Abstract: The present invention relates to a communication environment where calls are established with a single mobile terminal through either a wireless network or the public switched telephone network (PSTN) via a terminal adaptor, which is capable of wirelessly communicating with the mobile terminal. As such, the mobile terminal may facilitate traditional cellular calls via the wireless network, or traditional PSTN calls via the terminal adaptor. A temporary directory number for the mobile terminal is provided by the wireless network and used for facilitating calls via the wireless network. The terminal adaptor, supporting telephony switch, and wireless network will cooperate to transfer calls to the wireless network as necessary or desired.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for managing communication between participants in a virtual environment enables the participants to elect to automatically connect with each other via a preferred communication mechanism, manually connect with each other, or choose not to connect with each other. The connection may be point-to-point between two participants or may include multiple participants. Establishment of a connection, or the ability to establish a connection, may be based on the proximity of the participants, or the Avatars representing the participants, in the virtual environment. Once the connection is established, the connection may be managed so that the connection is maintained while the Avatars remain proximate each other and is automatically severed once the Avatars move away from each other. Environmental noise and other audio aspects may be included in the connection to simulate a real-world conversation.

Abstract: Originating endpoints may obtain reachability information from a directory service, which collects contact and related information from available users. When initiating a peer-to-peer communication session to an endpoint of a destination user, the originating endpoint will access the directory service to obtain reachability information for the destination user. The reachability information may contain one or more addresses, one of which will be a peer-to-peer communication session address. From the reachability information, the originating terminal will determine an appropriate address to initiate communications with the destination user. The reachability information may identify multiple addresses, where only certain of the addresses may be peer-to-peer communication addresses and other addresses may be used to establish other types of sessions through disparate types of networks.

Abstract: A flow admission control module for IP traffic types monitors network topology and usage. A new flow is not admitted if it is determined that the flow would push the utilization of available bandwidth reserved for the traffic type on a link in the associated path beyond a predetermined threshold. The admission control module may, as a result of dynamic changes to network topology capacity, re-compute the link utilization for effected active flows The admission control module may also account for protection regimes in flow admission calculations.

Abstract: The present invention provides a technique for making uniform resource identifiers (URIs) that are associated with television content that has been viewed by a viewer readily accessible to that viewer. Television content that is being viewed at any given time is monitored, and URIs that are associated with television content that has been viewed are automatically identified without human intervention and subsequently made available to the viewer via a content service. The content service may be a web server that is accessible by the viewer via a browser application running on the viewer's communication terminal. The viewer may access the content service to retrieve the URIs, which may be used to retrieve web content associated with television content from an appropriate web server via the communication terminal.

Abstract: The present invention provides participants in a conference and any other authorized users access to recorded content from the conference. In one embodiment, the conference output is continuously buffered to provide the recorded content as the conference progresses. At any time while the conference is in progress, a conference participant or other authorized user may access the recorded content to review the audio or other media information that has been recorded so far in the recorded content. In another embodiment, after the conference is over, the recorded content may be archived and made accessible to the conference participants and others via the conference system, which will keep track of the location of the recorded content and conference with which it is associated.

Abstract: The present invention employs scalable video coding (SVC) in a multi-view camera system, which is particularly suited for video conferencing. Multiple cameras are oriented to capture video content of different image areas and generate corresponding original video streams that provide video content of the image areas. An active one of the image areas may be identified at any time by analyzing the audio content originating from the different image areas and selecting the image area that is associated with the most dominant speech activity.

Abstract: As an advertisement is presented to the user via a user terminal, the user terminal may generate voting information in response to a specific user input that bears on the user's interest in the advertisement or based on actions or behaviors of the user in association with the advertisement being presented. When specific user input is provided, the user is essentially providing direct feedback as to whether the advertisement is of interest. The voting information is provided to the targeted advertising system, which will update the preference information based on the voting information such that the user's interest in the various advertisements is reflected in the preference information. As new advertisements are selected for the user, the selection of the advertisements is based on the updated preference information, which is systematically updated as voting information is received from the one or more user terminals.

Abstract: In a communication environment where a voice bearer is established between a multimedia terminal of a first user and a voice terminal of a second user to allow voice communications between the first and second users, the present invention allows the second user to gain access to video content of the first user through a web session.

Abstract: Participants in a conference are associated with communication terminals, each of which including an expression client that is configured to interact with an expression control function. When a first participant desires to share expression information, the first participant may select expression information representing a desired expression via a first expression client provided by the first participant's communication terminal. The first expression client will provide a corresponding expression request to the expression control function, which will process the expression request and provide an expression instruction to one or more of the expression clients of the participants.

Abstract: The present invention provides a tunnel access server facilitating communications between a user element and protected network resources, wherein a tunneling session is established between the tunnel access server and the user element. To allow the user element to send packets to a protected network resource, the tunnel access server will send a target network address to the user element, and the user element will use the target network address for sending packets to the protected network resource. The packets intended for the protected network resource are initially sent to the tunnel access server via the existing tunneling session. When the user element moves from one access network to another, the tunnel access server will reserve the target network address previously assigned to the user element and reassign the target network address to the user element over a second tunneling session established over the new access network.

