Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

U.S. Philips Corporation

Paul A Clarke

Jonathan R Piesing

A network communications system comprises a number of user stations, coupled via a data network to a number of service provider host systems. The user stations are registered as client stations at the host system of a service provider, with the host system maintaining a database of registered client station identification data. The host system additionally maintains a directory of the client stations that are on-line at a given time, determined from periodic messages sent to the host by each client station. Callers wishing to contact a client station () user first contact the service provider which, from the directory, determines whether the user is currently on-line. If so, a paging message is generated by the service provider from data supplied by the caller and sent via the network to the client station, the address of which is held in the service provider database.

Network communication apparatus for providing a user with a paging message

A network communications system comprises a number of user stations, coupled via a data network to a number of service provider host systems. The user stations are registered as client stations at the host system of a service provider, with the host system maintaining a database of registered client station identification data. The host system additionally maintains a directory of the client stations that are on-line at a given time, determined from periodic messages sent to the host by each client station. Callers wishing to contact a client station (10) user first contact the service provider which, from the directory, determines whether the user is currently on-line. If so, a paging message is generated by the service provider from data supplied by the caller and sent via the network to the client station, the address of which is held in the service provider database.

Network communication system for providing a user with a paging message

A method and apparatus are provided for remotely monitoring the functioning of software processes ( ) in a network connected device. The device hosting the processes is provided with a web server ( ) and a library ( ) of stored data-gathering or debugging functions. Each of the stored functions ( ) is assigned to a particular process or group of processes ( ), and each has a respective name stored in a table ( ) of functions linked with the server ( ). On detecting receipt of a message from a remote user including the identifying name of a stored function, the web server ( ) causes that function to be applied to the associated process, obtains the data gathered by the function, and passes the gathered data to the remote user. User-defined control functions to restrict access to the process data may be supported.

Remote device monitoring

A network communications system comprises a number of user stations ( ), coupled via a data network ( ) to a number of service provider host systems ( ). The user stations ( ) are registered as client stations at the host system ( ) of a service provider, with the host system maintaining a database of registered client station identification data. The host system additionally maintains a directory of the client stations that are on-line at a given time, determined from periodic messages sent to the host by each client station. Callers ( ) wishing to contact a client station ( ) user first contact the service provider ( ) which, from the directory, determines whether the user is currently on-line. If so, a paging message is generated by the service provider from data supplied by the caller and sent via the network ( ) to the client station ( ), the address of which is held in the service provider database.

A monitoring apparatus includes a programmable event filter (18) which identifies the occurrence of a predetermined signal (such as a memory address location) on a signal path of a programmed device such as a CD-i player. On detection, one or more successive bus signals are captured in a buffer (20) and subsequently written to storage (14) for processing by an internal processor (10) or the bus signals are sent over a bidirectional communications link (16) to a host device implementing suitable data processing algorithms. A particular use for the monitoring apparatus is in non-intrusive debugging of programmed devices taking account of their operating systems.

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Burgess Hill, United Kingdom

Paul A Clarke