Content Cache Prefetching for Web Layout Stability
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Solution Overview
Problem
The presentation of content items within hosting items, such as web pages, often results in delays, layout disruptions, connectivity issues, and the selection of irrelevant content due to on-demand retrieval, which can frustrate users and reduce the effectiveness of content delivery.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a content cache on devices to prefetch content items before user requests, allowing for immediate selection and insertion of cached items into hosting items, while coordinating with content servers to mark viewed items and avoid redundant presentations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If content items are retrieved on-demand from the content server, then the content delivery system maintains simple architecture and low storage requirements, but the presentation of content items experiences significant delays that frustrate users
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by prefetching content items and storing them in a content cache before users actually request them. The content server proactively identifies and delivers content items that are likely to be needed, based on various prediction algorithms and user behavior patterns, so that when users do request content, it is already available locally with minimal delay.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by creating a distributed content cache system where each device maintains its own local cache of content items. This allows different devices to have different cached content based on their specific usage patterns, preferences, and prediction algorithms, optimizing the local user experience while reducing server load for frequently accessed content.
2Loss of time
If content items are retrieved on-demand, then the system uses minimal storage space, but layout adjustments and repositioning occur when content items are inserted, interrupting user review
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary layout calculations and content item selection before actual presentation. By pre-determining which content items will be cached and their likely positions in the layout, the system avoids spontaneous layout changes during user interaction. The content cache is populated with content items that have been pre-evaluated for their suitability and predicted placement.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamics by creating an adaptive content cache system that dynamically adjusts its behavior based on observed user patterns. The system learns from user interactions and progressively optimizes which content items to cache and where to place them, making the layout adjustments predictable and user-friendly over time rather than random and disruptive.
3Productivity
If content items are selected and presented rapidly, then user experience improves, but the system cannot achieve sophisticated content selection that avoids redundant presentations
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs sophisticated content selection in advance by analyzing user behavior patterns, preferences, and historical data to predict which content items will be most valuable to cache. This preliminary selection process occurs during idle periods or low-traffic times, allowing complex algorithms to run without impacting user experience. When users request content, the pre-selected and pre-cached items are delivered immediately.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements continuity of useful action by maintaining ongoing content selection and cache management processes that run continuously in the background. The system continuously monitors user behavior, updates prediction models, and refines content selection strategies without interrupting the user experience. This continuous optimization ensures that content selection sophistication improves over time while maintaining rapid retrieval performance.
4Reliability
If the device prefetches content items into a content cache, then content availability is ensured with limited connectivity, but the device complexity and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary content prefetching actions during periods of available connectivity and sufficient energy, storing content items in the content cache before they are needed. This allows the device to operate offline or with limited connectivity while maintaining access to cached content. The prefetching process is triggered by predicted user needs and connectivity conditions, optimizing the balance between reliability and energy consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The presentation of content items within a hosting item is typically performed by on-demand retrieval of the content item from a content server. However, on-demand retrieval may impose an undesirable delay in the presentation of the content; may spontaneously alter the layout of the hosting item; and/or may involve an expedient but unsophisticated selection among the content items of a content store (e.g., random selection), resulting in the presentation of irrelevant and/or redundant content. Instead, a device may prefetch content items into a content cache, such that when a user later requests to view a hosting item, the device may insert a content item selected from the content cache. The device may also notify the content server when a content item has been presented to the user; by marking the content item as such, the content server may provide additional, fresh content for the device content cache.