Selectively porting meeting objects
Customizing an electronic meeting broadcast is described in which the meeting canvas is customized to the capabilities of the device of the participating user. The meeting server manages the electronic meeting including each of the participants' connections into the electronic collaboration space. As a part of the connection mechanism, the meeting server or a proxy/gateway connected to the meeting server has information on the capabilities of individual devices accessing the electronic meeting. Based on these capabilities and/or selections made by the meeting participant, the meeting server or proxy/gateway connected to the meeting server selectively identifies zero or more meeting objects from a collection of meeting objects supporting the meeting canvas of an electronic meeting and transmits only those meeting objects to the participant's device.
Latest Adobe Systems Incorported Patents:
The present application is related to co-pending, and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/854,762, Attorney Docket No. 47583/P048US/10316466, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ARCHIVING COLLABORATIVE ELECTRONIC MEETINGS”; and concurrently filed, co-pending, and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, Attorney Docket No. 47583/P099US/10505034, entitled “NETWORK CONFIGURATION WITH SMART EDGE SERVERS”; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, Attorney Docket No. 47583/P107US/10505477, entitled “VIRTUAL GROUP CONNECTIONS”, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
TECHNICAL FIELDThe present invention relates, in general to electronic collaboration space, and more specifically, to selectively porting one or more meeting objects in an electronic meeting.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe first Internet was a communications system funded and built by researchers for military use. This Internet, originally known as ARPANET, was embraced by the research and academic communities as a mechanism for scientists to share and collaborate with other scientists. This collaborative network quickly evolved into the information superhighway of commerce and communication. The Internet explosion was due, in part, to the development of the World Wide Web (WWW) and graphically-based Web browsers, which facilitated a more graphically-oriented, multimedia system that uses the infrastructure of the Internet to provide information in a graphical, visual, and interactive manner that appeals to a wider audience of consumers seeking instant gratification.
As the technology underlying transmission bandwidth has grown in conjunction with the accessibility to such increasing transmission bandwidth, a new paradigm for the old idea of Internet collaboration is emerging that takes advantage of the modern graphical, visual world. This new paradigm is also driven by the advance in real-time or time-sensitive data transmission technology, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, and the like. Non-Internet videoconferencing, which has generally never been able to completely supplant teleconferencing as a viable means for reliable communications, is slowly fading away in favor of Internet-driven technology, such as collaborative electronic meetings. Services, such as WEBEX COMMUNICATIONS, INC.'S, WEBEX™ electronic meeting or collaboration services offer the ability for users to connect, at least initially, across the Internet to share voice, video, and data in real time for meetings, presentations, training, or the like.
In such collaborative meeting environments, a virtual meeting room typically is made up of several meeting objects which are generally containers for presentation information, such as slides, video, audio, documents, computer applications, and the like, that are themselves contained within the container of the meeting room. These meeting objects are typically placed into a static arrangement on the actual electronic meeting interface. Therefore, chat objects may be set on the bottom right of each meeting interface screen, while slide or other main presentation objects are set on the left half of each meeting interface screen. Once the meeting begins, each of the meeting participants, both presenters and viewers, usually see the same static meeting interface with the presenters information loaded thereon.
In some circumstances, however, meeting participants may not see the same static meeting interface, or, at least, see it in the form that the meeting room creator intended. When creating the meeting canvas or interface, the electronic meeting system presupposes a certain minimum display size. Thus meeting objects are designed with certain size parameters and the whole meeting canvas is designed to fit into a certain minimum size. As electronic meeting technology advances, it is becoming more possible for users at devices other than standard personal computers, whether desktop or laptop, to connect into the electronic meeting. These users may connect into the meeting using mobile phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), and the like. However, these devices usually have substantially limited display and processing capabilities. Therefore, an entire meeting canvas, designed for display on a standard computer display, will simply not fit on such a limited display in a meaningful and useful size. Instead of shrinking an entire standard-display sized meeting canvas down to the size of a mobile phone display, users accessing an electronic meeting using such limited capacity devices will usually only participate in the voice portion of the electronic meeting. Thus, these meeting participants will be unable to participate in much of the data collaboration that such electronic meetings are known for.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is directed to a system and method for customizing electronic meeting broadcasts to the capabilities of the device of the participating user. A meeting server manages the electronic meeting including each of the participants' connections into the electronic collaboration space. As a part of the connection mechanism, the meeting server maintains information regarding the bandwidth and display capabilities of individual devices accessing the electronic meeting. Based on these capabilities and/or selections made by the meeting participant, the meeting server selectively identifies either none, if the device has no capabilities, or one or more meeting objects from a collection of meeting objects supporting the electronic meeting and transmits only those deleted meeting objects to the participant's device.
