Low-friction group activities

Abstract

A computer-implemented system and method for facilitating lowfriction group activities includes receiving a description for a first team; selecting, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable prospects for human connection; creating a group electronic chat for the first team and second team; and planning an activity for members of the first team to meet up with the second team.

Description

Low-Friction Group ActivitiesField of the Specification

[0001] This application relates in general to computerized human matching, and more particularly though not exclusively to a system and method for facilitating low-friction group activities.Background

[0002] Modern computing ecosystems often include "always on" broadband internet connections. These connections leave computing devices exposed to the internet, and the devices may be vulnerable to attack.Brief Description of the Drawings

[0003] The present disclosure is best understood from the following detailed description when read with the accompanying FIGURES. It is emphasized that, in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, various features are not necessarily drawn to scale, and are used for illustration purposes only. Where a scale is shown, explicitly or implicitly, it provides only one illustrative example. In other embodiments, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion. Furthermore, the various block diagrams illustrated herein disclose only one illustrative arrangement of logical elements. Those elements may be rearranged in different configurations, and elements shown in one block may, in appropriate circumstances, be moved to a different block or configuration.

[0004] FIGURE 1 is a block diagram of selected elements of a human matching ecosystem.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0005] FIGURE 2 is a block diagram of selected elements of a grouping system for use with a human matching ecosystem.

[0006] FIGURE 3 is a block diagram of selected elements of a method of team selection.

[0007] FIGURE 4 is a block diagram of additional selected elements of a method of team selection.

[0008] FIGURE 5 is a block diagram illustration of selected elements of revealing a selected user to a group.

[0009] FIGURE 6 is a block diagram illustration of additional selected elements of revealing a selected user to a group.

[0010] FIGUREis a block diagram illustration of selected elements of a method of team matching.

[0011] FIGURE 8 is a block diagram illustration of selected elements of a method of team matching.

[0012] FIGURE 9 is a block diagram illustration of selected elements of a method of team matching.

[0013] FIGURE 10 is a block diagram illustration of selected elements of a method of team matching.

[0014] FIGURE 11 is a flow chart illustrating selected operations of cluster allocation.

[0015] FIGURE 12 is a flow chart illustrating selected operations of a recommendation pipeline.

[0016] FIGURE 13 is a block diagram illustration of selected aspects of category down-selection.

[0017] FIGURE 14 is a block diagram illustration of selected aspects of a fallback selection method.

[0018] FIGURES 15a - 15c are a flow chart illustrating selected aspects of a method of providing low-friction group activities.

[0019] FIGURE 16 is a block diagram of selected elements of a hardware platform.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0020] FIGURE 17 is a block diagram of selected elements of a network function virtualization (NFV) infrastructure.

[0021] FIGURE 18 is a block diagram of selected elements of a containerization infrastructure.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities Summary

[0022] A computer-implemented system and method for facilitating low-friction group activities includes receiving a description for a first team; selecting, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable prospects for human connection; creating a group electronic chat for the first team and second team; and planning an activity for members of the first team to meet up with the second team.Embodiments of the Disclosure

[0023] The following disclosure provides many different embodiments, or examples, for implementing different features of the present disclosure. Specific examples of components and arrangements are described below to simplify the present disclosure. These are, of course, merely examples and are not intended to be limiting. Further, the present disclosure may repeat reference numerals and / or letters in the various examples. This repetition is for the purpose of simplicity and clarity and does not in itself dictate a relationship between the various embodiments and / or configurations discussed. Different embodiments may have different advantages, and no particular advantage is necessarily required of any embodiment.Overview

[0024] Making romantic connections is one of the oldest human endeavors. On a broader level, matching humans with similar interests, whether for romantic purposes or for friendship, is a socially valuable activity. For decades, since at least the 1950s, humans have turned to computers for aid in determining which humans are compatible with one another. And since approximately the 1990s, online dating has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0025] In traditional dating apps, users build a profile of interests and attributes and usually upload a photograph. An algorithm then featurizes the user profile and attempts to match users based on those interests and attributes, such as by vectorizing the profile features and computing a vector distance between two users. After identifying a potential match, the dating app may display the users' profiles to one another. The users may then perform an action to indicate interest or disinterest in another user, such as by clicking a heart, swiping right for interest, swiping left for disinterest, or otherwise indicating a level of interest.

[0026] Whie dating apps have had great success overall, some types of users find the experience unsatisfactory. Because a dating app can result in a large number of matches, a user may be inundated with a many profiles, and may thus have to make snap judgments based on little information and superficial factors such as immediate appearance. This can be frustrating, for example, for a user who has good overall attributes but whose immediate appearance is less striking. Furthermore, in traditional dating apps, female users are almost always more selective than male users. In many cases, male users indicate interest in an order of magnitude more profiles than the average female user. This can lead to a substantial gender imbalance within those dating apps. Thus, results from traditional dating apps can be highly skewed towards the most instantly attractive men, which may lead to dissatisfaction for the average male user.

[0027] Furthermore, both men and women may feel intimidated by the prospect of by the prospect and pressure of meeting others in person and making individual connections via an app. Many users may also have justifiable anxiety about meeting a stranger in person, with attendant safety concerns.

[0028] Thus, while dating apps can be highly successful for a subset of users, a different subset of users may find the experience unsatisfactory and frustrating. Advantageously, users may feel less frustration, less pressure,Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesand less anxiety about meeting in a group. Group meetings may be more casual, may have fewer safety concerns, and participants may perceive less pressure to instantly make a good impression on a single individual. Furthermore, the group dynamic can help individuals showcase desirable attributes.

[0029] Conversely, large groups can also be frustrating and intimidating. If an introverted person attends a party with many people, he or she may feel intimidated by the large crowd and either will not go, or will tend to sit on the outside of the group. The issue can be exacerbated if there is a large gender imbalance within the group, in which case the minority gender may receive undue attention from the majority gender, while those in the majority gender may be left unsatisfied.

[0030] On the other hand, a smaller group of, for example, four, six, or eight people with absolute or substantial gender parity (i.e., an equal number of males and females) may provide a more satisfactory experience. Throughout this specification, "gender parity" is used with an assumption of heterosexual males and females. Attempting to account for every permutation of sexual orientation and gender expression may substantially complicate the discussion, but those with skill in the art will recognize that the teachings of this specification can be readily adapted to various combinations of sexual expressions, preferences, and orientations, including for LGBTQ+ individuals who may wish to use a dating service.

[0031] Returning to the discussion, with a smaller group, even most introverts can feel substantially comfortable enough to have an enjoyable interaction. Within the group, individual participants do not feel the pressure of impressing a single person. If the group also consists at least partly of people who are already friends or acquaintances, the less outgoing participants may feel relaxed enough to showcase their positive attributes. For example, an illustrative group may consist of three men who are alreadyAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesfriends and with each other and three women who are already friends with each other.

[0032] Within that group, even those who are introverts will be more comfortable in the presence of existing friends. Advantageously, research has shown that an individual participant will feel he or she is "having a good time" if at least one person from the other team is interesting or attractive to him or her. The team overall will likely feel they are "having a good time" so long as at least a majority of the other participants in the group are (according to a user's subjective analysis) of at least average attractiveness. Attractiveness, in this context, can be understood to represent not just physical attractiveness, but overall compatibility of interest and personality. Thus, a person who is highly attractive to one user may be highly unattractive to a different user. Subjective attractiveness may be roughly quantized on a scale, such as 1 to 10, or 1 to 100, or 0.0 to 1.0. To simplify discussion, the present discussion assumes that subjective attractiveness (which includes compatibility and personality), is quantized between 1 and 10. In this example, a group may consist of three men who are substantially (from the subjective perspective of a woman on the other team) a "3," a "6," and a "9." The group may also consist of three women who are, respectively (from the perspective of one of the men on the other team) a "3," a "6," and a "9."

[0033] If the "3" man were paired with the "9" woman on an individual date, it is unlikely that either would report enjoying the date. However, because at least two of the men present are of better-than-average subjective attractiveness (the 6 and the 9) all three women are likely to report that they had an enjoyable time. Similarly, because two of the three women are of better-than-average subjective attractiveness, all three men are also likely to report that they had an enjoyable time. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that once they get to know each other, the male "3" in the female "9" may find form a strong connection with each other, in which case, the previously-"3" male may become a "9" in the subject view of the female, inAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitieswhich case the two may end up in a long-term relationship or marriage. This result would be less likely on a traditional dating app, where the individuals may judge quickly based only on immediate, subjective physical attractiveness. Both may reject one another, the male because he thinks the female is "out of his league," and the female because she also thinks she is out of his league. Thus, the group dynamic provides an opportunity to form a connection separate from traditional one-on-one dating.

[0034] The present specification provides a system and method to remove some of the perceived "friction" from forming such beneficial group activities. While group meetings are valuable, they often rely on the group including at least one dynamic personality willing to take the lead in organizing the activity, extending invitations, selecting an activity, finding a location, and reminding people to show up. Furthermore, the group will usually consist of people that the "leader" knows personally. And the final result may be too large or gender imbalanced to provide an optimal group experience.

[0035] To remove some of this friction, the present system enables users to form a small "team," with for example two, three, four, five, or six members. The team can be gender-mixed (e.g., a team might consist of two men and one woman, two men and two women, or some other combination). The team signs up with a match making service. The matchmaking service need not be focused on providing one-to-one romantic matching, but instead is concerned with facilitating small group activities, with the groups having, for example, 4 to 8 participants, with substantial or absolute gender parity (e.g., three men and three women may be preferred, but 5 men and 3 women, 5 women and 3 men, 4 men and 3 women, 4 women and 3 men, or some other near-parity combination may be acceptable).

[0036] When teams sign up with the service, they may provide both individual and team profiles. The attributes of these profiles can be featurized, as in traditional dating apps. But rather than attempting to match users one-Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesfor-one, the system attempts to match teams that are likely to be a good fit and thus provide an enjoyable experience. Advantageously, the teams may be matched to provide gender balance or gender parity, and will include a mixture of individuals who do not already know each other, thus providing the opportunity to form new pairings. In contrast, with a well-established group, those who would pair off are likely to have already done so.

