2548 results about "Internet service" patented technology

Method and apparatus for a searchable data service are described. The searchable data service may be implemented as a Web service with a Web service interface that allows the storage of locators and other attributes associated with entities stored in a data store in a searchable index. The attributes may be expressed as {name, value} pairs. The interface may allow client applications to query the searchable index to retrieve locators for entities in the backend data store according to the attributes associated with each locator. Search speed may be automatically optimized using, for example, indexes, query planning, and parallelism. The searchable data service provides a searchable index and is not a data store per se. The searchable data service separates searching and indexing of data from the actual storage of the data.

A user is provided with a secure database containing information in diverse categories that relates to the user and that may be represented at least in part in bar code form and communicated with light from a mobile communications device. The diverse information is obtained from any combination of a variety of vendor and governmental computer systems, internet service providers, and communications devices. The user has access to the database using a mobile communications device for displaying, managing, and entering information, and for communicating information in bar code form with light. The user first selects the category that contains the specific item of information, and then selects the specific item of information. The specific item of information then is communicated in bar code form with light from the mobile communications device for scanning by a bar code scanner to obtain the desired good or service.

A link-modifying web server automatically modifies links in each web page as it is served to a client browser. The web page is parsed for links, and the links are looked up in a link mapping database. A replacement field is read from the database. A link modifier alters the link using the replacement field to point to a different server at one of several content delivery providers. One of several replacement links can be selected from the link mapping database depending on network conditions and user account data. A replacement link to one content delivery provider can be chosen rather than another replacement link to a different content delivery provider when one provider's network is responding more quickly or has a lower cost. A provider monitor continuously checks provider performance at each of the content delivery providers. When one provider's network is slow or fails, the provider monitor instructs a delivery rule processor to choose link replacements at other content delivery providers. Thus the links in the web page served to the client are modified to point away from slow or failed providers.

This invention is an apparatus and a method that selects the optimum location of a service on the Internet according to the user's geo-location and the configuration of the invention by transparently altering the DNS messages. In the preferred embodiment, the invention operates at OSI model's data link layer and it is located in front of the DNS server so that it does not require any modification in the existing DNS or IP network setup or on the application servers. It provides a fast and transparent method of locating an Internet service without the overhead of server scripts, HTTP redirects, or extra steps by the user to find the desired location or content.

The present invention advantageously provides to Internet Service Providers (ISP) precise control over who receives an advertisement. Thus, in accordance with the present invention, an ISP provider may now offer advertisers precision advertising. An ISP provider has access to precise demographic data on each of the ISP's customers. The ISP provider also has access to data on the periods of usage, including the type of customers accessing the Internet during such periods of usage. With this information, which is available only to the ISP provider, a profile may be compiled by the ISP provider that provides precise information on the ISP customers (e.g., demographic data) and the periods of heaviest Internet access by the various different ISP customer groups (e.g., 20-35 year old males, retired persons, children, etc.).

Network service provisioning is described. Network service provisioning to a device includes a mechanism for ensuring that network services are available based upon one or more of appropriate traffic control, billing, and notification policies. Ensuring that the policies are properly enforced on a device is a focus of this paper. The enforcement policies can be on the device or in the network.

A method of accounting for online Internet usage credit includes establishing an account identifier in a database for a selected user. A number of credit value block records are associated in the database with the account identifier. Each credit value block has a stored credit value amount, and at least a second stored property indicator. In response to a measured amount of consumption of services by the user, at least one of the credit value blocks is debited by a debit amount based on the measured amount and the second stored property indicator. The stored property indicator may be a rate multiplier, or other factor indicating a different cost mode of online service, connection or usage.

A dynamic toolbar operates in conjunction with a web server for presenting links associated with a website requested by a web surfer at a client computer. The web server receives a source URL of a source website requested by the web surfer and compiles a directory of URLs of related websites that may be of interest to the web surfer for selecting therefrom a subset of URLs according to their popularity. Data representative of the subset is uploaded to the client computer for displaying by a web browser thereof. The subset of URLs is selected by accessing the directory to determine a category to which the source URL belongs and extracting from the directory respective URLs of related websites of the category. A Popularity Index is determined by an actual count of redirections from the URL of the source website to the respective URLs of the related websites.

The disclosure describes a method for enabling internet access to information hosted on a computer or a storage device (CSD), even without having a web server software on the CSD. The CSD is registered with a server and assigned an ID by the server. Information about all CSDs is stored in a database on the server. A unique resource locator (URL) is created for each file intended to be shared. The URLs of all hosted files are stored in a file called the registry file residing on the CSD. An intending recipient may enter the URL of the desired file in a web browser. The URL is sent from the web browser to the server. The server forwards the URL to the CSD The file is retrieved from the CSD and sent to the server. The server forwards the file to the recipient computer, where the web browser displays it.

A system for redirection of online queries to a genuine content includes a user interface module to provide a user interface between a network user with administrative authority and an Internet service, a communication module to receive a request to establish a genuine content resolution policy for a network, a policy generating module to establish the genuine content resolution policy for the network, and a policy enforcement module to apply the genuine content resolution policy to a user request to access an intended website. The policy enforcement module may determine whether or not the genuine content resolution policy is activated, determine whether or not that the intended website is the genuine website, and based on the determination, selectively redirect the user to the genuine website.

