Patent ID: 7725599
Filing Date: 2010-05-25
Classification: A63F,H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A wireless device, comprising: an antenna; a wireless communication interface connected to said antenna and supporting wireless communication across a wireless connection provided by said antenna, the wireless communication interface enabled to contact local devices, which are devices that are within range of a sending device through the wireless interface, and requesting identification of available devices; storage supporting storing data; and a controller connected to said wireless interface and to said storage, supporting an application service, a message service, and a relay service for relay messages, the controller enabled to (1) propagate by the local devices the request for identification of available devices through a peer-to-peer network, (2) receive the identification of available devices to the sending device, and (3) build a list of available devices, the list including identification of said local devices in a local device list; wherein said application service provides execution and management of one or more application programs accessible by said controller using application data stored in said storage to support execution of a multi-user application program, wherein said message service provides building messages and processing received messages, and wherein said relay service provides building a new relay message indicating a selected recipient to which the wireless device does not have a direct wireless connection, sending a built new relay message, and sending a received relay message that indicates a recipient other than the wireless device, and when said selected recipient is a local device, sending said received relay message from said wireless device addressed only to said selected recipient through said wireless communication interface and not sending said received relay message addressed to other local devices, wherein said controller also supports a recipient selection service, said recipient selection service provides building a list of at least one recipient, and selecting a recipient from said list, and said selected recipient used by said relay service in building a new relay message is a recipient selected by said recipient selection service, wherein said recipient selection service responds to a map request from another device by sending a request to at least one other device, wherein said map request indicates a hop count, and said recipient selection service does not send said request if said hop count has reached a threshold.