NRC Publications Archive (NPArC)
`Archives des publications du CNRC (NPArC)
`
`A Multi-Agent System for Personal Messaging
`Meech, J.F.; Baker, K.; Law, E.; Liscano, Ramiro
`
`Web page / page Web
`
`http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/npsi/ctrl?action=rtdoc&an=8914113&lang=en
`http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/npsi/ctrl?action=rtdoc&an=8914113&lang=fr
`
`Access and use of this website and the material on it are subject to the Terms and Conditions set forth at
`http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/npsi/jsp/nparc_cp.jsp?lang=en
`READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE.
`
`L’accès à ce site Web et l’utilisation de son contenu sont assujettis aux conditions présentées dans le site
`http://nparc.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/npsi/jsp/nparc_cp.jsp?lang=fr
`LISEZ CES CONDITIONS ATTENTIVEMENT AVANT D’UTILISER CE SITE WEB.
`
`Contact us / Contactez nous: nparc.cisti@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.
`
`001
`
`WHATSAPP INC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009
`
`

`
`National Research
`Council Canada
`Institute for
`Information Technology
`
`Conseil national
`de recherches Canada
`Institut de Technologie
`de l’information
`
`A Multi-agent System for Personal Messaging*
`
`J. Meech, K. Baker, E. Law, and R. Liscano
`June 2000
`
`*Poster presentation at the Fourth International Conference on Autonomous
`Agents (Agents’ 2000). NRC 43662.
`
`Copyright 2000 by
`National Research Council of Canada
`
`Permission is granted to quote short excerpts and to reproduce figures and tables from this report,
`provided that the source of such material is fully acknowledged.
`
`002
`
`WHATSAPP INC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009
`
`

`
`003 WHATSAPP |NC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009
`
`003
`
`WHATSAPP INC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009
`
`

`
`A Multi-Agent System for Personal Messaging
`
`John F. Meech, Katherine Baker, Edith Law, Ramiro Liscano
`
`Network Computing Group,
`Institute for Information Technology,
`National Research Council of Canada.
`M50, Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A OR6
`{John.Meech, Katherine.Baker, Edith.Law, Ramiro.Liscano}@iit.nrc.ca
`
`Keywords
`
`Intelligent Interface Agent, Intelligent Interface, Adaptive
`Interface, Seamless Messaging, Unified Messaging, Software
`Agent. Telecommunications.
`1. INTRODUCTION
`There are now many ways of sending messages (such as faxes,
`telephone calls, pages, emails, etc.) and a corresponding
`multitude of ways of responding to them. Part of this variety
`arises from the separate systems that are used for each type of
`message, and part from the different services that each system
`might employ (e.g. different telephone and cellular telephone
`operators, etc.). These systems are rarely closely integrated,
`making it difficult for messages to pass between systems to
`reach the recipient. For example, a person usually has several
`voice-mail accounts; at home, at the office and on a cellphone,
`each of which may have a different user interface, and that may
`be incapable of exchanging messages. To address
`these
`discontinuities in message passing the concept of Seamless
`Messaging environments and Seamless Personal Information
`Networks [1] has been proposed. These systems are intended to
`provide a means of delivering messages in a way which is
`personal to the recipient, and in which the separate networks
`that might be used to deliver a message are invisible.
`
`2. ADAPTATION IN SEAMLESS
`MESSAGING
`The ability of a seamless messaging system to function depends
`upon the ability to accept a message in one format and deliver it
`in another. This change of format or modality will depend upon
`the capabilities of the sending or receiving device,
`the
`bandwidth available to transmit the message and the preferences
`of the receiver and sender. Therefore a system that provides such
`seamless messaging must be able to resolve possible changes of
`message modality between sender and receiver due to:
`
`1. User preferences (e.g. audio to signal arrival of email or
`page, message filtering, etc.),
`
`2. Device capability (e.g. a cellular phone cannot display a
`video message),
`
`3. Network capability (e.g. restricted bandwidth or network
`access).
`In a seamless network there will be a large number of devices
`that are capable of accessing messages. Each device will have its
`own set of interface and interaction properties and will be
`capable of sending and receiving a range of different message
`types (audio, video, text, graphics, etc.). Thus the network and
`the device must in some way manage the exchange of messages
`in order to enable messages to be sent and received whilst
`maintaining user preferences, maximising device capabilities
`and network bandwidth, and presenting a coherent user
`interface.
`
`In order to provide a seamless messaging, a system must provide
`the capability to intercept an incoming message, process it
`according to user preferences and other criteria, and forward the
`message (or a notification that a message has arrived) to the
`user. This forwarded message may have its format or content
`changed as a result of user preferences and device. In such a
`system it is useful to use the metaphor of the human personal
`assistant, who acts as a moderator between incoming and
`outgoing messages and can act accordingly. The system must
`also present a coherent interface for the user to access, compose,
`send, receive and browse messages and other media. Because of
`the different interactive capabilities of each device, message
`passing may also need to reconfigure the user interface on the
`destination device in order to allow the user to respond
`appropriately. The system therefore adapts intelligently based
`on selecting a device (e.g. a cellphone), tailoring the message to
`the device (e.g. by filtering or content conversion) and
`generating an interface by which the user can interact with the
`message. The adaptation is based on the user preferences, the
`device characteristics and the available network bandwidth.
`2.1 The IMPAX System
`The system currently under development (IMPAX: Intelligent
`Messaging with Personal Agents and XML) is implemented
`using an agent-based paradigm, in which each user is allocated a
`personal communications agent or PCA. The PCA acts as the
`co-ordinating entity by which the user configures and manages
`the overall system.
`
`004
`
`WHATSAPP INC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009
`
`

