5366 results about "Peer-to-peer" patented technology

Embodiments of a system and method for providing peer-to-peer (p2p) capabilities to devices with limited resources (e.g. wireless devices). A mechanism is described that allows the devices to participate as peer nodes in p2p network environments through wired or wireless connections. In one embodiment, the p2p network environment may be implemented according to a p2p platform, and the mechanism may be interoperable with p2p platform devices in the p2p network environment. A relay / proxy node on the network may serve as an interface to the p2p environment for devices using the mechanism to participate as peers in the p2p network. The relay / proxy node may be accessed using the mechanism to perform one or more p2p network environment functions on behalf of the devices.

Peer-to-peer redundant file server system and methods include clients that determine a target storage provider to contact for a particular storage transaction based on a pathname provided by the filesystem and a predetermined scheme such as a hash function applied to a portion of the pathname. Servers use the same scheme to determine where to store relevant file information so that the clients can locate the file information. The target storage provider may store the file itself and / or may store metadata that identifies one or more other storage providers where the file is stored. A file may be replicated in multiple storage providers, and the metadata may include a list of storage providers from which the clients can select (e.g., randomly) in order to access the file.

An interactive television system that renders on-demand interactive multimedia services for a community of users. The interactive multimedia is delivered to each user on a TV or on a LAN-node (Local-Area-Network) computer through an "interactive TV channel" created and controlled by a Channel-processor, which can be implemented as either a PC or a high-end workstation. The system employs a direct-access on-demand workgroup server. It is equipped with the primary on-demand multimedia data base stored on a hard disk subsystem that is connected directly to the Channel-processors through an internal workgroup link. Using a no-overhead server technology, the connected workgrouped Channel-processors can all concurrently retrieve and process the data directly from the hard disk subsystem without resorting to a stand-alone server system for data retrieving and downloading. The system also employs peer-to-peer workgroup connectivity, so that all of the workgrouped Channel-processors that are connected to the workgroup server through the internal workgroup link, can communicate with one another.

A system and method for allowing peers to exchange messages with other peers independently of their network location in a peer-to-peer environment. Messages may be transparently routed, potentially traversing partitions (e.g. firewalls and NATs), and using different protocols to reach the destination peers. In one embodiment, any peer node may serve as a relay peer that allows peers inside a partition to have a presence outside the partition and provides a mechanism for peers outside partitions to discover and communicate with peers inside the partitions. In one embodiment, a relay peer may maintain information on routes to other peers and assist in relaying messages to other peers. In one embodiment, any peer may query a relay peer for route information. In one embodiment, messages may include routing information as part of their payloads.

Systems and methods are described for performing policy-managed, peer-to-peer service orchestration in a manner that supports the formation of self-organizing service networks that enable rich media experiences. In one embodiment, services are distributed across peer-to-peer communicating nodes, and each node provides message routing and orchestration using a message pump and workflow collator. Distributed policy management of service interfaces helps to provide trust and security, supporting commercial exchange of value. Peer-to-peer messaging and workflow collation allow services to be dynamically created from a heterogeneous set of primitive services. The shared resources are services of many different types, using different service interface bindings beyond those typically supported in a web service deployments built on UDDI, SOAP, and WSDL. In a preferred embodiment, a media services framework is provided that enables nodes to find one another, interact, exchange value, and cooperate across tiers of networks from WANs to PANs.

A system and method is provided that allows proxy servers to receive capability and preference information concerning user agents (502 and 510) desiring to establish a media session. The proxy server compares the capabilities of the user agents and determines whether an incompatibility exists between them. In the event that an incompatibility does exist, the proxy server may invoke the services of an adaptation server (508) to provide the necessary adaptation required to allow the media session to proceed. The adaptation system allows either the terminating or originating proxy server to make the adaptation determination to allow the adaptation server to modify the offered media session descriptions so that the media streams may be routed through the adaptation server to adapt between incompatible media parameters.

A system and method is described for instantly connecting and matching people and business entities with reciprocal interests in the location of their presence in real-time. Portable communication devices using wireless communication are used for transmitting data between users with reciprocal interests connected through a peer-to-peer network or in a client-server environment. Telephone users utilize an Interactive Voice Response system to communicate with other users of reciprocal interest. A matching algorithm running in a remote computer connected to the devices through network makes an initial assessment about the likelihood of a match, and then with the permission of the requester and the respondent, sets up communication sessions.

