Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for managing use of resources in mobile devices. A method includes, in a mobile device comprising at least a display, a processor and a memory, reading data of a sensor of the device, determining from the sensor data that the device is in an operating circumstance for processing the data in a fashion that consumes a different amount of a resource, and processing the data in a fashion that consumes a different amount of the resource.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for extending and associating chats with execution instances of programs. A method includes, in a computer system, extending and associating chats with execution instances of programs.

Abstract: Scalable techniques for rendering emissions represented using segments of streaming data, the emissions being potentially perceivable from many points of perception and the emissions and the points of perception having relationships that vary in real time. The techniques filter the segments by determining for a time slice whether a given emission is perceptible to a given point of perception. If it is not, the segments of streaming data representing the emission are not used to render the emissions as perceived from the given point of perception. The techniques are used in networked virtual environments to render audio emissions at clients in a networked virtual reality system. With audio emissions, one determinant of whether a given emission is perceivable at a given point of perception is whether psychoacoustic properties of other emissions mask the given emission.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for voice-based entertainment activity in a networked environment. A method includes, in a network of interconnected computers, establishing a connection between the client and a server, the client comprising a web browser and an audio input/output device, receiving a list of entertainment games over the connection from the server, selecting an entertainment game from the list, receiving a globally unique identifier from the server corresponding to the selected entertainment game, the globally unique identifier having an associated voice channel and text channel, in response to a client request to initiate game play, sending audio to the server through the audio input/output device and receiving audio from the server through the audio/input device, in response to a client request to terminate game play, terminating the associated voice channel, and receiving text messages from the server over the associated text channel.

Abstract: Methods and systems for telecommunications operations and controls include (1) an enhanced text message process or methodology that allows a remote user who does not have, already installed, a specialized voice telephony program to nevertheless place and participate in a voice call, (2) call admission control using a “degrees of separation” metric, (3) real time controlled sharing of contact (buddy) lists, (4) multi-service instance messaging conferences, and (5) “meta buddies” or buddy lists that can be automatically imported and made part of a user's own buddy list.