TELECOMMUNICATION AND MULTIMEDIA MANAGEMENT METHOD AND APPARATUS

• US 20090003247A1
• Filed: 05/27/2008
• Published: 01/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Voxer IP LLC (Voxer, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rebelvox LLC (Voxer, Inc.)
• Inventors: Katis, Thomas E., Panttaja, Mary G., Ranney, Matthew J., Panttaja, James T.
• Granted Patent: US 8,762,566 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/260
• CPC Class Codes: E04H 3/126 Foldable, retractable or tiltable tribunes E04H3/123 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• 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 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2503 Translation of Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• 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
• 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 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/64 Automatic arrangements for answering calls; Automatic arrangements for recording messages for absent subscribers; Arrangements for recording conversations centralised dictation systems H04M11/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/00 Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53 Centralised arrangements for recording incoming messages , i.e. mailbox systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5307 for recording messages comprising any combination of audio and non-audio components
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 : Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 : Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements

Abstract

A communication device for simultaneously rendering one or more conversations. The device includes a receiver for receiving over a network media associated with the one or more conversations and a rendering element for simultaneously rendering the media of the one or more conversations as the media is received over the network. The device also includes a media creation device for creating media for the conversations and a transmitter for transmitting the created media over the network to other participants of the one or more conversations. A memory or storage device stores the received and created media associated with the one or more conversations. A rendering control element is provided to control the rendering element to (i) pause the simultaneous rendering of the media received over the network associated with the one or more conversations and (ii) select for review during the pause one of the one or more conversations by rendering the received and/or created media associated with the selected conversation. During the review period, the received media of the other conversations is stored, but not rendered. After the review of the selected conversation, the simultaneous rendering of the plurality of conversations may be resumed. By storing the media of all the conversations during the review period, the non-rendered media received during the pause may be later reviewed.

Claims

1. A communication device, comprising:

a receiver configured to receive at the communication device media associated with one or more conversations over a network;

a rendering element configured to simultaneously render the received media associated with the one or more conversations as the media is received over the network;

a media creation device configured to create media on the communication device for the one or more conversations respectively;

a transmitter configured to transmit over the network the created media for the one or more conversations, the created media being transmitted to one or more participants of the one or more conversations respectively;

a memory or storage element configured to store the received and created media associated with the one or more conversations; and

a rendering control element configured to control the rendering element, the rendering control element further including;

(i) a pause function which pauses the simultaneous rendering of the media received over the network associated with the one or more conversations;

(ii) a selection element configured to select for review during the pause one of the one or more conversations being simultaneously rendered, the review of the selected conversation including the rendering of the received and/or created media associated with the selected conversation;

the memory or storage element further configured to continuously store, without interruption, the media received over the network and associated with the one or more conversations while the selected conversation is being reviewed during the pause;

the rendering control element further configured to resume the rendering of the received media associated with the one or more conversations as the received media is being received over the network after the pause and review of the selected conversation.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the memory or storage element is further configured to continuously store, without interruption, the media received over the network and associated with the non-selected one or more conversations while the media associated with the selected one conversation is being reviewed during the pause of the simultaneous rendering of the one or more conversations.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein rendering control element is further configured to receive a starting point input which defines a starting point to review the media of the selected conversation during the pause, the rendering control element further configured to cause the media starting at the starting point to be retrieved from the storage or memory element and to be rendered on the rendering element starting from the starting point.

4. The device claim 3, wherein the rendering control element is further configured to control the rendering element to render the retrieved media at a rate faster than the media was originally encoded and to ascertain a catch-up point when the rendering of the retrieved media at the faster rate has caught up to and is substantially concurrent with the media of the selected one conversation as the media of the selected one conversation is being received over the network.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein each of the conversations further comprise an exchange of the received and transmitted media among participants of each of the conversations respectively.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the received and the created media associated with each of the one or more conversations is segmented into messages respectively.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the received and the created media associated with each of the one or more conversations further comprise a plurality of media payloads, each of the plurality of media payloads having time-index information associated therewith.

8. The device of claim 7, wherein the rendering element is further configured to simultaneously render the received media associated with the one or more messages by ascertaining the time-index of the received media payloads associated with the one or more conversations to be simultaneously rendered and simultaneously rendering overlapping time-indexed media of the media payloads according to the time-indexed order.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering element further comprises a mixer configured to mix the received media associated with the one or more conversations to be simultaneously rendered.

10. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is programmable allowing a user of the communication device to define the one or more conversations to be simultaneously rendered.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is preconfigured to define the one or more conversations to be simultaneously rendered.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is programmable allowing a participant of the one or more conversations to define the one or more conversations to be simultaneously rendered.

13. The device of claim 1, wherein the transmitter is further configured to transmit created media for a selected one of the one or more conversations that are simultaneously rendered.

14. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering element is further configured to simultaneously render by rendering only the received media from the one source when the media is being received only from one source or overlapping the rendering of the received media when the received media is being received from two or more sources at the same time.

15. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is further configured to resume the simultaneous rendering of the received media associated with the one or more conversations after the pause as the received media is received over the network without first reviewing the stored media received during the pause.

16. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is further configured to resume the rendering of the media received as received over the network just for the selected conversation after the pause.

17. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is further configured to resume the simultaneous rendering of the received media associated with the one or more conversations after the pause starting at the point the simultaneous rendering of the media associated with the one or more conversations was paused by rendering the media received during the pause from the storage or memory element.

18. The device of claim 1, wherein the rendering control element is further configured to resume the simultaneous rendering of the received media associated with the one or more conversations after the pause starting at a selected previous point in time defined by a user of the communication device.

19. The device of claim 1, further comprising an encoder configured to encode the created media created using the media creation device.

20. The device of claim 1, wherein the media associated with the one or more conversations is segmented into messages.

21. The device of claim 1, further comprising providing a plurality of rendering options for rendering the media of the one or more conversations, the rendering options including one or more of the following:

pause, replay, play faster, play slower, jump backward, jump forward, skip silence, catch up to the most recently received media, or jump to the most recently received media.

22. The device of claim 1, further comprising progressively storing the created media as the media is being created before transmitting the created media.

23. The device of claim 1, further comprising progressively transmitting the created media as the media is being created before storing the created media.

24. The device of claim 1, further comprising concurrently and progressively rendering and storing the created media as the media is being created.

25. The device of claim 1, further comprising storing the received media of the selected conversation, the received media being stored before rendering the received media in the near real-time mode.

26. The device of claim 1, further comprising progressively rendering the received media associated with the selected current conversation in the near real-time mode, the received media being rendered before storing the received media.

27. The device of claim 1, further comprising concurrently and progressively rendering and storing the received media associated with the selected current conversation as the media is being received.

28. The device of claim 1, wherein transmitting over the network the media created on the communication device further comprises:

ascertaining if the communication device is connected to the network when the media is created; and

progressively transmitting the media if the communication device is connected to the network,

wherein connected to the network is defined as the ability to transfer data between the communication device and the network.

29. The device of claim 28, further comprising;

ascertaining the bandwidth rate of the connection between the network and the communication device when the media is being created; and

progressively transmitting the created media within the ascertained bandwidth rate.

30. The device of claim 1, wherein transmitting over the network the media created on the communication device further comprises:

ascertaining if the communication device is disconnected from the network when the media is created;

detecting when the first communication device reconnects to the network; and

transmitting the created media from storage or memory after the communication device reconnects to the network,

wherein connected and disconnected to the network is defined as the ability to transfer or not transfer data between the communication device and the network respectively.

31. The device of claim 1, wherein transmitting over the network the media created on the communication device further comprises:

ascertaining if network conditions are sufficiently poor to prevent the transmission when the media is created;

detecting when network conditions sufficiently improve to enable the transmission; and

transmitting the created media from storage or memory after detecting when the network conditions sufficiently improve.

32. The device of claim 1, wherein the media further comprises one or more of the following types of media:

voice, video, text, sensor data, position or GPS information, radio signals, or a combination thereof.

33. The device of claim 1, wherein the communication device comprises one of the following:

a, land-line phone, a wireless or cellular phone, a computer or a radio, a satellite phone or radio, or a tactical radio or phone.

34. The device of claim 1, wherein the network comprises a packet-based network, a circuit-based network, a cellular network, a wireless network, a radio based network, a telephone network, a satellite network, a wired network, a fiber optic network, or a combination thereof.

35. The device of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving urgent media at the communication device; and

rendering the urgent media before rendering other media associated with the one or more conversations.