Patent ID: 8326995

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a virtual data source registry comprising a peer relationship between a local rendezvous point local to a device and a remote rendezvous point remote from the device, the local rendezvous point receiving and providing locally available context information available local to the device and the remote rendezvous point receiving and providing remotely available context information available remote from the device; receiving, at the virtual data source registry, join requests from multiple applications, the join requests requesting context information from a context source, the join requests including a local join request from a device application in the device to the local rendezvous point, the join requests comprising requests to join a context information sharing session to receive information updates from at least one context source; receiving context information at the virtual data source registry from the context source; returning locally available context information from the local rendezvous point to the device application in response to receiving the local join request; and multicasting remotely available context information from the remote rendezvous point to the multiple applications in response to receiving the join requests, wherein the method further comprises: receiving an advertisement of a local context source at the local rendezvous point from the local context source; and registering the local context source at the local rendezvous point in response to receiving the advertisement, wherein the local join request comprises a first local join request, and wherein the method further comprises: receiving a second local join request at the local rendezvous point from a device application in the device after receiving the first local join request, the second local join request requesting context information from a remote context source; and sending the second local join request from the local rendezvous point to the remote rendezvous point only if the second local join request is for context information from a context source that was not requested by the first local join request.