Network-Extended Memory for Mobile Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mobile electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, face memory constraints that limit their ability to store data, hindering the execution of memory-consuming applications and features like high-resolution images and video clips, despite increasing computational capabilities.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves extending the memory capacity of mobile devices by utilizing remote computer systems for data storage, allowing applications to access and manage data objects distributed across both local and remote memory resources via an extended-memory monitor and service application, leveraging telecommunications network connectivity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If on-board memory capacity is increased to support memory-consuming applications, then application functionality is improved, but device size, power consumption, and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends memory capacity from the local device dimension to the network dimension by implementing a distributed memory system. Local memory serves as cache while remote memory provides extended storage capacity over the network, effectively adding a spatial dimension to memory availability without increasing local hardware resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a memory management system as an intermediary between applications and physical memory resources. This intermediary abstracts the complexity of distributed memory access, managing data placement between local and remote memory, and handling access requests transparently to applications.
2Quantity of substance
If on-board memory capacity is increased to support memory-consuming applications, then application functionality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the memory system universal by designing it to automatically adapt to different storage scenarios. The same memory management infrastructure handles both local and remote memory access uniformly, allowing applications to request memory without specifying the physical location, thereby reducing complexity through abstraction.
Solution Approach 2:
The memory management system acts as an intermediary that shields applications from the complexity of distributed memory architecture. It handles data placement, retrieval, and synchronization between local and remote memory, presenting a simplified interface to applications while managing the underlying complexity.
3Quantity of substance
If local memory components are added to increase storage capacity, then data storage capability is improved, but device size and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the bulk storage function from the mobile device and places it in remote systems, keeping only the essential cache function locally. This extraction allows the device to maintain minimal local memory while accessing extensive remote storage capacity, effectively separating storage capacity from device physical dimensions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent resolves the size-capacity contradiction by transitioning storage from the physical dimension to the network dimension. Data storage capacity is no longer constrained by device physical size but by available network bandwidth and remote storage resources, effectively adding a virtual dimension to storage capacity.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and subsystems directed to increasing the amount of memory accessible to software and hardware components of mobile electronic devices as well as to increasing security and reliability of data storage for mobile electronic devices. In the described embodiments of the present invention, the local memory within a mobile electronic device is extended by transmitting data from the local memory to one or more remote computer systems for storage and by requesting and receiving data from the one or more remote computer systems for storage in the local memory of the mobile electronic device. In the described embodiments of the present invention, a portion of the local memory within a mobile electronic device is employed as a local window into a much larger amount of data stored on one or more remote computer systems on behalf of the mobile electronic device.