Patent Description:
Extended reality applications create simulated environments with which a user may interact using an electronic interface. These interactions become richer and more interesting experiences when they are shared with other users. <NPL>, discloses omegalib, a framework for sharing applications between a local and remote device.

<CIT> (<NUM>-<NUM>-<NUM>) relates to wireless media share. <CIT> (<NUM>-<NUM>-<NUM>) relates to file synchronization based on intercepting file system calls.

<NPL> relates to synchronization across Loosely-Connected File Systems.

However, for purpose of explanation, several implementations of the subject technology are set forth in the following figures.

A physical environment refers to a physical world that people can sense and/or interact with without aid of electronic devices. The physical environment may include physical features such as a physical surface or a physical object. For example, the physical environment corresponds to a physical park that includes physical trees, physical buildings, and physical people. People can directly sense and/or interact with the physical environment such as through sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell. In contrast, an extended reality (XR) environment refers to a wholly or partially simulated environment that people sense and/or interact with via an electronic device. For example, the XR environment may include augmented reality (AR) content, mixed reality (MR) content, virtual reality (VR) content, and/or the like. With an XR system, a subset of a person's physical motions, or representations thereof, are tracked, and, in response, one or more characteristics of one or more virtual objects simulated in the XR environment are adjusted in a manner that comports with at least one law of physics. As one example, the XR system may detect head movement and, in response, adjust graphical content and an acoustic field presented to the person in a manner similar to how such views and sounds would change in a physical environment. As another example, the XR system may detect movement of the electronic device presenting the XR environment (e.g., a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop, or the like) and, in response, adjust graphical content and an acoustic field presented to the person in a manner similar to how such views and sounds would change in a physical environment. In some situations (e.g., for accessibility reasons), the XR system may adjust characteristic(s) of graphical content in the XR environment in response to representations of physical motions (e.g., vocal commands).

There are many different types of electronic systems that enable a person to sense and/or interact with various XR environments. Examples include head mountable systems, projection-based systems, heads-up displays (HUDs), vehicle windshields having integrated display capability, windows having integrated display capability, displays formed as lenses designed to be placed on a person's eyes (e.g., similar to contact lenses), headphones/earphones, speaker arrays, input systems (e.g., wearable or handheld controllers with or without haptic feedback), smartphones, tablets, and desktop/laptop computers. A head mountable system may have one or more speaker(s) and an integrated opaque display. Alternatively, a head mountable system may be configured to accept an external opaque display (e.g., a smartphone). The head mountable system may incorporate one or more imaging sensors to capture images or video of the physical environment, and/or one or more microphones to capture audio of the physical environment. Rather than an opaque display, a head mountable system may have a transparent or translucent display. The transparent or translucent display may have a medium through which light representative of images is directed to a person's eyes. The display may utilize digital light projection, OLEDs, LEDs, uLEDs, liquid crystal on silicon, laser scanning light source, or any combination of these technologies. The medium may be an optical waveguide, a hologram medium, an optical combiner, an optical reflector, or any combination thereof. In some implementations, the transparent or translucent display may be configured to become opaque selectively. Projection-based systems may employ retinal projection technology that projects graphical images onto a person's retina. Projection systems also may be configured to project virtual objects into the physical environment, for example, as a hologram or on a physical surface.

Expanding simulated environments such as XR environments to allow multiple users to interact with one another and share the experience of the simulated environments creates richer and more interesting experiences for the users. However, multi-user simulated environments require the establishment and maintenance of network connections through which data for updating and synchronizing the states of the respective applications being executed on different computing devices is shared. The multi-user simulated environments become more complicated when the users desire to share more than one XR application simultaneously.

The subject technology provides a group communications platform that is a system level process integrated into the operating system of a computing device. The group communications platform facilitates multiple users joining a group session to be present (e.g., concurrently present) in a common XR environment via their respective computing devices. For example, the subject technology establishes and maintains a system-level network connection between operating systems on the respective computing devices for the group session. This system-level network connection is exposed to higher level applications and system services to facilitate communication with corresponding applications and system services on another computing device without each application and/or system service being required to establish and maintain its own network connection with the other computing device. In addition, the system-level network connection may be an out-of-process network connection that is exposed to allow multiple applications and/or system services to utilize the connection in place of using multiple network connections associated with respective applications and/or system services within the same group session.

