161 results about "Virtual conference" patented technology

A collaboration architecture supports virtual meetings, including web conferencing and collaboration. Presence information is aggregated from different types of communication services to provide a generic representation of presence. In one implementation, collaboration lifecycle management is provided to manage meetings over the lifecycle of a project. Audio options include voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and conventional PTSN phone networks, which are supported in one implementation by an audio conferencing server.

A system and method are disclosed for packet voice conferencing. The system and method divide a conferencing presentation sound field into sectors, and allocate one or more sectors to each conferencing endpoint. At some point between capture and playout, the voice data from each endpoint is mapped into its designated sector or sectors. Thereafter, when the voice data from a plurality of participants from multiple endpoints is combined, a listener can identify a unique apparent location within the presentation sound field for each participant. The system allows a conference participant to increase their comprehension when multiple participants speak simultaneously, as well as alleviate confusion as to who is speaking at any given time.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, an audio-conference bridging system and method are provided. The present invention discards the traditional notion of a single mixing function for a conference. Instead, the novel, flexible design of the present invention provides a separate mixing function for each participant in the conference. This new architecture is described generally herein as “EdgePoint mixing.” EdgePoint mixing overcomes limitations of traditional conferencing systems by providing each participant control over his / her conference experience. EdgePoint mixing also allows, when desired, the simulation of a “real-life” conference by permitting each participant to receive a distinctly mixed audio signal from the conference depending on the speaker's “position” within a virtual conference world. The present invention also preferably accommodates participants of different qualities of service. Each participant, thus, is able to enjoy the highest-level conferencing experience that his / her own connection and equipment will permit.

A so-called “OpenChannel™” conference is established by separating particular participants of the conference from those participants that are actually currently active in the conference. This establishes a type of virtual conference, i.e., meeting, that can be monitored by participants, i.e., users, without requiring them to be actively a part of the conference call. These particular participants are in a so-called monitor mode. These participants can readily change their state from the monitor mode to a listen mode or active mode, as desired. One advantage of this invention is that a long-term conference of months or even years duration can be set up, only incurring a cost to participants when they are active participants in the conference call.

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.

A system for conducting a virtual audio-visual conference between two or more users comprising two or more client stations each acting as a signal source and destination for each respective user, having a user interface for audio-visual input and output including audio signal reception and generation means for receiving and generating audio signals, one or more servers, and a network coupling the client stations and the servers, wherein each user is represented as a corresponding movable visual symbol displayed on the user interfaces of all coupled client stations and the audio signal of all users is generated at each client station with an attenuation according to the spatial position of the respective symbols on the user interfaces and according to the direction in which each movable visual symbol of each signal source is oriented on the user interface.

A browser-enabled system of software and services that focuses on connecting people across spatial, temporal, and organizational barriers to achieve specific objectives. The system includes a client server system that provides a virtual meeting place for a learning community and a structure through which that community can achieve its goals.

System, method, signal, operating model, and computer program for conducting a meeting over an electronic network. The method comprises steps of providing the eligible participants with a notice of the upcoming meeting at an address to which they have consented to receiving such notices. The method further comprises secure communications during the meeting between the several eligible participants attending such meeting. Moreover, the method of the meeting over an electronic network of the present invention provides for secure voting by the several eligible participants attending the meeting in accordance with their respective voting rights.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, an audio-conference bridging system and method are provided. The present invention discards the traditional notion of a single mixing function for a conference. Instead, the novel, flexible design of the present invention provides a separate mixing function for each participant in the conference. This new architecture is described generally herein as “EdgePoint mixing.” EdgePoint mixing overcomes limitations of traditional conferencing systems by providing each participant control over his / her conference experience. EdgePoint mixing also allows, when desired, the simulation of a “real-life” conference by permitting each participant to receive a distinctly mixed audio signal from the conference depending on the speaker's “position” within a virtual conference world. The present invention also preferably accommodates participants of different qualities of service. Each participant, thus, is able to enjoy the highest-level conferencing experience that his / her own connection and equipment will permit.

