Real time document presentation data synchronization through generic service

• US 10,007,734 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2011
• Issued: 06/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Burns, Charles, Bissat, Jade, Godiyal, Apeksha, Venugopal, Subalakshmi, Mathew, Abraham, Saliba, Hani
• Primary Examiner(s): Higa, Brendan
• Application Number:
  US13/286,432
• Publication Number:
  US 20130110937A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,429 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-207, 715751-759
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• 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 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference

Abstract

A generic means for synchronizing information about a user'"'"'s view of a document or other content within an application across native client and web applications is provided. Attendees of an online broadcast are enabled to see what the presenter is seeing within their own application. In addition, meeting-specific information such as the meeting time and notes may be synchronized enabling nearly real time synchronization. Moreover, by enabling attendees to view the presented document within their own applications, the attendees are afforded the capabilities provided by that application, such as navigating through the document manually.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for synchronizing presentation data in an online broadcast, the method comprising:

providing, by a server, content to a plurality of attendees, wherein the content comprises a document navigable by each attendee in the plurality of attendees and content sharing information;

receiving, by the server, a state information update from a presenter based on a status of the content at a client application associated with the presenter, wherein the state information update comprises information regarding the presenter'"'"'s view of the content;

storing, by the server, the state information from the presenter;

receiving a request from one of the attendees of the plurality of attendees for the state information update;

providing, by the server, the state information update to the one attendee, wherein providing the state information update enables an attendee client application associated with the one attendee to display the presenter'"'"'s view of the content; and

further wherein the state information includes data associated with at least one from a set of;

a timing, positional information, and a flow of media as processed at the presenter'"'"'s client application, and further wherein the state information includes notes associated with the online broadcast; and

facilitating an update to the content, using the state information update, such that the content is displayed in its current state during independent navigation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is navigable based on inherited capabilities of a native application.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising enabling the attendee to synchronize viewing of the content at the client application with the presenter using the state update information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the attendee client application includes one of a rich client application and a browser for accessing a web application.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising enabling the attendee to access the content using capabilities of the rich client application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the state information includes storing the state information at an in-memory store of a server facilitating the broadcast for a duration of the broadcast.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the state information update from the presenter in response to a change of content status at the presenter'"'"'s client application.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the state information update periodically from the presenter to enable resilience of a broadcast session in case of server failure.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the content includes one or more of:

word processing documents, spreadsheet documents, presentation documents, audio media, video media, graphic presentations, email, and textual and/or graphical documents.

10. A server for facilitating synchronization of document presentation data in an online broadcast, the server comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a host application, wherein the host application is configured to;

provide content to a plurality of attendees, wherein the content comprises a document navigable by each attendee in the plurality of attendees;

receive a state information update from a presenter based on a status of the content at a client application associated with the presenter, wherein the state information update includes information regarding the presenters view of the content and additionally includes notes associated with the online broadcast;

store the state information from the presenter;

receive a request from one of the attendees of the plurality of attendees for a state information update;

provide the state information update to the attendee, further wherein the state information update allows by the client to re-synchronize with the presenter after the document has been independently navigated;

enable the attendee, based on the state information, to view the content at the client application associated with the attendee to establish a real time synchronization between the presenter and the attendee;

enable the attendee to navigate and control the content independently from the presenter; and

facilitating an update to the content, using the state information update, such that the content is displayed in its current state during independent navigation.

11. The server of claim 10, wherein the server further facilitates a content sharing service configured to:

expose a presenter service with functions for starting and stopping a broadcast session and for uploading a current state of the presentation.

12. The server of claim 10, wherein the host application is further configured to:

enable the presenter to present from a native rich client application.

13. The server of claim 10, wherein the host application is further configured to:

ensure data integrity of the content for providing the presenter confidence that a presented document is in its current state and that the presented document remains unchanged for a duration of the broadcast.

14. The server of claim 13, wherein the host application is further configured to:

ensure the data integrity of the content by making a copy of the content and broadcast the copy.

15. The server of claim 10, wherein the state information is modeled as a data structure.

16. The server of claim 10, wherein the host application is associated with one of:

a multimodal online communication service, an online collaboration service, and a web service.

17. A computer-readable memory device coupled to a server with instructions stored on the device for synchronization of document presentation data in an online broadcast, that when executed the instructions are capable of causing a computing device to:

provide content to a plurality of attendees, wherein the content comprises a document navigable by each attendee in the plurality of attendees;

receive a state information update that includes data associated with at least one from a set of;

a timing, positional information, and a flow of media as processed at a presenter'"'"'s client application from the presenter based on a status of the content at a client application associated with the presenter, and further wherein the state information update includes notes associated with the online broadcast;

receive a request from the plurality of attendees for a state information update;

provide the state information update to the plurality of attendees;

store the state information from a presenter;

enable the plurality of attendees to view the content at respective client applications associated with the attendees employing the state information update to maintain a real time synchronization between the presenter and the attendees, further wherein each respective client application uses the state information update to re-synchronize with presenter after the document has been independently navigated by each of the plurality of attendees;

enable the attendees to navigate and control the content at their respective client applications independently from the presenter; and

enable, using the state information update, the content to be viewed in its current state during independent navigation.

18. The computer-readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the instructions are further capable of causing the computing device to:

in response to switching from the presenter to another presenter, continuing to receive state information updates from the other presenter, wherein the state information update further includes an identification of the other presenter.

19. The compute-readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the instructions are further capable to cause the computing device to:

ensure the data integrity of the content by making a copy of the content and broadcast the copy.

20. The compute-readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the state information is modeled as a data structure.