According to aspects of the subject technology, a local user may wish to initiate a group session with a remote user to share and be present (e.g., concurrently present) in a common XR environment. The local user and the remote user may be in close proximity to one another, such as being in the same room, or may be geographically remote from one another, such as being on opposite sides of the planet. A request to initiate the group session for the local user and the remote user may be received by the system. In response to the request, an out-of-process network connection with a system communication channel between a local computing device associated with the local user and a remote computing device associated with the remote user may be established for the group session. The system communication channel may include a connection with a relay server that manages connections and communications with all participants in the group session. Alternatively, the system communication channel may comprise a peer-to-peer connection between the local computing device and the remote computing device.

One or more applications may be shared between participants in the group session. Data may be exchanged between respective instances of the applications to update the respective states of the applications in the common XR environment. For example, a local instance of a first application on the local computing device may make a system call to transfer local data to a remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection. In response to the system call, the local data may be transferred to the remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection and the system communication channel. Similarly, a local instance of a second application participating in the group session may make a system call to transfer local data to a remote instance of the second application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection. The local data of the second application may then be transferred to the remote instance of the second application using the same out-of-process network connection as was used by the first application.

<FIG> illustrates an example network environment in which a group communications platform may operate in accordance with aspects of the subject technology. Not all of the depicted components may be used in all implementations, however, and one or more implementations may include additional or different components than those shown in the figure. Variations in the arrangement and type of the components may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the claims as set forth herein. Additional components, different components, or fewer components may be provided.

The network environment <NUM> includes computing devices <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, and <NUM> (hereinafter <NUM>-<NUM>), server <NUM>, and network <NUM>. The network <NUM> may communicatively (directly or indirectly) couple, for example, any two or more of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> and the server <NUM>. In one or more implementations, the network <NUM> may be an interconnected network of devices that may include, and/or may be communicatively coupled to, the Internet. Any two of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> (e.g., computing devices <NUM> and <NUM> depicted in <FIG>) may be communicatively coupled using a peer-to-peer connection such as using Bluetooth, near-field communication, Wi-Fi, etc. For explanatory purposes, the network environment <NUM> is illustrated in <FIG> as including computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> and the server <NUM>; however, the network environment <NUM> may include any number of computing devices and any number of servers.

One or more of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> may be, for example, a portable computing device such as a laptop computer, a smartphone, a smartwatch, a tablet device, a wearable device, and the like, or any other type of device that includes, for example, one or more wireless interfaces, such as WLAN radios, cellular radios, Bluetooth radios, Zigbee radios, near field communication (NFC) radios, and/or other wireless radios. In <FIG>, by way of example, computing device <NUM> is depicted as a smartphone, computing device <NUM> is depicted as a laptop computer, computing device <NUM> is depicted as a tablet device, and computing device <NUM> is depicted as another smartphone. Wearable devices may include headsets, goggles, glasses, and other types of head mountable devices. Head mountable devices also may include an apparatus in which a smartphone can be arranged to create a headset worn by a user. Each of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> may be, and/or may include all or part of, the device discussed below with respect to <FIG>, and/or the computing device discussed below with respect to <FIG>.

Server <NUM> may be, and/or may include all or part of the device discussed below with respect to <FIG>. Server <NUM> may include one or more servers, such as a cloud of servers. For explanatory purposes, a single server <NUM> is shown and discussed with respect to various operations. Server <NUM> may be a relay server configured to manage connections with two or more of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> that have joined a group session to facilitate communication of data between applications executing on computing devices <NUM>-<NUM>. Server <NUM> may manage unicast communications between respective pairs of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> in the group session. Server <NUM> also may manage fan out communications from one of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> to the other participants in the group session. However, these and other operations discussed herein may be performed by one or more servers, and each different operation may be performed by the same or different servers.

<FIG> also includes user A, user B, user C, and user D, who are associated with computing devices <NUM>-<NUM>, respectively. A user may be considered to be associated with a particular computing device based on the user logging into the computing device using a set of credentials of a user account granting access to resources and contents of the computing device. The computing device itself may authenticate the credentials or the credentials may be passed along to an authentication server for authentication. While <FIG> illustrates one user associated with each depicted computing device, a particular user may be associated with more than one computing device.

