Abstract: A method for redirecting Internet Protocol (IP) packets from a packet redirect source to a packet redirect destination through a switch fabric of Ethernet switches is disclosed. At the packet redirect source, the topological location and the identifier of the packet redirect destination are put in a first set of bits and a second set of bits of the destination Media Access Control (MAC) address field of the packet to be redirected. The switch fabric forwards the packet to the switch directly connected to the packet redirect destination according to the first set of bits. Then the switch forwards the packet to the packet redirect destination according to the second set of bits.

Abstract: A method for redirecting Internet Protocol (IP) packets from a packet redirect source to a packet redirect destination through a switch fabric of Ethernet switches is disclosed. At the packet redirect source, the topological location and the identifier of the packet redirect destination are put in a first set of bits and a second set of bits of the destination Media Access Control (MAC) address field of the packet to be redirected. The switch fabric forwards the packet to the switch directly connected to the packet redirect destination according to the first set of bits. Then the switch forwards the packet to the packet redirect destination according to the second set of bits.

Abstract: A system and method of using a switch fabric of commodity Ethernet switches to produce a scalable router is disclosed. A special-format Media Access Control (MAC) address is assigned to each switch. The assigned MAC address of a switch comprises some bits that can identify the topological location of the switch. The switch fabric intercepts and responds to address resolution requests from hosts with assigned MAC addresses of switches. A packet received from a host is forwarded according to those bits in the destination MAC address of the packet. It further uses some bits in the MAC address to achieve network virtualization.

Abstract: A system and methods of using commodity switches to produce a switch fabric are disclosed. The system comprises switches organized in tiers. Each switch is connected to switches in higher tiers via its uplink switch ports and to switches in lower tiers via its downlink switch ports. A packet received from any downlink switch port is forwarded to one of the at least one link aggregation of uplink switch ports. A packet received from any uplink switch port is forwarded according to the first label in the packet. Each switch in the highest tier is configured to insert one or more labels in a packet to be sent out via the switches. A value in a label indicates the switch port to be selected to send out the packet received at a switch.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for providing a multi-tenant data center Ethernet switch fabric that enables communications among virtual machines. A controller assigns location-based MAC addresses to the virtual machines and programs the Ethernet switch fabric to forward packets by the location information embedded in the location-based MAC addresses.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for collecting a snapshot of the statistics of a computer network. The devices of the network that provide the statistics synchronize their clocks to a time source. The statistics collector can request the devices to read their counters at a specified time. The counter values are stored and time-stamped on the devices. The statistics collector can later retrieve the stored counter values from the devices and correlate the statistics by the time-stamps.

Abstract: A system and methods of using commodity switches and commodity servers to produce a load-balanced, highly-available network for a computing cloud are disclosed. The system comprises switches and servers. The switches are organized in tiers. The switches in the highest tier are connected to the servers via uplink switch ports. The switches in the lowest tier are connected to devices external to the system via downlink switch ports. A packet received from any downlink switch port is forwarded to one of the at least one link aggregation of uplink switch ports. A packet received from any uplink switch port is forwarded according to the first label in the packet. A server is configured to insert one or more labels in a packet to be sent out via the switches. A value in a label indicates the switch port to be selected to send out the packet received at a switch.

Abstract: A system and methods of using commodity switches to produce a switch fabric are disclosed. The system is designed taking into considerations the limitations of typical commodity switches and the requirements of high availability. The system comprises a plurality of switches organized in tiers. Each switch comprises uplink switch ports and downlink switch ports. The switch is connected to switches in higher tiers via its uplink switch ports and to switches in lower tiers via its downlink switch ports. The switches in the lowest tier are connected to the devices external to the system via downlink switch ports. A management module may provide the capability of provisioning and configuring the switches. On each switch, at least one link aggregation is configured with the uplink switch ports. A packet received from any downlink switch port is forwarded to one of the at least one link aggregation of uplink switch ports.

Abstract: A system and methods of using commodity switches and commodity servers to produce a load-balanced, highly-available network for a computing cloud are disclosed. The system comprises switches and servers. The switches are organized in tiers. The switches in the highest tier are connected to the servers via uplink switch ports. The switches in the lowest tier are connected to devices external to the system via downlink switch ports. A packet received from any downlink switch port is forwarded to one of the at least one link aggregation of uplink switch ports. A packet received from any uplink switch port is forwarded according to the first label in the packet. A server is configured to insert one or more labels in a packet to be sent out via the switches. A value in a label indicates the switch port to be selected to send out the packet received at a switch.

Abstract: An integrated virtual desktop and security management system provides the virtual desktop server functionality and, more importantly, security management for computing devices and servers in the corporate data network. The computing devices include computers running virtual desktop client software and computers running a complete operating system and applications. The system in this invention can intercept data packets exchanged among the computing devices and servers and also can scrutinize virtual machine computing and networking activities, and therefore, possess the capability of analyzing, logging, reporting, and permitting or denying computing and networking activities of devices in the corporate data network.

Abstract: A method for creating low-cost interactive entertainment robots is disclosed. The cost of the robots is reduced by using a commodity computing device: smart phone, and by having robotic bodies use a decoder of a set of movement commands that facilitates the interoperability between a variety of smart phones and a variety of robotic bodies. Smart phones are equipped with powerful CPU, touch screen, USB, camera, microphone, Bluetooth, WI-FI, etc. They are fit for being the robot control units with the relevant robot applications installed. The cost of robotic bodies can be reduced by minimizing the amount of processing and sensing there and having them focus on mechanical movements. Furthermore, by defining and using a set of movement commands that promotes interoperability between a variety of robot control units and a variety of robotic bodies, the cost of robotic bodies can be reduced through mass production.

