Contextual presence system and associated methods

摘要

Systems and methods dynamically form a context group that has a plurality of members and propagate payload data between the members. A database associates a context identifier (ID) of the context group with a user ID of each member. A context manager, communicatively coupled with the database, receives a join context request containing the context ID and a user ID from each said member, creates the context group, if not existing, within the database in response to the join request, and adds the user ID, if not existing, of each said member to the database in association with the context ID. A payload handler receives payload data from one of said members and propagates the payload data to other said members of the context group.

主权项

1. A contextual presence system (CPS) for dynamically forming a context group and for propagating payload data between members of the context group, each member having a device running an application configured with a context identifier (ID) that identifies the context group and a user ID that uniquely identifies the member within the context group, the system comprising:
a database capable of associating the context with each user ID; a context manager, communicatively coupled with the database, capable of: receiving, from each member device, a join context request containing the context ID and said corresponding user ID; storing within the database, for each received join context request, the context ID in association with the user ID to create the context group; and a payload handler capable of receiving payload data from one of said devices of a corresponding one of said members and for propagating the payload data to each other of said devices corresponding to other of said members of said context group; wherein the contextual presence system (a) has no knowledge of the context ID prior to receiving the join request, (b) transports the payload data without evaluation of the payload data content, and (c) concurrently supports more than one context group.