The invention provides a multi-site television conference system which provide natural video images and acoustic images which provide a good feeling of presence to participants who participate in a conference through respective conference terminals. A plurality of cameras are connected to each of conference terminals located at different sites remote from each other and pick up video images of a participant who uses the conference terminal. A central control unit receives, at a multi-site image inputting section thereof, from the conference terminals, video images of participants of the respective conference terminals picked up in multi-directions. An image selection section of the central control unit selects video images of the participants of the conference terminals taking it into consideration how the other conference participants looks to each participant in a virtual conference space and synthesizes the video images into the virtual conference space, and then transmits resulting video images to the conference terminals so that the conference terminals may present computer graphics images to the participants.

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.

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.

A virtual conferencing system is described which implements an interactive timeline. For example, one embodiment of the virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of a virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and / or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference; and an interactive timeline to be rendered on at least one of the plurality of clients, the interactive timeline comprising a plurality of graphical elements representing different segments of the virtual conference, wherein selection of a first graphical element corresponding to a first segment causes the client on which the interactive timeline is displayed to transmit one or more commands to the virtual conferencing service to cause the virtual conferencing service to implement one or more operations associated with the segment, the one or more operations including modification of the virtual conferencing GUI on the clients in accordance with requirements of the segment.

A virtual conferencing system is described for implementing a speaker queue. For example, one embodiment of the virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of a virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and / or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; wherein the current state on each client includes a speaker queue comprising an ordered set of participants to be designated as current speakers during the virtual conference, wherein participants are added to the speaker queue in response to input provided by the participants indicating a desire to be a current speaker, wherein one or more participants towards the top of the speaker queue are designated to be current speakers, wherein participants are initially added to the bottom of the speaker queue and are moved towards the top of the speaker queue as other participants are removed from the top of the speaker queue; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to display a video stream of one or more current speakers within one or more current speaker regions, the virtual conferencing GUI further providing a visual representation of the speaker queue to each of the participants, the visual representation comprising an ordered representation of each of the participants in the speaker queue.

A method, an apparatus, and computer instructions are provided for presenting navigable data center information in virtual reality using leading edge rendering engines. Virtual rooms may be constructed using the mechanism of the present invention to include data center devices for a specific purpose. The virtual rooms are presented in a virtual space to the administrators. In one embodiment, responsive to a change made by administrators in the virtual space, the mechanism of the present sends change messages to existing data center management system, which in turn makes the appropriate changes to the devices or its data center information.

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.

An approach for providing virtual conferencing is described. A virtual conference platform receives, in real-time, images representing users of the respective mobile devices, selects a virtual environment among a plurality of virtual environments, and integrates the images into the selected virtual environment.

A virtual conferencing system is described which tracks events during a virtual conference, provides a user interface for reviewing the events, and allows a moderator and / or other participant to provide feedback related to the events. For example, one embodiment of a virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and / or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a contribution identification module to identify events related to actions of participants during the virtual conference; an event log to store the events identified by the contribution identification module; and an event filter to provide options for searching for specific types of events within the event log based on input from the moderator and / or participants when reviewing a recording of the virtual conference, the event filter to generate a filtered set of events based on the input from the moderator and / or participants.

An apparatus for providing for virtual communication and collaboration comprises a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) application executing within a distributed data processing system, and a navigation module implemented within the CVE application. The CVE application provides a virtual world represented as a grid of an interconnected set of locations each divided into a set of zones and each having an assigned context through a user interface provided to a plurality of users through one or more client systems. The CVE provides each user with a respective avatar representation for navigating and interacting within the locations of the virtual world. The navigation module provides a user interface element for each user to specify a respective set of navigation settings. The navigation module automatically directs the avatar representation for each user to traverse the set of zones of a respective subset of the set of locations of the virtual world in a particular order of locations and at a particular rate for each location according to the respective set of navigation settings specified by the user.

A method and system for conducting multiple Internet-based conventions, events, conferences, trade shows and meetings ("conventions") includes a plurality of meeting planner clients, exhibitor / sponsor clients and attendee clients, all using web browser computers and a central website server on the Internet. The system receives and stores initial convention data, and control parameter rules from meeting planner clients. Then the system receives and stores exhibit booth display data and control parameter rules for said convention from exhibitor / sponsor clients. Based on search criteria provided by the participating attendee client, the central website server releases stored database convention information and provides a wide array of convention activity simulated with the program instructions and the databases. Thus, the system allows the creation of a "virtual convention venue" for conventions that exist only on the central website server and available using the Internet. Additionally, the system supports and augments a convention being held in a physical or venue-based center (e.g., Moscone Center in San Francisco).

