Content Upload System with Preview and Prioritization
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication systems, such as email and instant messaging, face difficulties in managing and accessing conversations across multiple devices, particularly in maintaining logical context and efficiently uploading content due to limited bandwidth, making it hard for participants to preview and prioritize content effectively.
Innovation Solution
A distributed client-server system that generates thumbnails of content for preview and prioritized upload, allowing clients to upload and download content subsets concurrently, ensuring seamless access and context preservation across devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If content is uploaded to a remotely hosted conversation, then participants can access the content, but upload bandwidth is limited causing delays
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments content into multiple parts (thumbnails and full content) and uploads them in parallel. The thumbnail is a simplified representation that can be uploaded quickly, while the full content is uploaded separately. This segmentation allows the system to provide quick access to content previews without waiting for the complete upload, effectively bypassing the bandwidth limitation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary action by generating and uploading thumbnails before the full content is completely uploaded. Other participants can view the thumbnails immediately, getting advance notice of the content's presence and nature. This preliminary action reduces the perceived wait time and allows the conversation to continue while the full content finishes uploading in the background.
2Productivity
If participants download content after upload, then they can access the content, but download bandwidth is also limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments content access into two tiers: thumbnails that are quickly downloadable and provide immediate access to content previews, and full content that is downloaded on-demand when participants need the complete information. This segmentation optimizes bandwidth usage by transferring only essential data quickly and full data only when necessary.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates thumbnail copies of the original content that are smaller and faster to transfer. These thumbnails serve as sufficient representations for many purposes (identifying content, quick review), eliminating the need to download the full content in many cases. This copying strategy reduces overall bandwidth consumption while maintaining usability.
3Quantity of substance
If all content is uploaded simultaneously, then complete content is available, but bandwidth consumption increases and upload time extends
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides content upload into segmented operations: thumbnail generation and upload, followed by full content upload. This segmentation allows the system to make content partially available (via thumbnails) while continuing to upload the remainder, reducing total upload time and improving perceived performance without sacrificing complete content availability.
4Adaptability or versatility
If participants join a conversation mid-way, then they can join the conversation, but they lose the logical context of previous messages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates and distributes thumbnails of conversation content that serve as contextual summaries for participants joining mid-conversation. These thumbnails provide a condensed representation of previous messages and their logical relationships, allowing new participants to quickly grasp the conversation context without reading every previous message in full.
Data Source
AI summary
A receiving from a first client a thumbnail of content selected by the user of the first client. The server provides the thumbnail to a second client and while providing the thumbnail to the second client, the server receives the content from the first client. After providing the thumbnail to the second client, the server receives an access request from the second client for the content. In response to receiving the access request the server provides the content to the second client. In some embodiments, the server sends a prioritization request to the first client to increase the priority of uploading the content in response to a request to access the content by a second client, and the uploading priority of the content at the first client is increased based on the prioritization request.