[0037] Once a first team is matched to a second team, the first team may have the opportunity to accept the match or not. This match can be onedirectional, or in other embodiments, the second team may also have an opportunity to match with the first team. For example, if Team A receives Team B as a recommendation, the system may not necessarily recommend Team A to Team B. Once Team A accepts Team B, Team B may have an opportunity to accept or reject the match. In other embodiments, a match may occur only in cases where the system independently recommends the teams to one another, and both accept the recommendation.

[0038] If both teams mutually accept one another, then a "match" is made between the teams. With a successful match, the app may then open a group chat that includes all members of both teams so that they can plan a group activity. The app may also make recommendations for locations and activities, which may be based on the known interests of the team members. Advertising partners may also pay to have their goods, services, or establishments promoted on the app when suggesting activities.

[0039] When the time of the activity arrives, the app may track who attends and who does not. Because successful group activities are highly dependent on people showing up (and again, to help maintain gender parity), the app may incentivize attendance. For example, the app may provide in-app tokens or in-app currency, and attendance may carry rewards. Non-attendance may also carry penalties, such as fewer matches in the future. In one example, each team makes a deposit of real or in-app currency, which isAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesforfeited if the team members do not attend the activity. This incentivizes attendance.

[0040] After the activity, team members may rate the activity and the members of the other team. Ratings may include subjective attractiveness, hygiene, demeanor, personality, or other factors. To help screen out participants with poor manners, users may have the option to provide a "star" rating (e.g., one to five stars) for other users' manners. If a user consistently gets marked as having poor manners, future matches may carry a warning or a star ranking. This protocol incentivizes members to use good manners, and teams to remove members who are poorly behaved.

[0041] Users on a team may also have an option to express personal interest in another participant in the activity (most often, a member of the other team, since they are likely to already know members of their own team). If two individual users form an in-person connection and express mutual interest on the app, the app may open up direct messages (DM) between the two users so that they can continue to explore their connection.

[0042] In some cases, users may wish to take advantage of the system, but do not have an existing team to join with. In that case, they may sign up for the service as an individual and flag themselves as "looking for a team." In the case of such individuals, instead of making direct romantic connections, the system may first match users with a team that is a good fit, or allow other individuals and teams to discover and recruit the individual to a team. For example, if two men join but need a third for their team, and if another man with similar interests joins individually, the system may flag them as compatible based on their profiles, and one can invite or recruit the other. This matching on a team is not necessarily intended to form a direct romantic connection, but rather to complete the team, which is then matched with a second team where romantic connections are more likely. Advantageously, the men matched together on a team may formAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesheterosexual friendships, even apart from the dating prospects of matching with a team of women.Selected Examples

[0043] The foregoing can be used to build or embody several example implementations, according to the teachings of the present specification. Some example implementations are included here as nonlimiting illustrations of these teachings.

[0044] There is disclosed an example of a computer-implemented method or facilitating low-friction group activities, comprising receiving a description for a first team; selecting, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable prospects for human connection; creating a group electronic chat for the first team and second team; and planning an activity for members of the first team to meet up with the second team.

[0045] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

[0046] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

[0047] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

[0048] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising receiving individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

[0049] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising recommending one or more locations or activities for the group activity.

[0050] There is further disclosed an example, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.

[0051] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising tracking attendance at the group activity.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0052] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising rewarding attendance.

[0053] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising penalizing non-attendance.

[0054] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising collecting a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and causing any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

[0055] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising collecting feedback about the activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

[0056] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising receiving feedback on individual manners and providing a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

[0057] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising receiving an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and opening direct messages for the two participants.

[0058] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.

[0059] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.

[0060] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising displaying to the first team a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

[0061] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0062] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising determining that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

[0063] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising prefiltering the pool of teams.

[0064] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

[0065] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising providing a fallback selection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

[0066] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising accounting for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

[0067] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches overtime, and subscription tier.

[0068] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising providing an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

[0069] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.

[0070] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color, skin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and attractiveness as assessed by an Al.

[0071] There is further disclosed an example of an apparatus comprising means for performing any of the methods.

[0072] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the means for performing the method comprise a processor and a memory.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0073] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the memory comprises machine-readable instructions that, when executed, cause the apparatus to perform any of the methods.

[0074] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the apparatus is a computing system.

[0075] There is further disclosed an example of at least one computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, implement a method or realize an apparatus as described.

[0076] There is further disclosed an example of one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon executable instructions to facilitate low-friction group activities, the executable instructions to instruct a processor to receive a description for a first team; select, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable prospects for human connection ; create a group electronic chat for the first team and second team; and plan an activity for members of the first team to meet up with the second team.

[0077] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

[0078] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

[0079] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

[0080] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

[0081] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to recommend one or more locations or activities for the group activity.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0082] There is further disclosed an example, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.

[0083] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to track attendance at the group activity.

[0084] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to reward attendance.

[0085] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to penalize non-attendance.

[0086] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to collect a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and cause any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

[0087] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to collect feedback about the activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

[0088] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive feedback on individual manners and provide a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

[0089] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and open direct messages for the two participants.

[0090] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.

[0091] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0092] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to display, to the first team, a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

[0093] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.

[0094] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to determine that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

[0095] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to pre-filter the pool of teams.

[0096] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

[0097] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to provide a fallback selection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

[0098] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to account for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

[0099] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches overtime, and subscription tier.

[0100] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to provide an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

[0101] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.

[0102] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color,Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesskin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and attractiveness as assessed by an Al.

[0103] There is further disclosed an example of a computing apparatus for facilitating low-friction group activities, comprising a hardware platform comprising a processor circuit and a memory; and instructions encoded within the memory to instruct the processor circuit to receive a description for a first team; select, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable prospects for human connection ; create a group electronic chat for the first team and second team ; and plan an activity for members of the first team to meet up with the second team.

[0104] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

[0105] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

[0106] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

[0107] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

[0108] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to recommend one or more locations or activities for the group activity.

[0109] There is further disclosed an example, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.

[0110] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to track attendance at the group activity.

[0111] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to reward attendance.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0112] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to penalize non-attendance.

[0113] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to collect a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and cause any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

[0114] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to collect feedback about the activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

[0115] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive feedback on individual manners and provide a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

[0116] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to receive an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and open direct messages for the two participants.

[0117] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.

[0118] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.

[0119] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to display, to the first team, a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

[0120] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0121] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to determine that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

[0122] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to pre-filter the pool of teams.

[0123] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

[0124] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to provide a fallback selection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

[0125] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to account for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

[0126] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches overtime, and subscription tier.

[0127] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the instructions are further to provide an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

[0128] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.

[0129] There is further disclosed an example, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color, skin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and attractiveness as assessed by an Al.

[0130] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a desktop computer.

[0131] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a workstation.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0132] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a laptop computer.

[0133] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a notebook computer.

[0134] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a netbook.

[0135] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a tablet computer.

[0136] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a convertible tablet computer.

[0137] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a smart phone.

[0138] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is an Android phone.

[0139] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is an iPhone.

[0140] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a Windows phone.

[0141] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a server.

[0142] There is further disclosed an example, further comprising a guest infrastructure to realize server functions.

[0143] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the guest infrastructure comprises virtualization.

[0144] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the guest infrastructure comprises containerization.

[0145] There is further disclosed an example, wherein the computing apparatus is a gateway.Detailed Description of the DrawingsAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0146] A system and method for facilitating low-friction group activities will now be described with more particular reference to the attached FIGURES. It should be noted that throughout the FIGURES, certain reference numerals may be repeated to indicate that a particular device or block is referenced multiple times across several FIGURES. In other cases, similar elements may be given new numbers in different FIGURES. Neither of these practices is intended to require a particular relationship between the various embodiments disclosed. In certain examples, a genus or class of elements may be referred to by a reference numeral ("widget 10"), while individual species or examples of the element may be referred to by a hyphenated numeral ("first specific widget 10-1" and "second specific widget 10-2").

[0147] FIGURE 1 is a block diagram of selected elements of a human matching service 100. Human matching service 100 is intended to aid human users such as users 110 and users 114 to form connections, including platonic, friendship, and / or romantic connections.

[0148] In this example, users 110 are illustrated as male users, while users 114 are illustrated as female users. As discussed above, to simplify the discussion, the users are assumed to be heterosexual, cis-gendered men and women. Embodiments of the specification may also provide matching in other situations, such as same-gender, transgender, queer, bisexual, pansexual, or other matches as may be appropriate for a particular user's preferences. In general, the term "gender parity" as used throughout this specification and the appended claims, means parity of users who are or may be mutually attracted to one another. For example, three men and three women may constitute gender parity. In a more general case, "gender parity" may manifest in any combination where each participant has at least one potential romantic match in the group.

[0149] In this example, male users 110-1, 110-2, and 110-3 access matchmaking service 102. Female users 114-1, 114-2, and 114-3 also access matchmaking service 102. Each user may operate a mobile or other internet-Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesenabled device 120, which may be provided with an application ("app") that provides an interface for matchmaking service 102. For example, user 110-1 operates device 120-1, user 110-2 operates device 120-2, user 110-3 operates device 120-3, user 114-1 operates device 110-4, user 114-2 operates device 120-4, and users 114-3 operates device 120-6.

[0150] Each user 110, 114 may access matchmaking service 102 with the intent of being matched (romantically and / or platonically) with other users. Thus, matchmaking service 102 may provide the system and method disclosed herein to facilitate low-friction group activities.

[0151] FIGURE 2 is a block diagram illustration of selected elements of a grouping system for use with a human matching ecosystem. In this case, various users have formed their own teams. For example, team 208-1 consists of user 210-1, user 210-2, and user 214-1. In this case, team 208-1 has two males and one female user.

[0152] Team 208-2 includes three female users, namely user 214-2, user 214-3, and user 214-4.

[0153] Team 208-3 includes one male and two female users, namely user 210-3, user 214-5, and user 214-6.