As discussed in more detail below, the subject technology facilitates the creation of a group session for two or more of users A-D to share a first application. For example, user A may wish to initiate a group session including user A and user B. According to aspects of the subject technology, an out-of-process network connection with a system communication channel between computing device <NUM> and computing device <NUM> managed by server <NUM> may be established on each of computing device <NUM> and computing device <NUM>. Data may be exchanged between respective instances of the first application on computing device <NUM> and on computing device <NUM> via the out-of-process network connections and the system communication channel to update the respective states of the instances of the first application. In this manner, user A and user B may experience and be present (e.g., concurrently present) in the environment generated by the first application.

<FIG> illustrates an example computing device <NUM> that implements aspects of the subject technology. Computing device <NUM> may correspond to any of computing devices <NUM>-<NUM> represented in <FIG>. Not all of the depicted components may be used in all implementations, however, and one or more implementations may include additional or different components than those shown in the figure. Variations in the arrangement and type of the components may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the claims as set forth herein. Additional components, different components, or fewer components may be provided.

As illustrated, computing device <NUM> includes processor <NUM> and memory <NUM>. Processor <NUM> may include suitable logic, circuitry, and/or code that enable processing data and/or controlling operations of computing device <NUM>. For example, processor <NUM> may be implemented in software (e.g., subroutines and code), may be implemented in hardware (e.g., an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a controller, a state machine, gated logic, discrete hardware components, or any other suitable devices) and/or a combination of both. In this regard, processor <NUM> may be enabled to provide control signals to various other components of computing device <NUM>. Processor <NUM> may also control transfers of data between various portions of computing device <NUM>. Additionally, processor <NUM> may enable implementation of an operating system or otherwise execute code to manage operations of the electronic device <NUM>.

The memory <NUM> may include suitable logic, circuitry, and/or code that enable storage of various types of information such as received data, generated data, code, and/or configuration information. The memory <NUM> may include, for example, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), flash, and/or magnetic storage. As depicted in <FIG>, memory <NUM> may contain code, or sequences of instructions, that are executable by processor <NUM> to implement various software components. For example, memory <NUM> may contain code for operating system <NUM>, exclusive application <NUM>, shared applications <NUM> and <NUM>, and system application <NUM>. While <FIG> includes only one example of an exclusive application and a system application, and two examples of shared applications, the subject technology is not limited to these numbers. More than one exclusive application and system application, and/or more than two shared applications may be found in memory <NUM> and be available for execution by processor <NUM>.

Operating system <NUM> manages the resources of computing device <NUM> and facilitates the communication of data and control signals between components of computing device <NUM>. According to aspects of the subject technology, the group communications platform is integrated into operating system <NUM> such that operating system <NUM> facilitates, at a system level, a user of computing device <NUM> sharing an experience or functionality provided by one or more of the applications being executed on computing device <NUM> with other users via other respective computing devices executing other instances of the one or more applications.

Exclusive application <NUM> represents an application that operates in a full-screen mode when executed by processor <NUM>. In this regard, exclusive application <NUM> assumes control of the user interface of computing device <NUM> when exclusive application <NUM> is active. For example, exclusive application <NUM> may generate an XR environment that is rendered for display on computing device <NUM> and interacted with by the user via a user interface of computing device <NUM>. Only one exclusive application may be active on computing device <NUM> at a time.

Shared applications <NUM> and <NUM> represent applications that operate in a multi-tasking environment that allows more than one application to be active in the graphical user interface of computing device <NUM> at a time. Each of shared applications <NUM> and <NUM> may generate XR objects that coexist within an overall XR environment. System application <NUM> manages the overall XR environment by controlling the launching, movement, and closing of shared applications <NUM> and <NUM>. The user of computing device <NUM> may interact with the different XR objects within the XR environment via the user interface of computing device <NUM>. In this regard, system application <NUM> behaves like an exclusive application and assumes control of the user interface of computing device <NUM>.

An XR environment may include one or more XR objects with which a user may interact or experience. XR objects may represent different sensory experiences (e.g., sight, sound). For example, an XR object may be a visually rendered object that a user may observe with the XR environment. The visually rendered object may be only for observation by the user or may include user interface elements that allow the user to interact with the XR object and/or access functionality provided by the underlying code of the XR object. Another XR object may be an audio object that provides spatial audio for the XR environment. The spatial audio object may be played using audio components of computing device <NUM> and may correspond with visual XR objects and their respective positions within the overall XR environment.

