Automatic Metadata Discovery via Remote Source Aggregation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electronic devices face limitations in automatically associating metadata with stored data, particularly when they lack necessary sensors or capabilities, leading to incomplete metadata for tasks like location-based or time-stamped information, which can be burdensome for users to manually manage.
Innovation Solution
A processing module that reviews initial metadata and identifies related information from applications, social networks, and remote sources to augment metadata, such as extracting event information from calendars and social network streams, and searching for data that shares metadata characteristics, to enhance the metadata associated with stored data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If an electronic device automatically associates metadata with stored data using only its own sensors and capabilities, then the device can provide metadata for fields it has sensors for (e.g., basic file metadata), but the metadata will be incomplete for fields requiring sensors or capabilities the device lacks (e.g., location-based metadata without positioning circuitry, time stamp metadata without a clock)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary component that possesses comprehensive metadata extraction capabilities and various sensors. This server acts as a mediator between the electronic device and remote sources, extracting metadata from multiple sources including social networks, calendars, and other data sources on behalf of the device, thereby compensating for the device's limited sensor capabilities
Solution Approach 2:
The patent shifts the metadata extraction process from a single-device dimension to a multi-source dimensional approach by accessing remote sources such as social networks, calendars, and other electronic devices. This dimensional expansion allows the system to gather comprehensive metadata without requiring all sensors to be present in one device
2Reliability
If a user manually manages metadata for stored data, then the user can have full control over metadata accuracy and completeness, but the process becomes burdensome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service by enabling the system to automatically extract and associate metadata with stored data without requiring user intervention. The server autonomously accesses multiple data sources, extracts relevant metadata, and applies it to the appropriate files, freeing users from the burdensome task of manual metadata management while maintaining high accuracy through multiple verification sources
3Reliability
If an electronic device searches for and extracts metadata from multiple remote sources to compensate for lacking sensors, then the device can provide more complete metadata, but the system complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as a centralized intermediary that handles all complex interactions with multiple remote sources, social networks, and data repositories. This mediator architecture consolidates the complexity in one location while keeping the electronic devices themselves simple, as they only need to communicate requests and receive results from the server without directly managing the complexity of multiple data sources
Data Source
AI summary
This is directed to processing stored data to automatically generate metadata for the stored data. In particular, this is directed to identifying metadata associated with stored data, and identifying other data that relates to the stored data from one or more sources. A processing module can identify other data sharing some of the identified metadata, and can extract additional metadata associated with the identified other data. The extracted metadata can then be associated with the user's stored data. The processing module can extract additional metadata from any suitable source, including for example local application data, social networks or blogging sources, and other remote sources. In some embodiments, an electronic device can retrieve data from other users for a particular event based on metadata associated with the user's data for the event to form a master collection of data.