An electronic device, computer program product, and method avoids presenting certain objects during a video communication session. During a video communication session with second electronic device(s), a controller of an electronic device identifies baseline image(s) from an image stream provided by an image capturing device of the electronic device. The baseline image includes a primary image portion of participant(s) and including a scene of objects within the foreground or background of participant (s), during an initial portion of the video communication session. The controller monitors the image stream for a subsequent detection of the primary image portion and of non-participant(s) or object(s) as a secondary image portion that is not included within the baseline image(s). The controller responds to detecting the secondary image portion subsequently appearing within the image stream by communicating, to the one or more second electronic devices, a substitute image stream that does not present the secondary image portion.

Briefly, methods and/or apparatuses of virtual deployment of network-related features are disclosed.

A method and device for data transmission. The method comprises: a first device determines configuration information of a first resource, where the configuration information of the first resource comprises: cycle information of the first resource and information of the first resource; the first device transmits the configuration information of the first resource to multiple second devices; and the first device multicasts first information to the multiple second devices via the first resource. With the first device transmitting the first information to the multiple second devices in a multicasting manner, compared with the transmission of information in a unicasting manner, the redundancy of data transmitted is reduced, and the transmission efficiency is increased.

Provided is a server device with which a participant in a conference can easily acquire information pertaining to another participant. The server device is provided with an acquisition unit and an information provision unit. The acquisition unit acquires a profile of each of a plurality of users using a conference assistance system. The information provision unit provides, to a first participant participating in a conference from among a plurality of users, a profile pertaining to a second participant participating in the same conference as that in which the first participant is participating.

A first input is received from a user input device. Based on the first input, a list of candidate intents is generated, and a plurality of agents is initialized. Each agent of the plurality of agents corresponds to a respective candidate intent. Each agent then provides a different response to the first input in accordance with its respective corresponding intent. A second input is then received that responds to one or more of the agents. Based on the agents to which the second input is responsive, the list of candidate intents is refined and, based on the refined list, one or more agents are deactivated.

A device may analyze data associated with a conference call. The device may provide at least a portion of the data to a machine learning model. The device may receive an output from the machine learning model in response to the machine learning model processing at least the portion of the data. The output may include a probability score associated with a determination made by the machine learning model with respect to capturing multimedia content associated with the conference call. The device may output a notification associated with capturing the multimedia content based on the output from the machine learning model.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosure, a particular networking device joins a ring network of networking devices that has a ring topology. The particular networking device monitors the ring network for a multicast frame used within the ring network to detect link failures. The particular networking device determines that a link in the ring network has failed, based on the particular networking device not receiving the multicast frame within a threshold amount of time. The particular networking device initiates repair of the ring network, when the particular networking device determines that the link in the ring network has failed.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosure, a particular networking device joins a ring network of networking devices that has a ring topology. The particular networking device monitors the ring network for a multicast frame used within the ring network to detect link failures. The particular networking device determines that a link in the ring network has failed, based on the particular networking device not receiving the multicast frame within a threshold amount of time. The particular networking device initiates repair of the ring network, when the particular networking device determines that the link in the ring network has failed.

A method includes receiving a selection of a subgroup of participants from a group of potential focus group participants, placing each participant in the subgroup of participants in a waiting room environment, establishing a respective testing video conference between each participant in the subgroup of participants and the second user and confirming, based on the respective testing video conference, a respective technical ability to carry out a video conference. The method includes establishing the video conference comprising each respective confirmed participant and the second user, receiving respective data as part of the focus group from each respective confirmed participant and presenting live data associated with the video conference of the focus group to the first user at a user device. The method and associated network server enable a quick way to establish a focus group and then carry out a focus group on a topic of interest.

An exemplary method includes maintaining a receiver-side mesh-vertices list, receiving duplicative-vertex information from a sender, and responsively reducing the receiver-side mesh-vertices list in accordance with the received duplicative-vertex information, and rendering, using the reduced receiver-side mesh-vertices list, viewpoint-adaptive three-dimensional (3D) personas of a subject at least in part by weighting video pixel colors from different video-camera vantage points of video cameras that capture video streams of the subject, the weighting being performed according to a respective geometric relationship of each video-camera vantage point to a user-selected viewpoint.