Controlled devices according to a device control model maintain a state table representative of their operational state. Devices providing a user control point interface for the controlled device obtain the state table of the controlled device, and may also obtain presentation data defining a remoted user interface of the controlled device and device control protocol data defining commands and data messaging protocol to effect control of the controlled device. These user control devices also subscribe to notifications of state table changes, which are distributed from the controlled device according to an eventing model. Accordingly, upon any change to the controlled device's operational state, the eventing model synchronizes the device's state as represented in the state table across all user control devices.

Synchronization of controlled device state using state table and eventing in data-driven remote device control model

A universal plug and play (UPnP) device makes itself known through a set of processes—discovery, description, control, eventing, and presentation. Following discovery of a UPnP device, an entity can learn more about the device and its capabilities by retrieving the device's description. The description includes vendor-specific manufacturer information like the model name and number, serial number, manufacturer name, URLs to vendor-specific Web sites, etc. The description also includes a list of any embedded devices or services, as well as URLs for control, eventing, and presentation. The description is written by a vendor, and is usually based on a device template produced by a UPnP forum working committee. The template is derived from a template language that is used to define elements to describe the device and any services supported by the device. The template language is written using an XML-based syntax that organizes and structures the elements.

XML-based template language for devices and services

A method is provided for modifying an image. The method comprises displaying an image, the image comprising a portion of an object; and determining if an edge of the object is in a location within the portion. The method further comprises detecting movement, in a member direction, of an operating member with respect to the edge. The method still further comprises moving, if the edge is not in the location, the object in an object direction corresponding to the detected movement; and modifying, if the edge is in the location, the image in response to the detected movement, the modified image comprising the edge in the location.

Information processing apparatus, information processing method and program

A general programmatic interface-to-network messaging adapter exposes a suitable object integration interface or application programming interface to applications on a controller device and sends network data messages to invoke services or query status of a controlled device. The adapter maps application calls to the interface into network data messages according to service protocols of the controlled device. The general adapter provides the interface suitable to any specific service of a controlled device based on a data description of the interface, and converts the application calls to network data messages based on a data description of a protocol and format for network data messages to interact with the specific service. Once the interface/messaging description is obtained, applications on the controller device can programmatically interact with the adapter, and the adapter then handles appropriate message exchanges with the service of the controlled device. The general adapter allows controller device applications to be written using object-oriented programming, while avoiding code download.

Data driven remote device control model with general programming interface-to-network messaging adapter

In particular embodiments a social networking system may receive from an external system outside the social-networking system, a request comprising a user identifier associated with a user of the social-networking system, query a social graph for stories generated by one or more connections of the user on the social-networking system, and transmit the stories to the external system. Similarly the social networking system may receive, from an external system outside of the social networking system, a request comprising a user identifier associated with a user of the social networking system, a content identifier, and a action performed by the user on the content identifier, generate a story for the received request, and publish the story to one or more connections of the user on the social networking system.

Sharing Television and Video Programming Through Social Networking

A portable, software-controlled system for managing power consumption in a computer system. The power management system is integrated with the operating system of the computer system and is extensible to any add-on devices that are installed into the computer system. Upon the detection of a power down condition indicating that the computer system should be powered down, the power management system may verify that the computer system can be powered down without causing any of the devices that are connected to the computer to lose application data. If all of the devices agree that the computer system can be powered down, then each device has its state saved into memory and is powered down. Next, the state of each processor is saved into memory and power to the processors is disabled. In order to suspend the computer system, power to the memory is maintained, allowing each device state and processor state to be restored upon reboot. The computer system may be hibernated by writing all of the active memory (including each device state and processor state) to a secondary storage area and then powering off the entire computer system, including memory.

Method and system for controlling power consumption in a computer system

A hierarchical data structure is created in dynamic memory that is dynamically expanded or modified during run-time operations of the computer system. Information about the devices is loaded from a definition block into the hierarchical data structure. The information is a byte stream of data that is translated and stored as hierarchical information, such as device objects, data objects, and control method objects. These objects are hierarchically nested within the hierarchical data structure. A device object identifies a corresponding device in the computer system. The hierarchy formed between device objects represents the hierarchical I/O connections within the computer system. A data object identifies configuration and hardware dependency information associated with a corresponding device. A control method object is an executable reference for controlling a corresponding device. The control method object is a sequence of pseudocode instructions interpreted by the operating system providing an abstract, extensible, and portable mechanism for precise control of a device without calling routines from the BIOS. The hierarchical data structure is preferably used by the operating system as a communication tool and reference to identify devices, to identify configuration and power management information about devices, to provide an executable control mechanism that is abstract and extensible to control devices, and to extensibly add functionality to a device.

System and method for using a hierarchical data structure to control and identify devices and represent connections between the devices

Described is an adaptive scheduler associated with a desktop window manager that dynamically controls the rate at which graphics frames are composed Values corresponding to performance when composing a frame are measured, and the frame composition rate is adjusted as necessary based on the values The measured data is sampled to provide smooth adjustments The sampled data is evaluated as to whether the current frame rate is too slow, too fast, or acceptable If too slow, the frame rate may increased relative to the refresh rate, while if too fast, the frame rate is decreased relative to the refresh rate In one implementation, the frame rate is too fast if a count of missed frames achieves a missed threshold value, or if a count of late frames achieves a late threshold value The frame rate is too slow if a count of early frames exceeds an early threshold value

Adaptive scheduling to maintain smooth frame rate

A system and method for synchronizing disparate processing modes and for providing mutually exclusive access to shared system resources. A processing unit operates in disparate first and second processing modes. In the first processing mode, the computer is under the control of an operating system. In the other processing mode, the computer is under the control of a system management mode interrupt handling routine. To synchronize the two processing modes and allow mutually exclusive access to shared hardware resources, the computer system includes shared memory, which contains an intermodal lock, and a mechanism for allowing each processing mode to signal the other. Before either processing mode can access the shared resource, the processing mode must attempt to acquire the intermodal lock. If the lock is acquired, the processing mode accesses the shared resource. If the lock cannot be acquired, the processing mode sets a pending bit and resumes other tasks until it receives a lock release signal from the other processing mode. When a processing mode has finished accessing the shared resource, it releases the lock and checks to see if the pending bit was set. If so, the processing mode sends a lock release signal to the other mode.

System and method for synchronizing disparate processing modes and for controlling access to shared resources

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or method that effectuates and facilitates search of multimedia content. The disclosed system can include components that extract closed captioned information from video content, index the extracted information against frames of corresponding video content, and utilize associated metadata, tags, and indexes to search through the extracted information and respond to a submitted query with identified video content.

Kenneth Reneris

Papers

Method and system for controlling power consumption in a computer system

System and method for using a hierarchical data structure to control and identify devices and represent connections between the devices

Adaptive scheduling to maintain smooth frame rate

System and method for synchronizing disparate processing modes and for controlling access to shared resources

Content search service, finding content, and prefetching for thin client