Lucent Technologies Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

Sound View Innovations, LLC

Ronald L Sharp

Michael John Coss

David L Majette

Adriaan J De Lind Van Wijngaarden

Bilgehan Erman

Vanita K Katkar

Elissa P Matthews

Donald E Blahut

Enrique Hernandez-Valencia

James D Bobeck

Robert William Dalton

Theodore Sizer

Dusan Suvakovic

Hungkei Keith Chow

Ilija Hadzic

Doutje T Van Veen

Martin D Carroll

Edward L Sutter

Roger Levy

Roger Henry Levy

A peer-to-peer forwarding node supports the operation of a teleconference across a telecommunications network. The telecommunications network comprises a plurality of nodes including one or more source locations and one or more remote locations. The teleconference includes teleconference participants at each of the source and remote locations. The peer-to-peer forwarding node is located at a given one of the plurality of nodes. The peer-to-peer forwarding node comprises a receiver and a transmitter. The receiver receives a request from a telecommunications controller to provide peer-to-peer forwarding of a media signal to be received from a first one of the source locations to a first one of the remote locations and which further receives the media signal from the first one of said source locations. The transmitter forwards the media signal from the first one of the source locations to the first one of the remote locations.

Apparatus for the efficient transmission of multimedia streams for teleconferencing

A virtual personal computer is implemented in a communication system comprising a plurality of central offices each of which communicates with a plurality of client devices over a corresponding access network. A given one of the central offices comprises at least one compute server and at least one storage server. The virtual personal computer is configured by allocating physical processing resources of the compute server and physical storage resources of the storage server to that virtual personal computer. User access is provided to the virtual personal computer via one of the client devices. The virtual personal computer can be dynamically reconfigured by altering the allocation of at least one of the physical processing resources and the physical storage resources to the given virtual personal computer responsive to particular applications selected by the user to run on the given virtual personal computer.

Central office based virtual personal computer

A multi-media method, system and apparatus are provided to optimize a network bandwidth and enhanced video experience. Each of a plurality of environmental views are encoded and the encoded multi-media streams are subsequently transcoded in accordance with respective encoding characteristics. The resulting video streams are then provided to a user for selecting preferred views. The user's multi-media preferential attributes are determined from the viewer's feedback. In response to the viewers' feedback, a video manager communicates to the cameras/encoders encoding characteristics and to the transcoders transcoding characteristics associated with corresponding encoded multi-media streams. A transport processor encodes for transport each of a plurality of the transcoded video streams and communicate towards viewers the transcoded video streams.

Real-time multi-media streaming bandwidth management

A universal interface device comprises a housing having a curvilinear or other shape, and processing circuitry disposed within the housing. The housing incorporates a sensor array substantially surrounding the processing circuitry and configured to receive touch input from points distributed over an outer surface of the housing. The sensor array generates sensor signals responsive to the touch input and the sensor signals are converted by the processing circuitry into commands associated with a communication function supported by the communication device. In an illustrative embodiment, the housing has a spheroidal shape, and the sensor array is configured to receive touch input from points distributed over substantially the entire outer surface of the housing. The points distributed over the outer surface of the housing from which the sensor array receives touch input are undefined from a point of view of a user providing at least a portion of the touch input.

Universal interface device with housing sensor array adapted for detection of distributed touch input

A teleconferencing system in which a teleconference controller advantageously uses information relating to the network topology layout of remote nodes which are to participate in a teleconference, and then advantageously directs the transmission of video and/or audio streams from a source node to an identified subset of the remote nodes based on the capabilities of the nodes and the network links. These nodes which initially receive the video and/or audio streams then advantageously forward the streams in turn to other nodes in their vicinity using peer-to-peer network connectivity techniques. The identification of the subset of nodes which serve as peer-to-peer forwarding nodes may be based on node activity, node service capacity, the impact on network links between the node and the requester, the distance and/or latency between the node and the requester, and the ability of the node to meet requests including video transcoding requests.

Method and apparatus for the efficient transmission of multimedia streams for teleconferencing

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to compact portable video conferencing systems, which eliminate the need for other meeting room appliances for a video conference. The systems provide the freedom to hold video conferences with a few participants in any setting, e.g., a manager's office, a conference room, multiple locations, etc. Embodiments provide portable video conferencing systems, which allow all the meeting participants, including local and remote users, to maintain constant eye contact throughout the meeting. An embodiment of the invention provides a portable video conferencing system including a base, a dual-sided display and a camera unit.