Abstract: We disclose a mobile apparatus that can move steadily in its upright position and can recover from any toppled position to its upright position. The mobile apparatus may find useful applications in various areas such as vehicles, toys, and robots. The mobile apparatus adopts a body shape resembling a sphere with its bottom sliced off. At least three wheels are coupled to the body as ground contacting points to provide the basis of steady movement in its upright position. A weight is coupled to the bottom of the body such that the center of gravity of the mobile apparatus satisfies the following constraints: firstly, the center of gravity is between the bottom of the body and the center of an imaginary sphere that mostly coincides with the body; secondly, the center of gravity falls within the largest imaginary polygon formed by the ground contacting points in the upright position; lastly, the center of gravity falls outside any imaginary polygon formed by the ground contacting points in any toppled position.

Abstract: In current systems, a typical way to collect application statistics includes sending requests to a resource manager that can access the resource hardware via a device driver. Current systems require multiple synchronous transactions between the processes, which results in the systems consuming large amounts of central processing unit resources that lead to sub-optimal rates of information retrieval. A method and apparatus configured to use asynchronous messaging across all modules and to return hardware statistics directly from the hardware to an application process, thereby bypassing transactions between the application and the resource manager, and bypassing similar transactions between the resource manager and a device driver. Embodiments of the invention are provided for minimizing the power consumed by the memory and minimizing the amount of dedicated memory necessary to perform.

Abstract: A method for providing bookkeeping service is disclosed. The method, facilitated by a bookkeeping server, addresses some security concerns arisen from using remote bookkeepers using techniques comprising: secure client sessions, work item distribution, organization information concealment, encryption using organization specific private keys, concealment of passwords, and distributed storage. Also, an image capturing system is disclosed. The image capturing system facilitates the process of capturing images of financial transactions for remote bookkeeping. It comprises a low-cost device that provides illumination and facilitates image processing working along with a smart phone.

Abstract: The robot in this invention can detect the fading or loss of wireless network signal as an indication of being removed from its working area and enter into alert mode. The purpose of robot entering into alert mode is to deter physical theft, e.g., by sounding an alarm, to protect confidential data loss, and to render the robot useless to an unauthorized person, reducing the incentives for theft.

Abstract: A telerobot is designed for facilitating interaction between a remote user who is controlling the telerobot and a local user who is co-located with the telerobot. It comprises two wheels whose axes are aligned horizontally. It is designed to have its center of gravity located between the bottom of its body and the axes of its wheels so that it can stand up when powered or unpowered and can recover automatically after being toppled by an external force. Its camera's viewing angle can be adjusted to compensate for the swaying of its body due to inertia when it moves so that the remote user has a pleasant viewing experience. It supports gesture control text input so that the local user may input data into the telerobot without touching it. A virtual keyboard displayed on its screen has a layout optimized for gesture control text input.

Abstract: A method for automatic audio volume control on a robot is presented. The robot can deliver its audio output at a comfortable and intelligible level to the user according to user's distance and background noise intensity in user's environment. The user's distance is estimated, by using a camera with known focal length and resolution, by using a stereo camera with known focal length and distance between lenses, or by using an electronic ranging device. Background noise intensity is measured by using a microphone and digital signal processing techniques. The audio output volume is adjusted considering the effect of signal attenuation over user's distance and the effect of background noise. The audio output volume adjustment mechanism can be close-looped, based on the measured signal to noise ratio of acoustic echo of the audio output.

Abstract: An office robot system aiming at reducing both capital expenditure and operational expenditure in deploying various office robots to perform office works and functionalities is disclosed. The office robot system uses a distributed processing computing cluster, centralizing the heavy-duty robot system software computation and robot management function on the computing cluster, enables various office robots to be light-duty mobile computing devices, hence minimizing their computation and memory requirements, and enables the communications between the office robots and the computing cluster via proper corporate networking infrastructure. The office robot system facilitates deployment of heterogeneous robots with various computation capabilities. The robot system software stack is organized into layers of functional modules. Based on the computation load capable on a robot and the networking infrastructure capacity, the robot and the computing cluster divide the computation load.

Abstract: A method for building scalable Ethernet switch network and huge Ethernet switch is provided. The switch network is composed of a plurality of tiers of Ethernet switches forming a fat-tree topology. The bottommost tier connects to the end-stations. All switches except those in the top tier are typical IEEE802.1Q switches configured purposefully such that all packets from the end-stations are forwarded upstream to the top tier and are tagged with ingress port information. The top-tier switches possess a novel learning and forwarding capability such that a received packet is forwarded downstream to the destination end-station through one of a plurality of possible paths selected by a load balancing algorithm. The method can also be applied to build an Ethernet switch of a large number of ports.

Abstract: A multi-purpose image and video capturing device is disclosed. The device comprises a smart phone and a robotic hand gripping the smart phone. The robotic hand is controlled by the smart phone. The smart phone provides the capability of capturing image and video via its camera. Through the application software running on the smart phone, the smart phone can capture image and video in various ways to accomplish different purposes, for example, document image capturing, security camera, video conferencing, etc.