Picture provisioning system and method
Contents
1. Contacts monsterbcard nl EN ONTVANG DE TALENTENJACHT MANG MTUI TALENT VOOR UI BERRIJE MONSTERMUIS Wo HA FIG 3A US 8 700 713 B2 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 4 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 300B a 304 To Onno Bakker www ebuddy com Online rijekhy 1 Invite V EN ONTVANG DE ORIGINELE MONSTERMUIS FIG 3B U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 5 of 12 300C 4 Contacts JI RUE Q OE OE TALENTEN JACHT VANG NIE MONSTERMUIS VOOR Mi BERIIJE E E FIG 3C US 8 700 713 B2 306 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 6 of 12 300D a Font Settings TOCA ooo ko Ie e man TALENTENJACHT MANG MEun TALENT _ voor uit BENE ONTVANG BE ORIGINELE MONSTER MULE FIG 3D US 8 700 713 B2 308 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 7 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 300E a 310 mensrerbeard EN ONTVANG DE ORIGINELE o MONSTERMUIS MANG NI Wee VOOR UN E EL FIG 3E U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 8 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 400 a Davo www ebuddy com 4 p signout Settings Emails Feedback You said You can view my personal images with E The new ebuddy carasol JJ says Fun pix Upload Carousel Advertisement Space FIG 4 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 9 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 500 a Program Picture Server 516 Caching Picture Server 518 IM Client 502 Picture Provisio2. such as detected location cell phone settings or some other environment variable Avatar bundles could include combin able images as well For example an avatar bundle could include images that are combinable with text such as a loca tion or local time So for example if a user is in San Fran cisco the avatar may be displayed with the text in San Francisco across the bottom portion of the image In the example of FIG 3D the screenshot 300D includes an avatar 308 that is transitioning from the avatar 306 FIG 3C to a new avatar In the example of FIG 3E the screenshot 300E includes an avatar 310 to which the avatar 306 was transitioning in FIG 3D FIG 4 depicts a conceptual diagram 400 of an avatar car ousel In the example of FIG 4 20 images are on the carousel though this is an implementation specific and or configurable number In the examples of FIG 3A 3E the image transitions slide in from the right though the transition could be accom plished in any manner depending upon implementation and or configuration The conceptual diagram 402 includes an upload carousel button 402 In an embodiment a user can open an upload dialog with the button and upload images There may be an implementation specific limit on the number of images that can be uploaded Of course if only one image is uploaded the image would not change over time or due to other factors such as location day of the week etc US 8 700 7
3. 1 PICTURE PROVISIONING SYSTEM AND METHOD CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This Patent Application claims priority to U S Provisional Patent App No 60 748 988 filed Dec 9 2005 which is incorporated herein by reference This Patent Application is related to U S patent application Ser Nos 11 637 954 11 637 964 11 637 514 11 637 316 to Taylor et al respec tively entitled HIGH LEVEL NETWORK LAYER SYSTEM AND METHOD MESSAGE HISTORY DISPLAY SYS TEM AND METHOD EVENT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD and CONTACT LIST DISPLAY SYSTEM AND METHOD filed concurrently herewith and incorpo rated by reference herein BACKGROUND Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that hooks up an instant messaging service and differs from e mail in that conversations are then able to happen in real time Most services offera presence information feature indicating whether people on one s list of contacts are currently online and available to chat This may be called a contact list In early instant messaging programs each letter appeared as it was typed and when letters were deleted to correct typos this was also seen in real time This made it more like a telephone conversation than exchanging letters In modern instant mes saging programs the other party in the conversation generally only sees each line of text right after a new line is started Most instant messaging applications also include the ability to set a
4. server associated with a second messaging service pro vider adapting a computer readable medium to receive a plurality of images from a web server adapting the computer readable medium to access an aggregated messaging profile compatible with the first messaging service provider and the second messaging service provider configuring in response to an image provisioning stimu lus the connection to the first low level IM server to send one of the plurality of images wherein the image provisioning stimulus is responsive to a change ofa presence state associated with a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server providing a notification at a time interval generating the image provisioning stimulus based on the notification 13 The method of claim 12 wherein the image provision ing stimulus comprises a location of a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server 14 The method of claim 12 further comprising receiving a character string from a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server generating the image provisioning stimulus based on the character string
5. 3A the screenshot 300A includes an avatar 302 The screenshot includes other avatars that could be configured to change over time but only the avatar 302 is going to be described herein as changing over time The avatar 302 is a picture of eBuddy s trademarked robot Advantageously the layer on top of the IM networks could provide multiple avatars for the same user Assume for example that the user associated with the avatar 302 of the eBuddy robot has avatars that he likes to represent The first avatar 302 could rotate to some other avatar For example in the example of FIG 3B the screenshot 300B includes an avatar 304 that is transitioning from the avatar 302 FIG 3A to a new avatar In the example of FIG 3C the screenshot 300C includes an avatar 306 of an airborne bicyclist to which the avatar 302 was transitioning in FIG 3B The user associated with the avatar 302 FIG 3A and the avatar 306 could have an imple mentation specified limit or practical limit if there is no specified limit on the number of avatars between which transitioning is facilitated The number of avatars is referred to herein as an avatar bundle One type of avatar bundle includes an avatar carousel which facilitates rotation between avatar options over time Avatars may instead be randomly selected from the avatar bundle in a random avatar carousel or selected based upon environmental factors in a location aware avatar carousel