For example, a meeting participant using a mobile phone to connect into the electronic meeting may only receive the meeting object that lists the roster of participants. Therefore, in addition to the voice connection that typically is managed over the regular telephone network, the user would be able to view the roster and any iconic information that the roster provides, such as an indicator of the current speaker, muted individuals, and the like. Facility would also be provided to the user of the mobile phone to see a list of available meeting objects that he or she could participate in. If the user would, therefore, desire to view another meeting object, a request initiated from the mobile phone to the meeting server would prompt the server to change the data stream supporting the roster object to the data stream supporting the desired meeting object. The participating user would then visualize the new meeting object of the mobile phone's display. Therefore, selective meeting pods could be transmitted to the user on the mobile phone while the mobile phone user otherwise participates in the electronic meeting.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the invention, both as to its organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages will be better understood from the following description when considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which:
In operation, the meeting server, such as meeting server 100 (
Similarly, meeting participant 104 registers its device with meeting server 300 including a notation or information representing a diminished personal computer capacity. Meeting participant 104's device is a portable, sub-notebook with a very small display size. Meeting participant 104 is also connected to Internet 101 wirelessly. Therefore, in the registration process with meeting server 300, data is exchanged reflecting the quality of the wireless link, the data exchange rate, the network latency, and the like. Meeting participant 106 registers its device with meeting server 300 including a notation or information that the device is a mobile phone with a standard mobile display.
In establishing the connections to the electronic meeting, meeting server 300 not only maintains and manages all of the connections, but also, prior to transmitting the meeting information and data streams in support of the electronic meeting canvas, determines which data streams, and therefore, which meeting objects are to be transmitted to each meeting participant. In the case of a meeting participant who has a fully capable device, such as meeting participant 102, meeting server 300 transmits a standard electronic meeting package, which includes the full array of data streams supporting each of the meeting objects on the entire meeting canvas. For any accessing meeting participant who has a device that is any less than fully-capable, meeting server 300 determines a reduced set of data streams supporting a reduced set of meeting objects being transmitted to the meeting participant.
For example, meeting server 300 determines that the display and bandwidth capabilities of meeting participant 104 warrants transmitting only approximately 60% of the meeting canvas. Referring to meeting canvas 200 (
It should be noted that various alternative embodiments of the present invention may use various determiners for deciding which meeting objects to transmit to a less-capable accessing device. For example, a particular electronic collaboration system may prioritize various meeting object types, which provides a preference list for the different objects. A roster pod, the object that shows who is logged onto the electronic meeting, may be considered the most important and/or useful object to initially transmit. A chat or message object may be given a high priority as well. The various embodiments of the present invention are not limited to any particular meeting object prioritization or set of determiners.
Meeting participants 311 and 312 connect into the meeting directly to meeting server 301 through Internet 101. Electronic collaboration system 31 also includes collaboration edge server 303, which provides a single connection into meeting server 301 despite connecting any available number of meeting participants into the electronic meeting managed by meeting server 301. This connection is implemented according to technology described in commonly-assigned, co-pending, U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled, “VIRTUAL GROUP CONNECTIONS,” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Meeting participants 309 and 310 connect into the electronic meeting through collaboration edge server 303.
Meeting proxy/gateway 302 is connected to collaboration edge server 303. Meeting proxy/gateway 302 is configured to receive all of the data and information being exchanged and transmitted as a part of the electronic meeting managed by meeting server 301. In addition to this capability, meeting proxy/gateway 302 is configured to receive parameters from connected meeting participants, such as meeting participants 306-308, through Publicly Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) 304 and mobile communication system 305. These parameters include display and bandwidth capabilities of meeting participants 306-308. Such display and bandwidth capabilities for meeting participants 306-308 warrant transmitting only a portion of the meeting canvas or one or more of the meeting objects selected by the specific meeting participant.
