606 results about "Information object" patented technology

An address of a server that should supply an information object or service to a requester is returned in response to a request therefor. The address of the server that is returned is an optimal server selected according to specified performance metrics. The specified performance metrics may include one or more of an average delay from the server to another, average processing delays at the server, reliability of a path from the server to another, available bandwidth in said path, and loads on the server.

A content-based method of managing a collection of documents is disclosed. A user interface is provided for managing the collection of documents. For each document, at least one information object representative of conceptual content of a portion of the document is identified. The information objects are combined with additional conceptual information inferred from the user interface to determine a network of conceptual relationships associated with the collection of documents. The user interface provides user access to the network of conceptual relationships to manage the collection of documents.

A software facility for administering and executing connectivity and information management tasks for a portable device, includes a module for selectively adding, deleting, and editing a location object, and a module for selectively initiating a request for a connection, disconnection, and information synchronization, based on the location object. The location object represents all location-specific information for the portable device and includes an information object including information management tasks that must be performed for a specific location for the portable device to connect to a remote network.

An efficient method and apparatus for regulating access to information objects stored in a database in which there are a large number of users and access groups. The invention uses a representation of a hierarchical access group structure in terms of intervals over a set of integers and a decomposition scheme that reduces any group structure to ones that have interval representation. This representation allows the problem for checking access rights to be reduced to an interval containment problem. An interval tree, a popular data structure in computational geometry, may be implemented to efficiently execute the access-right checking method.

Various information object repository selection procedures for determining which of a number of information object repositories should service a request for the information object include a direct cache selection process, a redirect cache selection process, a remote DNS cache selection process, or a local DNS cache selection process. Different combinations of these procedures may also be used. For example different combination may be used depending on the type of content being requested. The direct cache selection process may be used for information objects that will be immediately loaded without user action, while any of the redirect cache selection process, the remote DNS cache selection process and/or the local DNS cache selection process may be used for information objects that will be loaded only after some user action.

A user-specific change highlighting system and method keeps track of which version of an information object, such as a document, was last viewed by or downloads to the user. When a user reads or downloads a new version of the document, the system and method checks whether the current version is different from the last-viewed version. If the document has changed, the present invention uses, for example, color, font or some other technique to highlight the changes that have been made to the document.

Methods and systems detect objects of interest in a spatio-temporal signal. According to one embodiment, a system processes a digital spatio-temporal input signal containing zero or more foreground objects of interest superimposed on a background. The system comprises a foreground/background separation module, a foreground object grouping module, an object classification module, and a feedback connection. The foreground/background separation module receives the spatio-temporal input signal as an input and, according to one or more adaptable parameters, produces as outputs foreground/background labels designating elements of the spatio-temporal input signal as either foreground or background. The foreground object grouping module is connected to the foreground/background separation module and identifies groups of selected foreground-labeled elements as foreground objects. The object classification module is connected to the foreground object grouping module and generates object-level information related to the foreground object. The object-level information adapts the one or more adaptable parameters of the foreground/background separation module, via the feedback connection.

An electronic conference support system having a structure in which one main common information processing apparatus having a common display unit having a size sufficiently large for attendants to commonly look and some personal information processing apparatuses for permitting each attendant to exclusively create, display and edit information adjacent to each attendant are connected to one another to form a network communication structure through a data communication passage. When a certain attendant acquires an operation right, an information input space is displayed on the personal display unit of the attendant while permitting the attendant to input information. Information inputted to the information input space is, after completed and as an information object, displayed on the common display unit of the common information processing apparatus and the personal display units of all of the personal information processing apparatuses. The attendant of the conference is enabled to easily input information and other attendants who look the attendant's operation are enabled to be free from adverse stimulus.

Methods and systems are provided for organizing the display of informational objects using a mobile device. Certain embodiments may be used to automatically search for related informational objects so that they can be viewed together with minimal user input and minimal user manipulation.

