone, share with only my contacts, share with no one, and a setting requiring that the user first obtains permission from the another user to view the image.

14. The video communication device of claim 6, wherein the control circuitry is configured to manage a first contacts list for the video communication device by editing contact entries of the first contacts list, adding contact entries to the first contacts list, or removing contact entries from the first contacts list.

15. The video communication device of claim 14, wherein the control circuitry is configured to replace one or more images in the local image database responsive to receiving instructions from the remote server that a change has been made to the image associated with one of the contact entries of the first contacts list.

16. A video communication system comprising:

video communication devices associated with audibly impaired users;

a video relay service including one or more servers configured to;

manage user accounts for the audibly impaired users;

store contacts lists for each user account in a contacts lists database;

store images and corresponding image privacy settings for each user account in an images database; and

reconcile changes made to the images database with each of the video communication devices by;

transmitting new or updated images to a subset of the video communication devices according to their corresponding image privacy settings for local storage and display in the contacts lists by the respective video communication devices; and

instructing the subset of the video communication devices to delete local images stored locally by the video communication devices responsive to a change being made to their corresponding image privacy settings responsive to changes made by users of other video communication devices on their own video communication devices.

17. The video communication system of claim 16, wherein the video relay service is configured to provide translation services between a video communication device associated with an audibly impaired user and a communication device associated with an audibly capable person.

18. The video communication system of claim 16, wherein each of the video communication devices is configured to modify the image privacy settings for each image associated with its corresponding user account for the corresponding image to be updated in the contacts lists of the other video communication devices accordingly by the one or more servers.

19. The video communication system of claim 16, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to reconcile changes made to the contacts lists database for each of the video communication devices.