Cloud Service Cross-Device Web Content Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face difficulties in seamlessly transitioning and accessing web content across multiple devices due to limitations such as network connectivity issues, slower data transmission speeds, and the lack of automatic content sharing, especially when switching from one device to another or when devices disconnect from proxy servers.
Innovation Solution
A cloud-based service that registers devices with a unique identifier, requests and formats web content for each device, and automatically pushes the content to registered devices, including metadata like scroll positions, to ensure seamless access and synchronization across devices, using predefined rules to optimize asset distribution based on device capabilities and user preferences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If users manually locate and retrace steps to access content on a new device, then content access is possible, but user time and effort are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically capturing content metadata (including scroll position) when content is viewed on one device and pre-positioning this information on the cloud service before the user switches devices. This eliminates the need for users to manually locate and retrace steps when accessing content on a new device.
Solution Approach 2:
The cloud-based service acts as an intermediary between multiple devices and content providers. It stores content metadata and facilitates automatic content sharing across devices, eliminating the need for manual content location and access operations by users.
2Ease of operation
If content is shared across multiple devices automatically, then seamless access is achieved, but network bandwidth and data transmission are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential content metadata (such as scroll position, content identifiers, and essential parameters) from the full content and transfers this compressed information across devices via the cloud service. This minimizes network bandwidth consumption while maintaining seamless content transition capability.
3Reliability
If content is cached on multiple devices, then offline access is enabled, but device storage space is consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements local quality by storing only essential content metadata and essential parameters locally on each device, while maintaining the ability to retrieve full content when needed. This approach enables basic offline functionality while minimizing local storage space consumption on devices.
4Adaptability or versatility
If full content is transferred to each device in multiple formats, then device compatibility is ensured, but data transmission time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates simplified copies of content metadata and essential parameters that can be rapidly transferred across devices. These compact copies contain the necessary information for content identification and basic functionality, enabling fast transmission while maintaining device compatibility through the cloud service's format conversion capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed for sharing and consuming web content across multiple computing devices. Each device registers with an account on a cloud-based service using a unique identifier. When one of the registered devices requests a web page, a set of rules is processed by the cloud-based service to determine whether the page content should be shared with other registered devices. If the rules are satisfied, the cloud-based service requests and receives the content from a content provider in various formats that are compatible with each of the registered devices. Once all assets associated with the content are received by the cloud-based service, the content is shared by pushing the content out to each registered device in the compatible format. In some cases, the scroll position is adjusted automatically so that the user may resume reading at the same point where she left off with another registered device.