[0154] Team 208-4 includes three male users, namely user 210-4, user 210-5, and user 210-6.

[0155] These teams are illustrated as having three members each, but other team sizes are possible such as teams of two, three, four, five, six, or other team sizes. Certain embodiments may limit team sizes to ensure that the final groups do not become too large, which in some cases may defeat the purpose of having small group activities. Certain embodiments may specifically limit team sizes to three or four members at the most. Furthermore, while this figure illustrates individuals as belonging to only one team, individuals can also join multiple teams.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0156] In this example, there may also be individual users who sign up but do not yet have a team. In those cases, these individual users may be aggregated into aggregated teams such as team 208-5 and team 208-6.

[0157] For example, team 208-5 may be formed by user 210-7 and user 210-8 who are already friends but do not have a third member of their team. Based on her interests and attributes, the system may determine that user 214-7 is a good match for team 208-5. This is not necessarily to imply that she will be a good romantic partner for user 210-7 or user 210-8— although that is a possibility— but rather, that she fits well with the attributes and interests of team 208-5.

[0158] Team 208-6 may consist of three individual users who signed up without a team, namely user 214-8, user 214-9, and user 210-9. Again, these three are matched together not necessarily with the intent of forming any intra-team romantic attachments, but because the system determines that they are likely to form a good team. In general terms, in forming aggregated teams, the system may look more for Platonic compatibility than romantic compatibility. Furthermore, the system need not assign the individuals to a team, but may instead "match" them to one another as a suggestion, and teams or individuals can invite or recruit others to join their teams. Thus, aggregated teams may be all of one gender, or may be of mixed gender, and are intended to provide a group that can plan a group activity with a second team.

[0159] FIGURE 3 is a block diagram of selected elements of a method of team selection. In this example, a new team 312 signs up with the provided service. The system now needs to make a recommendation to match new team 312 with one or more existing teams in its database.

[0160] The system may have a group of starting teams 302. These include team 1, team 2, team 3, team 4, team 5, team 6, team 7, and team 8.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0161] Based on attributes of new team 312, the system may provide a pre-filtering phase to downselect the number of candidate teams. For example, the system may filter on gender, age range, employment, education, or other factors. This provides a set of filtered teams 303, which in this case consists of team 1, team 3, team 4, and team 8. This down selected list of filtered teams 303 gives a smaller set for the system to work with by eliminating teams that are very unlikely to be a good match. For example, a team of professionals in their 40s is unlikely to match well with a team of college students in their 20s, regardless of physical attractiveness and other attributes. Thus, the down selection filters out teams for which additional analysis has little value.

[0162] Finally, the system may use a more detailed analysis to select a final group of selected teams 304. This may include, for example, performing a full featurization of the team attributes, and then formally computing a feature vector distance between the teams, or it may include querying an Al such as an LLM to help make the selection. An LLM may match teams on physical attractiveness, similarity of interest, similarity of income levels, or other useful factors.

[0163] Team 3 316 and team 8 320 are selected as selected teams 304 and matched with new team 312. New team 312 may then be presented the profiles for team 3 316 and team 8 320. If the members of new team 312 like the look of team 3 or team 8, then a one-way match is provided. Team 3 316 and team 8 320 may also be presented with the profile of new team 312. If one or both of these accepts new team 312, then a mutual match is formed in the teams may proceed to plan an activity.

[0164] FIGURE 4 discloses additional aspects of the example of FIGURE 3, and in this case new team 312 includes user A, user B, and user C. New team 312 has been matched with team 3 316 and team 8 320.

[0165] Team 3 316 includes user D, user E, and user F. As part of the matching protocol, the system may provide some gamification of the process,Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiessuch as by revealing the profile of only one member of team 3 before asking new team 312 for a match decision. This preserves some mystery in the process. The system may select one member of team 3 to reveal to new team 312. While it is possible to make the selection at random, to encourage matching, the system may use an Al or other method to select the predicted most attractive member of team 3 316, where "most attractive" is predicted based on a plurality of subjective factors. Specifically, attractiveness may be gauged not only on physical appearance, but also on the quality and depth of attribute matches to the target team. For example, if new team 312 includes three male users, and team 3 316 includes three female users, the Al may in one example select the female user who receives the most attention on the app, wherein attention can be used as a proxy for physical attractiveness. However, if the members of new team 312 express an interest in fantasy and tabletop role-playing games, then the Al may also select the user from team 3 316 who is most likely to share these interests. Thus, the "most attractive" user is intended to be the user who will most closely match the team members' subjective interpretation of attractiveness. In this example, the Al selects user E as the most attractive, and user profile is disclosed to the members of new team 312 to encourage new team 312 to accept the match.

[0166] Likewise, the system may select from team 8 320 a user such as user G as the most likely to be attractive to new team 312. Thus, the system will disclose user G's profile to the members of new team 312.

[0167] In an embodiment, after the two teams have mutually matched, the system reveals the profiles of all team members to all other team members. In another embodiment, the profiles are kept at least partially hidden, and in some cases the user may pay for an upgrade to see all profiles. One embodiment includes disclosing the profile text of the other two team members, but keeping their pictures blurred until the group meeting takes place, to maintain an air of mystery and anticipation.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0168] FIGURE 5 and FIGURE 6 are block diagrams that illustrate revealing a selected user.

[0169] In FIGURE 5, all-male team 514 has a team profile 510. Team profile 510 may include individual values that team 514 added, such as a description of their team, their interests, their preferences, income level, social circles, employment status, location, and other information. Team 514 includes user A, user B, and user C. These users have profile A, profile B, and profile C respectively. The profiles may include similar kinds of information to the data in team profile 510, but the data may be more personalized, and there may be different fields between team profile 510 and individual profiles.

[0170] Similarly, team 516, which is all-female, includes team profile 520. Team 516 includes users D, E, and F, who have individual profiles profile D, profile E, and profile F respectively. Based on team profile 510 and team profile 520, a recommendation engine 504 may recommend team 514 as a suggested match to team 516. To encourage acceptance, recommendation engine 504 may reveal one individual profile to members of team 516.

[0171] Recommendation engine 504 may include, for example, a large language model (LLM), which may be prompted to determine which member of team 514 will likely be most attractive to members of team 516, based on the teams' team profiles and / or based on the members' individual profiles. In this case, recommendation engine 504 selects user C, and the system reveals profile C (including profile picture) to team 516. In some embodiments, if team 516 pays for a premium upgrade, all three profiles from team 514 may be revealed. If team 516 accepts team 514 as a match, a group chat may be opened, and all three profiles may optionally be revealed. Further optionally, to retain gamification and an air of remaining mystery, profile pictures from profile A and profile B may be blurred out until the meeting occurs.

[0172] In FIGURE 6, a different all-female team (team 616) has team profile 620 and includes member G, member H, and member I, withAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesrespective profiles profile G, profile H, and profile I. In this case, based on profile 620 and member profiles G, H, and I, recommendation engine 504 may determine that, instead of user C, user A is likely to be the most subjectively attractive to the members of team 616. In that case, the system will reveal profile A, including member A's profile picture. The other profiles (profile B and profile C) may optionally be revealed in case of an upgraded subscription, and if team 616 accepts team 514 as a match, some or all of profiles B and C may then be revealed.

[0173] It should be noted here that the Al is not attempting, in either of these cases, to form a direct romantic connection between members of Group A and members of Group B. Rather, the Al is attempting to select the member of group 514 likely to be the most subjectively attractive to members of either group 516 or 616. Because these groups have different profiles and different interests, the most "attractive" member for each target group may be different, even though recommendation engine 504 is, in both cases, selecting from identical group 514.

[0174] In matching groups and users, the system may consider various attributes and parameters. These may include, by way of an illustrative and nonlimiting example, demographic attributes such as gender, age, and physical location. It may also include professional and educational attributes, such as occupation, workplace, education level, income, and assets. It may also include physical attributes such as height, weight, eye color, hair color, skin color, and others. It may also include behavioral and social attributes such as last login date, account age, a manners score, presence of a profile picture, and the time or frequency of the last match with a group. It may also include personality and lifestyle attributes such as MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) personality type, zodiac sign, languages spoken, hobbies, and relationship status such as single or in a relationship. It may also include lifestyle preferences and vices, such as drinking habits, smoking habits,Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesdietary preferences (e.g., vegan, vegetarian, keto, carnivore, or others), religion, political alignment, or others.

[0175] FIGURE 7 is a block diagram illustration of additional selected aspects of a matching algorithm.

[0176] In this example, new team 704 has been entered into the system, and is to be matched against a pool 708 of existing teams, including team 1, team 2, team 3, team 4, team 5, team 6, team 7, team 8, team 9, team 10, and team 11. One purpose of the system is to provide a suitable recommendation to increase match rates. A match rate is the rate at which teams mutually accept a proposed match with one another.

[0177] As illustrated in FIGURE 8, the groups may be pre-filtered based on attributes. For example, teams may be grouped according to students, full-time professionals, and those who live in the Seoul Metro area. In this case, new team 704 may live in the Seoul Metro area, and may consist of full-time professionals. Thus, teams that do not match these attributes may be filtered out. As illustrated here, team 8 does not belong to any of the groupings. Within the Seoul Metro area, team 1, team 4, and team 5 are clustered.

[0178] Within the full-time professional (FTP) group, team 2, team 11, team 9, and team 10 are included.

[0179] Within the student group, team 3, team 5, team 6, and team 7 are included.

[0180] Thus, team 3, team 5, team 6, team 7, and team 8 may be excluded at the attribute filtering phase because the attributes are a poor match.

[0181] Attributes may be divided into very various classes of attributes. In one example, attributes classes include categorical attributes and quantitative attributes.

[0182] Categorical attributes represent a specific category and can be treated like binary flags. The user is either included or excluded from theAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiescategory. Thus, attributes may have values "includeCategory" or "excludeCategory." Category attributes are not matters of degree, but rather binary. For example, working professionals, students, Seoul Metro area, Busan Metro area, and other categories may be provided as binary indicators.

