Visual communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12312274-B2
Application number	US-202318336795-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 16, 2023
Priority date	Jan 26, 2010
Publication date	May 27, 2025
Grant date	May 27, 2025

Abstract

A persistent virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective network nodes connected to the virtual area even after all network nodes have disconnected from the virtual area is maintained. A presence in the virtual area is established for a user of a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) terminal device. Transmission of data associated with the virtual area to the PSTN terminal device.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
one or more processors included in a computer; system; and
a memory, coupled to the one or more processors, storing code that when executed by the one or more processors causes the computer system to perform operations comprising:
connecting to a network communications environment supporting realtime communications between client communicants in virtual areas;
managing a realtime communication session between the client communicants operating respective client network nodes each of which executes a respective realtime communications application that administers the realtime communication session through integration of functionality for (i) exchanging peer-to-peer realtime data streams in association with functionality and for (ii) rendering a spatial visualization comprising a respective visual representation of each of the client communicants in a visual area, wherein the managing comprises establishing respective presences for the client communicants in the visual area, determining respective locations of the visual representations of the client communicants in the visual area, and managing realtime communications between the client communicants based on the determined locations of their respective visual representations in the visual area;
through a web browser application, interfacing a guest communicant operating the web browser application on a guest network node with the realtime communication session, wherein the interfacing comprises establishing a presence for the guest communicant in a respective location in the visual area, transmitting to the guest network node an interface specification comprising specifications of the visual representation of the virtual area and the visual representations of the guest communicant and the client communicants and their respective current locations in the visual area, and responding to messages received from the web browser application in connection with respective elements of the interface specification;

wherein the interface specification transmitted to the guest network node comprises specifications for depicting cues indicating respective current communication states of communication channels respectively allocated for carrying realtime data streams communicated by the network nodes of the client communicants in the visual area independent of any communications received by the guest network node on the communication channels, and the visual representations change dynamically to reflect current realtime data stream activities on the respective communication channels over which respective ones of the client network nodes are configured to communicate.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the interfacing comprises sending to the guest network node a rendering engine that is executable by the web browser and is operable to translate the interface specification into a format that is interpretable by the web browser application.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting the interface specification to the web browser application in an extended markup language (XML) format, and the rendering engine is operable to translate the interface specification from the XML format to a hyper text markup language (HTML) interface specification and to render the HTML specification in a web browser frame.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the interface specification comprises respective specifications of one or more zones of the visual area, each of the zones is addressed by a different respective universal resource locator (URL), and the responding comprises responding to a particular message from the web browser application referencing a respective one of the URLs based on properties of the zone that is addressed by the respective URL referenced by the particular message.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
in response to a message from a given one of the client communicants to activate an audio sink communication channel, incorporating in the interface specification a specification for depicting the visual representation of the given communicant with a visual indication that the given communicant is configured as an audio sink.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
in response to a message from a given one of the client communicants to activate an audio source communication channel, incorporating in the interface specification a specification for depicting the visual representation of the given client communicant in the visual area with a visual indication that the given communicant is configured as an audio source.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
receiving from the web browser application a particular message to change the state of a guest audio communication channel over which the guest communicant is registered to communicate; and
in response to the particular message, transmitting to each of the client network nodes a respective specification for depicting a visual representation of the guest communicant in the visual area with a visual indication of the changed state of the guest audio communication channel.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
receiving from the web browser application a particular message to move the visual representation of the guest communicant from a current location in the visual area to a new current location in the visual area;
determining the new current location of the visual representation of the guest communicant in the visual area based on the particular message; and
sending updates to the browser application, wherein the updates comprise modifications to the interface specification that reflect the visual representation of the guest communicant moved to the new current location.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
transmitting to each of the client network nodes a respective specification of the visual representation of the guest communicant and its respective current location in the visual area in association with a unique guest identifier of the guest communicant, wherein the guest identifier is associated with a realtime communication channel established between the guest network node and one or more of the client network nodes.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the interface specification comprises one or more props, each of the props represents a respective communication channel for communications between the client and guest network nodes, each of the props is addressable by a different respective universal resource locator (URL), and in response to receipt of a particular message from the web browser application referencing a respective one of the URLs, the responding comprises responding to the particular message based on properties of the prop that is addressable by the respective URL referenced by the particular message.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein when the code is executed by the one or more processors, the executed code causes the computer to further perform operations comprising:
in response to receiving from the web browser application a particular messag

Assignees

• Sococo Inc

Inventors

• Cozzi Eric
• Van Wie David
• Brody Paul J
• Leacock Matthew

Classifications

• H10W70/692

  Ceramics or glasses · CPC title

• H04W4/021

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• H04L65/1069

  Session establishment or de-establishment · CPC title

• H04L65/65

  Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP] · CPC title

• H04L67/52

  specially adapted for the location of the user terminal · CPC title