6. manually by the user Manual updating enables any mobile phone PDA TV Set or any device with a browser to connect to the server 104 and use the messaging platforms made available by the server 104 assuring the communication between the clients 114 and the IM server 106 Message history can be stored by most IM clients on a local computer For alternative web and mobile based clients local storage may not be possible In a non limiting embodiment the server 104 may have the capability to store message history from IM conversations done via one or more of the clients 114 The message history can be accessed and searched at any time via the server 104 by one or more of the clients 114 FIG 2 depicts an example of a system 200 for displaying content from an IM client at an alternative IM client In the example of FIG 2 the system 200 includes a client 202 an IM network 204 a server 206 an IM network 208 a client 210 other IM networks 212 1 to 212 N referred to collec tively as other IM networks 212 and other clients 214 1 to 214 N referred to collectively as other clients 214 US 8 700 713 B2 5 For illustrative purposes it is assumed that the client 202 has content that is compatible with the IM network 204 However the client 210 is capable of reading content format ted to be compatible with the IM network 208 Thus in operation the server 206 collects content from the client 202 either through the IM network 204 as sh
7. a hard disk or other mass storage and the executable programs are loaded from a network connection into the memory 612 for execu tion by the processor 608 A Web TV system which is known in the art is also considered to be a computer system but it may lack some of the features shown in FIG 6 such as certain input or output devices A typical computer system will usu ally include at least a processor memory and a bus coupling the memory to the processor The computer system 600 may be controlled by an operat ing system OS An OS is a software program used on most but not all computer systems that manages the hard ware and software resources of a computer Typically the OS performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory prioritizing system requests controlling input and output devices facilitating networking and managing files Examples of operating systems for personal computers include Microsoft Windows Linux and Mac OS Delin eating between the OS and application software is sometimes rather difficult Fortunately delineation is not necessary to understand the techniques described herein since any reason able delineation should suffice The lowest level of an OS may be its kernel The kernel is typically the first layer of software loaded into memory when a system boots or starts up The kernel provides access to various common core services to other system and applica tion programs As used he
8. a particular implementation to accomplish resource sharing via thread handling where a pool of threads is shared and used by one or more of the clients 114 for client server communication and between the server 104 and the IM server 106 The server 104 may include one or more of an application server database server web server banners server and con tent server or any combination thereof To make the most of the techniques described herein the server 104 should though is not required to include at least one application server The other servers can have supporting roles in by way of example but not limitation serving static content or adver tising e g banners storing usage data or fulfilling some other known or convenient function The server 104 may act as a proxy server between the clients 114 and the IM server 106 The server 104 receives communications from the clients 114 on http port 80 and responds to the clients 114 on http port 80 Communications from the clients 114 that are bound for the IM network 108 however must also come through http port 80 to the server 104 and are then forwarded to the IM server 106 In this way the server 104 acts as a carrier of the data from users to the IM network 108 using a mechanism that controls and manages the data e g text messages display images emoticons audio video streams etc sent between one of the clients 114 and the server 104 and vice versa The IM server 106 m
9. as physical quantities within the com puter system memories or registers or other such information storage transmission or display devices An apparatus for performing techniques described herein may be specially constructed for the required purposes or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively acti vated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer Such a computer program may be stored in a com puter readable storage medium such as by way of example but not limitation read only memories ROMs RAMs EPROMs EEPROMs magnetic or optical cards any type of US 8 700 713 B2 11 disk including floppy disks optical disks CD ROMs DVDs and magnetic optical disks or any known or convenient type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inher ently related to any particular computer architecture The technigues may be implemented using any known or conve nient programming language whether high level e g C C or low level e g assembly language and whether interpreted e g Perl compiled e g C C or Just In Time JIT compiled from bytecode e g Java Any known or convenient computer regardless of architecture should be capable of executing machine code compiled or otherwise assembled from any language into machine code that is com patible with the computer s architecture FIG 7 depicts a flowchart 700 of an exa
10. avatar bundle FIG 6 depicts a computer system suitable for implemen tation of the techniques described with reference to FIGS 1 5 FIG 7 depicts a flowchart of an example of a method for custom emoticon provisioning FIG 8 depicts a flowchart of an example of a method for avatar bundle provisioning DETAILED DESCRIPTION In the following description several specific details are presented to provide a thorough understanding of embodi ments of the invention One skilled in the relevant art will recognize however that the invention can be practiced with out one or more of the specific details or in combination with other components etc In other instances well known imple mentations or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of various embodiments of the invention FIG 1 depicts an example of a system 100 for providing instant messages to clients via a web interface In the example of FIG 1 the system 100 includes a network 102 a server 104 and an Instant Messenger IM server 106 and an IM network 108 The server 104 is coupled to the network at least by way of port 80 The two way communication via port 80 is represented in the example of FIG 1 as an arrow 110 The server 104 is coupled to the IM server 106 via one or more other ports The two way communication via the other ports is represented in the example of FIG 1 as an arrow 112 The IM server 106 is coupled to the IM network 1