[0183] Quantitative attributes have numerical values. These can be provided with a lower bound and upper bound for matching purposes and search conditions. For example, quantitative attributes may include age, income level, manners score, or others.

[0184] For a group of women 28 years old, the lower bound for an age match may be -3, with the upper bound being +5. Thus, these 28-year-old women may have a range of 25 to 33 years old for matching.

[0185] As illustrated in FIGURES 9 and 10, these attributes can be used to form attribute clusters. For example, in FIGURE 9 quantitative attribute clusters 900 are illustrated. These include an age cluster 904, and a manners score cluster 908.

[0186] Age cluster 904 indicates the age (or average age, such as mean, median, or mode) of the members of the team. In this case, team one is, on average, 20 years old, team 6 is 23 years old, team 4 is 28 years old, team 3 is 38 years old, team 5 is 55 years old, and team 2 is 60 years old.

[0187] Score cluster 908 may indicate the average manners score on a scale of 0 to 100. A zero score would indicate a user who is consistently scored as having extremely poor manners, while a 100 may indicate a user who is consistently scored as having exceptional manners. In this case, team six has a score of 50, team 2 has a score of 60, team 1 has a score of 65, team 3 has a score of 70, team 4 has a score of 75, and team 5 has a score of 99. Upper and lower bounds can then be defined for matching these various teams.

[0188] FIGURE 10 illustrates categorical attribute clusters 1000. These include full-time professional (FTP) cluster 1004, student cluster 1008, Busan cluster 1012, and Seoul cluster 1016. In these cases, a team is includedAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitieswithin the cluster if and only if its members meet the criterion. For example, team 1, team 2, and team 4 consist of full-time professional employees. These may be, for example, doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists, or other professionals. Such professionals are less likely to be a good match for blue-collar workers or full-time students. Thus, FTP cluster 1004 includes only those people who are full-time employed professionals, and excludes other teams.

[0189] Student cluster 1008 includes team 3, team 6, team 5, and excludes any teams that do not consist of current full-time students.

[0190] Busan cluster 1012 includes teams whose members live in the Busan metropolitan area, namely team 1, team 3, and team 2.

[0191] Seoul cluster 1016 includes members who live in the Seoul metropolitan area, namely team 4, team 5, and team 6.

[0192] These clusters may be used as an index in the recommendation system.

[0193] FIGURE 11 is a flowchart of a method 1100 of providing cluster allocation.

[0194] In block 1104, the system retrieves the recommendation attributes. These may include both quantitative attributes as illustrated in FIGURE 9 and categorical attributes as illustrated in FIGURE 10.

[0195] In block 1108, the system may extract the relevant values and attributes using the LLM.

[0196] In block 1112, the system may assign the team to corresponding attribute clusters. For example, the system may analyze team 7 to determine that the team members' average age is 28, and their average manners score is 70. They are also full-time professionals who live in Seoul.

[0197] The LLM may thus assign them to the appropriate clusters, such as cluster 1004 of FIGURE 10 and cluster 1016 of FIGURE 10. Team 7 will also be provided the appropriate position within age cluster 904 of FIGUREAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities9 (in this case between team 4 and team 3). On score cluster 908, team 7 will be placed between team 3 and team 4.

[0198] FIGURE 12 illustrates selected aspects of a recommendation pipeline 1200.

[0199] In block 1204, the system may retrieve attributes for the team. For example, team 3 may have attributes of age 38, manners score 70, includes students, and they live in the Busan metropolitan area.

[0200] In block 1208, the system may perform attribute filtering. For example, for the attribute of age, which is a quantitative attribute, the system may assign a lower bound of -5 and an upper bound of +5. Because team 3 has an age of 38, this provides a range of 33 at the lower bound and 43 at the upper bound.

[0201] In this case, referring to age cluster 904 of FIGURE 9, it can be seen that no teams fall within this range. Thus, a fallback mechanism may be provided, by gradually increasing the window size and retrying up to a threshold number of times. In this example, at each step, the threshold is changed by + / -1, and the threshold is five adjustments. As described previously, both team 4 and team 7 have an average age of 28, so on the fifth and last adjustment, the age range of 28 will be included. The upper bound at five adjustments is 48, but no team matches the age range of 48. Thus, team 4 and team 7 may not be filtered out based on age. All other teams are filtered out as not meeting the age criterion.

[0202] In FIGURE 13, categorical attributes may also be applied. In this case, two categories are considered. The first category is employment, and includes the student category, but excludes the full-time professional category. Thus, teams within FTP cluster 1304 are excluded for matching while teams within student cluster 1308 are included in matching.

[0203] Further, the team is located in the Busan metropolitan area. Thus, for the location category, Busan cluster 1312 is included, while Seoul cluster 1316 is excluded. In some embodiments, this categorical matchingAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesdoes not include an incremental fallback mechanism as in the case of quantitative attributes.

[0204] Matches can then be computed based on the intersection of the attribute selections (or in other words, for each attribute, all non-matching teams are filtered out). Any team that meets all of the attribute selections can be provided as a potential match.

[0205] A global fallback is illustrated in FIGURE 14. This fallback may be provided in the case that the intersection of all result sets is empty. In this case, the system may check all possible combinations of attribute clusters. The system may then compute the union of results from these combinations.

[0206] In this example, there was no match within age cluster 1404. However, there were matches within Busan cluster 1412, score cluster 1416, and student cluster 1408.

[0207] Because there was no recommendation found in the age cluster, an entity intersection is not provided. However, the system may check the intersections of smaller cluster combinations. This can include the combination of Busan cluster 1412 with score cluster 1416, the combination of student cluster 1408 with score cluster 1416, and the combination of student cluster 1408 with Busan cluster 1412.

[0208] Because there was no intersectional result, the system may instead return the union of the results from the sets. In this case, teams 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 are returned as the final union. Thus, team 3 is matched with teams 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7.

[0209] Embodiments may also provide business filtering logic. This may be applied in addition to the attribute filtering. Results may also optionally be weighted according to business rules.

[0210] One example of a business rule is activity-based adjustments. If the team's average last login was n days ago, either remove the team from results or lower the weight. If the team was recommended more than m times today (or in another time span), either remove the team from the results orAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitieslower the weight. This ensures that the most active teams get the most hits, and that one team is not over-recommended in a single day.

[0211] Business logic may also provide recency-based adjustments. For example, the system may optimize providing the best experience for their most recent accounts to aid in retention. Thus, if the team was recently created, the system may increase the weight.

[0212] The system may also adjust based on manners scores. If the target team's score is similar to the matching team's score, then increase the weight. However, if the manners score difference is large, decrease the weight.

[0213] Business logic may also account for special cases. For example, if the team is a premium, highly attractive group recruited with incentives, they may be routed through a different pipeline, and removed from other results.

[0214] FIGURES 15a - 15c provide a flowchart of a method 1500 of performing human matching to facilitate low friction group activities.

[0215] In block 1504, the system may gather teams. Users may form teams by signing up on the platform via the app, or invite friends via a link. Furthermore, individuals who do not have an existing team may sign up and be matched to a team. Team members may provide individual profiles with their personal attributes, and they may also provide team information such as a team intro, hashtags, interests, and other information.

[0216] In block 1508, the system may featurize team attributes.

[0217] In block 1512, the system may optionally perform a prefiltering phase, in which teams are excluded based on quantitative and / or categorical attributes.

[0218] In block 1516, a GPT, LLM, Al, or other algorithm may be used to provide a team match. In some embodiments, a feature vector-based clustering algorithm may also be used to compute feature vector distancesAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesbetween teams. Block 1516 yields a recommended match between two teams.

[0219] In block 1520, the system sends a recommended match to a first team. The recommended match is for a second team with well-matched attributes.

[0220] In block 1524, the system may select a predicted most attractive member of the second team, and reveal the individual profile of that team member to the first team. This provides some gamification of the matching system. The first team gets some information about the second team, and gets more detailed information about one member of the second team, but there is still some degree of mystery associated with the match.

[0221] In block 1528, some embodiments may provide a premium feature. If the team has a premium subscription, then in block 1532, the team members may immediately reveal all profiles of the matched team.

[0222] Either with or without revealing all profiles, control passes to block 1536. In decision block 1536, the system determines whether the team accepts the recommended match. If the team does not accept the match, then control returns to block 1520, until a new match is made.

[0223] If the team accepts the recommended match, then following off page connector 1 to FIGURE 15b, in decision block 1540, the system determines whether there was a mutual acceptance. For example, 1 one may also be recommended to team 2, and if both except the match, then there is a mutual acceptance.

[0224] In selected embodiments, recommendations are not provided one at a time, but rather "n" recommendations per day, or per time of day. The value of n and frequency recommendations may, in some cases, depend on business logic or subscription tier. For example, one subscription tier may provide two recommendations in the morning, two at night, and two in the evening. Other tiers may include, for example, three total recommendations per day, four total per day, five total per day, six total per day, seven totalAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesper day, or eight total per day. The recommendations also need not be spread out evenly across the day. All may be provided in the morning, or the evening, for example. In another example, more recommendations are provided at times when a team is more active. For example, if (based on history or prediction), a team is more active in the evening, the system may provide the team one recommendation in the morning, one in the early afternoon, and four in the evening. This may result in multiple acceptances, matches, or mismatches throughout the day.

[0225] If there is not a mutual acceptance, then following off page connector 2 back to FIGURE 15a, control returns to block 1520 to await another recommended match.

[0226] Returning to decision block 1540, if there is a mutual acceptance, then in block 1544 a match is formed.

[0227] Once a mutual match is formed, some embodiments may reveal all profile information to all members of both teams. However, in some embodiments to further gamification, the profiles of the members not selected for initial disclosure may be partially revealed, while some information may be blocked and in particular the profile photos may remain blurred out.

