International Business Machines Corporation

Marc Hubert Willebeek-LeMair

Philip Shi-lung Yu

Baiju V Patel

Frank Andre Schaffa

Louis Paul Herzberg

Antonio Ruiz

Peter Kenneth Malkin

German Sergio Goldszmidt

Keeranoor G Kumar

Gary Scott Delp

Zon-Yin Shae

Yuan-Chi Chang

Asser Nasreldin Tantawi

Jonathan W Byrn

Jai P Menon

James Sargent Lipscomb

Edward Charles Snible

Philip Lynn Leichty

Robert J Schloss

Jen-Yao Chung

Kevin Gerard Plotz

Sumeer K Bhola

Michelle Yoonkyung Kim

Edward Cholchin So

Nelson R Manohar

Keh-Shin Fu Cheng

Walter Charles Dietrich, Jr

Srinivas Prasad Doddapaneni

Bodhistattwa Mukherjee

Kenneth Sau-yee Hon

An interactive and dynamically customizable guided tour of some portion of the World Wide Web monitors and dynamically adapts in response to like-minded users as well as provides recommendations during the traversal. The invention includes features for: electronic commerce; side trips; true visiting of Web sites; maps; pre-fetching of Web objects; insertion of interactive decision points; customized insertion of advertisements; simultaneous traversal of multiple hyperpaths; collection of and dynamic modification of a tour based on collected route information and/or touring statistics.

Dynamic customized web tours

An interactive method that optimizes telephone usage for a call or set of calls, given the call criteria, and makes it easy for the consumer to use the carrier that achieves this minimum cost when the consumer is ready to make the call.

Telephone call optimizer

In this invention streaming video data is embedded within a panoramic image for display. The invention teaches a method and system for displaying an image of a scene of interest from a stored environment map of the scene and from video data of the scene. The method includes the steps of: (A) receiving and storing the video data of the scene; (B) selecting an orientation of the scene; (C) retrieving video data according to the selected orientation of the scene; (D) rendering the environment map according to the selected orientation of the scene to generate a first image for the selected orientation; (E) synchronously combining the retrieved video data and the first image to form a composite image for the selected orientation of the scene of interest; and (F) displaying the composite image. In one embodiment the method for displaying the image of the scene of interest further includes a step of continuously receiving video data packets that include image data and sound data. In this embodiment the sound data is continuously played while selected portions of the image data are displayed. In another embodiment, the method for displaying the image of the scene of interest further includes a step of layering the video data and the first image generated by rendering the environment map. In the present invention layering techniques include, for example, drawing order layering, z-buffer-hiding layering, and chroma-key layering.

Method and apparatus for displaying panoramas with streaming video

A system and method for temporal synchronization of media streams in multimedia collaborative applications (i.e., a multi-user distributed applications used for interaction, both in the synchronous and asynchronous fashion among a group of users) in a wide-area distributed environment. The invention presents two abstractions; event streams and collaboration space, that together provide for coarse-grained temporal synchronization by using separate streams for different media and synchronizing the streams at the client location. VCR-like controls are also provided on groups of components in a collaborative application. The event stream provides many services such as replication, persistence, buffering, reading, and writing to archive. By implementing simple interfaces, existing collaborative applications, media players, and encoders become components that can be used to build complex multimedia collaborative applications. To efficiently implement a seeking function on a data component, the present invention introduces a framework for application-specific updates to a component state.

System and method for data streaming and synchronization in multimedia groupware applications

A method and system for manipulating or modifying identifiable objects in a standard broadcast or Internet-based multimedia stream according to a control specification and a content specification. Viewers and/or organizations can independently specify acceptable levels of content on multiple dimensions to satisfy the content specification while minimizing the filtering or blocking to the viewers. A &ldquo;fuzz ball&rdquo; control specification is provided for masking some portion of a video frame. Several fuzz ball specifications can be overlaid to address multidimensional content specifications or rating systems. The manipulation of the multimedia stream can take place at the client (set-top box or computer), intermediate node, the content server or a combination thereof. Proxy servers can modify content specifications for outgoing requests, enabling organizations to specify intranet-wide policies. Multicasting can be supported by using a single stream delivered to multiple clients, each modifying the video using a different specification. The specification to facilitate modification can be done at different granularity levels: the video, a group of frames, or individual frame level and can also be time-based. Various protocols can be used to provide the content and/or control specification, including the VBI of a standard broadcast, PICS, RTSP and MPEG protocols.

Dynamic modification of multimedia content

A method and an apparatus adaptively and dynamically deliver multimedia content based on continuously monitored network conditions. Given the temporal relationships among the multimedia items in the multimedia data stream and also the current network condition, the method and apparatus compute a transmission schedule such that the transmission delay and the burstyness of the network bandwidth utilization are minimized, while maintaining the integrity of the multimedia presentation.