An extensible user interface in a system for handling information objects. The extensible interface allows a user to be presented with default interfaces, or viewers, for performing the basic functions of a "data browser" application of the invention. A primary feature of the data browser user interface is to allow requests for information in the form of a one-time query, or a persistent query, on data objects. With the one-time query, the user defines one or more conditions in terms of attributes and values. The appropriate classes of objects are checked and any matching objects are identified as satisfying the query. A persistent query allows such a condition to be active at all times so that when one or more objects are created that satisfy the condition, those objects are identified as meeting the condition. Other features of the user interface allow the user to define objects and publish objects. Objects can be created or edited based on a class whose attributes are inherited. A predefined selection of menu options makes creating, editing and publishing objects simple and efficient. Access controls and settings are provided to control rights to created objects. An embodiment of the invention allows for any of six default "viewers" that make up the basic data browser user interface to be customized, or replaced, with a viewer of the user's choice. This can be accomplished by simply naming the new viewer process in a dialogue box. Either predefined viewers can be used, or a completely new viewer can be programmed and tied into the user interface via "call-in" and "call-out" routines. These "extended" viewers are swappable at run-time. The extended viewers can perform all or a portion of the functionality of the original, default, viewer.

Access control approaches are disclosed wherein managed object in Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Management Information Bases (MIBs) are accessed on a per-Virtual Private Network (VPN)-basis with no modifications to existing MIBs. A manager and an SNMP Agent operating in a VPN environment agree on a mapping between SNMP securityNames and VPN IDs. Under the agreed mapping, the target VPN of any SNMP management request can be unambiguously determined from the securityName alone. For each securityName, one or more MIB Views are configured using in a View-based Access Control Model MIB (VACM MIB) table; the MIB Views specify which portions of the managed object tree can be viewed or modified by a corresponding VPN. Thereafter, a VPN-enabled device provides SNMP requests in which a VPN ID value is passed in the securityName field of the context string in the community string. The receiving device extracts the securityName, locates corresponding MIB Views using the VACM MIB table, and allows the requesting device to access only objects that are identified in the MIB Views.

A request for an information object at an address identified by a uniform resource locator (URL) is received; and the URL is mapped to a corresponding unicast address for the information object. Thereafter, the unicast address for the information object may be used as an anycast address.

Various aspects of the invention provide for the creation, modification, transfer, manipulation, requesting and destruction of information objects in a computer network. Although some aspects of the invention are based on publish-subscribe techniques, many modifications and additional features are provided.

Augmenting processing of information objects transferred among processors within a network. Processing is performed by a process, or processor, (called a "robot") at any point in the network where an information object is transferred, or where the object resides. By allowing processing at source, destination and at "interim" points between the source and destination, the ability to add functionality, services, control and management of objects and object transfers is greatly enhanced. The robots, can reside at any point in the system. A robot can be local to an end-user's computer, can reside on a content source server, or can be on another computer, processor, storage location or device on the network. Any type of processing can be performed by the robots. For example, access rights can be maintained so that certain attributes and values of information objects are restricted on a per user, per machine, chronological or other basis. Robots can use conditions which, when satisfied by attribute/value pairs within a specific object, or conditions which are satisfied by other, external, conditions, trigger specific processing. The processing can include one or more objects, other information processing, software or hardware control functions, etc. Information can be appended to objects. Statistics on object use, publication, subscription or transfers can be compiled. Groups of robots can operate in cooperation. Robots can share information.

An improved search engine creates correlations linking terms from inputs provided by a user to selected target terms. The correlation search process receives pre-processed inputs from a user including a wide variety of input formats including keywords, phrases, sentences, concepts, compound queries, complex queries and orthogonal queries. The pre-processing also includes pre-processing of general digital information objects and static or dynamic generation of questions. After a correlation search of the information presented by the pre-processing, the search results are processed in novel ways to provide an improved relevance ranking of results.

