Indexing Electronic Media Items on Handheld Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Providers of electronic media face challenges in capturing the interest of users who prefer traditional hard-copy formats, and there is a need for improved methods and systems to handle electronic items on handheld user devices, particularly in organizing and searching digital media content effectively.
Innovation Solution
The system involves an Item Providing System (IPS) that downloads items to user devices via a communication infrastructure, enabling wireless communication and providing features like content reception, indexing, and search functionality, allowing users to organize and search electronic media items efficiently on portable devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If electronic media items are provided on handheld devices, then portability and accessibility are improved, but search and organization efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary indexing of electronic media items by extracting metadata, keywords, and structural information during the content download and import process. This pre-processing creates searchable indexes before users need to search, enabling efficient query resolution on resource-constrained handheld devices without requiring full-text scanning at search time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary indexing layer that sits between the raw electronic media content and the search functionality. This index structure acts as a mediator, translating user search queries into efficient lookups of pre-extracted metadata and keywords, thereby resolving the contradiction between maintaining portability and achieving search efficiency.
2Adaptability or versatility
If comprehensive search functionality is implemented, then search capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The search system is segmented into distinct components: metadata extraction modules, indexing modules, and query processing modules. Each component handles a specific aspect of the search functionality, allowing the system to provide comprehensive search capabilities while maintaining manageable complexity through modular architecture on handheld devices.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of implementing full-text search algorithms directly on the handheld device, the system creates simplified copies of the search functionality through pre-generated indexes and metadata structures. These copied index structures enable comprehensive search capability while avoiding the computational complexity of implementing complete search engines on resource-constrained devices.
3Measurement precision
If full-text indexing is performed on all electronic items, then search precision is improved, but processing time and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different indexing strategies to different parts of the electronic media content based on their searchability and importance. Metadata, titles, author information, and structured fields receive full indexing treatment for high precision, while body text receives selective indexing based on keywords and contextual relevance, reducing overall processing time while maintaining search precision for commonly queried information.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts indexing parameters such as index depth, keyword extraction density, and processing priority based on item characteristics, user preferences, and device resources. This allows the system to optimize the balance between search precision and indexing time by changing parameters adaptively rather than applying uniform full-text indexing to all content.
Data Source
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AI summary
Search may be performed on a user device (104), such as a handheld electronic book reader device. A search query term may be received (6902, 7002). Text of a collection of electronic items stored in memory of the user device may be searched (6912, 7004) for the queried term. Search results may be returned (7014) identifying locations in the electronic items at which the queried term appears.