Portable video conferencing system with universal focal point

A user accesses the Internet through a hybrid data communications system architecture in which upstream service is provided via the local loop of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and downstream service is provided via a cable television (CATV) network. The Cable Modem Data Termination system (CMTS) includes a routing table. Upon detection of a CATV service interruption, the CMTS re-routes IP traffic destined for a destination IP address (IP) associated with the user to a different IP address, or endpoint, as a function of the routing table. In this instance, the different IP address is associated with equipment that provides downstream IP service to the user via the local loop of the PSTN.

Internet protocol based network architecture for cable television network access with switched fallback

The invention provides improved computer network firewalls which include one or more features for increased processing efficiency. A firewall in accordance with the invention can support multiple security policies, multiple users or both, by applying any one of several distinct sets of access rules. The firewall can also be configured to utilize 'stateful' packet filtering which involves caching rule processing results for one or more packets, and then utilizing the cached results to bypass rule processing for subsequent similar packets. To facilitate passage to a user, by a firewall, of a separate later transmission which is properly in response to an original transmission, a dependency mask can be set based on session data items such as source host address, destination host address, and type of service. The mask can be used to query a cache of active sessions being processed by the firewall, such that a rule can be selected based on the number of sessions that satisfy the query. Dynamic rules may be used in addition to pre-loaded access rules in order to simplify rule processing. To unburden the firewall of application proxies, the firewall can be enabled to redirect a network session to a separate server for processing.

Methods and apparatus for a computer network firewall with multiple domain support

The invention provides improved computer network firewalls which include one or more features for increased processing efficiency. A firewall in accordance with the invention can support multiple security policies, multiple users or both, by applying any one of several distinct sets of access rules. The firewall can also be configured to utilize &ldquo;stateful&rdquo; packet filtering which involves caching rule processing results for one or more packets, and then utilizing the cached results to bypass rule processing for subsequent similar packets. To facilitate passage to a user, by a firewall, of a separate later transmission which is properly in response to an original transmission, a dependency mask can be set based on session data items such as source host address, destination host address, and type of service. The mask can be used to query a cache of active sessions being processed by the firewall, such that a rule can be selected based on the number of sessions that satisfy the query. Dynamic rules may be used in addition to pre-loaded access rules in order to simplify rule processing. To unburden the firewall of application proxies, the firewall can be enabled to redirect a network session to a separate server for processing.

Methods and apparatus for a computer network firewall with cache query processing

Methods and apparatus for a computer network firewall with dynamic rule

Methods and apparatus for a computer network firewall with stateful

Computer network firewalls which include one or more features for increased processing efficiency are provided. A firewall in accordance with the invention can support multiple security policies, multiple users or both, by applying any one of several distinct sets of access rules. The firewall can also be configured to utilize 'stateful' packet filtering which involves caching rule processing results for one or more packets, and then utilizing the cached results to bypass rule processing for subsequent similar packets. To facilitate passage to a user, by a firewall, of a separate later transmission which is properly in response to an original transmission, a dependency mask can be set based on session data items such as source host address, destination host address, and type of service. The mask can be used to query a cache of active sessions being processed by the firewall, such that a rule can be selected based on the number of sessions that satisfy the query. Dynamic rules may be used in addition to pre-loaded access rules in order to simplify rule processing. To unburden the firewall of application proxies, the firewall can be enabled to redirect a network session to a separate server for processing.

Methods and apparatus for a computer network firewall with proxy

A user accesses the Internet through a hybrid data communications system architecture in which upstream service is provided via the local loop of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and downstream service is provided via a cable television (CATV) network. The Cable Modem Data Termination system (CMTS) includes a routing table. Upon detection of a CATV service interruption, the CMTS re-routes IP traffic destined for a destination IP address (IP1) associated with the user to a different IP address, or endpoint, as a function of the routing table. In this instance, the different IP address is associated with equipment that provides downstream IP service to the user via the local loop of the PSTN.

Growing community of inventors

Clinton, NJ, United States of America

Ronald L Sharp