Capabilities based management of virtual area
AssigneeSococo, Inc.
InventorsRobert J. Butler, Matthew Leacock, David Van Wie, Paul J. Brody, F. Randall Farmer
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Abstract
Apparatus and methods of managing a virtual area based on communicant capabilities are described. The communicant capabilities are updated based on rules in response to events in the virtual area. An action by one communicant can affect the capabilities of another communicant. Communicant capabilities can be stored in respective server-side proxies and the virtual area can be managed without transmitting any of the capabilities to the communicants' client network nodes. Capability-based permissions checks can be performed against communicant capabilities with wildcarded attribute fields.
Claims16
A system that operates in a network communication environment in which communicants operating respective client nodes connect to an area in which ones of the communicants are able to establish respective presences, the system comprising:
- means for executing an engine to manage capabilities on behalf of each of one or more of the communicants in the area, and provide for each communicant, a respective capability ring that stores the communicant's persistent capabilities and transient capabilities that are granted as a result of applying capability rules to the communicant;
- means for monitoring states of the area, wherein the area is defined with a current state of the area, and the current state comprises an occupancy attribute that provides an indication of occupancy of the communicants in the area;
- means for dynamically updating the respective capability ring of the particular communicant based on changes in states of the communicants and the area, wherein the means for dynamically updating comprises
- means for determining that the particular area is in a first state as defined by a first set of one or more values of the one or more attributes and automatically granting a respective transient capability to enter the particular area to the particular communicant based on a permissions check by the capabilities engine against the respective capability ring of the particular communicant;
- and
- means for ascertaining that the particular area is in a second state as defined by a second set of one or more values of the one or more attributes in which the value of the occupancy attribute is different from the value of the occupancy attribute in the first state and automatically revoking the capability to enter the particular area from the particular communicant based on a permissions check by the capabilities engine against the respective capability ring of the particular communicant;
- and
- means for administering one or more of realtime communications between the client nodes of respective ones of the communicants who are co-present in the area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.