Method and system for the confidential recording, management and distribution of meetings by means of multiple electronic devices with remote storage

• US 8,468,581 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2010
• Issued: 06/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Savemeeting, S.L.
• Original Assignee: Savemeeting, S.L.
• Inventors: Cuende Alonso, Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): Arani, Taghi
• Assistant Examiner(s): PLECHA, THADDEUS J
• Application Number:
  US12/725,454
• Publication Number:
  US 20100241845A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,189 Days
• Field of Search: 726/4
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/805 Lightweight hardware, e.g. radio-frequency identification [RFID] or sensor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0618 Block ciphers, i.e. encrypting groups of characters of a plain text message using fixed encryption transformation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3231 Biological data, e.g. fingerprint, voice or retina network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using biometrical features in a packet data network H04L63/0861
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2347 involving video stream encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42203 sound input device, e.g. microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/155 involving storage of or access to video conference sessions tracking arrangements for later retrieval of a computer conference content or participants activities H04L12/1831
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A specific method is provided for recording, management and confidential distribution of meetings by means of multiple electronic devices, fitted with at least one microphone, mainly a mobile phone, an electronic agenda, or laptop. The method includes recording the meeting, sending this recorded data to the remote server, audio track synchronization, selecting optimum track sections to produce an optimum final track, store this ciphered, coded track in the database, and, finally, publish this track in a confidential manner.

Claims

1. A method for recording, management and confidential distribution of meetings by means of multiple electronic devices with remote server connection comprising the following steps:

A) recording a meeting by means of at least one electronic device that comprises at least the following means;

acquisition means for acquiring one element selected from the group consisting of audio and audio/video;

signal transmission means;

signal processing means for processing one element selected from the group consisting of audio and audio/video;

storage means; and

, data exchange means with at least one external electronic device;

B) sending audio tracks to a remote server;

C) synchronizing the audio tracks on the server by detecting flag signals included during meeting recording and inserted by the signal processing means;

D) selecting optimum audio segments per audio track from among all the tracks received by the server, from the electronic devices associated with the same meeting;

E) mixing the optimum segments per track in order to obtain a final optimum audio track;

F) storing a final encrypted and encoded optimum track in a database;

G) publishing the final optimum audio track in confidential mode, with authorization;

wherein step A) comprises the following steps in the at least one electronic device;

a) activating a method in the electronic device via a user password;

b) executing an electronic device test;

c) checking for a connection with an available server;

d) performing a room test;

e) calibrating a meeting room, a main electronic device and at least one secondary electronic device;

f) calibrating a flag signal;

g) executing participant and meeting location identification processes;

h) registering electronic device technical characteristics;

i) initiating meeting recording;

j) initiating at least one parallel process;

k) finishing the meeting recording; and

,

     1) sending the data containing the meeting recording to the server; and

wherein step F) comprises transmitting a ciphered flag signal, which contains at least one of the following;

signal type;

retransmission periodicity;

signal volume;

coding type;

identification type;

periodicity type;

said ciphered flag signal is transmitted by the main device and received by at least one slave electronic device, wherein the one slave electronic device stores the ciphered flag signal for subsequent synchronization, by the server, of the meeting recordings in the main device and at least one slave electronic device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the audio tracks further comprise video.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step b) comprises evaluating the following device hardware resources:

CPU, RAM, CPU clock speed, available hard disk space, recording speed, encryption test computation speed;

microphone;

frequency, gain, number of inputs;

type, directional, environment, stereo;

loudspeakers;

maximum volume, distortion and power;

video;

resolution, focus, white balance, refresh speed;

communications network connection;

physical communications type;

telephone line, modem, Ethernet, USB, wireless, GRPS, 3G;

communications protocol;

FTP, HTTP, WAP, port connection test with the server, average upload and download speeds with the remote server, environment;

local network, Intranet, Internet, direct connection;

additional characteristics;

GPS, finger print reader, USB connection, hands-free loudspeakers, environmental microphone, infrared sensor and Bluetooth;

further, step b) comprises evaluating whether the electronic device meets minimum requirements for performing the functions of recording, notifying the user with a recording type of meeting and a maximum estimated recording time with and without server communications.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein step d) additionally comprises performing the following steps:

showing through drawings predefined optimum positions;

indicating on a room drawing, approximate positions where the devices should be located, together with the participants that are going to register;

describing, the meeting location, via a Web or local interface in the device, together with a wizard, said wizard includes parameters for introducing the user, as well as the description of the environment, noise, sound sources, background music, together with physical room aspects;

size, shape, height, table, table shape and position; and

, evaluating participant voice recordings.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein step e) comprises carrying out the following steps:

emitting an audio signal varying the intensity and tone of said audio signal via a electronic device;

measuring the intensity of the audio signal received by other electronic devices;

processing and comparing the received signal with standards stored in the memories on the rest electronic devices;

determining the quality of the received audio signal and sending said received audio signal to the server;

receiving and processing information from the server as follows;

a position;

electronic device type;

main or secondary;

evaluating new conditions;

ambient noise variations and changes in participants positions, sending the information to the server;

re-evaluating attendee voice recording, in which one of the electronic devices requests the participants to, one-by-one, say a few predetermined words in order to measure the power and reception quality of said attendee voice recording, sending the information to the server;

further processing and recommending actions from the server;

moving one or more electronic devices in order to guarantee correct recording.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein step g) further comprises the following steps:

determining participant biometric parameters;

voice and fingerprint;

determining meeting location via;