Arrangements relate to automatically taking notes in a virtual meeting. The virtual meeting has meeting content that includes a plurality of meeting content streams. One or more of the meeting content streams is in a non-text format. The one or more meeting content streams in a non-text format can be converted into text. As a result, the plurality of meeting content streams is in text format. The text of the plurality of meeting content streams can be analyzed to identify a key element within the text. Consolidated system notes that include the key element can be generated.

A video conferencing system and process is presented that employs a distributed computer network, such as the Internet or a proprietary intranet, to conduct virtual conferences. Each conference has a computer that has access to the network, as well as audio equipment and a video camera for capturing audio and video (A / V) at the conferencee's site. Conducting a conference generally entails each of the conferencee's computers multicasting the A / V data captured at the conferencee's location over the network. At the same time, each conferences subscribes to A / V data multicoated by other conferences participating in the conference. The A / V data received by a conference over the network from the other conferences is rendered and played by the conferencee's computer. In this way, each conference can see and hear the other participating conferences during the conference.

A Virtual Meeting Attendant (VMA) allows a user to share inputs with a meeting congregation without necessarily needing to participate directly. For example, a conference system can be equipped with technology that allows a perspective meeting attendee to appoint a virtual meeting attendee in the instance where the user is not able to attend the conference. This virtual meeting attendee can participate in the conference on behalf of the user. Some of the exemplary functions associated with the VMA are the ability to record one or more portions of the conference, take notes, react to action items for the user, make pre-recorded suggestions, and if required, patch in the user to allow the user to contribute in real-time to the conference.

A virtual conferencing system is described which evaluates and selects participants for active participation based on one or more criteria. For example, one embodiment of virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and / or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a decision support module to evaluate the participants according to one or more criteria in the virtual conference and to select a subset of the set of participants as candidates to actively participate in the virtual conference based on the evaluation.

A browser-enabled system of software and services that focuses on connecting people across spatial, temporal, and organizational barriers to achieve specific objectives. The system includes a client server system that provides a virtual meeting place for a learning community and a structure through which that community can achieve its goals.

A collaboration network is defined by creating a virtual meeting room on a central server. The central server negotiates with one or more edge servers for remote management of selected collaboration parameters, which control such things as shared objects, group connections, streaming video, and video on-demand. Using the selected collaboration parameters, the edge servers manage the meeting participation of the network clients connected to the virtual meeting room through the individual edge servers. When management of the meeting participation requires either parameters that the edge server does not have or when the parameters of the edge server are out of date, the management responsibility is transferred to the central server for that request.

Methods and apparatus for language translation in a computing environment associated with a virtual application are presented. For example, a method for providing language translation includes determining languages of a user and a correspondent; determining one or more sequences of translators; determining a selected sequence of selected translators from the one or more sequences of the translators; requesting a change in virtual locations, within the computing environment associated with the virtual application, of one or more selected translator virtual representations of the selected translators to a virtual meeting location within the computing environment associated with the virtual application; and changing virtual locations of the one or more selected translator virtual representations to the virtual meeting location. One or more of determining languages, determining one or more sequences, determining a selected sequence, requesting a change in virtual locations, and changing virtual locations occur on a processor device.

A virtual conferencing system includes a 3D scanner in a local region and a camera. A scan of the local region and images are received and combined to make a model that is transmitted to a remote region. A remote model from the remote region is combined and rendered for a user in the local region. A reference point in the local region is mapped to a reference point in the remote region. The remote model is oriented with respect to the local region according to the reference points. Object in the remote and local regions may be filtered from models that are transmitted. Interactions with virtual objects in the local region may invoke modification virtual objects. Modifications may be transmitted to the remote region and superimposed on real objects corresponding to the virtual objects.

Disclosed herein are system and method for persistent multimedia conferencing services systems. The method includes establishing a persistent virtual meeting room communication session, the virtual meeting room communication session including shared resources available to virtual meeting room communication session participants, displaying to meeting participants a set of connected graphical elements representing a structure of the virtual meeting room communication session via a graphical user interface (GUI), receiving from one of the meeting participants input associated with the set of connected graphical elements, the input having an action associated with the virtual meeting room communication session, and performing the action based on the received user input. In one aspect, the virtual meeting room communication session persists when no participants are in the communication session. The persistent virtual meeting room can record changes in session context such as maintaining a record of session control events, changes to shared resources, and a listing of participants.