11. current location etc 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 Depending upon the implementation the avatar transition stimulus could include just about any stimulus that could be configured or otherwise associated with an IM client associ ated with the avatar In the example of FIG 8 the flowchart 800 continues to module 808 where transitioning to the second avatar image in response to the avatar transition stimulus is done In the example of FIG 8 the flowchart 800 continues to decision point 810 where it is determined whether a transition is needed If so 810 Y the flowchart 800 continues from mod ule 806 as described previously If not 810 N the flowchart 800 continues to decision point 812 where it is determined whether the IM ends e g by one or both IM clients logging off If so 812 Y the flowchart 800 ends If not 812 N the flowchart 800 continues from module 808 as described pre viously As used herein the term embodiment means an embodi ment that serves to illustrate by way of example but not limitation It will be appreciated to those skilled in the art that the preceding examples and embodiments are exemplary and not limiting to the scope of the present invention It is intended that all permutations enhancements equivalents and improvements thereto that are apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings are included w
12. the change can be observed by the IM client 502 Moreover the IM client 508 can have a number of custom emoticons stored in the application server 512 The IM client 508 can send these custom emoticons as pictures to the IM client 502 Indeed the high level IM server 506 could stan dardize the custom emoticons for high level IM users Thus the custom emoticons would appear to low level IM users as custom emoticons but would be generally available to members of the high level IM network Custom emoticons that are standardized for high level IM users may be referred to as pseudo custom emoticons Although the IM client 502 may be unable to send the custom emoticons the IM client 502 should be able to receive the custom emoticons from the IM client 508 because all popular IM networks enable the display of small images in instant messages Moreover the IM client 502 could be taught the character strings associated with the custom or pseudo custom emoticons and use the character strings when responding to the IM client 508 Of course this functionality would be limited to messages that pass through the high level IM server 506 FIG 6 depicts a computer system 600 suitable for imple mentation of the techniques described above with reference to FIGS 1 5 The computer system 600 includes a computer 602 VO devices 604 and a display device 606 The computer 602 includes a processor 608 a communications interface 610 memory 61
13. 08 via any known or convenient mechanism Indeed the IM server 106 may be thought of as part of the IM network 108 The network 102 couples a plurality of clients 114 1 to 114 N referred to collectively as clients 114 to the server 104 In the example of FIG 1 the server 104 includes an event queue 116 The network 102 may include by way of example but not limitation LAN WAN VLAN WLAN Internet cellular net work phone network radio network or some other known or convenient network The term Internet as used herein refers to a network of networks that uses certain protocols such as TCP IP and possibly other protocols such as the hypertext transfer protocol HTTP for hypertext markup language HTML documents that make up the World Wide Web the US 8 700 713 B2 3 web The physical connections of the Internet and the pro tocols and communication procedures are well known but any convenient physical connections or protocols could be used The server 104 may include a multiple servers Indeed it may be desirable depending upon details of a particular implementation to install several servers to cope with the number of simultaneous users the system 100 supports It may further be desirable depending upon details of a particu lar implementation for the server 104 to have a high CPU throughput together with large amounts of RAM to handle a large number of users It may further be desirable depending upon details of
14. 12 774 700 filed May 5 2010 U S Appl No 11 637 316 filed Dec 11 2006 Co pending U S Appl No 11 637 514 filed Dec 11 2006 Co pending U S Appl No 11 637 964 filed Dec 11 2006 Co pending U S Appl No 12 721 538 filed Mar 10 2010 Co pending U S Appl No 12 774 700 filed May 5 2010 International Application No PCT US2012 000046 International Search Report and Written Opinion mailed Apr 2 2012 U S Appl No 11 637 514 Final Office Action mailed Jan 18 2011 U S Appl No 11 637 514 Final Office Action mailed Oct 27 2010 U S Appl No 11 637 514 Notice of Allowance mailed Jun 7 2011 U S Appl No 11 637 964 Non Final Office Action mailed Jul 27 2010 U S Appl No 13 165 709 Non Final Office Action mailed Nov 10 2011 cited by examiner US 8 700 713 B2 Sheet 1 of 12 Apr 15 2014 U S Patent L Old N bLI uallo TOL lees PEU jua 3 CULL uallo Vv jul 801 HOMIAN WI 901 lees WI 901 jenes WI KES N OLL 801 XJOMJSN WI w 001 US 8 700 713 B2 Sheet 2 of 12 Apr 15 2014 U S Patent C Old coc uallo voe OMEN WI 802 OMAN WI ore alld N ZIZ SYIOMJSN WI 19O e SHONIEN WI 1240 ele SHJOMON WI 190 N VIZ New Ty sjuetio sun sual suelo JO jeuo 1940 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 3 of 12 300A a Davo ESE one P a
15. 13 B2 7 FIG 5 depicts an example ofa system 500 capable of avatar provisioning using an avatar bundle The system 500 includes an IM client 502 a low level IM server 504 a high level IM server 506 an IM client 508 a profile database 510 and an application server 512 The IM client 502 may include any known or convenient device capable of functioning as a client in an IM environ ment including by way of example but not limitation a Web browser mobile client PDA game console TV box native application etc The IM environment may include by way of example but not limitation MSN Messenger Yahoo Mes senger AIM AOL ICQ QQ Jabber Google Talk IRC etc The low level IM server 504 may include any known or convenient device capable of functioning as a server in an IM environment In the example of FIG 5 the client 502 is coupled to the IM server 504 via a socket connection The high level IM server 506 may include any known or convenient device capable of functioning as a layer or layers on top of an IM environment In the example of FIG 5 the low level IM server 504 is coupled to the high level IM server 506 via a socket connection The high level IM server 506 includes a picture provisioning engine 514 The picture provisioning engine 514 uses stimuli provided through the low level IM server 504 e g from the IM client 502 from the IM client 508 read from the profile database 510 or provided from the application
