1038 results about "Conference room" patented technology

A highly mobile, ambient computing environment is disclosed for serving a knowledge worker away from the their desk. The present invention allows a knowledge worker to get increased leverage from personal, networked, and interactive computing devices while in their car, airplane seat, or in a conference room with others. An Open Agent Architecture is used to incorporate elements such as GPS agents, speech recognition, and opportunistic connectivity among meeting participants. Communication and cooperation between agents are brokered by one or more facilitators, which are responsible for matching requests, from users and agents, with descriptions of the capabilities of other agents. It is not generally required that a user or agent know the identities, locations, or number of other agents involved in satisfying a request, and relatively minimal effort is involved in incorporating new agents and “wrapping” legacy applications. Extreme flexibility is achieved through an architecture organized around the declaration of capabilities by service-providing agents, the construction of arbitrarily complex goals by users and service-requesting agents, and the role of facilitators in delegating and coordinating the satisfaction of these goals, subject to advice and constraints that may accompany them.

A system and method for accessing conference room devices connected to a first computer include receiving status information from available devices connected to the first computer, displaying a device menu of available devices for a particular conference room, displaying a control menu to control a selected one of the available devices, and transmitting commands to the selected one of the available devices to control the device in response to user input. In one embodiment, the first computer is accessible via a web browser so a remote user can control or operate the conference room devices. The conference room devices may include facility devices, such as room lights, thermostat, door lock, drapes, etc. in addition to audio / visual equipment, such as VCR's, projectors, screens, and cameras, for example.

Private Multimedia Network (PMN) complements, and is an improved alternative to digital videoconferencing and multimedia delivery systems. PMN's desktop and meeting room delivery system is designed to support the exponential growth of enterprise team-based initiatives. PMN provides “one-stop-shopping” for the full multimedia rubric. It delivers user-friendly control and cost / effective TV and broadcast quality videoconferencing and other multimedia services to organizations with “critical mass” campuses and building complexes. Though digital systems dominate the videoconferencing marketplace, PMN's hybrid digital / analog architecture has no digital peer in breadth or quality of service within or between campuses. The novel architecture leverages advances in analog video short-haul technology, digital long-haul technology, and telephony audio and control technology to deliver four-level multimedia services: 1) premise; 2) campus; 3) multi-site; and 4) ubiquitous (any site with ITU compatible multimedia equipment (e.g., videoconferencing) and communication links). On balance, the price / performance afforded by PMN's centralized Telco-based control and audio delivery combined with its decentralized broadcast quality video distribution raise videoconferencing and other multimedia services to a new level of ubiquity. Just as telephones and PC LANs, PMN delivers expensive Boardroom and mobile cart videoconferencing capabilities to every desktop via existing multimedia wall plates. The key phases for this invention are: Lip-synchronization across differing network communication links and protocols; Ubiquitous multimedia service; Cost / effective room and desktop deployment; Telco control and audio; Broadcast quality video; Isochronous Quality; Centralized control and distributed operation; and Interoperable architecture.

A distributed data processing system provides a virtual workplace environment. The virtual workplace environment may be a three-dimensional model of an office, a conference room, or an entire office building complex. Participants are represented by three-dimensional avatars, which move within the virtual environment. Participants may also share data within the virtual environment. Two-dimensional data may be projected onto the surface of a three-dimensional object within the environment, such as a wall. Three-dimensional data may be rendered within the environment for the participants to inspect.

An enhanced video conferencing system and method includes at least two conference rooms, the conference rooms connected together electronically to permit the transmission of images and sound from one room to the other room. Each room has a large format display system for projecting images and a camera positioned with respect to the large format display system to capture images of the conference room and its participants while the participants are looking at the large format display system, without obscuring the participants' view of the display system, so as to provide the perception that the participants in one conference room are looking directly at the participants in the other conference room. The enhanced video conferencing system may also include an additional camera for capturing an image of an item located at a pre-determined location within the conference room for ultimate transmission to the other conference room for viewing.

Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate real-time information exchange in a multimedia conferencing environment. Data Client(s) facilitate data collaboration between users and are maintained separately from audio / video (AV) Clients that provide real-time communication functionality. Data Clients can be remotely located with respect to one another and with respect to a server. A remote user Stand-in Device can be provided that comprises a display to present a remote user to local users, a digital automatic pan / tilt / zoom camera to capture imagery in, for example, a conference room and provide real-time information to an AV Client in a remote office, and a microphone array that can similarly provide real-time audio information from the conference room to an AV Client in the remote office. The invention further facilitates file transfer and presentation broadcast between Data Clients in a single location or in a plurality of disparate locations.

The present invention provides a method and system for managing, presenting and booking office space, conference rooms and services of a business center. Visitors to a business center portal may view business center services, check the availability of business center services, and book the services that meet their needs. Business center personnel may use the business center portal to manage the business center including managing the available business service, generating reports, and generating work orders and work lists.