<FIG> is a block diagram of components illustrating data flow managed by the group communications platform according to aspects of the subject technology. Not all of the depicted components may be used in all implementations, however, and one or more implementations may include additional or different components than those shown in the figure. Variations in the arrangement and type of the components may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the claims as set forth herein. Additional components, different components, or fewer components may be provided.

<FIG> depicts software components of two computing devices with representations of data flow between the components using aspects of the group communications platform. For example, exclusive application 300A, shared application 302A, system application 304A, peer-to-peer process 306A, and relay network access 308A represent software code executable on a first computing device. Similarly, exclusive application 300B, shared application 302B, system application 304B, peer-to-peer process 306B, and relay network access 308B represent software code executable on a second computing device. Exclusive applications, shared applications, and system applications are described above with respect to <FIG>.

Peer-to-peer processes 306A and 306B represent background processes executing on their respective computing devices to facilitate communication of data between the computing devices via a peer-to-peer communication channel. Relay network processes 308A and 308B represent background processes executing on their respective computing devices to facilitate communication of data between the computing devices via a relay network communication channel managed by a relay server represented by relay <NUM> in <FIG>. The computing devices may use one or both of these types of communication channels to communicate with each other. According to aspects of the subject technology, multiple peer-to-peer communication channels connecting different respective computing devices may be maintained by multiple peer-to-peer processes. A computing device also may be in communication with multiple other computing devices via the relay network communication channel with the relay server managing unicast connections between respective pairs of computing devices and/or multicast connections originated from one or more of the computing devices.

The group communications management (GCM) blocks in <FIG> represent an application programming interface (API) provided by the group communications platform for applications, such as exclusive applications, shared applications, and system applications, executing on a computing device to access the functionality provided by the group communications platform. The API may include functions to initiate a group session, share an application with a group session, invite another user to join a group session, and leave a group session, for example. The API may further include methods to register XR objects to be replicated and synched between two or more computing devices. The API may include various callback functions for notifying users when a group session has started or ended, notifying when a particular user has joined or left a group session, notifying when a particular application has been shared in or removed from a group session, providing user IDs for user participating in a group session and identifying whether users in the group session are physically proximate (e.g., in the same room) or geographically distant (e.g., located in a different building, city, country, etc.). The API surfaces a handle for an out-of-process network connection to a communication channel established between computing devices. The API includes methods for communicating data via the out-of-process network connection to individual computing devices in the group session and/or to multiple computing devices in the group session (e.g., fan-out communication).

The XR ENGINE blocks in <FIG> represent an API for a low-level rendering system that manages ownership and synchronization of XR objects by applications within an XR environment. The rendering system may include simulation and physics engines for use in the rendering process. The XR engine may facilitate communication between the different applications on its own outside of the group communications platform described herein. Alternatively, the XR engine might utilize the group communications platform for the connection to initiated connection and communicate data between instances of an application.

The blocks in <FIG> are shown as being connected with either a solid line arrow or a dashed line arrow. The solid line arrows represent actual data flow between software components while the dashed lines represent perceived data flow between software components. For example, exclusive application 300A may transfer/communicate data to exclusive application 300B via the group communications platform to update a state of exclusive application 300B based on changes to the state of exclusive application 300A. Because the group communications platform establishes and maintains an out-of-process network connection to be used for such data transfers, exclusive applications 300A and 300B can behave as if they are directly connected through the group communications platform API without being concerned with managing the actual network connection enabling the transfer of data. The solid arrows between shared application 302A and system application 304A, and between shared application 302B and system application 304B represent the communication of data within the XR engine network to enable the system applications to render XR objects generated by the respective shared applications within the shared XR environment.

<FIG> illustrates a flow diagram of an example process for managing a group session for a shared XR environment according to aspects of the subject technology. The blocks of process <NUM> are described herein as occurring in serial, or linearly. However, multiple blocks of process <NUM> may occur in parallel. In addition, the blocks of process <NUM> need not be performed in the order shown and/or one or more blocks of process <NUM> need not be performed and/or can be replaced by other operations.

The group communications platform on a computing device receives a request to initiate a group session for a group of users (block <NUM>). The request may be in response to a user interaction with a user interface element of an exclusive application, a shared application, a system application, or an operating system indicating the user's desire to initiate the group session. The request may include a user ID for each of the users invited to participate in the group session and an identifier for each of the applications to be shared within the group session.