16. 2 display controller 614 non volatile stor age 616 and I O controller 618 The computer 602 may be coupled to or include the I O devices 604 and display device 606 The computer 602 interfaces to external systems through the communications interface 610 which may include a modem or network interface The communications interface US 8 700 713 B2 9 610 can be considered to be part of the computer system 600 or a part of the computer 602 The communications interface 610 can be an analog modem ISDN modem cable modem token ring interface satellite transmission interface e g direct PC or other interfaces for coupling a computer system to other computer systems Although conventional computers typically include a communications interface of some type it is possible to create a computer that does not include one thereby making the communications interface 610 optional in the strictest sense of the word The processor 608 may include by way of example but not limitation a conventional microprocessor such as an Intel Pentium microprocessor or Motorola power PC microproces sor While the processor 608 is a critical component of all conventional computers any applicable known or convenient processor could be used for the purposes of implementing the technigues described herein The memory 612 is coupled to the processor 608 by a bus 620 The memory 612 which may be referred to as primary memory can include Dynamic Rand
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19. O4L 29 06 2006 01 52 US CL 57 ABSTRACT CPC een H04L 51 00 2013 01 H04L 51 04 A technique for image provisioning in an instant messaging 2013 01 HO4L 51 043 2013 01 HO4L IM environment involves storing images on a web server 65 00 2013 01 The images may be made available to a low level IM client USPE ER ER EER Re ee 709 206 709 204 that receives instant messages from a highlevel IM client The 58 Field of Classification Search images may be for example avatar images custom emoti CPG ise ee eere HO4L 51 00 HO4L 65 00 cons or other images Ve AE EE 709 204 206 See application file for complete search history 100 a Event Queue 110 Client Client 114 1 114 2 Client 114 N 14 Claims 12 Drawing Sheets IM Server 106 IM Network 108 IM Network 108 IM Server 106 US 8 700 713 B2 Page 2 56 References Cited WO WO 2007 129144 A3 11 2007 WO WO2008 072028 A3 6 2008 U S PATENT DOCUMENTS WO WO2008 072030 A3 6 2008 7 512 619 B2 3 2009 Burkhardt OTHER PUBLICATIONS 7 523 138 B2 4 2009 Gruhl et al 7 636 755 B2 12 2009 Blattner et al International Search Report PCT IB2006 004193 mailed Jun 24 7 730 144 B2 6 2010 Taylor et al 2008 pp 1 3 7 779 076 B2 8 2010 Heikes et al International Search Report PCT IB2006 004200 mailed Oct 23 7 933 957 B2 4 2011 Daniell 2007 pp 1 2 5037217 E TIDZON se T International Search Report PCT IB2006 004264
20. Search Report and Written Opinion for PCT application PCT IB2006 004205 dated Apr 4 2008 10 pages WO WO 0120474 Al 3 2001 International Search Report for PCT IB2006 004264 dated Jun 30 wo WO 0143357 A2 6 2001 2008 3 pages WO WO 03 056764 7 2003 English abstract of WO 2003 056764 dated Jul 10 2003 2 pages ba ka a SU English Abstract of EP 1292071 dated Sep 5 2002 1 page WO 2005045591 5 2005 Non Final Office Action mailed May 18 2009 and Final Office wo WO2005 074588 8 2005 Action mailed Nov 5 2009 in Co Pending U S Appl No WO WO 2005 074588 A2 8 2005 NU OST S10 filed Doo Es e wo WO 2006083820 Al 8 2006 Office Action mailed on Mar 21 2011 in co pending U S Appl No WO WO 2007063041 Al 6 2007 11 637 268 filed Dec 11 2006 WO WO 2007 110703 A3 10 2007 Office Actions mailed on Dec 30 2009 Jun 25 2009 and Apr 29 WO WO 2007 129143 A3 11 2007 2010 in co pending U S Appl No 11 637 514 filed Dec 11 2006 US 8 700 713 B2 Page 3 56 References Cited OTHER PUBLICATIONS Non Final Office Action mailed Jul 30 2009 in Co Pending U S Appl No 11 637 954 filed Dec 11 2006 Notice of Allowance mailed Jan 28 2010 in Co Pending U S Appl No 11 637 954 filed Dec 11 2006 Non Final Office Action mailed Sep 3 2009 and Final Office Action mailed Feb 9 2010 in Co Pending U S Appl No 11 637 964 filed Dec 11 2006 Office Action mailed on Apr 20 2011 in co pending U S Appl No
21. When new information arrives and needs to be displayed in some form the browser makes use of for example JavaScript code to update the visible frames and windows with new messages or events keeping the information up to date in the screen In this way automatic refreshing can take place in a hidden frame In another embodiment certain of the clients 114 with browsers may not make use of refreshes For example a form of updating the screen without using a refresh technique is to keep one single HTTP socket request alive for the whole period of a messaging session without actually closing the socket connection In this example information is initially loaded and displayed in one single visible frame While events and messages are being received by the server 104 JavaScript code can be injected into the HTML document through the same HTTP socket kept alive and managed by the server 104 For each event or message the browser can inter pret the JavaScript code injected and the corresponding parts of the HTML document and windows will be updated In another embodiment certain of the clients 114 with browsers may make use of manual refreshes Some relatively unsophisticated browsers such as WAP and xHTML brows ers often available on mobile phones do not support hidden frames and or JavaScript and others may be configured such that they do not support hidden frames and or JavaScript In such cases the information displayed has to be updated
22. a2 United States Patent US008700713B2 10 Patent No US 8 700 713 B2 Taylor et al 45 Date of Patent Apr 15 2014 54 PICTURE PROVISIONING SYSTEM AND 56 References Cited METHOD U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 75 Inventors Paulo Taylor Amsterdam NL Jan Joost Rueb Amsterdam NL 6 415 313 Bl 7 2002 Yamada et al 2 gt 6 415 318 Bl 7 2002 Aggarwal et al Onno Bakker Amsterdam NL 6 484 196 Bl 11 2002 Maurille 6 571 234 Bl 5 2003 Knight et al 73 Assignee eBuddy Holding B V Amsterdam NL 6 993 327 B2 1 2006 Mathis 7 042 879 B2 5 2006 Eschbach et al ee g A 7 389 324 B2 6 2008 Masonis et al Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this 7426382 B2 9 2008 Aerrabotu et al patent is extended or adjusted under 35 7 496 370 B2 2 2009 Kaplan et al U S C 154 b by 1922 days iio Continued 21 Appl No 11 637 268 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 22 Filed Dec 11 2006 EP 1292071 9 2002 WO WO 9948011 Al 9 1999 65 Prior Publication Data Continued US 2007 0136419 Al Jun 14 2007 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Related U S Application Data International Search Report and Written Opinion for PCT application 2 ANT PCT IB2006 004205 Search Report dated Jan 8 2008 10 pages 60 Provisional application No 60 748 988 filed on Dec 9 2005 Continued SI Int CI Primary Examiner Adnan Mirza GO6F 15 16 2006 01 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Sheppard Mullin Richter HO4L 12 58 2006 01 amp Hampton LLP H
