Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Tim M Moore

Chih-Lung Lin

Warren Vincent Barkley

Regis J Crinon

Philip Andrew Chou

Danny Levin

Wei Zhong

Bernard D Aboba

Yiu-Ming Leung

Dalibor Kukoleca

Ming-Chieh Lee

Dawson Yee

Anton W Krantz

Rajesh Ramanathan

Tin Qian

Austin N Donnelly

Scott C Forbes

Mu Han

Avronil Bhattacharjee

Trevor William Freeman

Roy D Kuntz

Gabriel E Montenegro

Guo-Wei Shieh

Ankit Tandon

Shiwei Wang

Jerald J Gnuschke

Noor-E-Gagan Singh

Chih-Lung (Bruce) Lin

Li Shen

Michael R VanBuskirk

Zong Zong Yuan

Ming Chieh Lee

Minghui (Jason) Xia

Austin Donnelly

Gabriel Montenegro

Minghui Xia

Techniques for providing third party incentivized communications sessions are described. In some embodiments, a Voice over IP (VoIP) conversation is sampled for audio information such as a word, phrase, utterance, or phoneme that may be associated with an advertisement in a database. The database may be searched for the audio information, or in some embodiments a text equivalent of the audio information, and the associated advertisement may be served to a participant in the VoIP communication session. In some implementations, data from or about the conversation may be compiled for analysis.

Digital voice communication advertising

Systems and methods for providing access to various resolutions of a video. In one instance, a selection is received of a video resolution from a plurality of video resolutions, wherein the plurality of video resolutions are associated with the video. A determination is then made as to whether to authorize access to the selected video resolution based on a digital right associated with the video resolution. Depending on the determination, the video is displayed at the selected video resolution. In addition, the video may include one or more video layers, and each video layer may correspond to a particular video resolution. Further still, one or more of the video layers may be encrypted and protected by a digital right. Moreover, the encryption technique used to encrypt the video layers of the video may be different for each of the video layers.

Techniques for managing visual compositions for a multimedia conference call

Techniques for managing visual compositions for a multimedia conference call are described. An apparatus may comprise a processor to allocate a display object bit rate for multiple display objects where a total display object bit rate for all display objects is equal to or less than a total input bit rate, and decode video information from multiple video streams each having different video layers with different levels of spatial resolution, temporal resolution and quality for two or more display objects. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques for virtual conferencing servers are described. An apparatus may comprise a conferencing server to manage a conference call with multiple client terminals. The conferencing server may have a virtual conference manager to select a first client terminal to operate as a first virtual conferencing server, and transfer conference call operations for a second client terminal from the conferencing server to the first virtual conferencing server. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques for virtual conferencing servers

Tools and techniques for dynamically transcoding media streams are described herein. These tools may provide machine-readable storage media that contain machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the machine, cause the machine to define initial transcoding schemes under which media streams are to be transcoded as they passes between endpoints. In response to changes in conditions affecting the media streams, the machine may dynamically update the initial transcoding scheme.

Dynamically adapting media streams

Procedures for commanding a media relay to direct interactive connectivity establishment (ICE) communications are discussed. In an implementation, a back-to-back user agent may issue a command changing the state of the media relay so that communications initially routed through the back-to-back user agent may be routed to a non-ICE device.

Interactive connectivity establishment for non-enabled endpoints

Systems, methods and computer program products for facilitating the recovery of lost real-time media packets within a computer network real-time application implementing Forward Error Control (FEC), such that server performance is not affected from a CPU and memory perspective, are disclosed. In an embodiment, a conference server that is part of a communication network compliant with the Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP) is able to avoid regenerating FEC packets by not performing any FEC coding operation on the packets unless it is flagged to indicate regeneration via an FEC (e.g., Reed-Solomon) coding is necessary. Absent the flag, the conference server updates the received FEC packet as per the RTP and transmits the packet to its ultimate destination. Such disclosed systems, methods and computer program products are independent of the nature of the media being protected and flexible enough to support a wide variety of FEC techniques.

Lost real-time media packet recovery

Optimized conferencing performance may be provided. First, a plurality of data streams respectively received from a plurality of conferencing users may be monitored. Then, for each of the plurality of conferencing users, a plurality of talk frequency conditions respectively corresponding to the plurality of conferencing users may be determined based upon the monitored plurality of data streams. The plurality of talk frequency conditions may comprise, for example, active-talker, infrequent talker, or listener-only. Next, a plurality of data packet size values respectively corresponding to the plurality of conferencing users may be determined based upon the determined plurality of talk frequency conditions. The plurality of data streams may then be mixed to create data. Next, the data may be transmitted to each of the plurality of conferencing users respectively using the determined plurality of data packet size values respectively corresponding to the plurality of conferencing users.

Optimizing conferencing performance

Video conference rate matching may be provided. A video conference server may receive video source streams from clients on a video conference. The server may analyze each client's capabilities and choose a video stream to send to each client based on those capabilities. For example, a client capable of encoding and decoding a high definition video stream may provide three source video streams&#x2014;a high definition stream, a medium resolution stream, and a low resolution stream. The server may send only the low resolution stream to a client with a low amount of available bandwidth. The server may send the medium resolution stream to another client with sufficient bandwidth for the high definition stream, but which lacks the ability to decode the high definition stream.

Video conference rate matching

In a video conference system capable of providing multiple video streams, displayed streams for participants are configured based on automatic selection by the system (such as active speaker) and manual override by the participants. The displayed views are further enhanced by implementing duplicate detection to avoid display of duplicate streams between the automatic selections and manual selections.

Implementing multiple dominant speaker video streams with manual override

Location of a communication network subscriber is determined employing confidence metrics such as remote vs. local computer usage, primary user in a multi-user computing environment, likelihood of forgery, and comparable ones. A fine-grained location determination is then made based on the metric results and directory information for the particular subscriber such that services like emergency services can be provided with accurate location information.

Fine-grained location determination of networked computers

Techniques to perform rate matching for multimedia conference calls are described. An apparatus may comprise a conferencing server and a rate matching module. The rate matching module may be arranged to adjust bit rates between media communications channels for client terminals in a conference call, with the rate matching module to remove video frames from a set of video information received on a first media communications channel to reduce a bit rate for the video information. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques to perform rate matching for multimedia conference calls

A conference server may request a key frame from a conference participant in response to determining that the conference participant should become a most active participant, and the conference server may make the conference participant the most active participant in response to receiving the key frame from the conference participant.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Tim M Moore