International Business Machines Corporation

Michael Lee Masterson

William Kress Bodin

Stephen James Watt

Gary M Beadle

John D Kari

Stephen W Babin

A system configured to perform operations to receive, via a network communication interface, an indication of a power event occurring at a first device. The first device is for an online identity. The power event causes the first device to switch from an external power source to an internal battery. The first device represents that the online identity is online while the first device receives power from the internal battery. The system is further configured to perform operations to hold, at a second device, at least one status update for an online contact of the online identity while the first device receives power from the internal battery. Furthermore, the system is configured to perform operations to release, for transmission to the first device, the at least one status update in response to determining that the first device switches back to the external power source.

Managing contact status updates in a presence management system

A system configured to perform operations that receive an indication of a power event occurring at a first device for an online identity. The power event causes the first device to switch from an external power source to an internal battery. The first device represents that the online identity is online while the first device receives power from the internal battery. The operations can further evaluate a priority value of an online contact for the online identity against a threshold value and hold, at a second device, at least one status update for the online contact while the first device receives power from the internal battery in response to evaluation of the priority value against the threshold value. The operations can further release, for transmission to the first device, the at least one status update in response to determination that the first device switches back to the external power source.

Managing online presence information for contacts involves propagating contact status updates from a contact to an interested identity. A contact list may include hundreds to thousands of contacts for an identity. When one of those contacts changes presence status (e.g., from available to do-not-disturb), the change is propagated from a device of the contact, to a server, to one or more devices of the identity maintaining the contact list. Although that single change or status update consumes a small amount of resources, status updates for a larger number of contacts occurring at various times consumes a more substantial amount of resources, including bandwidth and power. Although power consumption may not be a factor for a desktop computer, power consumption for large scale and/or frequent status updates on devices with more limited power sources (e.g., mobile phones, personal data assistants, etc.) may be a significant factor.

Provided is a method for maintaining a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection between a mobile device and a server over a wireless network in a manner that conserves the power supply of the mobile device and is suitable for connections that employ server-initiated traffic. After a successful login to a VPN server, a VPN client establishes a Transport Control Protocol (TCP) connection and a UDP connection with the server. After a power timeout, the server calculates the elapsed time between the current transmission and the last tunnel traffic. If the elapsed time exceeds a power timeout value, the VPN server transmits a simple control message to the client via the TCP channel. The client then reestablishes the UDP connection to the client and the server resumes transmission on the reestablished UDP channel.

Using a transmission control protocol (TCP) channel to save power for virtual private networks (VPNs) that use user datagram protocol (UDP)

Embodiments of the present invention provide a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for estimating, refining, and using the tare mass for an item to determine and monitor item depletion. In response to detecting an initial presence of an item in the storage unit, a controller collects data about the item. The controller then searches a database for a recorded item containing the same item identification. The tare mass of the item is set equal to the refined tare mass of the recorded item retrieved from the database. The tare mass is then used to calculate a depletion threshold for the item.

Monitoring unit depletion in an independent real-time mass storage unit system by using an estimated tare mass of the item

A method and computer usable program product for generating meal plans based on a set of nutritional policies. The process determines nutritional requirements specified by a set of nutritional policies in response to receiving a request for a set of meal plans for a set of users. The set of nutritional policies correspond to the set of users. The process identifies a set of potential meal plans in response to determining the nutritional requirements specified by the set of nutritional policies. Each potential meal plan in the set of potential meal plans satisfies all nutritional requirements for the set of nutritional policies. The process generates a listing of ingredients required by the selected meal plan that is unavailable in a current inventory in an amount required by the selected meal plan, in response to receiving a selection of a potential meal plan to form a selected meal plan.

Generating policy driven meal plans

Communicating information about a contact, such as presence status, may be regulated in accordance with priority values associated with contacts. Various parameters about contacts with respect to a particular environment may be collected and utilized to assign priority values to the contacts. Flow of information about the contacts is regulated based on the assigned priority values. Information about contacts with higher priority values may be communicated more frequently to client devices from one or more servers than those contacts with lower priority values. In addition, information about contacts associated with priority values that satisfy one or more criteria may be prefetched from a server to a client device.

Prioritization for online contact status updates

A method, apparatus, and computer usable program product for mapping a content description to a container. The process identifies a container placed in a storage unit to form an identified container. The identified container includes an unidentified content. The process displays a set of predictive content descriptions for the unidentified content. In response to receiving a selection of a content description from the set of predictive content descriptions, the process maps the selected content description to the unidentified container.

Method and apparatus for mapping content descriptions to reusable containers

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for communicating the shelf position of an item within a storage unit. An item to be located in the storage unit is identified. The storage unit system determines the shelf position of the identified item. The system then communicates the shelf position of the identified item to the user. If the user requests multiple items, the optimal sequence of retrieval for the items is determined based on a user configurable algorithm.

Item position indicator and optimized item retrieval for a sensor equipped storage unit

Method and apparatus for monitoring unit depletion in an independent real-time mass storage unit system by using an estimated tare mass of the item

A presence management system may communicate contact information with mapped values. Contact information may be stored in a hierarchical, extensible structure ('hierarchical extensible contact structure'). Devices in a presence management system utilize a mapping scheme to map contact values (e.g., e-mail address, phone number, etc.) to the appropriate field of the hierarchical extensible contact structure. When devices in the presence management system communicate information for thousands of contacts, employing mapped values to navigate the hierarchical extensible contact structure reduces the size of the messages, thus reducing resource consumption (e.g., bandwidth), particularly on the scale of an enterprise.

Mapping online contact information into a contacts list

A computer implemented method, apparatus, system, and computer usable program code for monitoring a real-time depletion of an item in a storage unit. A controller identifies an item placed in the storage unit to form an identified item. The controller detects a change in mass sensor data from a mass sensor shelf in a set of mass sensor shelves associated with the storage unit. The controller associates the change in mass sensor data with the identified item to form a current mass for the identified item. The controller determines a depletion of the identified item based a difference between the current mass and a previous mass for the identified item.

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Cedar Park, TX, United States of America

Michael Lee Masterson