Abstract: Multiple schemes and techniques for facilitating presentations with an interactive application are described. For example, an interactive application provides a console view overlay for integrating multiple productivity applications into a graphical user interface (GUI) window. An interactive application can also share a selected display portion of the console view overlay with other interactive applications. As another example, presenters and other audience members can draw on the selected display portion being shared, and the drawn graphics are synchronously displayed by the other interactive applications. Interactive applications, as directed by their users, can join various member groups and specific presentations thereof. Moreover, a user may share content in accordance with membership grouping.

Abstract: A portable ultra wideband device wirelessly connects to personal computers and other computing or consumer devices with an ultra-high speed link. The ultra wideband device provides data storage and retrieval functionalities. Data or information is formatted for ultra wideband wireless transmission at a transmitting device. The data is transmitted from an ultra wideband communication interface of the transmitting device over a wireless medium to the receiving device. The data transmission is transparent to the receiving device. An ultra wideband communication interface on the receiving device processes the data according to an ultra wideband protocol. The original data is parsed from the file and translated into its original format which is supported by an application on the receiving device. The original data is used to execute a read/write action on a storage device of the receiving device such that the translated data is automatically available to the receiving device.

Abstract: A motion-compensated video encoding scheme employs progressive fine-granularity layered coding to encode macroblocks of video data into frames having multiple layers, including a base layer of comparatively low quality video and multiple enhancement layers of increasingly higher quality video. Some of the enhancement layers in a current frame are predicted from different quality layers in reference frames. The video encoding scheme estimates drifting errors during the encoding and chooses a coding mode for each macroblock in the enhancement layer to maximize high coding efficiency while minimizing drifting errors.

Abstract: A resource allocation of multiple compressed AV streams delivered over the Internet is disclosed that achieves end-to-end optimal quality through a multimedia streaming TCP-friendly transport (MSTFP) protocol that adaptively estimates the network bandwidth while smoothing the sending rate. Resources allocated dynamically according to a media encoding distortion and network degradation algorithm. A scheme is also disclosed for dynamically estimating the available network bandwidth for streaming of objects, such as MPEG4 multiple video objects, in conjunction with the MSTFP protocol. The scheme can account for packet-loss rates to minimize end-to-end distortion for media delivery.

Abstract: An implementation of a technology, described herein, for transmitting compressed network transport-layer-protocol headers in a speedy, efficient, inferentially synchronized, and robust manner. An implementation, described herein, models the transmission of compressed headers to the congestion procedure of the network transport-layer protocol (e.g., TCP's). Doing so, the sender of the compressed headers can infer whether the receiver correctly received them. Unlike the slow direct synchronization employed by conventional schemes, this implementation of the present claimed invention inferentially synchronizes by modeling after the congestion procedure of the network transport-layer protocol. This is inherently faster than direct synchronization. Since the implementation performs well over both noiseless and noisy links, it is particularly suited to use over wireless communications channels. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent.

Abstract: A resource allocation of multiple compressed AV streams delivered over the Internet is disclosed that achieves end-to-end optimal quality through a multimedia streaming TCP-friendly transport (MSTFP) protocol that adaptively estimates the network bandwidth while smoothing the sending rate. Resources allocated dynamically according to a media encoding distortion and network degradation algorithm. A scheme is also disclosed for dynamically estimating the available network bandwidth for streaming of objects, such as MPEG4 multiple video objects, in conjunction with the MSTFP protocol. The scheme can account for packet-loss rates to minimize end-to-end distortion for media delivery.

Abstract: An implementation of a technology, described herein, for transmitting compressed network transport-layer-protocol headers in a speedy, efficient, inferentially synchronized, and robust manner. An implementation, described herein, models the transmission of compressed headers to the congestion procedure of the network transport-layer protocol (e.g., TCP's). Doing so, the sender of the compressed headers can infer whether the receiver correctly received them. Unlike the slow direct synchronization employed by conventional schemes, this implementation of the present claimed invention inferentially synchronizes by modeling after the congestion procedure of the network transport-layer protocol. This is inherently faster than direct synchronization. Since the implementation performs well over both noiseless and noisy links, it is particularly suited to use over wireless communications channels. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent.

Abstract: Automatic video object extraction that defines substantially precise objects is disclosed. In one embodiment, color segmentation and motion segmentation are performed on a source video. The color segmentation segments the video by substantially uniform color regions thereof. The motion segmentation segments the video by moving regions thereof. The color regions and the moving regions are then combined to define the video objects. In varying embodiments, pre-processing and post-processing is performed to further clean the source video and the video objects defined, respectively.

Abstract: A system for content (e.g., streaming media) is presented comprising a server, to provide media content on request through a wireline network, coupled to a wireless host through a network gateway. The network gateway establishes a communication channel from the server to the wireless host through both a wireline network and a wireless network, wherein the communication channel includes a transport layer protocol with control parameters for network elements of each of the wireline network and the wireless network. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Abstract: A resource allocation of multiple compressed AV streams delivered over the Internet is disclosed that achieves end-to-end optimal quality through a multimedia streaming TCP-friendly transport (MSTFP) protocol that adaptively estimates the network bandwidth while smoothing the sending rate. Resources allocated dynamically according to a media encoding distortion and network degradation algorithm. A scheme is also disclosed for dynamically estimating the available network bandwidth for streaming of objects, such as MPEG4 multiple video objects, in conjunction with the MSTFP protocol. The scheme can account for packet-loss rates to minimize end-to-end distortion for media delivery.