A reference to auxiliary data is steganographically encoded within a media signal. The auxiliary data is stored in a metadata database that maps the reference encoded in the media signal to its corresponding metadata. Various application programs and devices can access the metadata by extracting the reference from the media signal, and querying the database for metadata corresponding to the reference. The metadata database may be implemented in a network server to make metadata readily available to devices and applications distributed throughout a network. This steganographic link to metadata may be used to retrieve metadata across media management systems. In one configuration, for example, media management systems have metadata servers that maintain metadata for a collection of media signals. The metadata server is responsible for responding to requests for metadata associated with media titles in its collection. In the event that a metadata server does not have metadata associated with a particular media title, it forwards the reference extracted from the media signal to a metadata router, which in turn, re-directs the request to the appropriate metadata server.

The present invention overcomes the problems in the existing art described above by providing an online digital video signal transfer apparatus and method. Rental of the digital video signals occurs within an online environment including one or more client computers and at least one network server connected by a communications link to the one or more client computers. The method includes providing access to an online catalog stored within a memory of a network video server computer. The online catalog includes information regarding digital video signals available for rental from the network server computer. Requests are then received from client computers for rental of digital video signals selected from the online catalog for a specified period of time. The requests include electronic payment based on the selected digital video signal and the specified period of time. Once electronic payment is provided, the digital video signal is transmitted to the client computer via communications link. Once transmitted, the digital video signal is viewable by a user of the client computer during the specified period of time. Advantages of the invention include the ability to rent motion pictures without having to provide additional monies for purchase of the motion pictures. In addition, the present invention provides an interface that simulates the actual rental of motion pictures within a video rental store. Moreover, during the specified period of rental, the user is allowed to view the motion picture as many times as desired, thereby simulating the actual rental of video cassettes or DVDs of feature length motion pictures.

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for dynamically integrating software resources (such as web services and other back-end software resources) using the services of a content framework (such as a portal platform). A portlet model is leveraged to allow programmatic portlets to serve as proxies for web services, thereby extending portlets beyond their traditional visual role. A deployment interface and a system interface are described for these portlet proxies. The deployment interface is used for composing new web services, and a composition tool is described. The system interface allows for run-time management of the web services by the portal platform. The service provider for a particular function may be bound to the portlet proxy at development time or at run-time.

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for dynamically integrating software resources (such as web services and other back-end software resources) using the services of a content framework (such as a portal platform). A portlet model is leveraged to allow programmatic portlets to serve as proxies for web services, thereby extending portlets beyond their traditional visual role. A deployment interface and a system interface are described for these portlet proxies. The deployment interface is used for composing new web services, and a composition tool is described. The system interface allows for run-time management of the web services by the portal platform. The service provider for a particular finction may be bound to the portlet proxy at development time or at run-time.

A computerized method and system for combined billing for at least one customer on a plurality of customer accounts includes computer applications which automatically assemble and aggregate account charges, such as usage charges, fees, finance charges, discounts, rebates and rewards, for the customer on the plurality of accounts. The system also automatically formats a combined bill for the customer from the aggregated account charges and renders the combined bill to the customer. The account charges are automatically calculated by a computer application from account data for the customer's accounts, which is transmitted to the computer application from one or more storage devices, for example from vendors of energy, such as electricity and gas service, retail, such as credit cards, and communications, such as telephone and Internet service.

A system (100) enables a customer (103) to order goods via the Internet using a browsing device (104). The system includes at least one web server (106). The system further includes at least one DNS server (105) within a DNS system, which is configured to establish an association between goods (107), at least one corresponding domain name (102), and the web server (106). A request issued to the DNS server (105) to resolve the domain name (102) results in a response providing an Internet address of the web server (106). The web server (106) is configured to respond to a connection request initiated using the Internet address and a corresponding network resource locator including the domain name (102) by executing an ordering process. In various embodiments, the network resource locator may include a product identifier within the domain name, or within a distinct component thereof. The ordering process may proceed directly and automatically to the final placement of an order on behalf of the customer (103), or may include a check-out process prior to the final placement of an order.

The present invention is generally related to a system for managing recipes using a web server and an off-line software application. A user using the software application will be able to create, display, print, modify, and search recipes and menus. The web server will be a recipe store where a user can buy and download individual recipes and electronic cookbooks into the software application secure database storage. The software application has a web interface to communicate with the recipe store, allowing the user to have an extended set of facilities like posting his/her own recipes for sale, requesting restaurant and food store services for a given recipe or menu, requesting the restoration of their recipe database, and receiving suggested drinking dates for their current wine inventory. The software application comes in two versions: the read-only and the all-inclusive version. With the read-only version a user will not be able to create or modify a recipe or use any of the extended facilities. The read-only version will be free to download from the recipe store.

A mobile terminal (100) which is controllable by spoken utterances like proper names or command words is described. The mobile terminal (100) comprises an interface (200) for receiving from a network server (300) acoustic models for automatic speech recognition and an automatic speech recognizer (110) for recognizing the spoken utterances based on the received acoustic models. The invention further relates to a network server (300) for mobile terminals (100) which are controllable by spoken utterances and to a method for obtaining acoustic models for a mobile terminal (100) controllable by spoken utterances.

The present invention is a calendaring system implemented as a JavaScript application for program execution on individual Internet browsers alter being downloaded by a webserver. The JavaScript application generates HTML on-the-fly and a graphical user interface is displayed on a user's screen. The result is an interactive scheduling system that can be shared between users on the Internet.

Provided is a method and apparatus for improved access to material via the World Wide Web Internet service. Web page URLs are stored as attribute-values of directory objects and Web page hyperlinks to those directory objects are provided together with access logic responsive to the hyperlinks for retrieving the URLs for use by a client. This indirect access to Web pages via hyperlinks to directories has significant advantages for Web page organization and facilitates more flexible methods of Web page access than the known use of hyperlinks which include URLs pointing directly to the target Web pages.