23. arly advantageous in specific cases Consider that standard emoticons can be identified by a character sequence that is universally recognized in a par ticular IM network When the client 202 wishes to send an emoticon to the client 210 a user at the client 202 may type in a character string that is associated with an emoticon For example the character string is associated with the emoticon When the client 210 receives the character string the client 210 translates the string into the appropriate emoticon for display in the instant message However custom emoticons have to be sent as an image from the client 202 to the client 210 because the client 210 cannot interpret the custom emoticons of the client 202 This is where the capa bilities of the server 206 to store content become advanta geous The client 202 may be incapable of sending images in an instant message for a number of reasons For example the client 202 may simply be unable to store images that can be included in an instant message As another example the client 202 may have no storage space remaining to store images As another example the client 202 may have used up all of the storage that is allotted to custom emoticons Alternatively it may simply be desirable to store images at some location other than the client 202 to avoid the memory allocation issues entirely or for other reasons Advantageously the server 206 can store custom emoti cons for
24. ay be any known or convenient IM server that is compatible with IM Events messages or other appropriate data from the IM server 106 are collected in the event queue 116 of the server 104 The events may be col lected in association with a variety of protocols including by way of example but not limitation port 1863 port 5050 port 5222 port 5190 etc The IM network 108 may include one or a combination of networks selected from MSN Messenger Yahoo Messenger AIM AOL ICQ QQ Jabber Google Talk IRC or some other known or convenient IM network The clients 114 may include any known or convenient device including by way ofexample but not limitation a Web browser mobile client PDA game console TV box native application etc The clients poll the server 104 for events The events can be removed from the event queue 116 and trans lated into text JavaScript XML or some other known or convenient format that one or more of the clients 114 need or expect in order to process data associated with the event To interact with the IM network 108 the clients 114 send data to the server 104 The data which may include com mands is processed and translated into corresponding data that will be sent to the appropriate IM network In an embodi ment the appropriate IM network may be determinable based upon the protocol encoded in a message Messages or actions from the clients 114 are collected over network protocols such as by way of exa
25. ble medium either on the high level IM server 508 or on some other device The profile database 510 may or may not include a number of fields that are maintained on a per login basis The fields may include by way of example but not limitation a hash code time e g dd mm yyyy hh mm ss user ID Email address IP address refer site i e the site from which a user is referred type e g mobile web ver sion type etc country sent e g number of messages sent received e g number of messages received contacts e g number of contacts in buddy list sessions e g number of chat sessions during this login duration e g duration of login in seconds successful e g 1 or 0 connected to MAS or Yahoo AOL database user agent e g browser type language mobile phone model etc In an embodiment the profile database includes a presence field that is associated with a user s location 40 45 50 8 The application server 512 may include one or more known or convenient types of servers In the example of FIG 5 the application server 512 includes a program picture server 516 and a caching picture server 518 The application server 512 may include many server systems The program picture server 516 includes avatars associated with the IM client 508 The caching picture server 518 may include avatars associ ated with the IM client 502 the IM client 508 and or any other IM clients After an implementatio
26. el IM server 6 The system of claim 1 wherein the image provisioning stimulus is provided through a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server 7 The system of claim 1 wherein the image provisioning stimulus is provided from a profile database connected to the high level IM server 8 The system of claim 1 wherein the high level IM server comprises an application server configured to provide the image provisioning stimulus 9 The system of claim 1 wherein the image provisioning stimulus is responsive to a change of a presence state associ ated with a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server 10 The system ofclaim 1 wherein the image provisioning stimulus is responsive to a character string received from a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server 11 The system of claim 1 further comprising a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server the low level IM client having a client character istic wherein the profile database stores the client characteristic 20 25 30 14 wherein the image provisioning engine obtains the client characteristic from the profile database and generates the image provisioning stimulus based on the client characteristic 12 A method comprising configuring a connection to a first low level IM server associated with a first messaging service provider configuring another connection to a second low level IM
27. ithin the true spirit and scope of the present invention It is therefore intended that the following appended claims include all such modifications permuta tions and equivalents as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention The invention claimed is 1 A system comprising a processor and a memory a high level IM server including an image provisioning engine wherein in operation the high level IM server is coupled to a plurality of low level IM servers comprising a first low level IM server associated with a first mes saging service provider and a second low level IM server associated with a second messaging service provider a profile database coupled to the high level IM server the profile database storing an aggregated messaging profile compatible with the first messaging service provider and the second messaging service provider a web server coupled to the high level IM server wherein the web server includes one or more images wherein in operation the web server serves an image to the first low level IM server in response to an image provi sioning stimulus wherein the image provisioning stimulus is responsive to a change ofa presence state associated with a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server an internal timer located inside the image provisioning engine the internal timer providing a notification at a time interval wherein the image provisioning engine obtains the no