A method and system for secure Voice over Internet Protocol (IP) (VoIP) communications. The method and system provide secure VoIP voice calls, video, Instant Messaging (IM), Short Message Services (SMS), or Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communications while maintaining privacy over the Internet and other communications networks such as the pubic switched telephone network (PSTN) to and from any network device through a virtual private network infrastructure interconnecting private VoIP network devices. The method and system allow a network device to function as an IP private branch exchange (PBX) or a private VoIP gateway and provide and control VoIP voice communications without using other public or private VoIP gateways or VoIP servers or devices on a communications network such as the PSTN or the Internet.

Various techniques are provided for carrying out peer-to-peer financial transactions using one or more electronic devices. In one embodiment, a request for payment is transmitted from a first device to a second device using a near field communication (NFC) interface. In response to the request, the second device may transmit payment information to the first device. The first device may select a crediting account and, using a suitable communication protocol, may communicate the received payment information and selected crediting account to one or more external financial servers configured to process and determine whether the payment may be authorized. If the payment is authorized, a payment may be credited to the selected crediting account. In a further embodiment, a device may include a camera configured to obtain an image of a payment instrument. The device may further include an application to extract payment information from the acquired image.

The apparatus and methods described herein facilitate fair peer-to-peer gambling. Generally, the system receives bet statement(s) from authorized player(s) and / or game administrator(s). Authorized players(s) then enter whole number percentages representing their beliefs that the outcome of the bet statement will be true. The players entering the risk percentages are encouraged to be as fair as possible, because players may be forced into undesirable bet positions. The amount of points or money wagered are then automatically determined based on the risk percentage(s). Once the actual outcome is determined, the winning player is rewarded in inverse proportion to his risk percentage.

Various techniques are provided for carrying out peer-to-peer financial transactions using one or more electronic devices. In one embodiment, a request for payment is transmitted from a first device to a second device using a near field communication (NFC) interface. In response to the request, the second device may transmit payment information to the first device. The first device may select a crediting account and, using a suitable communication protocol, may communicate the received payment information and selected crediting account to one or more external financial servers configured to process and determine whether the payment may be authorized. If the payment is authorized, a payment may be credited to the selected crediting account. In a further embodiment, a device may include a camera configured to obtain an image of a payment instrument. The device may further include an application to extract payment information from the acquired image.

A system and method for an integrated, multi-modal, multi-device natural language voice services environment may be provided. In particular, the environment may include a plurality of voice-enabled devices each having intent determination capabilities for processing multi-modal natural language inputs in addition to knowledge of the intent determination capabilities of other devices in the environment. Further, the environment may be arranged in a centralized manner, a distributed peer-to-peer manner, or various combinations thereof. As such, the various devices may cooperate to determine intent of multi-modal natural language inputs, and commands, queries, or other requests may be routed to one or more of the devices best suited to take action in response thereto.

The acceleration of peer-to-peer downloads of content files wherein a tracker performs a condition based peer selection that is dynamically adjustable. A further feature relates to the use of enhanced message scheme for communications. One embodiment is a system in a swarm having at least one origin seed capable of at least initially storing the content files with at least one tracker maintaining a list of peers wherein the tracker uses at least one dynamically adjusting peer selection algorithm to generate a condition based peer-list and provides the condition based peer-list to a requesting peer.

The disclosed technology applies the principle of anonymous reciprocity to facilitate remote backups. A local computer stores other computer's backup files, while storing backup copies of local files on other computers connected through a network. Each computer may securely maintain and manage storage for other computers' files. Application may be constrained to a local area network, or work on the Internet. The disclosed technology works in a peer-to-peer environment; no central server is required. The same disclosed technology may also apply to file sharing.

A “PeerStreamer” provides receiver-driven peer-to-peer (P2P) media streaming for loosely coupled P2P networks. Peers in the network perform only simple operations, may cache all or part of the streaming media, do not collaborate with other peers, may be unreliable, and may drop offline or come online during any given streaming session. Clients in the network operate in real-time to coordinate peers, stream media from multiple peers, perform load balancing, handle online / offline states of peers, and perform decoding and rendering the streaming media. In one embodiment, the PeerStreamer uses high rate erasure resilient coding to allow multiple serving peers to hold partial media without conflict, such that clients simply retrieve fixed numbers of erasure coded blocks regardless of where and what specific blocks are retrieved. In another embodiment, the PeerStreamer uses embedded coded media to vary streaming bitrates according to available serving bandwidths and client queue status.