GPS, mobile phone network cell, phone signal triangulation, originating phone and network connection data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein step j) further comprises carrying out at least one of the following parallel processes:

recording, comprising the following steps;

recording;

compressing;

coding; and

, transmission to server;

controlling transmitted and received signal quality;

controlling flag signal transmission via the main electronic device;

initiating user action;

calling a virtual secretary;

calling voting;

calling annotations; and

;

calling for labeling;

initiating periodic checks;

checking available space;

checking connection and bandwidth; and

, checking noise.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said method further comprises the following steps in the flag signal transmitting device:

receiving parameters from the server to the main electronic device over the connection with the server;

controlling a sequence;

encoding the flag signal;

controlling parameters that determine the flag signal type;

controlling a periodicity with which the flag signal is transmitted;

transmitting the flag signal;

re-evaluating the flag signal parameters;

detecting parameter changes; and

, sending the detected changes to the server.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said method further comprises the following automatic adjustment process on each device associated with the meeting:

acquiring the audio signal via the device acquisition means, periodically;

applying noise reduction filters and compression algorithms;

calculating the signal to noise rate, “

S/N rate”

;

comparing each previously calculated value with a predefined threshold value;

registering the obtained value on the server by encoding and then transmitting the obtained value when the obtained value exceeds the threshold; and

, notifying the electronic device user and recalculating a position of the electronic device user when the obtained value does not exceed the predefined threshold.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said method comprises the following steps on the server:

registering the electronic devices;

validating user passwords;

registering the meeting;

receiving results information on a device test;

receiving results information on a room test;

sending flag signal parameters to the electronic devices;

checking a connection;

sending electronic device positions and determine the main and at least secondary devices;

sending confirmation of meeting start;

including additional meeting data;

processing parallel processes;

processing virtual secretary petition;

processing voting petition;

processing automatic and manual process petitions; and

, downloading software.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said method further comprises the following steps on the server:

receiving meeting concluded confirmation from at least one device;

receiving online files that contain all information associated with the meeting;

debugging and mixing of the various files associated with each device in order to obtain a final audio and video track by means of the following sub-steps decrypting the audio and video tracks, checking initial parameters, decoding by means of a symmetric algorithm;

identifying the flags on each track selected by two sub-steps;

identifying the flag signals when they have been used by the devices associated with the meeting;

identifying landmarks in the form of pseudo-flag signals within the tracks when it was not possible to use the flag signals generated by the method;

synchronizing the audio-video tracks using the previously identified flag signals;

filtering the audio-video tracks to eliminate noise;

selecting optimum segments per track;

mixing the optimum sections obtained from each track to produce a single optimum audio track;

encrypting the optimum audio track combining asymmetric and symmetric encryption;

carrying out symmetric encryption, by means of one algorithm selected from the group consisting of DES algorithms and AES algorithm;

carrying out asymmetric encryption selected from the group consisting of asymmetric public key, password and fingerprint encryption by conversion to a code-key of the already symmetrically ciphered information;

storing the final optimized and encrypted track in the database;

carrying out automatic and manual processes;

the method further comprises repeating the previous steps as many times as the number of times that the files arrive at the server when communications are offline.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein said method further comprises the following steps on the server:

receiving a user petition selected from the group consisting of access and consultation;

denying access to an unauthorized user and allowing access to all meeting data to an authorized user;

activating a User Manager to handle user access to the stored information in function of the type of access said users have to the information;

performing a search of the database that holds all user characteristics, together with distribution lists;

presenting results required by the authorized user by means of a Publication Manager.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein said method further comprises the following steps on the server:

identifying possible communications means in the electronic device for device-server communications;

selecting a format and communication protocol according to an available physical mean in the electronic device;

measuring the transfer speed between the electronic device and the server by uploading test files to the server;

measuring channel consistency;

calculating mean data transfer speed for the channel;

calculating a recommended data packet size for device-server communications with said calculation of recommended size being a function of the available device memory, the mean data transfer speed, compression speed, estimated duration and safety margin.

14. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied in said medium for causing an application program to execute on a computer, said computer means readable by program code, comprising:

first computer readable program code means for recording a meeting;

second computer readable program code means for transmitting audio tracks to a remote server;

third computer readable program code means for detecting flag signals;

fourth computer readable program code means for synchronizing audio-video tracks using the previously detected flag signals;

fifth computer readable program code means for selecting optimum audio-video segments per track;

sixth computer readable program code means for mixing the optimum audio-video tracks into a final optimized track;

seventh computer readable program code means for storing the final optimized track in a database;

eighth computer readable program code means for initiating meeting recording; and

ninth computer readable program code means for confidential publication of the final optimized track;

the first computer readable program code means for recording a meeting further comprising code to carry out the following steps in the at least one electronic device;

a) activating a method in the electronic device via a user password;

b) executing an electronic device test;

c) checking for a connection with an available server;

d) performing a room test;

e) calibrating a meeting room, a main electronic device and at least one secondary electronic device;

f) calibrating a flag signal;

g) executing participant and meeting location identification processes;

h) registering electronic device technical characteristics;

i) initiating meeting recording;

j) initiating at least one parallel process;

k) finishing the meeting recording; and

, l) sending the data containing the meeting recording to the server; and

the seventh computer readable program code means for storing the final optimized track in a database further comprises code for transmitting a ciphered flag signal, which contains at least one of the following;

signal type;

retransmission periodicity;

signal volume;

coding type;

identification type;

periodicity type;

said ciphered flag signal is transmitted by the main device and received by at least one slave electronic device, wherein the one slave electronic device stores the ciphered flag signal for subsequent synchronization, by the server, of the meeting recordings in the main device and at least one slave electronic device.