Cross-Platform Gateway for Online Communal Experiences
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Solution Overview
Problem
Entertainment devices such as gaming consoles, music players, and personal computers lack a structured means for cross-platform communication and data sharing, limiting their ability to interact and exchange content like photos, music, and video in a robust and consistent manner.
Innovation Solution
A cross-platform architecture that enables communication and data sharing through an application with functionalities such as text, voice, and video interaction, using a plug-in architecture and managed runtime code to facilitate input, output, and network communication across different computing devices, allowing for many-to-many interactions and seamless data exchange.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If entertainment devices use different platforms and operating systems, then device functionality and capabilities are enhanced, but cross-platform communication and data sharing become difficult or impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway device as an intermediary that mediates communication between entertainment devices on different platforms. The gateway translates communication protocols and data formats, enabling devices running different operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.) to exchange data seamlessly. This resolves the contradiction by providing a universal communication interface that maintains device-specific functionality while enabling cross-platform interoperability.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway device is designed with universal functionality to support multiple communication protocols and data formats simultaneously. It can handle various media types (audio, video, images) and communicate with devices using different operating systems through a single unified interface, eliminating the need for separate communication solutions for each platform combination.
2Device complexity
If entertainment devices lack structured communication means, then device complexity is reduced, but communication and data sharing capabilities are limited or nonexistent
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway acts as a centralized intermediary that provides structured communication infrastructure without adding complexity to individual entertainment devices. All communication protocols, data formatting, and protocol translation are handled by the gateway, allowing devices to maintain simple architectures while gaining robust cross-platform communication and data sharing capabilities through the gateway's structured framework.
Data Source
AI summary
Various aspects are disclosed herein for an architecture for online communal and connected experiences. This architecture can be embodied in an application running a host computing device, where the application provides functionalities such as finding modules on local devices or hosted on online services, launching such modules, switching between a plurality of such concurrently running modules, and providing many-to-many text, voice, and video functionality. This application can also interface with managed runtime code on the host computing device, thereby providing inputting, outputting, and network communication means among a plurality of computing devices having different platforms.