The present invention relates to a securities trading system that utilizes a distributed blockchain ledger to conduct security transactions. Users are provided with cryptographic wallets that enable the users to access a peer-to-peer network of computing nodes on which the distributed blockchain ledger is managed. The securities made available through the network may be stored directly on the blockchain ledger itself. Smart contracts may be utilized to transfer the securities among the users and to verify that all transactions are in compliance with applicable regulatory rules and other restrictions.

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for a mobile broadband routable internet (MBRI) providing for carrier-grade, networked, broadband, IP-routable communication among a plurality of mobile devices, where the mobile devices may represent a plurality of nodes that are linked together through a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET). Mobile devices may operate as peers in a peer-to-peer network, with full IP routing capabilities enabled within each mobile device, thereby allowing routing of IP-based traffic, including deployment of applications, to the mobile device without need for infrastructure conventionally required for mobile ad hoc networks, such as cellular telephony infrastructure. Full IP-routing to mobile devices may allow seamless integration to the fixed Internet, such as through fixed or mobile access points, such as for backhaul purposes. Thus, the MBRI may function as a standalone mobile Internet, without connection to the fixed Internet, or as an IP-routable extension of another network, whether it be the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network, a cellular network, a personal area network, or some other type of network that is capable of integration with an IP-based network.

A hands-free wireless wearable GPS enabled video camera and audio-video communications headset, mobile phone and personal media player, capable of real-time two-way and multi-feed wireless voice, data and audio-video streaming, telecommunications, and teleconferencing, coordinated applications, and shared functionality between one or more wirelessly networked headsets or other paired or networked wired or wireless devices and optimized device and data management over multiple wired and wireless network connections. The headset can operate in concert with one or more wired or wireless devices as a paired accessory, as an autonomous hands-free wide area, metro or local area and personal area wireless audio-video communications and multimedia device and / or as a wearable docking station, hot spot and wireless router supporting direct connect multi-device ad-hoc virtual private networking (VPN). The headset has built-in intelligence to choose amongst available network protocols while supporting a variety of onboard, and remote operational controls including a retractable monocular viewfinder display for real time hands-free viewing of captured or received video feed and a duplex data-streaming platform supporting multi-channel communications and optimized data management within the device, within a managed or autonomous federation of devices or other peer-to-peer network configuration.

Disclosed are central determination methods and systems in which pools and sub-pools of outcomes can be distributed among various units of the central determination system. The methods and systems are applicable to Class II and, in some implementations, Class III gaming configurations. The methods and systems disclosed herein can be implemented in a gaming machine network, wherein one of the gaming machines distributes game outcomes to other gaming machines in the network. The gaming machines can be oriented in a peer-to-peer configuration, a central storage medium configuration, a stand alone configuration, an autonomous gaming machine configuration, and other network configurations. Methods are disclosed for managing the distribution of outcomes among the gaming machines in the various networks.

A routing mechanism, service or system operable in a distributed networking environment. One preferred environment is a content delivery network (CDN) wherein the present invention provides improved connectivity back to an origin server, especially for HTTP traffic. In a CDN, edge servers are typically organized into regions, with each region comprising a set of content servers that preferably operate in a peer-to-peer manner and share data across a common backbone such as a local area network (LAN). The inventive routing technique enables an edge server operating within a given CDN region to retrieve content (cacheable, non-cacheable and the like) from an origin server more efficiently by selectively routing through the CDN's own nodes, thereby avoiding network congestion and hot spots. The invention enables an edge server to fetch content from an origin server through an intermediate CDN server or, more generally, enables an edge server within a given first region to fetch content from the origin server through an intermediate CDN region.

The present invention generally relates to blockchain technology. Specifically, this invention relates to creating a blockchain called a slidechain that allows for multiple valid branches or forks to propagate simultaneously with a customized set of protocol rules embedded in and applied to each fork chain that branches from another chain. The invention generally provides a computer-implemented method for accessing, developing and maintaining a decentralized database through a peer-to-peer network, to preserve the original state of data inputs while adapting to changing circumstances, user preferences, and emerging technological capabilities.