[0228] It should also be noted that while matches are described here in terms of gender balanced three-person teams, other matches are possible. For example 2-on-2 matches are possible, or an unbalanced mode could be provided in which a 2-person team could be matched with a 4-person team or other situation. In various embodiments, even with an unbalanced mode, gender parity or near parity may still be maintained. Furthermore, an unbalanced match with a larger team may be preferable in cases where the larger team was formed by aggregation. In that case, the team members are not likely to already know one another, and thus the probability of an intrateam connection is higher. In some cases, it may also be possible to change or reverse the preference for gender parity or balance to meet certain needs.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0229] Once the teams have been matched, in block 1548 the system may create a team chat so that the members can communicate with one another to plan their group activity. Advantageously, this removes a substantial point of friction, as there is no reliance on a dynamic personality team leader to initiate and organize the activity. The computing system performs the work of matching the teams and connecting them with each other, and then presents them with the group chat with the expectation that an activity will occur.

[0230] To further aid in the planning and to further reduce friction, in block 1552 the system may also provide recommendations for a time, place, and activity for the meeting. This may be based for example on the individual user profiles or the team profiles, and may be assisted by an LLM. In some embodiments, the system may have a preference for recommending goods, services, or venues provided by paid advertising partners.

[0231] In preparation for the meeting, the system may optionally require a deposit from the team members to incentivize attendance. In one example, the deposit is in the form of in-app currency or tokens, which can be spent on upgrades or perks within the app. The deposit is provided with the understanding that if a member does not attend the meeting, the deposit will be forfeited.

[0232] In block 1556, the meeting occurs.

[0233] In block 1560, the system may use location data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or other information sources to determine who has attended the meeting.

[0234] Success with the present system is enhanced when people show up to the planned events. Thus, in block 1564, if one member does not appear, that person may be penalized, for example by lower weights for future matches. Attendance can also be incentivized by providing in-app currency or tokens as a reward, or forfeiting in-app currency or tokens for not showing up.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0235] Following off page connector 3 to FIGURE 15c, after the meeting has occurred, in block 1568, the system may collect feedback and ratings based on the meeting and the interactions with the teams. This may include ratings of the users, their attractiveness, their hygiene, their personality, and other factors.

[0236] In block 1572, the rating may also specifically include a manners score. If the user exhibits very poor manners, is rude, or conversely is extremely personable, other attendees at the meeting may provide feedback on that user. In some embodiments, the user starts out with a neutral manners score, but negative feedback may begin to weigh against future recommendations for that user. Furthermore, in some cases a user's manners score may be displayed as part of his or her profile, so that other users can avoid those with poor manners.

[0237] In block 1574, the system may also track whether, after the meeting, two of the participants express mutual individual interest in one another. For example, there may be an interface on the app to like, "heart," or otherwise express interest in one of the participants in the meeting. In some cases, this could be a paid feature or upgrade. Alternatively, in-app currency or tokens could be spent to tag a meeting attendee.

[0238] In blocks 1578, if two users have expressed mutual interest via this feature, then the system may determine that a potential romantic and or platonic connection has been formed.

[0239] In that case, in block 1582, the system may open or enable personal DMs between the two users to further facilitate the ongoing connection.

[0240] In block 1590, the method is done.

[0241] FIGURE 16 is a block diagram of a hardware platform 1600. Although a particular configuration is illustrated here, there are many different configurations of hardware platforms, and this embodiment is intended to represent the class of hardware platforms that can provide aAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiescomputing device. Furthermore, the designation of this embodiment as a "hardware platform" is not intended to require that all embodiments provide all elements in hardware. Some of the elements disclosed herein may be provided, in various embodiments, as hardware, software, firmware, microcode, microcode instructions, hardware instructions, hardware or software accelerators, or similar. Furthermore, in some embodiments, entire computing devices or platforms may be virtualized, on a single device, or in a data center where virtualization may span one or a plurality of devices. For example, in a "rackscale architecture" design, disaggregated computing resources may be virtualized into a single instance of a virtual device. In that case, all of the disaggregated resources that are used to build the virtual device may be considered part of hardware platform 1600, even though they may be scattered across a data center, or even located in different data centers.

[0242] Hardware platform 1600 is configured to provide a computing device. In various embodiments, a "computing device" may be or comprise, by way of nonlimiting example, a computer, workstation, server, mainframe, virtual machine (whether emulated or on a "bare metal" hypervisor), network appliance, container, loT device, high performance computing (HPC) environment, a data center, a communications service provider infrastructure (e.g., one or more portions of an Evolved Packet Core), an in-memory computing environment, a computing system of a vehicle (e.g., an automobile or airplane), an industrial control system, embedded computer, embedded controller, embedded sensor, personal digital assistant, laptop computer, cellular telephone, internet protocol (IP) telephone, smart phone, tablet computer, convertible tablet computer, computing appliance, receiver, wearable computer, handheld calculator, or any other electronic, microelectronic, or microelectromechanical device for processing and communicating data. At least some of the methods and systems disclosed in this specification may be embodied by or carried out on a computing device.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0243] In the illustrated example, hardware platform 1600 is arranged in a point-to-point (PtP) configuration. This PtP configuration is popular for personal computer (PC) and server-type devices, although it is not so limited, and any other bus type may be used.

[0244] Hardware platform 1600 is an example of a platform that may be used to implement embodiments of the teachings of this specification. For example, instructions could be stored in storage 1650. Instructions could also be transmitted to the hardware platform in an ethereal form, such as via a network interface, or retrieved from another source via any suitable interconnect. Once received (from any source), the instructions may be loaded into memory 1604, and may then be executed by one or more processor 1602 to provide elements such as an operating system 1606, operational agents 1608, or data 1612.

[0245] Hardware platform 1600 may include several processors 1602. For simplicity and clarity, only processors PR.OC0 1602-1 and PR.OC1 1602-2 are shown. Additional processors (such as 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 64, or 128 processors) may be provided as necessary, while in other embodiments, only one processor may be provided. Processors may have any number of cores, such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 64, or 128 cores.

[0246] Processors 1602 may be any type of processor and may communicatively couple to chipset 1616 via, for example, PtP interfaces. Chipset 1616 may also exchange data with other elements, such as a high performance graphics adapter 1622. In alternative embodiments, any or all of the PtP links illustrated in FIGURE 16 could be implemented as any type of bus, or other configuration rather than a PtP link. In various embodiments, chipset 1616 may reside on the same die or package as a processor 1602 or on one or more different dies or packages. Each chipset may support any suitable number of processors 1602. A chipset 1616 (which may be a chipset, uncore, Northbridge, Southbridge, or other suitable logic and circuitry) mayAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesalso include one or more controllers to couple other components to one or more central processor units (CPU).

[0247] Two memories, 1604-1 and 1604-2 are shown, connected to PROCO 1602-1 and PROCI 1602-2, respectively. As an example, each processor is shown connected to its memory in a direct memory access (DMA) configuration, though other memory architectures are possible, including ones in which memory 1604 communicates with a processor 1602 via a bus. For example, some memories may be connected via a system bus, or in a data center, memory may be accessible in a remote DMA (RDMA) configuration.

[0248] Memory 1604 may include any form of volatile or nonvolatile memory including, without limitation, magnetic media (e.g., one or more tape drives), optical media, flash, random access memory (RAM), double data rate RAM (DDR RAM) nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM), static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), persistent RAM (PRAM), data-centric (DC) persistent memory (e.g., Intel Optane / 3D-crosspoint), cache, Layer 1 (LI) or Layer 2 (L2) memory, on-chip memory, registers, virtual memory region, read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, removable media, tape drive, cloud storage, or any other suitable local or remote memory component or components. Memory 1604 may be used for short, medium, and / or long-term storage. Memory 1604 may store any suitable data or information utilized by platform logic. In some embodiments, memory 1604 may also comprise storage for instructions that may be executed by the cores of processors 1602 or other processing elements (e.g., logic resident on chipsets 1616) to provide functionality.

[0249] In certain embodiments, memory 1604 may comprise a relatively low-latency volatile main memory, while storage 1650 may comprise a relatively higher-latency nonvolatile memory. However, memory 1604 and storage 1650 need not be physically separate devices, and in some examples may represent simply a logical separation of function (if there is any separation at all). It should also be noted that although DMA is disclosedAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesby way of nonlimiting example, DMA is not the only protocol consistent with this specification, and that other memory architectures are available.

[0250] Certain computing devices provide main memory 1604 and storage 1650, for example, in a single physical memory device, and in other cases, memory 1604 and / or storage 1650 are functionally distributed across many physical devices. In the case of virtual machines or hypervisors, all or part of a function may be provided in the form of software or firmware running over a virtualization layer to provide the logical function, and resources such as memory, storage, and accelerators may be disaggregated (i.e., located in different physical locations across a data center). In other examples, a device such as a network interface may provide only the minimum hardware interfaces necessary to perform its logical operation, and may rely on a software driver to provide additional necessary logic. Thus, each logical block disclosed herein is broadly intended to include one or more logic elements configured and operable for providing the disclosed logical operation of that block. As used throughout this specification, "logic elements" may include hardware, external hardware (digital, analog, or mixed-signal), software, reciprocating software, services, drivers, interfaces, components, modules, algorithms, sensors, components, firmware, hardware instructions, microcode, programmable logic, or objects that can coordinate to achieve a logical operation.

[0251] Graphics adapter 1622 may be configured to provide a human-readable visual output, such as a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical desktop such as Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX desktop, or a Unix / Linux X Window System-based desktop. Graphics adapter 1622 may provide output in any suitable format, such as a coaxial output, composite video, component video, video graphics array (VGA), or digital outputs such as digital visual interface (DVI), FPDLink, DisplayPort, or high definition multimedia interface (HDMI), by way of nonlimiting example. In some examples, graphics adapterAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities1622 may include a hardware graphics card, which may have its own memory and its own graphics processing unit (GPU).