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29. mple but not limi tation HTTP or plain socket connections The messages or actions are transformed to an appropriate protocol format to 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 be sent over a compliant port from the clients 114 to the server 104 with the IM protocol on the application side In a non limiting embodiment the compliant port is http port 80 How ever any port having similar characteristics to those of a typical port 80 could be used The latest available browsers as of December 2005 enable the use of atechnique called AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript And XML With AJAX appropriately configured clients 114 can execute actions and poll for messages or events using only JavaScript The method is based on using an XML HttpRe guest object to make HTTP reguests to the server 104 The server 104 may reply with messages taken from the gueue of the corresponding session in XML or another format that are parsed and displayed according to the message content For clients 114 that include a browser when accessing the server 104 the browser typically uses hidden HTML frames to update information on visible frames The visible frames display appropriate information while the hidden frames are reloaded in short periods of time In each refresh that hits the server 104 the browser identifies the current messaging ses sion and checks if new events or messages associated with the session are in the event gueue 116
30. mple of a method for custom emoticon provisioning This method and other methods are depicted as serially arranged modules However modules of the methods may be reordered or arranged for parallel execution as appropriate In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 begins at optional module 702 where one or more custom emoticons are associated with respective one or more strings of characters The custom emoticon may be thought of as an image and the associated string of characters in that a first IM user may input the string of characters and a second IM user may receive the image In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 continues to module 704 where the one or more custom emoticons are made available via a web server This is advantageous because even clients that normally could not handle custom emoticons can access the one or more custom emoticons via the web server Also or alternatively an IM client that is associated with a custom emoticon that is available via the web server need not store the custom emoticon locally In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 continues to module 706 where an indication is received at a server e g a high level IM server from a first IM client that a custom emoticon is to be included in an instant message The web server could simply replace a string of characters with the image However as has been mentioned since the web server is making the custom emoticon available the string of char ac
31. n specific period of time the caching picture server 518 deletes the avatars to make room for additional avatars However the program picture server 516 for the convenience of for example mem bers of an IM network associated with the high level IM server 506 maintains avatars in storage for use by particular clients The IM client 508 may be allocated a limited amount of space on the program picture server 516 in which to store avatars The high level IM server 506 can facilitate display of the avatars in a manner that is implementation specific and or as requested by a member associated with the IM client 508 In the example of FIG 5 in operation it is assumed that the IM client 502 and the IM client 508 are engaged in instant messaging The IM client 502 is limited by the capabilities of the low level IM server 504 Since the IM client 508 is IMing with the IM client 502 the IM client 508 is at least in part similarly limited For example the low level IM server 504 may limit the characteristics of instant messages and avatars In order for the messages and avatar of the IM client 508 to be readable by the IM client 502 the messages and avatar must meet these limitations However the high level IM server 506 can automatically update for example an avatar of the IM client 508 in a manner that was described above with refer ence to FIGS 3 4 Since each instance of a changing avatar does not violate the low level IM network rules
32. ning Engine 514 Low Level IM Server 504 IM Client 508 High Level IM Server 506 Profile dB 510 FIG 5 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 10 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 600 a Computer 602 Processor 608 Comm Interface 610 Display Control 614 NV Storage 616 VO Control 618 Display Device 606 VO Devices 604 FIG 6 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 11 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 700 a Start 702 Associating one or more custom emoticons with respective one or more strings of characters optional 704 Making one or more custom emoticons available via a web server 706 Receiving at a server an indication from a first IM client that a custom emoticon is to be included in an instant message 708 Facilitating access of the custom emoticon from the web server optional 710 Providing from the server the custom emoticon stored on the web server in association with the instant message to a second IM client End FIG 7 U S Patent Apr 15 2014 Sheet 12 of 12 US 8 700 713 B2 800 a 802 Providing a plurality of images including a first avatar image and a second avatar image 804 Displaying the first avatar image in an IM environment 806 Receiving an avatar transition stimulus 808 Transitioning to the second avatar image in response to the avatar transition stimulus 810 lt mew gt Yes FIG 8 US 8 700 713 B2