It should be noted that in the embodiment illustrated in
The program or code segments making up the various embodiments of the present invention may be stored in a computer readable medium or transmitted by a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave, or a signal modulated by a carrier, over a transmission medium. The “computer readable medium” may include any medium that can store or transfer information. Examples of the computer readable medium include an electronic circuit, a semiconductor memory device, a ROM, a flash memory, an erasable ROM (EROM), a floppy diskette, a compact disk CD-ROM, an optical disk, a hard disk, a fiber optic medium, a radio frequency (RF) link, and the like. The computer data signal may include any signal that can propagate over a transmission medium such as electronic network channels, optical fibers, air, electromagnetic, RF links, and the like. The code segments may be downloaded via computer networks such as the Internet, Intranet, and the like.
Bus 802 is also coupled to input/output (I/O) controller card 805, communications adapter card 811, user interface card 808, and display card 809. The I/O adapter card 805 connects storage devices 806, such as one or more of a hard drive, a CD drive, a floppy disk drive, a tape drive, to computer system 800. The I/O adapter 805 is also connected to a printer (not shown), which would allow the system to print paper copies of information such as documents, photographs, articles, and the like. Note that the printer may be a printer (e.g., dot matrix, laser, and the like), a fax machine, scanner, or a copier machine. Communications card 811 is adapted to couple the computer system 800 to a network 812, which may be one or more of a telephone network, a local (LAN) and/or a wide-area (WAN) network, an Ethernet network, and/or the Internet network. User interface card 808 couples user input devices, such as keyboard 813, pointing device 807, and the like, to the computer system 800. The display card 809 is driven by CPU 801 to control the display on display device 810.
Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.
Claims
1-24. (canceled)
25. A method comprising:
- receiving device display and bandwidth capabilities from a device participating in a meeting, the meeting comprising meeting objects that are containers for presenting information from separate data streams;
- selecting, by a processor, a reduced set of the meeting objects based on the display and bandwidth capabilities of the device, the reduced set of the meeting objects supported by a reduced set of the separate data streams, each of the reduced set of the meeting objects presenting information based on a respective separate data stream; and
- transmitting the reduced set of data streams to the device, wherein the device displays information from the reduced set of data streams for the reduced set of the meeting objects.
26. The method of claim 25 further comprising:
- providing a list of the meeting objects of the meeting to the device;
- receiving a selection from the device;
- determining a different reduced set of the meeting objects based on the selection, the different reduced set of the meeting objects supported by a different reduced set of the separate data streams; and
- transmitting the different reduced set of data streams to the device, wherein the device presents information from the different reduced set of data streams for the different reduced set of the meeting objects.
27. The method of claim 25 further comprising maintaining separate records for each of the separate data streams in a meeting archive, where in each of the separate records can be replayed individually.
28. The method of claim 25, wherein the display and bandwidth capabilities comprise one or more of: bandwidth, network latency, display size, display resolution, and user interface.
29. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium with computer program logic recorded thereon, the medium comprising:
- code for receiving device display and bandwidth capabilities from a device participating in a meeting, the meeting comprising meeting pods that are containers for presenting information from separate data streams;
- code for selecting, by a processor, a reduced set of the meeting pods based on the display and bandwidth capabilities of the device, the reduced set of the meeting pods supported by a reduced set of the separate data streams, each of the reduced set of the meeting pods presenting information based on a respective separate data stream; and
- code for transmitting the reduced set of data streams to the device, wherein the device displays information from the reduced set of data streams for the reduced set of the meeting pods.
30. A system comprising:
- a processor configured process instructions stored on a computer readable medium to: receive device display and bandwidth capabilities from a device participating in a meeting, the meeting comprising meeting objects that are containers for presenting information from separate data streams; selecting a reduced set of the meeting objects based on the display and bandwidth capabilities of the device, the reduced set of the meeting objects supported by a reduced set of the separate data streams, each of the reduced set of the meeting objects presenting information based on a respective separate data stream; and and transmit the reduced set of data streams to the device, wherein the device displays information from the reduced set of data streams for the reduced set of the meeting objects.
Type: Application
Filed: Oct 31, 2005
Publication Date: Sep 4, 2014
Applicants: Adobe Systems Incorported (San Jose, CA), Macromedia, Inc. (San Francisco, CA)
Inventor: Pritham Shetty (Los Altos, CA)
Application Number: 11/263,582
International Classification: G06Q 10/10 (20060101);