[0252] Chipset 1616 may be in communication with a bus 1628 via an interface circuit. Bus 1628 may have one or more devices that communicate over it, such as a bus bridge 1632, I / O devices 1635, accelerators 1646, communication devices 1640, and a keyboard and / or mouse 1638, by way of nonlimiting example. In general terms, the elements of hardware platform 1600 may be coupled together in any suitable manner. For example, a bus may couple any of the components together. A bus may include any known interconnect, such as a multi-drop bus, a mesh interconnect, a fabric, a ring interconnect, a round-robin protocol, a PtP interconnect, a serial interconnect, a parallel bus, a coherent (e.g., cache coherent) bus, a layered protocol architecture, a differential bus, or a Gunning transceiver logic (GTL) bus, by way of illustrative and nonlimiting example.

[0253] Communication devices 1640 can broadly include any communication not covered by a network interface and the various I / O devices described herein. This may include, for example, various universal serial bus (USB), FireWire, Lightning, or other serial or parallel devices that provide communications.

[0254] I / O Devices 1635 may be configured to interface with any auxiliary device that connects to hardware platform 1600 but that is not necessarily a part of the core architecture of hardware platform 1600. A peripheral may be operable to provide extended functionality to hardware platform 1600, and may or may not be wholly dependent on hardware platform 1600. In some cases, a peripheral may be a computing device in its own right. Peripherals may include input and output devices such as displays, terminals, printers, keyboards, mice, modems, data ports (e.g., serial, parallel, USB, Firewire, or similar), network controllers, optical media, external storage, sensors, transducers, actuators, controllers, dataAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesacquisition buses, cameras, microphones, speakers, or external storage, by way of nonlimiting example.

[0255] In one example, audio I / O 1642 may provide an interface for audible sounds, and may include in some examples a hardware sound card. Sound output may be provided in analog (such as a 3.5mm stereo jack), component ("RCA") stereo, or in a digital audio format such as S / PDIF, AES3, AES47, HDMI, USB, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi audio, by way of nonlimiting example. Audio input may also be provided via similar interfaces, in an analog or digital form.

[0256] Bus bridge 1632 may be in communication with other devices such as a keyboard / mouse 1638 (or other input devices such as a touch screen, trackball, etc.), communication devices 1640 (such as modems, network interface devices, peripheral interfaces such as PCI or PCIe, or other types of communication devices that may communicate through a network), audio I / O 1642, a data storage device 1644, and / or accelerators 1646. In alternative embodiments, any portions of the bus architectures could be implemented with one or more PtP links.

[0257] Operating system 1606 may be, for example, Microsoft Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, iOS, MS-DOS, or an embedded or realtime operating system (including embedded or real-time flavors of the foregoing). In some embodiments, a hardware platform 1600 may function as a host platform for one or more guest systems that invoke application (e.g., operational agents 1608).

[0258] Operational agents 1608 may include one or more computing engines that may include one or more nontransitory computer-readable mediums having stored thereon executable instructions operable to instruct a processor to provide operational functions. At an appropriate time, such as upon booting hardware platform 1600 or upon a command from operating system 1606 or a user or security administrator, a processor 1602 may retrieve a copy of the operational agent (or software portions thereof) fromAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesstorage 1650 and load it into memory 1604. Processor 1602 may then iteratively execute the instructions of operational agents 1608 to provide the desired methods or functions.

[0259] As used throughout this specification, an "engine" includes any combination of one or more logic elements, of similar or dissimilar species, operable for and configured to perform one or more methods provided by the engine. In some cases, the engine may be or include a special integrated circuit designed to carry out a method or a part thereof, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) programmed to provide a function, a special hardware or microcode instruction, other programmable logic, and / or software instructions operable to instruct a processor to perform the method. In some cases, the engine may run as a "daemon" process, background process, terminate-and-stay-resident program, a service, system extension, control panel, bootup procedure, basic in / output system (BIOS) subroutine, or any similar program that operates with or without direct user interaction. In certain embodiments, some engines may run with elevated privileges in a "driver space" associated with ring 0, 1, or 2 in a protection ring architecture. The engine may also include other hardware, software, and / or data, including configuration files, registry entries, application programming interfaces (APIs), and interactive or user-mode software by way of nonlimiting example.

[0260] In some cases, the function of an engine is described in terms of a "circuit" or "circuitry to" perform a particular function. The terms "circuit" and "circuitry" should be understood to include both the physical circuit, and in the case of a programmable circuit, any instructions or data used to program or configure the circuit.

[0261] Where elements of an engine are embodied in software, computer program instructions may be implemented in programming languages, such as an object code, an assembly language, or a high-level language such as OpenCL, FORTRAN, C, C++, JAVA, or HTML. These may be used with any compatible operating systems or operating environments.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group ActivitiesHardware elements may be designed manually, or with a hardware description language such as Spice, Verilog, and VHDL. The source code may define and use various data structures and communication messages. The source code may be in a computer executable form (e.g., via an interpreter), or the source code may be converted (e.g., via a translator, assembler, or compiler) into a computer executable form, or converted to an intermediate form such as byte code. Where appropriate, any of the foregoing may be used to build or describe appropriate discrete or integrated circuits, whether sequential, combinatorial, state machines, or otherwise.

[0262] A network interface may be provided to communicatively couple hardware platform 1600 to a wired or wireless network or fabric. A "network," as used throughout this specification, may include any communicative platform operable to exchange data or information within or between computing devices, including, by way of nonlimiting example, a local network, a switching fabric, an ad-hoc local network, Ethernet (e.g., as defined by the IEEE 802.3 standard), Fiber Channel, InfiniBand, Wi-Fi, or other suitable standard. Intel Omni-Path Architecture (OPA), TrueScale, Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI) (formerly called QuickPath Interconnect, QPI, or KTI), Fibrechannel, Ethernet, Fibrechannel over Ethernet (FCoE), InfiniBand, PCI, PCIe, fiber optics, millimeter wave guide, an internet architecture, a packet data network (PDN) offering a communications interface or exchange between any two nodes in a system, a local area network (LAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), wide area network (WAN), wireless local area network (WLAN), virtual private network (VPN), intranet, plain old telephone system (POTS), or any other appropriate architecture or system that facilitates communications in a network or telephonic environment, either with or without human interaction or intervention. A network interface may include one or more physical ports that may couple to a cable (e.g., an Ethernet cable, other cable, or waveguide).Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0263] In some cases, some or all of the components of hardware platform 1600 may be virtualized, in particular the processor(s) and memory. For example, a virtualized environment may run on OS 1606, or OS 1606 could be replaced with a hypervisor or virtual machine manager. In this configuration, a virtual machine running on hardware platform 1600 may virtualize workloads. A virtual machine in this configuration may perform essentially all of the functions of a physical hardware platform.

[0264] In a general sense, any suitably-configured processor can execute any type of instructions associated with the data to achieve the operations illustrated in this specification. Any of the processors or cores disclosed herein could transform an element or an article (for example, data) from one state or thing to another state or thing. In another example, some activities outlined herein may be implemented with fixed logic or programmable logic (for example, software and / or computer instructions executed by a processor).

[0265] Various components of the system depicted in FIGURE 16 may be combined in a SoC architecture or in any other suitable configuration. For example, embodiments disclosed herein can be incorporated into systems including mobile devices such as smart cellular telephones, tablet computers, personal digital assistants, portable gaming devices, and similar. These mobile devices may be provided with SoC architectures in at least some embodiments. Such an SoC (and any other hardware platform disclosed herein) may include analog, digital, and / or mixed-signal, radio frequency (RF), or similar processing elements. Other embodiments may include a multichip module (MCM), with a plurality of chips located within a single electronic package and configured to interact closely with each other through the electronic package. In various other embodiments, the computing functionalities disclosed herein may be implemented in one or more silicon cores in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), FPGAs, and other semiconductor chips.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities

[0266] FIGURE 17 is a block diagram of a NFV infrastructure 1700. NFV is an example of virtualization, and the virtualization infrastructure here can also be used to realize traditional VMs. Various functions described above may be realized as VMs, such as any of the server functions disclosed herein that facilitate low-friction group activities. Various Al and analysis functions (e.g., backend functions) can also be virtualized.

[0267] NFV is generally considered distinct from software defined networking (SDN), but they can interoperate together, and the teachings of this specification should also be understood to apply to SDN in appropriate circumstances. For example, virtual network functions (VNFs) may operate within the data plane of an SDN deployment. NFV was originally envisioned as a method for providing reduced capital expenditure (Capex) and operating expenses (Opex) for telecommunication services. One feature of NFV is replacing proprietary, special-purpose hardware appliances with virtual appliances running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware within a virtualized environment. In addition to Capex and Opex savings, NFV provides a more agile and adaptable network. As network loads change, VNFs can be provisioned ("spun up") or removed ("spun down") to meet network demands. For example, in times of high load, more load balancing VNFs may be spun up to distribute traffic to more workload servers (which may themselves be VMs). In times when more suspicious traffic is experienced, additional firewalls or deep packet inspection (DPI) appliances may be needed.

[0268] Because NFV started out as a telecommunications feature, many NFV instances are focused on telecommunications. However, NFV is not limited to telecommunication services. In a broad sense, NFV includes one or more VNFs running within a network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), such as NFVI 1700. Often, the VNFs are inline service functions that are separate from workload servers or other nodes. These VNFs can be chained together into a service chain, which may be defined by a virtualAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiessubnetwork, and which may include a serial string of network services that provide behind-the-scenes work, such as security, logging, billing, and similar.

[0269] In the example of FIGURE 17, an NFV orchestrator 1701 may manage several VNFs 1712 running on an NFVI 1700. NFV requires nontrivial resource management, such as allocating a very large pool of compute resources among appropriate numbers of instances of each VNF, managing connections between VNFs, determining how many instances of each VNF to allocate, and managing memory, storage, and network connections. This may require complex software management, thus making NFV orchestrator 1701 a valuable system resource. Note that NFV orchestrator 1701 may provide a browser-based or graphical configuration interface, and in some embodiments may be integrated with SDN orchestration functions.