Apparatus, system, and method for enabling eye-to-eye contact in video conferences. In general, the system and apparatus employ means for generating video images corresponding to real images that would be produced if a video camera were disposed at or behind a video display having a field of view directed toward a target object such as a participant. An image (either real, reflected, or holographic) is formed based on light reflected off of the target object, and object light corresponding to the image is received by the video camera, which produces a video signal containing the image. Typically, the means for generating the video images employs direct imaging, reflective imaging, or holographic imaging. The means for generating the video images are also configured in such a manner as to be substantially transparent to video conference participants viewing the display images on the video display. A similar configuration is deployed at two or more conference rooms, thereby enabling participants to communicate with one another using eye-to-eye contact.

In one illustrative example, a mobile communication device operating in a wireless local area network (WLAN) of a communication network maintains an inter-enterprise voice call via its WLAN interface (e.g. 802.11 / VoIP / SIP) with another communication device in the communication network. Communications of the voice call are maintained solely within the communication network and not routed through a conferencing gateway. During the voice call, a handover of the voice call from the WLAN to a wireless wide area network (WWAN) (e.g. GSM / GPRS) may or may not be required. In response to identifying a handover indication during the voice call, the mobile device causes a request message (e.g. a SIP INVITE message) to be sent over the WWAN to the conferencing gateway for establishing a first connection leg through the WWAN via its WWAN interface with a conference room of the conferencing gateway. The mobile device also causes a re-routing message (e.g. a SIP REFER message) to be sent over the WLAN to the communication device so that a second connection leg between the communication device and the conference room of the conferencing gateway may be established. The first and the second connection legs are connected together in the conference room of the conferencing gateway for the voice call. Advantageously, inter-enterprise voice calls in the communication network need not unnecessarily and unduly burden the conferencing gateway, unless and until a handover of the voice call between the WLAN and the WWAN is required. Variations and other PSTN conferencing gateway techniques are also described.

A conference system leveraging radio frequency communication standards for initiating a conference and controlling conference room presets. The system comprises a processor, a memory, a data storage device, a display, and at least one communication interface configured to enable communications with a remote server and one or more RF beacons, wherein the one or more RF beacons are configured for periodically broadcasting a beacon ID. The system further comprises a program of instructions stored in the memory and executable in the processor, the program of instructions being operable to: receive from at least one of the one or more RF beacons the beacon ID, estimate a distance to the at least one of the one or more RF beacons according to a detected signal strength of the RF beacon broadcast, determine a location based on the distance to the at least one of the one or more RF beacons, accept information defining a conference type from a plurality of conference types, each conference type being associated with preset resources, display at least one preset parameter associated with the conference type, receive preset information including a start time, an end time, and one or more settings for a preset resource, automatically associate the preset information with at least one preset resource based on the determined location and the conference type, and send to the associated preset resources at least one control command comprising the one or more settings in response to the start time.

A portable electronic device receives broadcasts from one or more RF beacons to determine a location of a user and communicates with a scheduling server to manage the schedule of a conference room. The portable electronic device receives an address and an application identifier from each RF beacon and opens a scheduling application in response. The portable electronic device then communicates with a scheduling server to receive the schedule of the location determined from the beacon broadcasts. The user may reserve the location and set a number of presets through the scheduling application. Updates to the schedule are communicated to the scheduling server from the portable electronic device.

The present invention relates to a method for realizing a video conference with an instant message system. The method comprises the steps that step one, video conference application information is arranged on an instant message client side of an authorized user, and a conference room is requested to be created; step two, a video conference application module of a video conference server responds, and creates a conference list; step three, the instant message client side of the authorized user refresh and read the icon of the conference room list to the video conference application module of the video conference server; the instant message client side of the authorized user sends the massage of the video conference to an instant massage application module according to the preset format, and the instant massage application module issues a conference notification massage to the instant massage client side of a person attending a conference; step four, the person attending a conference enters into the conference room according to the icon of the conference room list or the conference notification massage. The present invention can realize that a predetermined installation of the conference room is directly completed in the instant massage client side, the information is issued to a relative client side through the instant massage server, and participators can enter into the conference room conveniently.

A video and / or audio conferencing system having virtual meeting room services is disclosed. The virtual meeting room services enables a third party to control and manage one or more virtual meeting rooms. Each third party organization may receive one or more dial in numbers, which is associated with a profile that defines the type of the conference that can be conducted. The profile defines the “capabilities” of the virtual meeting room, such as the maximum number of conferees, type of conference, type of endpoints, transcoding and protocol requirement, etc. Each virtual meeting room may have an NID (Numerical Identification) used by the peers along with the dial-in number to join the virtual meeting room.

Systems and methods that enable high quality audio teleconferencing are disclosed. In one embodiment of the present invention, a signal processor receives signals from a spatially dispersed set of directional microphones, processing the microphone signals and the far-end received audio into a signal for transmission to a far-end party. The processing may comprise the use of one or more algorithms that reduce conference room noise and may selectively increase participant audio levels by processing the microphone signals using beamforming techniques. An embodiment of the present invention may also comprise one or more omni-directional microphones that may be used in cooperation with the directional microphones to adjust for background noise, acoustic echo, and the existence of side conversations.