The invention provides a method and system for caching information objects transmitted using a computer network. A cache engine determines directly when and where to store those objects in a memory (such as RAM) and mass storage (such as one or more disk drives), so as to optimally write those objects to mass storage and later read them from mass storage, without having to maintain them persistently. The cache engine actively allocates those objects to memory or to disk, determines where on disk to store those objects, retrieves those objects in response to their network identifiers (such as their URLs), and determines which objects to remove from the cache so as to maintain sufficient operating space. The cache engine collects information to be written to disk in write episodes, so as to maximize efficiency when writing information to disk and so as to maximize efficiency when later reading that information from disk. The cache engine performs write episodes so as to atomically commit changes to disk during each write episode, so the cache engine does not fail in response to loss of power or storage, or other intermediate failure of portions of the cache. The cache engine also stores key system objects on each one of a plurality of disks, so as to maintain the cache holographic in the sense that loss of any subset of the disks merely decreases the amount of available cache. The cache engine also collects information to be deleted from disk in delete episodes, so as to maximize efficiency when deleting information from disk and so as to maximize efficiency when later writing to those areas having former deleted information. The cache engine responds to the addition or deletion of disks as the expansion or contraction of the amount of available cache.

A system and method is described that attempts to increase the presentation of information in dynamic information objects arranged on a graphical user interface (GUI) designed for a specific display size and resolution. When such a GUI application window is displayed on a display size and resolution different from the designed size, the application obtains the projected dimension information for the GUI window to be displayed on the new display and re-sizes the constituent elements to maximize the presentation of information on the dynamic information objects.

A natural language-based information organization and collaboration tool for a computer system is disclosed. The system includes an apparatus and method for processing text expressions in a computer system. The apparatus comprises a user input device for receiving an input text expression; a parser to identify the keyword in the input text expression, the parser including functions for linking the input text expression to the information object based on the keyword identified in the input text expression; and a user output device for displaying to the user the identity of the information object to which the input text expression was linked.

Techniques for forming electronic documents include storing a plurality of information types for describing how information is used. Also, a plurality of document types is stored. Each document type includes a unique set of information types. A plurality of units of information is also stored. Each unit of information is associated with an information type. A document is produced based on a particular document type having a particular set of information types, and based on a first set of units of information. Each unit of information of the first set is associated with a corresponding information type in the particular set of information types. This invention allows content to be associated with a particular use, through the information type, so that the content can be incorporated in all documents where such usage is desired. This invention also allows the enterprise to control the method of generating and presenting a particular content or information object based on its use and its temporal data, e.g., how often it is refreshed. Such control is employed in predictive caching technologies. Further, the system can allow and reference which documents or info types point to other documents or info types, thereby enabling the system to replace all affected objects and pointers when changes occur, and facilitating caching all objects that are affected by a change.

Techniques for relating data stored in one or more storage systems for an enterprise include managing information chunks in one or more storage systems. Each chunk comprises a unit of data for storage and retrieval operations. The techniques also include managing a vocabulary database. The vocabulary database includes data structures describing atomic concepts among names in an enterprise-specific vocabulary and data structures describing relationships among the atomic concepts. Content in a document is arranged based at least in part on data in the vocabulary database. The content is based at least in part on an information object or “chunk” in the storage system. Thus, content originally unrelated and authored over time by many different persons and organizations can be related using the business vocabulary concepts and relationships in the vocabulary database.

A method and apparatus for displaying real-time information objects between a wireless mobile user station and multiple information sources based upon event driven parameters and user modifiable object manifest, wherein the multiple real-time information sources and real-time event occurrences are collected, tagged and analyzed for context relevance and transmitted to a wireless mobile computer user based on personal preference and request of the wireless mobile computer user, thus providing a highly personalized experience.

Object segmentation and tracking are improved by including directional information to guide the placement of an active contour (i.e., the elastic curve or ‘snake’) in estimating the object boundary. In estimating an object boundary the active contour deforms from an initial shape to adjust to image features using an energy minimizing function. The function is guided by external constraint forces and image forces to achieve a minimal total energy of the active contour. Both gradient strength and gradient direction of the image are analyzed in minimizing contour energy for an active contour model.