[0270] Note that NFV orchestrator 1701 itself may be virtualized (rather than a special-purpose hardware appliance). NFV orchestrator 1701 may be integrated within an existing SDN system, wherein an operations support system (OSS) manages the SDN. This may interact with cloud resource management systems (e.g., OpenStack) to provide NFV orchestration. An NFVI 1700 may include the hardware, software, and other infrastructure to enable VNFs to run. This may include a hardware platform 1702 on which one or more VMs 1704 may run. For example, hardware platform 1702-1 in this example runs VMs 1704-1 and 1704-2. Hardware platform 1702-2 runs VMs 1704-3 and 1704-4. Each hardware platform 1702 may include a respective hypervisor 1720, virtual machine manager (VMM), or similar function, which may include and run on a native (bare metal) operating system, which may be minimal so as to consume very few resources. For example, hardware platform 1702-1 has hypervisor 1720-1, and hardware platform 1702-2 has hypervisor 1720-2.

[0271] Hardware platforms 1702 may be or comprise a rack or several racks of blade or slot servers (including, e.g., processors, memory, andAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesstorage), one or more data centers, other hardware resources distributed across one or more geographic locations, hardware switches, or network interfaces. An NFVI 1700 may also include the software architecture that enables hypervisors to run and be managed by NFV orchestrator 1701.

[0272] Running on NFVI 1700 are VMs 1704, each of which in this example is a VNF providing a virtual service appliance. Each VM 1704 in this example includes an instance of the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) 1716, a virtual operating system 1708, and an application providing the VNF 1712. For example, VM 1704-1 has virtual OS 1708-1, DPDK 1716-1, and VNF 1712-1. VM 1704-2 has virtual OS 1708-2, DPDK 1716-2, and VNF 1712-2. VM 1704-3 has virtual OS 1708-3, DPDK 1716-3, and VNF 1712-3. VM 1704-4 has virtual OS 1708-4, DPDK 1716-4, and VNF 1712-4.

[0273] Virtualized network functions could include, as nonlimiting and illustrative examples, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, load balancers, routers, session border controllers, DPI services, network address translation (NAT) modules, or call security association.

[0274] The illustration of FIGURE 17 shows that a number of VNFs 1704 have been provisioned and exist within NFVI 1700. This FIGURE does not necessarily illustrate any relationship between the VNFs and the larger network, or the packet flows that NFVI 1700 may employ.

[0275] The illustrated DPDK instances 1716 provide a set of highly-optimized libraries for communicating across a virtual switch (vSwitch) 1722. Like VMs 1704, vSwitch 1722 is provisioned and allocated by a hypervisor 1720. The hypervisor uses a network interface to connect the hardware platform to the data center fabric (e.g., a host fabric interface (HFI)). This HFI may be shared by all VMs 1704 running on a hardware platform 1702. Thus, a vSwitch may be allocated to switch traffic between VMs 1704. The vSwitch may be a pure software vSwitch (e.g., a shared memory vSwitch), which may be optimized so that data are not moved between memory locations, but rather, the data may stay in one place, and pointers may beAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiespassed between VMs 1704 to simulate data moving between ingress and egress ports of the vSwitch. The vSwitch may also include a hardware driver (e.g., a hardware network interface IP block that switches traffic, but that connects to virtual ports rather than physical ports). In this illustration, a distributed vSwitch 1722 is illustrated, wherein vSwitch 1722 is shared between two or more physical hardware platforms 1702.

[0276] FIGURE 18 is a block diagram of selected elements of a containerization infrastructure 1800. Like virtualization, containerization is a popular form of providing a guest infrastructure. Various functions described herein may be containerized, such as any of the server functions disclosed herein that facilitate low-friction group activities. Various Al and analysis functions (e.g., backend functions) can also be containerized.

[0277] Containerization infrastructure 1800 runs on a hardware platform such as containerized server 1804. Containerized server 1804 may provide processors, memory, one or more network interfaces, accelerators, and / or other hardware resources.

[0278] Running on containerized server 1804 is a shared kernel 1808. One distinction between containerization and virtualization is that containers run on a common kernel with the main operating system and with each other. In contrast, in virtualization, the processor and other hardware resources are abstracted or virtualized, and each virtual machine provides its own kernel on the virtualized hardware.

[0279] Running on shared kernel 1808 is main operating system 1812. Commonly, main operating system 1812 is a Unix or Linux-based operating system, although containerization infrastructure is also available for other types of systems, including Microsoft Windows systems and Macintosh systems. Running on top of main operating system 1812 is a containerization layer 1816. For example, Docker is a popular containerization layer that runs on a number of operating systems, and relies on the Docker daemon. Newer operating systems (including Fedora Linux 32 and later) that use version 2 ofAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesthe kernel control groups service (cgroups v2) feature appear to be incompatible with the Docker daemon. Thus, these systems may run with an alternative known as Podman that provides a containerization layer without a daemon.

[0280] Various factions debate the advantages and / or disadvantages of using a daemon-based containerization layer (e.g., Docker) versus one without a daemon (e.g., Podman). Such debates are outside the scope of the present specification, and when the present specification speaks of containerization, it is intended to include any containerization layer, whether it requires the use of a daemon or not.

[0281] Main operating system 1812 may also provide services 1818, which provide services and interprocess communication to userspace applications 1820.

[0282] Services 1818 and userspace applications 1820 in this illustration are independent of any container.

[0283] As discussed above, a difference between containerization and virtualization is that containerization relies on a shared kernel. However, to maintain virtualization-like segregation, containers do not share interprocess communications, services, or many other resources. Some sharing of resources between containers can be approximated by permitting containers to map their internal file systems to a common mount point on the external file system. Because containers have a shared kernel with the main operating system 1812, they inherit the same file and resource access permissions as those provided by shared kernel 1808. For example, one popular application for containers is to run a plurality of web servers on the same physical hardware. The Docker daemon provides a shared socket, docker.sock, that is accessible by containers running under the same Docker daemon. Thus, one container can be configured to provide only a reverse proxy for mapping hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) requests to various containers. This reverse proxy container canAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitieslisten on docker. sock for newly spun up containers. When a container spins up that meets certain criteria, such as by specifying a listening port and / or virtual host, the reverse proxy can map HTTP or HTTPS requests to the specified virtual host to the designated virtual port. Thus, only the reverse proxy host may listen on ports 80 and 443, and any request to subdomainl.example.com may be directed to a virtual port on a first container, while requests to subdomain2.example.com may be directed to a virtual port on a second container.

[0284] Other than this limited sharing of files or resources, which generally is explicitly configured by an administrator of containerized server 1804, the containers themselves are completely isolated from one another. However, because they share the same kernel, it is relatively easier to dynamically allocate compute resources such as CPU time and memory to the various containers. Furthermore, it is common practice to provide only a minimum set of services on a specific container, and the container does not need to include a full bootstrap loader because it shares the kernel with a containerization host (i.e. containerized server 1804).

[0285] Thus, "spinning up" a container is often relatively faster than spinning up a new virtual machine that provides a similar service. Furthermore, a containerization host does not need to virtualize hardware resources, so containers access those resources natively and directly. While this provides some theoretical advantages over virtualization, modern hypervisors— especially type 1, or "bare metal," hypervisors— provide such near-native performance that this advantage may not always be realized.

[0286] In this example, containerized server 1804 hosts two containers, namely container 1830 and container 1840.

[0287] Container 1830 may include a minimal operating system 1832 that runs on top of shared kernel 1808. Note that a minimal operating system is provided as an illustrative example, and is not mandatory. In fact, container 1830 may perform as full an operating system as is necessary orAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesdesirable. Minimal operating system 1832 is used here as an example simply to illustrate that in common practice, the minimal operating system necessary to support the function of the container (which in common practice, is a single or monolithic function) is provided.

[0288] On top of minimal operating system 1832, container 1830 may provide one or more services 1834. Finally, on top of services 1834, container 1830 may also provide userspace applications 1836, as necessary.

[0289] Container 1840 may include a minimal operating system 1842 that runs on top of shared kernel 1808. Note that a minimal operating system is provided as an illustrative example, and is not mandatory. In fact, container 1840 may perform as full an operating system as is necessary or desirable. Minimal operating system 1842 is used here as an example simply to illustrate that in common practice, the minimal operating system necessary to support the function of the container (which in common practice, is a single or monolithic function) is provided.

[0290] On top of minimal operating system 1842, container 1840 may provide one or more services 1844. Finally, on top of services 1844, container 1840 may also provide userspace applications 1846, as necessary.

[0291] Using containerization layer 1816, containerized server 1804 may run discrete containers, each one providing the minimal operating system and / or services necessary to provide a particular function. For example, containerized server 1804 could include a mail server, a web server, a secure shell server, a file server, a weblog, cron services, a database server, and many other types of services. In theory, these could all be provided in a single container, but security and modularity advantages are realized by providing each of these discrete functions in a discrete container with its own minimal operating system necessary to provide those services.

[0292] The foregoing outlines features of several embodiments so that those skilled in the art may better understand various aspects of the present disclosure. The foregoing detailed description sets forth examples ofAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesapparatuses, methods, and systems related to providing low-friction group activities, in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. Features such as structure(s), function(s), and / or characteristic(s), for example, are described with reference to one embodiment as a matter of convenience; various embodiments may be implemented with any suitable one or more of the described features.

[0293] As used throughout this specification, the phrase "an embodiment" is intended to refer to one or more embodiments. Furthermore, different uses of the phrase "an embodiment" may refer to different embodiments. The phrases "in another embodiment" or "in a different embodiment" refer to an embodiment different from the one previously described, or the same embodiment with additional features. For example, "in an embodiment, features may be present. In another embodiment, additional features may be present." The foregoing example could first refer to an embodiment with features A, B, and C, while the second could refer to an embodiment with features A, B, C, and D, with features, A, B, and D, with features, D, E, and F, or any other variation.

[0294] In the foregoing description, various aspects of the illustrative implementations may be described using terms commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiments disclosed herein may be practiced with only some of the described aspects. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials, and configurations are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the illustrative implementations. In some cases, the embodiments disclosed may be practiced without specific details. In other instances, well-known features are omitted or simplified so as not to obscure the illustrated embodiments.