QoS is built into a peer network within existing Internet infrastructure itself lacking QoS, by enabling a network peer to continuously discern the network's ability to deliver to that peer a particular Content Object (distributed in groups of component Packages among neighboring VOD peers) within predetermined times. Content Objects are divided into groups of component Packages and distributed to Clusters of neighboring network peers, enhancing QoS upon subsequent retrieval. Tracking Files (lists of network peers storing Package groups) and Tracking Indexes (lists of network peers storing Tracking Files) are generated to facilitate “on demand” Content Objects retrieval. Dynamically monitoring network traffic (including VOD functionality, bandwidth and reliability) creates “distributed closed-loop feedback,” and in response, attributes of individual network peers (e.g., Trust Level and membership within a particular Cluster) are modified, and “content balancing” functions performed (e.g., redistribution of Package groups among network peers) enables maintaining high QoS.

A system and method for computable contracts that includes a contract management system accessible by involved parties, managing a formation stage of a contract document by obtaining object components, assembling a contract object graph from the object components, and committing the contract object graph to post formation execution; and in an execution environment during a post-formation stage, executing the contract object graph where instances of execution include receiving a contract state update, and appending at least one update object component to the contract object graph in accordance with the contract state update. Variations of the system and method may apply peer-to-peer negotiation and execution, use a cryptographic directed acyclic contract object graph, and / or interface with distributed ledgers.

Embodiments of a distributed index mechanism for indexing and searching for presence information in peer-to-peer networks. In one embodiment, a distributed index may be used to store presence information in a decentralized manner on a plurality of peer nodes. In one embodiment, a notification service may be implemented on top of the distributed index to notify peers of other peers joining a peer-to-peer session. Participating peers may query the distributed index to detect the presence of other participating peers registered in the distributed index. One embodiment of a distributed index of presence information may be implemented in peer-to-peer networks implemented according to a peer-to-peer platform including one or more peer-to-peer platform protocols for enabling peer nodes to discover each other, communicate with each other, and cooperate with each other to form peer groups and share network resources.

A routing mechanism, service or system operable in a distributed networking environment. One preferred environment is a content delivery network (CDN) wherein the present invention provides improved connectivity back to an origin server, especially for HTTP traffic. In a CDN, edge servers are typically organized into regions, with each region comprising a set of content servers that preferably operate in a peer-to-peer manner and share data across a common backbone such as a local area network (LAN). The inventive routing technique enables an edge server operating within a given CDN region to retrieve content (cacheable, non-cacheable and the like) from an origin server more efficiently by selectively routing through the CDN's own nodes, thereby avoiding network congestion and hot spots. The invention enables an edge server to fetch content from an origin server through an intermediate CDN server or, more generally, enables an edge server within a given first region to fetch content from the origin server through an intermediate CDN region. As used herein, this routing through an intermediate server, node or region is sometimes referred to as “tunneling.”

Embodiments of a system and method for using mobile agents for managing distribution of content in peer-to-peer networks. An initiating peer node may launch a mobile agent including an itinerary of a group of peer nodes configured to receive and share content from a distributor. The mobile agent may visit the peer nodes on the itinerary to search for and collect information on distributor content stored on the visited peer nodes. The mobile agent may return the payload to the initiating peer node after completing the itinerary. In one embodiment, the mobile agent may include authentication information, and each visited peer node may access the authentication information to verify the mobile agent as authorized by the distributor. The initiating peer node may examine the information provided by the mobile agent to detect unauthorized copies of the distributor content.

The subject invention relates to systems and methods that facilitate direct network communications between peers that operate behind Network Address Translators. In one aspect, a network communications system is provided. The system includes one or more Network Address Translators (NAT) to communicate data across a network between peers. A protocol selection component that automatically selects among a plurality of protocols according to one or more NAT types in order to determine a subset of the protocols that facilitate communications between the peers.

Applications, systems and methods for efficiently accessing and controlling data of devices among multiple computers over a network. Peer-to-peer exchanges of data between private computers is made possible while providing seamless, firewall-compliant connectivity. Such functionality is available even among private users over a public network, and even when multiple firewalls must be passed through. A firewall compliant connection may be established between a local computer and at least one remote computer; at least one file on a storage device associated with one of the computers is selected, and securely sent to at least one other computer over the secure connections. Computers may be connected over a wide area network with or without a connection server, with or without a VPN.