Multi-User Interactive Table Session Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing multi-user tabletop systems require users to establish separate sessions to access customized profiles and preferences, limiting simultaneous interaction and collaboration as users must initiate new sessions on different devices to manage their own windows without interfering with others.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus for a touch-screen based computing device that allows multiple users to share a single multi-user session, enabling each user to access and manage their own user-specific windows with unique profiles and login patterns, while maintaining separate windows within a shared interactive table interface, using a processor to detect user positions and generate taskbars for window management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users establish separate sessions to access customized profiles and preferences, then each user can manage their own windows independently, but multiple users cannot simultaneously interact and collaborate on the same device
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the user interface by creating separate user-specific windows for each user within a shared session. Each user has their own window containing their customized profile, preferences, and taskbar, allowing independent customization while maintaining simultaneous access to the same device. The display is divided into multiple regions, with each region displaying a different user's customized interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a single-session model to a multi-window dimension within the same session. Instead of requiring separate sessions (temporal dimension), the system allows multiple users to access customized profiles simultaneously through spatially separated windows on the display, adding a spatial dimension to user profile access.
2Ease of operation
If users initiate new sessions on different devices to manage their own windows, then each user has full control over their windows, but collaboration and face-to-face interaction are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple user sessions into a single shared session on one device. Multiple users can simultaneously access the interactive table with their own customized windows and taskbars, combining the benefits of individual profile control with collaborative interaction on the same device. The shared session allows users to see and interact with each other's windows while maintaining their own control.
3Ease of operation
If a single multi-user session is shared among multiple users, then simultaneous collaboration is enabled, but users cannot access their own customized profiles and preferences
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by providing each user with their own customized window containing their specific profile, preferences, and taskbar within the shared session. Each user's window has unique characteristics (their personal customization) while coexisting with other users' windows. The display dynamically adjusts to show different customized interfaces in different spatial locations based on user position.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention is directed toward a method and apparatus in which one or more user specific windows may be launched within a single computing session executed and displayed on the display of an interactive table. More specifically, the present invention is directed toward detecting the position of one or more users around an interactive table and generating one or more user-specific windows proximate to one or more user/s on the display of the interactive table within a single session.