[0295] For the purposes of the present disclosure and the appended claims, the article "a" refers to one or more of an item. The phrase "A or B" is intended to encompass the "inclusive or," e.g., A, B, or (A and B). "A and / orAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group ActivitiesB" means A, B, or (A and B). For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase "A, B, and / or C" means A, B, C, (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B, and C).

[0296] The embodiments disclosed can readily be used as the basis for designing or modifying other processes and structures to carry out the teachings of the present specification. Any equivalent constructions to those disclosed do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Design considerations may result in substitute arrangements, design choices, device possibilities, hardware configurations, software implementations, and equipment options.

[0297] As used throughout this specification, a "memory" is expressly intended to include both a volatile memory and a nonvolatile memory. Thus, for example, an "engine" as described above could include instructions encoded within a volatile or nonvolatile memory that, when executed, instruct a processor to perform the operations of any of the methods or procedures disclosed herein. It is expressly intended that this configuration reads on a computing apparatus "sitting on a shelf" in a non-operational state. For example, in this example, the "memory" could include one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media that contain stored instructions. These instructions, in conjunction with the hardware platform (including a processor) on which they are stored may constitute a computing apparatus.

[0298] In other embodiments, a computing apparatus may also read on an operating device. For example, in this configuration, the "memory" could include a volatile or run-time memory (e.g., RAM), where instructions have already been loaded. These instructions, when fetched by the processor and executed, may provide methods or procedures as described herein.

[0299] In yet another embodiment, there may be one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed, cause a hardware platform orAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesother computing system, to carry out a method or procedure. For example, the instructions could be executable object code, including software instructions executable by a processor. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media could include, by way of illustrative and nonlimiting example, a magnetic media (e.g., hard drive), a flash memory, a ROM, optical media (e.g., CD, DVD, Blu-Ray), nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM), nonvolatile memory (NVM) (e.g., Intel 3D Xpoint), or other nontransitory memory.

[0300] There are also provided herein certain methods, illustrated for example in flow charts and / or signal flow diagrams. The order or operations disclosed in these methods discloses one illustrative ordering that may be used in some embodiments, but this ordering is not intended to be restrictive, unless expressly stated otherwise. In other embodiments, the operations may be carried out in other logical orders. In general, one operation should be deemed to necessarily precede another only if the first operation provides a result required for the second operation to execute. Furthermore, the sequence of operations itself should be understood to be a nonlimiting example. In appropriate embodiments, some operations may be omitted as unnecessary or undesirable. In the same or in different embodiments, other operations not shown may be included in the method to provide additional results.

[0301] In certain embodiments, some of the components illustrated herein may be omitted or consolidated. In a general sense, the arrangements depicted in the FIGURES may be more logical in their representations, whereas a physical architecture may include various permutations, combinations, and / or hybrids of these elements.

[0302] With the numerous examples provided herein, interaction may be described in terms of two, three, four, or more electrical components. These descriptions are provided for purposes of clarity and example only. Any of the illustrated components, modules, and elements of the FIGURES mayAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesbe combined in various configurations, all of which fall within the scope of this specification.

[0303] In certain cases, it may be easier to describe one or more functionalities by disclosing only selected elements. Such elements are selected to illustrate specific information to facilitate the description. The inclusion of an element in the FIGURES is not intended to imply that the element must appear in the disclosure, as claimed, and the exclusion of certain elements from the FIGURES is not intended to imply that the element is to be excluded from the disclosure as claimed. Similarly, any methods or flows illustrated herein are provided by way of illustration only. Inclusion or exclusion of operations in such methods or flows should be understood the same as inclusion or exclusion of other elements as described in this paragraph. Where operations are illustrated in a particular order, the order is a nonlimiting example only. Unless expressly specified, the order of operations may be altered to suit a particular embodiment.

[0304] Other changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art. All such changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications fall within the scope of this specification.

[0305] To aid the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and, any readers of any patent or publication flowing from this specification, the Applicant: (a) does not intend any of the appended claims to invoke paragraph (f) of 35 U.S.C. section 112, or its equivalent, as it exists on the date of the filing hereof unless the words "means for" or "steps for" are specifically used in the particular claims; and (b) does not intend, by any statement in the specification, to limit this disclosure in any way that is not otherwise expressly reflected in the appended claims, as originally presented or as amended.

Claims

Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities ClaimsWhat is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method or facilitating low-friction group activities, comprising:receiving a description for a first team;selecting, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable user traits;matching the first team and second team together to open a chat; andplanning an in-person activity the first team to meet the second team.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising recommending one or more locations or activities for the group activity.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group ActivitiesThe method of claim 6, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising tracking attendance at the group activity.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising rewarding attendance.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising penalizing non-attendance.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising collecting a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and causing any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising collecting feedback about the in-person activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving feedback on individual manners and providing a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and opening direct messages for the two participants.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities17. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying to the first team a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising pre-filtering the pool of teams.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a fallback selection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising accounting for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches over time, and subscription tier.

25. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities27. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from one or more of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color, skin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and an attractiveness assessment based on how much attention a user's profile receives on the platform.

28. An apparatus comprising means for performing the method of any of claims 1 - 27.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the means for performing the method comprise a processor and a memory.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the memory comprises machine-readable instructions that, when executed, cause the apparatus to perform the method of any of claims 1 - 27.

31. The apparatus of any of claims 28 - 30, wherein the apparatus is a computing system.

32. At least one computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, implement a method or realize an apparatus as claimed in any of claims 1 - 31.

33. One or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon executable instructions to facilitate low-friction group activities, the executable instructions to instruct a processor to:receive a description for a first team;select, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable user traits;Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesmatching the first team and second team together to open a chat; andplan an in-person activity for members of the first team to meet the second team.

34. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

35. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

36. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

37. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to receive individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

38. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to recommend one or more locations or activities for the group activity.

39. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities40. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to track attendance at the group activity.

41. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 40, wherein the instructions are further to reward attendance.

42. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 40, wherein the instructions are further to penalize non-attendance.

43. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 40, wherein the instructions are further to collect a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and cause any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

44. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to collect feedback about the in-person activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

45. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to receive feedback on individual manners and provide a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

46. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to receive an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and open direct messages for the two participants.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities47. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.

48. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.

49. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to display, to the first team, a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

50. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 49, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.

51. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to determine that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

52. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to pre-filter the pool of teams.

53. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

54. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to provide a fallbackAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesselection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

55. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to account for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

56. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 55, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches over time, and subscription tier.

57. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein the instructions are further to provide an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

58. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 57, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.

59. The one or more tangible, nontransitory computer-readable storage media of claim 33, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color, skin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and attractiveness as assessed by an Al.

60. A computing apparatus for facilitating low-friction group activities, comprising:a hardware platform comprising a processor circuit and a memory; andAttorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activitiesinstructions encoded within the memory to instruct the processor circuit to:receive a description for a first team;select, from a pool of teams, a second team, wherein the first team and second team are determined to have desirable user traits;matching the first team and second team together to open a chat; andplan an in-person activity for members of the first team to meet the second team.

61. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the first team and second team have three to six people.

62. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the first team and second team have three to four people.

63. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the first team and second team have substantial gender parity.

64. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to receive individual metadata for a person unattached to a team, and matching the person to an aggregated team.

65. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to recommend one or more locations or activities for the group activity.

66. The computing apparatus of claim 65, wherein recommending accounts for paid advertising partners.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities67. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to track attendance at the group activity.

68. The computing apparatus of claim 67, wherein the instructions are further to reward attendance.

69. The computing apparatus of claim 67, wherein the instructions are further to penalize non-attendance.

70. The computing apparatus of claim 67, wherein the instructions are further to collect a deposit of real currency or in-application currency or tokens in advance of the group activity, and cause any team member not attending to forfeit the deposit.

71. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to collect feedback about the in-person activity or about members of the teams after the group activity.

72. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to receive feedback on individual manners and provide a manners rating for manners for use with future matches.

73. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to receive an expression of mutual individual interest between two participants in the group activity, and open direct messages for the two participants.

74. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein selecting the second team comprises building a feature vector and using a feature vector distance computation to cluster the teams.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities75. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein selecting the second team comprises uses a large language model (LLM) to select the second team.

76. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to display, to the first team, a profile for a single selected member of the second team.

77. The computing apparatus of claim 76, wherein the single selected member is selected as the member most likely to be attractive to members of the first team.

78. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to determine that the first team includes an upgraded description, and displaying, to the first team, profiles for all members of the second team.

79. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to pre-filter the pool of teams.

80. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein selecting the second team comprises considering quantitative and categorical features.

81. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to provide a fallback selection, wherein the fallback selection comprises a union of matching clusters.

82. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to account for a business logic rule in selecting the second team.

83. The computing apparatus of claim 82, wherein the business logic rule is selected from the group consisting of last active login, account age, previous matches overtime, and subscription tier.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities84. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein the instructions are further to provide an unbalanced mode, wherein teams of different sizes are matched.

85. The computing apparatus of claim 84, wherein the unbalanced mode maintains substantial gender parity.

86. The computing apparatus of claim 60, wherein selecting the second team comprises accounting for features of each team, wherein the features are selected from sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, interests, income level, employment, education, employer, height, hair color, eye color, skin color, hobbies, interests, alcohol consumption, vices, religion, political alignment, location, age, and attractiveness as assessed by an Al.

87. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a desktop computer.

88. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a workstation.

89. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a laptop computer.

90. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a notebook computer.

91. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a netbook.

92. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a tablet computer.

93. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a convertible tablet computer.Attorney Docket No.: Patent Application 4937-0103 Low-Friction Group Activities94. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a smart phone.

95. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is an Android phone.

96. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is an iPhone.

97. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a Windows phone.

98. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a server.

99. The computing apparatus of claim 98, further comprising a guest infrastructure to realize server functions.

100. The computing apparatus of claim 99, wherein the guest infrastructure comprises virtualization.

101. The computing apparatus of claim 99, wherein the guest infrastructure comprises containerization.

102. The computing apparatus of any of claims 60 - 86, wherein the computing apparatus is a gateway.

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