The present invention provides a method and system for managing, presenting and booking office space, conference rooms and services of a business center. Visitors to a business center portal may view business center services, check the availability of business center services, and book the services that meet their needs. Business center personnel may use the business center portal to manage the business center including managing the available business service, generating reports, and generating work orders and work lists.

The system and method of the present invention provides automatic tools and visual hints to a meeting host who is scheduling a meeting to book meeting related resources more efficiently by utilizing pre provided profile information and additional meta data from meeting confirmations. When host schedules a meeting, he selects the location information and checks the “visual” flag if needed. Any point in time, each attendee fills in user profile information. Upon accepting invitation, each attendee fills in the type of attendance field. Each attendee, after accepting invite, can change the type of participation by going to the calendar system and changing his settings. The change will be sent to the server to update the scheduled meeting object. A reservation system that is connected to the scheduling system would then collect information about the meeting type and required resource allocated and make the necessary bookings accordingly. The auto assigned resources can include (but are not limited to):conference room—if invitees plan to attend in-personconference room with projector—if invitees plan to attend in-person and visual information to be presentdial in conference call number—if remote invitees attending the meetingonline meeting—if remote invitees attending the meeting, if meeting scheduled with visual information to be present.

A method for detecting occupancy status of a plurality of conference rooms in real time is provided. The method enables, firstly, monitoring a first output signal of a first sensor. Secondly, the method enables monitoring a second output signal of a second sensor. The method further enables comparing the first and second output signals with one or more predetermined thresholds within a predetermined time. Furthermore, the method enables correlating the comparison results to identify any uncertainty in detecting the occupancy. Furthermore, the method enables processing output from one or more image and / or video sensors based on the correlation to obtain occupancy status information when there is uncertainty in detecting occupancy. Finally, the method enables displaying the occupancy status information on one or more user devices.

A system and process for discovery between endpoint component devices and computing devices residing in the same delimited space, such as conference room, in cases where the devices are connected to a common local network, is presented. The present invention allows a device in the space to discover the presence and network address of another device in the space, which then allows the first device to negotiate with the discovered device to facilitate the transfer of data and other communications over the common network. However, this discovery is accomplished without the use of the common network, and is limited to discovering devices residing in the same delimited space also containing the discoverable devices.

This document discusses, among other things, systems and methods for managing a conference room roster. A method identifies a meeting participant. The method determines whether the meeting participant is associated with a meeting location and if the meeting participant is associated with the meeting location, provides an indication of the association on a computer display.

A system for digital content collaboration has several conference rooms, each having a digital easel and a group display device providing a plurality of image display locations. Each digital easel has a touch sensitive display and a pointing device to receive annotations and manipulations of digital content items. The group display device displays a plurality of digital content items, each in one of several image display locations. Each digital easel has several predefined image display areas, and each image display area is associated with one of the image display locations of the group display device. The digital easel is operable to receive a selection of a digital content item for any of the plurality of image display locations from a user via the pointing device. Upon receipt of the selection, the system automatically displays the selected digital content item in the associated image display location of the group display device and to simultaneously in the image display area of the digital easel.

A Remote Display Protocol (RDP) server, such as a hand-held mobile device, may control various aspects of the RDP client, such as a large display. For example, if a user wishes to use a RDP system to project the display from their laptop computer onto a large-screen display mounted in a conference room, embodiments would allow the user to control aspects of the remote client such as location, size, and full-screen treatment.

The present invention is a network conference system and method based on three-dimensional technology, which belongs to the field of virtual reality technology, the field of three-dimensional technology, and also belongs to the field of electronic commerce. This system conducts meetings in a virtual space, which solves the problem that the video network meeting lacks the sense of meeting scene and interaction, and easily leaks the image privacy of the participants. At the same time, it does not rely on video data, and avoids the problem that the meeting effect is easily affected by the network. The feature of the system is that the participants control the virtual characters to enter the 3D virtual meeting room to participate in the meeting through the Web browser, and complete the real meeting through the control of the 3D characters and items and UI (User Interface) operations, including construction, switching dynamic The meeting room environment, the nature of construction meetings, dynamic sharing of files, synchronous operation of 3D objects with complex structures, etc. The system is easy to use and highly secure, providing an instant and three-dimensional conference platform for participants distributed all over the world.

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, an apparatus having a controller to capture one or more images of a conference room using a video camera, generate an illumination model for a plurality of lights associated with the conference room based on the images, and illuminate at least a portion of the lights based on the illumination model during a video conference call that utilizes the video camera, where the video conference call is implemented using an interactive television network. Other embodiments are disclosed.

A club with a conference room function and a remote installation system (RIS) function is displayed on a terminal of a user through a network. A plurality of clubs are hierarchically structured. A user uploads a software program that he has created to one of the clubs so as to publish the software program for which a fee may be or may not be charged. A supervisor of a club links to a software program being uploaded to another club or moves the authority of the club to another club. Another user can download a desired software program from any club. A supervisor of each club can flexibly manage software programs registered in the club.