Abstract: Various methods and arrangements are provided for transmitting adaptive multimedia content over networks that provide differential services. By way of example, one method includes compressing video objects, generating at least one corresponding elementary stream containing the compressed video objects, classifying information within each elementary stream based on importance, and assembling the classified information into packets associated with different classes of network packets. In classifying the information within each elementary stream based on importance, different priority levels can be assigned to shape, motion, and texture information. Methods and arrangements are also provided for use with multimedia content information that includes audio information, image information, textual information, and the like.

Abstract: An image distribution system has a source that encodes digital images and transmits them over an error-prone channel to a destination. The source has an image coder that processes the digital images using vector transformation followed by vector quantization. This produces groups of vectors and quantized values that are representative of the images. The image coder orders the vectors in the codebooks and assigns vector indexes to the vectors such that a bit error occurring at a less significant bit in a vector index results in less distortion than a bit error occurring at a more significant bit. Depending upon the format and the capabilities of the source and destination, the image coder may allocate different numbers of bits to different groups of vectors according to a bit allocation map for this allocation process. The source also has a UEP (Unequal Error Protection) coder that layers the vector indexes according to their significance.

Abstract: A video encoding scheme employs progressive fine-granularity layered coding to encode video data frames into multiple layers, including a base layer of comparatively low quality video and multiple enhancement layers of increasingly higher quality video. Some of the enhancement layers in a current frame are predicted from at least one lower quality layer in a reference frame, whereby the lower quality layer is not necessarily the base layer.

Abstract: A resource allocation of multiple compressed AV streams delivered over the Internet is disclosed that achieves end-to-end optimal quality through a multimedia streaming TCP-friendly transport (MSTFP) protocol that adaptively estimates the network bandwidth while smoothing the sending rate. Resources allocated dynamically according to a media encoding distortion and network degradation algorithm. A scheme is also disclosed for dynamically estimating the available network bandwidth for streaming of objects, such as MPEG-4 multiple video objects, in conjunction with the MSTFP protocol. The scheme can account for packet-loss rates to minimize end-to-end distortion for media delivery.

Abstract: A portable ultra wideband device wirelessly connects to personal computers and other computing or consumer devices with an ultra-high speed link. The ultra wideband device provides data storage and retrieval functionalities. Data or information is formatted for ultra wideband wireless transmission at a transmitting device. The data is transmitted from an ultra wideband communication interface of the transmitting device over a wireless medium to the receiving device. The data transmission is transparent to the receiving device. An ultra wideband communication interface on the receiving device processes the data according to an ultra wideband protocol. The original data is parsed from the file and translated into its original format which is supported by an application on the receiving device. The original data is used to execute a read/write action on a storage device of the receiving device such that the translated data is automatically available to the receiving device.

Abstract: A method and system for managing admission to a network considers the packet delay of the network in making an admission decision. The packet delay of the network is periodically probed. To avoid disturbing or impairing the traffic of the network, a sequence of probing packets is sent to the network at an irregular interval. Responses to the probing packets are analyzed to obtain delay information of the network. If the delay information is insufficient to make an admission decision, then the packet loss rate of the network is measured and considered.

Abstract: A video encoding scheme employs progressive fine-granularity layered coding to encode video data frames into multiple layers, including a base layer of comparatively low quality video and multiple enhancement layers of increasingly higher quality video. Some of the enhancement layers in a current frame are predicted from at least one lower quality layer in a reference frame, whereby the lower quality layer is not necessarily the base layer.

Abstract: A power control scheme for a wireless network communication system that includes a base station and multiple wireless mobile device dynamically adjusts transmission power of a mobile device in conjunction with adjusting its bit allocation in source coding and channel coding to minimize its total power consumption while maximizing the system capacity in terms of the total effective transmission rates received by the base station. The base station sets a target signal quality value for each mobile station, and the target values are determined by the base station such that the total effective data rate from all the mobile devices is maximized under constraints of the total received power and the error protection level requirements for the mobile devices.

Abstract: A scalable video transmission scheme is provided in which client interaction and video content itself are taken into consideration during transmission. Methods and arrangements are provided to prioritize/classify different types of information according to their importance and to packetize or otherwise arrange the prioritized information in a manner such that lower priority information may be dropped during transmission. Thus, when network congestion occurs or there is not enough network bandwidth to transmit all of the prioritized information about an object, some (e.g., lower priority) information may be dropped at the server or at an intermediate network node to reduce the bit rate. Thus, when the server transmits multiple video objects over a channel of limited bandwidth capacity, the bit rate allocated to each object can be adjusted according to several factors, such as, e.g., information importance and client interaction.

Abstract: A resource allocation of multiple compressed AV streams delivered over the Internet is disclosed that achieves end-to-end optimal quality through a multimedia streaming TCP-friendly transport (MSTFP) protocol that adaptively estimates the network bandwidth while smoothing the sending rate. Resources allocated dynamically according to a media encoding distortion and network degradation algorithm. A scheme is also disclosed for dynamically estimating the available network bandwidth for streaming of objects, such as MPEG4 multiple video objects, in conjunction with the MSTFP protocol. The scheme can account for packet-loss rates to minimize end-to-end distortion for media delivery.