`
`Personal
`Communications
`Agent
`
`Converter
`Agent
`
`Calendar
`
`Contacts
`
`Configuration
`
`Programming
`
`User I nterface
`
`Messaging
`Database
`
`Messaging
`Manager
`
`Contact data
`
`SMS Service
`Adapter
`
`Voicemail
`Service
`Adapter
`
`2-way Pager
`Service
`Adapter
`
`Pager
`Service
`Adapter
`
`Email
`Service
`Adapter
`
`SMS
`Gateway
`
`Voicemail
`
`Mobitex
`Gateway
`
`TAP
`Gateway
`
`Internet
`
`Figure 1. IMPAX System Architecture
`
`The architecture of the IMPAX system is shown in Figure 1.
`The PCA acts as the interface between the user and the overall
`messaging system. By interacting with the PCA, the user can
`specify the devices used to access the system (e.g. cellphone,
`pager, etc.), including their display capabilities. Users can also
`interact with the PCA to specify their message-handling
`preferences in the form of rules relating various attributes of
`preferences, contextual data and message properties to message
`delivery (e.g. which device to use, whether to filter the message
`or convert it to another format, etc.). These preferences are
`structured as XML1 documents. The PCA parses the documents,
`converts them into JESS2 rules and facts, and sends them to the
`Messaging Manager agent where they are stored in a knowledge
`base. When configured, the Messaging Manager agent is used to
`route incoming messages from one network to another and one
`device to another. The messaging manager can Alter (change the
`media form), Filter (reduce the media size) or Notify the user
`when data (i.e. a message) arrives. Changes in media type are
`performed by Content Converter Agents. These agents provide
`the ability to parse and convert incoming data, e.g. text-to-
`speech, text-to-filtered text, speech-to-text, fax-to-text (via
`optical character recognition), etc. In addition, graphical formats
`can be transformed (e.g. format changing such as colour to
`monochrome), and continuous media such as video transformed
`into a series of keyframes. These agents provide the ability to
`extract multiple modalities from signal datastreams (e.g. html-
`like messages with multiple attachments) and handle each
`modality separately.
`
`The Message Manager agent co-ordinates the exchange of
`messages with various network services. Messages are
`exchanged between agents in XML using KQML3 performatives
`
`over a CORBA4 network transfer architecture. This structure
`allows a high degree of compatibility to be maintained at a
`conceptual level (i.e. that of XML documents) and uniformity in
`inter-agent communication (KQML). The use of CORBA as a
`transport mechanism makes it straightforward to distribute
`objects throughout a network, minimising resource conflicts.
`
`2.2 IMPAX As An Intelligent Interface
`The overall behaviour of IMPAX as a system may be viewed as
`an adaptive or intelligent messaging system. Once configured by
`a user, the system adapts the delivery, form and content of a
`message dynamically. In the current system, messages and other
`data objects are represented by XML. Each data type has a
`Document Type Definition (DTD) which
`is a structural
`specification of the data, and allows it to be efficiently parsed
`and searched (and makes messages easy to validate in terms of
`structure). In addition it is possible to associate Style-Sheets
`with DTDs, allowing specific modifications to be made to the
`display of certain types of data (primarily text and graphics).
`
`At the level of adaptive message passing, we may view the entire
`system as adaptively presenting messages to the user based on a
`set of user preferences data and a set of system variables.
`IMPAX therefore has the capability of acting as an intelligent or
`adaptive interface at two levels; message passing and interface
`generation.
`
`In message display terms this means that messages can be
`filtered (to fit on a receiving device with limited display
`capability in relation to the sending device), or converted from
`one media type to another when the receiving device is
`incapable of displaying that type (e.g. speech to text for
`converting a voice mail to an alphanumeric page). In interaction
`terms the messages must be capable of being displayed and
`navigated on the receiving device. To compose, send and
`receive messages on a given device requires interaction with that
`device, and interactivity implies the ability to structure both data
`and the interface to that data.
`
`The use of XML to mark-up messages may also be used to
`indicate interface features in a device independent manner.
`Current efforts are extending the IMPAX functionality to allow
`the system to generate interfaces for access devices in a dynamic
`manner, based on the content of the message and the user’s
`preferences. For example, an email which is forwarded to a
`cellphone or 2-way pager may have an interface constructed
`which maps reply options to keys on
`the device (e.g.
`“acknowledge”, ”reply”, ”next”). In this way optimal use can be
`made of the interface capabilities of each device.
`
`3. REFERENCES
`Abu-Hakima, S., Liscano, R., Impey, R. (1998) A common
`multi-agent testbed for diverse seamless personal information
`networking applications, IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol.
`36, No. 7, pp. 68-74.
`
`
`1 Extensible Markup Language - http://www.xml.org
`2 Java Expert System Shell - http://herzberg1.ca.sandia.gov/jess/
`3 Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language
` http://www.cs.umbc.edu/agents/kse/kqml/
`
`
`4 Common Object Request Broker Architecture
`http://www.omg.org
`
`005
`
`WHATSAPP INC.'S EXHIBIT NO. 1009