33. om Access Memory DRAM and can also include Static RAM SRAM The bus 620 couples the processor 608 to the memory 612 and also to the non volatile storage 616 to the display controller 614 and to the I O controller 618 The I O devices 604 can include a keyboard disk drives printers a scanner and other input and output devices includ ing a mouse or other pointing device For illustrative pur poses at least one of the I O devices is assumed to be a block based media device such as a DVD player The display controller 614 may control in a known or convenient manner a display on the display device 606 which can be for example a cathode ray tube CRT or liguid crystal display LCD The display controller 614 and I O controller 618 may include device drivers A device driver is a specific type of computer software developed to allow interaction with hard ware devices Typically this constitutes an interface for com municating with the device through a bus or communications subsystem that the hardware is connected to providing com mands to and or receiving data from the device and on the other end the reguisite interfaces to the OS and software applications The device driver may include a hardware dependent com puter program that is also OS specific The computer pro gram enables another program typically an OS or applica tions software package or computer program running under the OS kernel to interact transparently wi
34. own in FIG 2 or directly from the client 202 such as is shown by way of examplein FIG 1 The server 206 then formats the content as appropriate for use on the IM network 208 Once the content is properly formatted it can be made available to the client 210 either through the IM network 208 as shown in FIG 2 or directly to the client 210 such as is shown by way of example in FIG 1 Depending upon the embodiment and or implementation the content may also be formatted as appro priate for one or more of the other IM networks 212 to be made available for one or more of the other clients 214 In an embodiment the server 206 can save the content in one or many formats In this way the client 202 could make content available in a first IM format the server 206 could convert the content into a second IM format and the server 206 can save the content in at least the second IM format Thus the client 210 could receive the data in the second IM format The server 206 could easily store the content in the first IM format as well and make the content available to other clients coupled to the IM network 204 In addition the server 206 could convert the content to other IM formats such as those formats that are associated with the other IM net works 212 and save the other IM formats In this way the other clients 214 may have access to the content The capability of the server 206 to store content in a par ticular format can be particul
35. rein algorithmic descriptions and symbolic rep resentations of operations on data bits within a computer memory are believed to most effectively convey the tech niques to others skilled in the art An algorithm is here and generally conceived to be a self consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result The operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities Usually though not necessarily these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored transferred combined compared and otherwise manipu lated It has proven convenient at times principally for rea sons of common usage to refer to these signals as bits values elements symbols characters terms numbers or the like It should be borne in mind however that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physi cal quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussion it is appreciated that throughout the description discussions utilizing terms such as processing or computing or calculating or deter mining or displaying or the like refer to the action and processes of a computer that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical electronic quantities within the computer system s registers and memories into other data similarly represented
36. server 512 to deter mine what images to provide for display on the IM client 502 Stimuli may include by way of example but not limitation presence at the IM client 508 location associated with the IM client 508 a character string received from the IM client 508 any characteristics of the IM client 508 represented in the profile database 510 an internal timer at the picture provi sioning engine 514 etc When the picture provisioning engine 514 determines that an image is to be provided the application server 512 makes the image available In an embodiment the image is provided through the high level server 506 e g by inserting the image into a data stream to the low level server 504 In another embodiment the image is provided from the application server 512 directly to the low level server 504 the IM client 502 or the IM client 508 The IM client 508 may include any known or convenient device capable of functioning as a client in an IM environ ment The IM client 508 for illustrative purposes is coupled to the high level IM server 508 It may be noted that the IM client 508 may have access to higher level functionality from the high level IM server 506 than the client 502 However at least some of the techniques described herein are applicable to low level IM clients where the low level IM server s of the low level IM clients is coupled to a high level IM server The profile database 510 is embodied in a computer read a
37. status message roughly analogous to the message on a tele phone answering machine Popular instant messaging services on the public Internet include NET Messenger Service AOL Instant Messenger Excite Pal Gadu Gadu Google Talk iChat ICQ Jabber Qnext QQ Meetro Skype Trillian and Yahoo Messenger These services owe many ideas to an older and still popular online chat medium known as Internet Relay Chat IRC The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclu sive Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings SUMMARY The following embodiments and aspects thereof are described and illustrated in conjunction with systems tools and methods that are meant to be exemplary and illustrative not limiting in scope In various embodiments one or more of the above described problems have been reduced or elimi nated while other embodiments are directed to other improvements A technique for image provisioning in an instant messag ing IM environment involves storing images on a web server A system according to the technique may comprise a high level IM server that includes an image provisioning engine an application server that includes one or more images In operation the high level IM server may be coupled to a low level IM server and a web server ser