In response to the request, the group communications platform on the computing device creates the group session and assigns a group ID to the session. The group communications platform further establishes an out-of-process network connection with a system communication channel for the group session (block <NUM>). As noted above, the out-of-process network connection is managed by the group communications platform rather than the individual applications. This configuration allows multiple applications to take advantage of the network connection without be burdened by the overhead associated with managing the connection. The system communication channel may be through a network and relay server where the application may rely on identity services provided by the relay server to communicate with computing devices associated with other users in the group session. The out-of-process network connection may provide access to a socket by exposing a handle for the socket to the applications being shared in the group session.

The group communications platform on the computing device may send an invitation to the others users invited to participate at respective computing devices associated with those users via the out-of-process network connection and system communication channel. If the other users accept the invitation with an affirmative interaction with the user interface of the respective computing devices, the group communications platform may provide a notification of the other users joining the group session.

According to aspects of the subject technology, a group session may have already been created for a group of users. In this situation, the group communications platform may receive a request to share a new application with users within the group session. An invitation may be sent out by the group communications platform to the other participants in the group session to share the new application. If the other participants in the group session accept the invitation, the group communications platform may provide a notification of the acceptances.

According to aspects of the subject technology, the group communications platform may receive a request to add a new user to an existing group session. The group communications platform may send out an invitation to the new user at a computing device associated with the new user to join the group session and share the application or applications being shared within the group session. If the new user accepts the invitation, the group communications platform may provide a notification of the acceptance.

During the group session, the group communications platform may receive a system call to transfer data from a first instance of an application being shared to other instances of the shared application on the computing devices associated with the other users participating in the group session via the out-of-process network connection (block <NUM>). After receiving the system call, the group communications platform facilitates the transfer of the data via the out-of-process network connection to the system communication channel (block <NUM>). According to aspects of the subject technology, the data transfer process may use a shared system memory to which the sharing instance of the application writes the data to be shared. A system call from the sharing application may be forwarded by the group communications platform to either the peer-to-peer process or the relay network process, depending on which system communication channel is being used. The process receiving the system call reads out the data from the shared memory and transfers the data to the corresponding process on the other computing device to be distributed to the corresponding application on that computing device.

The data transferred between instances of the sharing application may include state data of on instance of the sharing application to be used by another instance of the sharing application to update the state of that instance of the sharing application. The state of each instance of the sharing application may be updated to reflect changes in the respective states of the other instances of the sharing application by each instance transferring state data to the other instances. In this matter, a multi-user state may be maintained for the sharing application and kept consistent across all of the instances of the sharing application. Each instance of the sharing application may manage the coordination with the other instances. Alternatively, one instance of the sharing application may be responsible for collecting state data from all other instances of the sharing application and then combining the state data into a single set of multi-user state data for transfer to the other instances of the sharing application.

According to aspects of the subject technology, the states of different instances of a sharing application may not be maintained as identical states. For example, the user of one instance of the sharing application may only want to a portion of the sharing application with the other users in a group session. The data transferred to the other instances of the sharing application in this example, include only the information that is intended to be shared so that the other instances of the sharing application are updated to reflect the shared information only.

A user may have an application installed on their associated computing device that has not been installed on the computing devices of other users participating in a group session. Upon receiving a request to share the application with the other users in the group session, the group communications platform may send an invitation to the other computing devices. Upon receiving the invitation, the group communications platform on the other computing devices may generate an invitation to install the missing application on the other computing devices. If the other users accept the invitation and install the missing application on their respective computing devices, the sharing process may proceed as outlined above.

Another alternative to the situation where a shared application is not installed on the computing devices of other users in a group session, the application may be casted to the other computing devices to replicate the visual and/or audio aspects of the shared application without providing interactivity with the shared application for the other users. For example, if a shared application is not installed on the other computing device, the system application managing the shared application on the first computing device, may pass along a scene graph including the visual interface of the shared application to the corresponding system application on the other computing device. The corresponding system application renders the scene graph on the other computing device so that the other users can see the visual representation of the shared application even though they are unable to interact with the shared application.

As described above, aspects of the subject technology may include the collection and transfer of data from an application to other users' computing devices. The present disclosure contemplates that in some instances, this collected data may include personal information data that uniquely identifies or can be used to identify a specific person. Such personal information data can include demographic data, location-based data, online identifiers, telephone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, data or records relating to a user's health or level of fitness (e.g., vital signs measurements, medication information, exercise information), date of birth, or any other personal information.

