Abstract: We describe a system for automatic setup of an audio/computer teleconference. The system comprises node units each having a phone connection, a telephone network connection, at least one computer network connection; and a system control server. The node unit comprises code to: transmit an outgoing audio announce message into a potential conference call via said telephone network audio connection, identifying the node unit; receive via the network audio connection an incoming audio announce message from a conference call to which the node unit is already connected; determine from the incoming message, an identifier for a remote node unit connecting to the conference call; and transmit to the server, via the computer network, identifiers for the local and remote node units. The server comprises code to: receive the node unit identifiers and provide computer equipment connection data to computer equipment at node.

Abstract: We describe a method of synchronizing a teleconference comprising audio carried on a telephone network and a digital data stream carried on a computer network. Audio at a first node is characterized to determine audio characterizing data. A digital data stream for the teleconference is also input at the first node and the audio characterizing data is inserted into the digital data stream and forwarded over the network. The audio and digital data streams are received separately at a second node of the system, and the audio characterizing data is extracted from the digital data stream and processed in conjunction with the received audio to determine a first-second node time offset. The audio and digital data streams are then synchronizing by adjusting, for example, a relative time delay of the received audio and digital streams at the second node responsive to the determined time offset.

Abstract: We describe a method of synchronising a teleconference comprising audio carried on a telephone network and a digital data stream carried on a computer network. Audio at a first node is characterised to determine audio characterising data. A digital data stream for the teleconference is also input at the first node and the audio characterising data is inserted into the digital data stream and forwarded over the network. The audio and digital data streams are received separately at a second node of the system, and the audio characterising data is extracted from the digital data stream and processed in conjunction with the received audio to determine a first-second node time offset. The audio and digital data streams are then synchronising by adjusting, for example, a relative time delay of the received audio and digital streams at the second node responsive to the determined time offset.

Abstract: We describe a system for automatic setup of an audio/computer teleconference. The system comprises node units each having a phone connection, a telephone network connection, at least one computer network connection; and a system control server. The node unit comprises code to: transmit an outgoing audio announce message into a potential conference call via said telephone network audio connection, identifying the node unit; receive via the network audio connection an incoming audio announce message from a conference call to which the node unit is already connected; determine from the incoming message, an identifier for a remote node unit connecting to the conference call; and transmit to the server, via the computer network, identifiers for the local and remote node units. The server comprises code to: receive the node unit identifiers and provide computer equipment connection data to computer equipment at node.

Abstract: A data processing system 2 incorporating an instruction pipeline 14 and a prefetch unit 16 is provided with a branch prediction mechanism using both a branch prediction memory 20 storing 1-bit values indicating strongly taken or strongly not taken together with a branch prediction cache indicating for certain selected branch history values either weakly taken or weakly not taken predictions. When a conditional branch instruction is encountered, then the preceding branch prediction history is used to access a first prediction within the branch prediction memory 20 and is looked up to check for a hit within the branch prediction cache 22. If a hit occurs, then a second prediction within the branch prediction cache 22 is used in preference to the first prediction, otherwise the first prediction is used.

Abstract: A method of controlling data processing logic which causes a data value to be rotated by a number of bits in order to generate a rotated data value; a number of least significant bits of the rotated data value are masked with other bits of said rotated data value not being masked in order to generate a masked rotated data value; a selected bit of said rotated data value are masked with other bits of said rotated data value not being masked in order to generate a bit preset rotated data value; and said sign-extended bit field extracted data value to be generated by subtracting said masked rotated data value from said bit preset data value or said zero-extended bit field extracted data value to be generated by performing a logical exclusive-OR operation with the masked rotated data value and said bit preset data value.

Abstract: The present invention provides an apparatus and method for processing data using a multiplying circuit for performing a multiplication of a W/2 bit data value by a W bit data value. An instruction decoder is provided which is responsive to a multiply instruction to control the multiplying circuit to generate a multiplication result for the computation M×N, where M and N are W bit data words. The multiplying circuit is arranged to execute a first operation in the which the data word N is multiplied by the most significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a first intermediate result having 3W/2 bits, and to then execute a second operation in which the data word N is multiplied by the least significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a second intermediate result having 3W/2 bits. The first intermediate result is shifted by W/2 with respect to the second intermediate result and added to the second intermediate result to generate the multiplication result.

Abstract: The present invention provides an apparatus and method for processing data using a multiplying circuit for performing a multiplication of a W/2 bit data value by a W bit data value. An instruction decoder is provided which is responsive to a multiply instruction to control the multiplying circuit to generate a multiplication result for the computation M×N, where M and N are W bit data words. The multiplying circuit is arranged to execute a first operation in the which the data word N is multiplied by the most significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a first intermediate result having 3W/2 bits, and to then execute a second operation in which the data word N is multiplied by the least significant W/2 bits of the data word M to generate a second intermediate result having 3W/2 bits. The first intermediate result is shifted by W/2 with respect to the second intermediate result and added to the second intermediate result to generate the multiplication result.