38. ters could instead be replaced with a link to the web server In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 continues to optional module 708 where access of the custom emoticon from the web server is facilitated at the second IM client The module is optional because it is not necessary to facilitate access if the emoticon image has already been inserted into the instant message In the example of FIG 7 the flowchart 700 continues to module 710 where the custom emoticon is provided from the web server in association with the instant message to a second IM client Depending upon the implementation this may include providing an image of the custom emoticon or providing a link to the custom emoticon FIG 8 depicts a flowchart 800 of an example of a method for avatar bundle provisioning In the example of FIG 8 the flowchart 800 starts at module 802 where a plurality of images including a first avatar image and a second avatar image are provided In the example of FIG 8 the flowchart 800 continues to module 804 where the first avatar image is displayed in an IM environment An IM environment may include any known or convenient IM technology The display of the image would typically be in a display window or panel of an IM client In the example of FIG 8 the flowchart 800 continues to module 806 where an avatar transition stimulus is received The avatar transition stimulus could include expiration of a periodic timer change of presence
39. th a hardware device and usually provides the reguisite interrupt handling necessary for any necessary asynchronous time dependent hardware interfacing needs The non volatile storage 616 which may be referred to as secondary memory is often a magnetic hard disk an optical disk or another form of storage for large amounts of data Some of this data is often written by a direct memory access process into memory 612 during execution of software in the computer 602 The non volatile storage 616 may include a block based media device The terms machine readable medium or computer readable medium include any known or convenient storage device that is accessible by the processor 508 and also encompasses a carrier wave that encodes a data signal The computer system 600 is one example of many possible computer systems which have different architectures For example personal computers based on an Intel microproces sor often have multiple buses one of which can be an VO bus for the peripherals and one that directly connects the proces sor 608 and the memory 612 often referred to as a memory 20 40 45 50 60 65 10 bus The buses are connected together through bridge com ponents that perform any necessary translation due to differ ing bus protocols Network computers are another type of computer system that can be used in conjunction with the teachings provided herein Network computers do not usually include
40. the client 202 and automatically insert the custom emoticons into messages when the message includes a string of characters that is associated with the emoticon The client 210 may have limitations as well For example a custom emoticon is typically sent as an image since the receiving client is presumed to be unable to interpret the string of characters associated with the custom emoticon and insert an image locally instead Thus the image has to be stored at the client 210 However in some cases the client 2101s unableto store locally or the custom emoticons may be 30 40 45 50 55 60 6 unreadable at the client 210 so the custom emoticons have to be made available via the server 206 The server 206 may therefore be responsible for transfer ring custom emoticons between the clients and making them available via web server ifapplicable In this way the system 200 can facilitate sending and receiving custom emoticons FIGS 3A 3E depict a screenshots ofan avatar that changes over time In the example of FIGS 3A 3E avatars are assumed to have a pre defined size The reason for a pre defined size is that most IM networks provide for a pre defined size for avatars In some implementations a layer on top of IM networks could change the allowed size and shape of the avatar representations However the custom avatars may not be compatible with the underlying IM network avatar specifications In the example of FIG
41. tifi cation from the internal timer and generates the image provisioning stimulus based on the notification 2 The system of claim 1 wherein the profile database is embodied in a non transitory computer readable medium coupled to the high level IM server wherein in operation a high level IM client is represented in the profile database when the high level IM client is connected to the high level IM server 3 The system of claim 1 further comprising a program picture server that includes a plurality of avatars associated with an IM client wherein in operation the image provision ing engine provides a first avatar of the plurality of avatars for US 8 700 713 B2 13 display on a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server in response to a first image provisioning stimulus and the image provisioning engine provides a second avatar ofthe plurality of avatars for display on the low level IM client in response to a second image provisioning stimulus 4 The system of claim 1 further comprising a program picture server that includes one or more emoticons associated with an IM client wherein in operation the image provision ing engine provides an emoticon of the one or more emoti cons for display on a low level IM client connected to the first low level IM server in response to an image provisioning stimulus 5 The system of claim 1 wherein the image provisioning stimulus is provided through the first low lev
42. ves an image to the low level IM server or inserts the image into an instant message in response to an image provisioning stimulus An example of a method according to the technique may comprise making one or more custom emoticons available via r 0 r 5 20 35 40 45 50 2 a web server receiving an indication from a first IM client that a custom emoticon of the one or more custom emoticons is to be included in an instant message and providing from the web server the custom emoticon in association with the instant message to a second IM client Another example of a method according to the technigue may comprise displaying a first avatar image in an IM environment receiving an avatar transition stimulus and transitioning to a second avatar image in response to the avatar transition stimulus BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Embodiments of the inventions are illustrated in the fig ures However the embodiments and figures are illustrative rather than limiting they provide examples of the invention FIG 1 depicts an example of a system for providing instant messages to clients via a web interface FIG 2 depicts an example of a system for displaying con tent from an IM client at an alternative IM client FIGS 3A 3E depict screenshots of an avatar that changes over time FIG 4 depicts a conceptual diagram of an avatar carousel FIG 5 depicts an example of a system capable of avatar provisioning in an
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