The present disclosure recognizes that the use of such personal information data, in the present technology, can be used to the benefit of users. For example, the personal information data can be used in a collaborative setting with multiple users. Further, other uses for personal information data that benefit the user are also contemplated by the present disclosure. For instance, health and fitness data may be used, in accordance with the user's preferences to provide insights into their general wellness, or may be used as positive feedback to individuals using technology to pursue wellness goals.

Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplates implementations in which users selectively block the use of, or access to, personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software elements can be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information data. For example, in the case of selectively sharing information from a particular application, the present technology can be configured to allow users to select to "opt in" or "opt out" of participation in the collection of personal information data during registration for services or anytime thereafter. In addition to providing "opt in" and "opt out" options, the present disclosure contemplates providing notifications relating to the access or use of personal information. For instance, a user may be notified upon downloading an app that their personal information data will be accessed and then reminded again just before personal information data is accessed by the app.

<FIG> illustrates an example computing device with which aspects of the subject technology may be implemented in accordance with one or more implementations. The computing device <NUM> can be, and/or can be a part of, any computing device or server for generating the features and processes described above, including but not limited to a laptop computer, a smartphone, a tablet device, a wearable device such as a goggles or glasses, and the like. The computing device <NUM> may include various types of computer readable media and interfaces for various other types of computer readable media. The computing device <NUM> includes a permanent storage device <NUM>, a system memory <NUM> (and/or buffer), an input device interface <NUM>, an output device interface <NUM>, a bus <NUM>, a ROM <NUM>, one or more processing unit(s) <NUM>, one or more network interface(s) <NUM>, image sensor(s) <NUM>, and/or subsets and variations thereof.

The bus <NUM> collectively represents all system, peripheral, and chipset buses that communicatively connect the numerous internal devices of the computing device <NUM>.

The ROM <NUM> stores static data and instructions that are needed by the one or more processing unit(s) <NUM> and other modules of the computing device <NUM>. The permanent storage device <NUM> may be a non-volatile memory unit that stores instructions and data even when the computing device <NUM> is off.

The input device interface <NUM> enables a user to communicate information and select commands to the computing device <NUM>. The output device interface <NUM> may enable, for example, the display of images generated by computing device <NUM>.

The bus <NUM> also connects to the image sensor(s) <NUM>. In one or more implementations, the image sensor(s) <NUM> may be utilized to capture image data, including but not limited to RGB image data or infrared image data.

Finally, as shown in <FIG>, the bus <NUM> also couples the computing device <NUM> to one or more networks and/or to one or more network nodes through the one or more network interface(s) <NUM>. In this manner, the computing device <NUM> can be a part of a network of computers (such as a LAN, a wide area network ("WAN"), or an Intranet, or a network of networks, such as the Internet. Any or all components of the computing device <NUM> can be used in conjunction with the subject disclosure.

It is understood that any specific order or hierarchy of blocks in the processes disclosed is an illustration of example approaches. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of blocks in the processes may be rearranged, or that all illustrated blocks be performed. Any of the blocks may be performed simultaneously. In one or more implementations, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous.

The word "exemplary" is used herein to mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration". Any embodiment described herein as "exemplary" or as an "example" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other implementations. Furthermore, to the extent that the term "include", "have", or the like is used in the description or the claims, such term is intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term "comprise" as "comprise" is interpreted when employed as a transitional word in a claim.

Claim 1:
A method, comprising:
receiving (<NUM>), by a system level process of an operating system (<NUM>) of a local computing device (<NUM>) of a local user, a request to initiate a group session in an extended reality, XR, environment for the local user and a remote user, the XR environment including one or more of augmented reality, AR, content, mixed reality, MR, content, virtual reality, VR, content;
establishing (<NUM>), for the group session by the system level process of the operating system (<NUM>) of the local computing device (<NUM>) and separately from a local instance of a first application, an out-of-process network connection with a system communication channel between the local computing device (<NUM>) associated with the local user and a remote computing device associated with the remote user;
receiving (<NUM>), at the system level process of the operating system (<NUM>) of the local computing device (<NUM>), a system call from the local instance of a first application on the local computing device (<NUM>) to transfer local data to a remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection; and
transferring (<NUM>), by system level process of the operating system (<NUM>) of the local computing device (<NUM>), the local data to the remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection and the system communication channel and separately from the local instance of the first application,
wherein the local data comprises state data of the local instance of the first application for updating a state of the remote instance of the first application.