Abstract: A flow admission control module for IP traffic types monitors network topology and usage. A new flow is not admitted if it is determined that the flow would push the utilization of available bandwidth reserved for the traffic type on a link in the associated path beyond a predetermined threshold. The admission control module may, as a result of dynamic changes to network topology capacity, re-compute the link utilization for effected active flows. The admission control module may also account for protection regimes in flow admission calculations.

Abstract: The present invention relates to searching content databases and ranking the search results of the searches based, at least in part, on affinity criteria for a particular user. Notably, a given user will communicate through various means with contacts. The identities of some, if not all, of the contacts with which the user communicates are used to create an affinity list. For each contact in the user's affinity list, a record of the items that have been accessed by that user is maintained as access history information. Each contact may have access history information, and the collection of the access history information for some or all of the contacts in the user's affinity list is generally referred to as affinity criteria. When the user initiates a search for items in contact databases, items returned from the search are ranked based, at least in part, on the affinity criteria.

Abstract: An Interworking Gateway enabled to provide continuous conversion of Protocol Data Units (PDUs) of any one of a provisioned set of transport protocols to any other member of the set is disclosed. Each transport protocol is associated with at least one transport protocol unit comprising at least one signaling port, at least one receive path, and at least one transmit path. Receive paths are adapted to convert PDUs of respective transport protocols into a base format, and transmit paths are adapted to convert a stream of base format data into PDUs of respective transport protocols. Transport protocol units are autonomous modules. The Interworking Gateway permits telephone services to extend across different broadband telephony networks in today's telecommunications system of networks.

Abstract: The present invention provides an effective and efficient way to link multimedia sessions involving multimedia clients with a conference call involving telephony devices associated with the multimedia clients. In operation, the telephony system will recognize a call directed to an audio bridge, as well as trigger a message indicating the same. The message includes the telephony device's directory number, which is used to access an address for an associated multimedia client. The address for the multimedia client is sent to a multimedia bridge, which is associated with the audio bridge. The multimedia bridge will use the multimedia client's address to send the multimedia client the address for the multimedia bridge, addresses for other participating multimedia clients, and various types of information bearing on the multimedia aspect of the conference call.

Abstract: A VPN gateway for interfacing two or more VPNs to external networks such as the internet or a PSTN having different addressing schemes, has a NAT shared by the VPNs for converting VPN addresses to addresses of the external network. An advantage of this is reduced number of additional network elements, e.g. boxes, and fewer additional addresses. The NAT can be a source and destination NAT, arranged such that entities in the external networks appear to have an address within an address range of the respective VPN. Thus, entities in the external resource can appear as trusted resources inside the VPN. The gateway can incorporate a converter for converting between formats such as VoIP packets and TDM calls.

Abstract: A transit domain is a domain in which trusted communications are generally required, and a foreign domain is one in which any number entities are associated. The users within a foreign domain will have a trusted relationship with their foreign domain. In turn, the foreign domain will establish a trusted relationship with the transit domain. The users in the foreign domains need not have a direct relationship with the transit domains. The foreign domains are connected by the transit domains, and session messages used to establish and control communication sessions between entities must pass through the transit domains to travel from one foreign domain to another. These session messages intended for or originating from a foreign domain are processed by edge control nodes in the transit domain, based on a service policy, which has been established for the foreign domain associated with the session message.

Abstract: The present invention relates to generating and executing a playlist in a scheduled programming environment. In one embodiment, a media content recommendation for select media content is received from a first entity. The select media content for the media content recommendation is then added to a playlist for a first user. The playlist will identify numerous media content items to be consumed at particular times, in a particular order, or a combination thereof. The playlist is provided to a content control function, which controls, either directly or remotely, a scheduled programming interface (SPI) device to execute the playlist. The SPI device effectively consumes the media content items of the playlist in an automated fashion. Consumption of the media content items may include presenting the media content to the first user via an audio or video monitor, recording the media content in local or remote storage, or a combination thereof.

Abstract: A VPN converter for interfacing two or more VPNs to an external network receives information relating to a communication session between an entity in any of the VPNs and the external network and converts a format such as an encoding or transmission format of the information, e.g. between VoIP packets and TDM signals for the PSTN. The converter is under the control of a call server and carries out routing and NAT functions. It determines which VPN the information relates to. By sharing the call server and converter between many VPNs, the amount of equipment can be reduced.

Abstract: The present invention relates to analyzing communications involving a given user and determining a ranked list of the most relevant contacts for the user based on the analysis. As subsequent communications are analyzed, the list may be updated in a systematic fashion to provide a dynamic and up-to-date ranking of the most relevant contacts for the user at any given time. By having access to an up-to-date, ranked list of their most relevant contacts, the user can more readily initiate communications with others and avoid searching or sorting through more traditional contact listings.