Patent ID: 7610349

Claim:
A method for providing a variety of disparate host devices access to digital images residing on a digital camera device, the method comprising upon connection of the digital camera device to a particular host device that is capable of hosting digital camera devices, the digital camera device: sending, prior to establishing a communication session on top of a physical communication link for a communication stack of the connection, one or more queries over the connection, the one or more queries being associated with one or more expected responses stored in a knowledgebase including a registry, the communication stack having one or more communication layers including the communication session, each communication layer corresponding to a communication protocol; comparing a response received in response to the one or more queries over the connection with the one or more expected responses to determine an identifier for a kind of the physical communication link for the communication stack of the connection to the particular host device; looking up a preferred configuration for the one or more communication layers according to the determined identifier referencing the settings in the registry; allowing communication between the digital camera device and the particular host device; automatically identifying the particular host device that the digital camera device is currently connected to; based on said determined kind of physical communication link, establishing the communication session between the digital camera device and the particular host device for the communication stack of the connection, said communication session supporting photo-serving communication protocols that present the digital camera device as a file server to the host device; and through said photo-serving communication protocols, allowing the host device to access digital images residing on the digital camera device, as if the digital camera device were the file server, wherein said particular host device and said digital camera device support TCP/IP connectivity corresponding to one of the communication protocols of the communication stack and wherein the communication session is a TCP/IP session.