Method and apparatus for delivering multimedia content based on network connections

A client-based system for the fault tolerant delivery of real-time or continuous data streams, such as real-time multimedia streams, e.g., live audio and video clips. Multimedia servers are grouped into two or more sets, for example wherein a first set includes one or more primary servers using odd-numbered ports and a second set includes one or more secondary servers using even-numbered ports. The client requests a multimedia stream through a control server or gateway which routes requests to the multimedia servers; and the client receives the stream directly from a selected (primary) server. The client automatically detects load imbalances and/or failures (complete or partial) and dynamically switches to a secondary server in order to continue receiving the real-time multimedia stream with minimal disruption and while maintaining a balanced load across multiple servers in a distributed network environment. The determination can be made based on: the received bit or frame rate (for video); a bit rate or sample rate (for audio); monitoring a delivery rate or for packets arriving out of order: for example using packet numbering mechanisms available in TCP; sequence numbering or time stamp capabilities of RTP (in combination with the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)). In any case, the determination could be based on the rate measurement or monitoring mechanism falling below (or exceeding) some threshold. Alternately, the primary server or the control server could send an explicit distress or switch signal to the client. An explicit signal can be used for example to switch clients in phases with minimal disruption.

Client-based dynamic switching of streaming servers for fault-tolerance and load balancing

A multimedia stream is multicasted. A request to perform the multicast is received. A plurality of distribution nodes are assigned to provide the multicast to a plurality of receivers. The assignment of a node is based on the transformation capabilities of that node. The multicast is then performed and the assigned node performs its transformation. The transformed multicast is distributed to a receiver which is suitable for receiving the transformed multicast.

Method and apparatus for reconfigurable and adaptive stream multicast

A method and apparatus for compressing video data to improve its tolerance to error, especially with a low bit rate network. With this invention video data is divided into a number of frames and each frame is divided into a number of macroblocks. A dependency count is assigned to each macroblock, and if the dependency count for the macroblock exceeds or is equal to a threshold, the dependency block is intra-coded using low bit rate coding algorithm. If the dependency count is below the threshold, the macroblock is inter-coded.

Intelligent error resilient video encoder

A method and apparatus for scheduling the transmission of a number of data streams over a common communications link, where each of the data streams conforms to a corresponding set of flow control parameters. Each of the data streams to be transmitted on the communications link is stored in a corresponding queue. The status of each queue is maintained, and a target transmission time is calculated for each queue. Signals are then generated for each queue at a time at least after the target transmission time, and these signals are used to indicate to a corresponding queue that is can transmit a cell on the link. Upon reception of a corresponding signal, a queue then transmits at least one cell onto the communications link.

ATM cell scheduler

A rights controlling concentrator (RCC) is an apparatus for separating and controlling 'rights of receiving' and 'rights of transmitting' of a group of stations or groups of stations on a ring-of-trees local area network. RCC elements perform collectively to separately control, limit and/or make available the 'rights of receiving' and the 'rights of transmitting' of a group of stations or groups of stations. Control of the 'rights of receiving' ensures that its membership is only forwarded frames transmitted by an external station which has a destination within the membership, and that the external stations only be forwarded frames transmitted by the membership which have a destination within the external stations. Frames that are transmitted to a destination in one group traverse only stations within that group. Frames that are deemed by the RCC not to be of interest to any group of stations are withheld from that group by the RCC controlling both frame receiving and transmitting rights. This significantly reduces the workload of groups of stations, because frames are not passed through station groups that are not necessary for the frames to reach their destination. Furthermore, since data frames are handled by fewer stations, the reliability of the main ring is increased. Control of the 'rights of transmitting' ensures that the token is, or can be, withheld from stations that are 'listen only' and need not be given the rights to transmit. This reduces the travel time of the token around the ring (and the Token Target Rotation Time (TTRT)), providing faster repeating opportunities for the transmitting stations to transmit.

Apparatus for fiber distributed data interface dynamic station bypass

In standard token-based LANs (e.g., FDDI, Token Ring) an equal share of the ring bandwidth is made available to each node. Certain nodes (e.g., bridges, routers, servers) require a larger representation (bandwidth) than other nodes. A surrogate (bridge/router) node is presented which achieves this in a standard compliant manner. The bridge/router may serve as a surrogate on each ring representing multiple stations from the other ring. The multiplicity of stations is adjusted either statically or dynamically to provide sufficient added bandwidth to the surrogate to reduce delay and packet loss characteristic of the conventional single station bridge or router. The increased bandwidth utilization and FDDI ring performance resulting from the implementation of this invention is transparent to the individual stations and the ring in a way that is advantageous to both single media and multimedia usages within defined network local and non-local areas.

Apparatus for connecting two fiber distributed data interface rings

A method and apparatus allow the interoperability of a token ring packet data network managed by the timed-token protocol (FDDI-I) and a TDM network (FDDI-II) with a given bandwidth allocation assigned to the packet data timed-token protocol. Only a single token is used, and the delay and loss of packets which cannot be transmitted on account of limited bandwidth is reduced. The flow of packets into the slots of the communications ring following the TDM protocol is controlled by varying the amount of time in which the token is held by the interface between the two communication rings. That is, the time in which the token is held by the interface is a function of the number TDM slots allocated to the transmission of packet data.

Growing community of inventors

Yorktown Heights, NY, United States of America

Marc Hubert Willebeek-LeMair