Cell phones and other portable devices are equipped with a variety of technologies by which existing functionality can be improved, and new functionality can be provided. Some relate to visual search capabilities, and determining appropriate actions responsive to different image inputs. Others relate to processing of image data. Still others concern metadata generation, processing, and representation. Yet others relate to coping with fixed focus limitations of cell phone cameras, e.g., in reading digital watermark data. Still others concern user interface improvements. A great number of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

Methods and Systems for Content Processing

The difficulty of developing reliable distributed software is an impediment to applying distributed computing technology in many settings. Experience with the ISIS system suggests that a structured approach based on virtually synchronous process groups yields systems which are substantially easier to develop, fault-tolerance, and self-managing. Six years of research on ISIS are reviewed, describing the model, the types of applications to which ISIS was applied, and some of the reasoning that underlies a recent effort to redesign and reimplement ISIS as a much smaller, lightweight system.

/pdf/the-process-group-approach-to-reliable-distributed-computing-4trfpygtpw.pdf

The process group approach to reliable distributed computing

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for displaying mobile content in association with a website on a mobile communication facility based at least in part on receiving a website request from a mobile carrier gateway, receiving contextual information relating to the requested website, associating the received contextual information with a mobile content, and, finally, displaying the mobile content with the website on a mobile communication facility.

Contextual Mobile Content Placement on a Mobile Communication Facility

Separating management policy from the automated managers which interpret the policy facilitates the dynamic change of behavior of a distributed management system. This permits it to adapt to evolutionary changes in the system being managed and to new application requirements. Changing the behavior of automated managers can be achieved by changing the policy without having to reimplement them—this permits the reuse of the managers in different environments. It is also useful to have a clear specification of the policy applying to human managers in an enterprise. This paper describes the work on policy which has come out of two related ESPRIT funded projects, SysMan and IDSM. Two classes of policy are elaborated—authorization policies define what a manager is permitted to do and obligation policies define what a manager must do. Policies are specified as objects which define a relationship between subjects (managers) and targets (managed objects). Domains are used to group the objects to which a policy applies. Policy objects also have attributes specifying the action to be performed and constraints limiting the applicability of the policy. We show how a number of example policies can be modeled using these objects and briefly mention issues relating to policy hierarchy and conflicts between overlapping policies.

/pdf/policy-driven-management-for-distributed-systems-4cmkpkagnm.pdf

Policy Driven Management for Distributed Systems

With the rise in popularity of digital cameras, the amount of visual data available on the web is growing exponentially. Some of these pictures are extremely beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, but the vast majority are uninteresting or of low quality. This paper demonstrates a simple, yet powerful method to automatically select high aesthetic quality images from large image collections. Our aesthetic quality estimation method explicitly predicts some of the possible image cues that a human might use to evaluate an image and then uses them in a discriminative approach. These cues or high level describable image attributes fall into three broad types: 1) compositional attributes related to image layout or configuration, 2) content attributes related to the objects or scene types depicted, and 3) sky-illumination attributes related to the natural lighting conditions. We demonstrate that an aesthetics classifier trained on these describable attributes can provide a significant improvement over baseline methods for predicting human quality judgments. We also demonstrate our method for predicting the “interestingness” of Flickr photos, and introduce a novel problem of estimating query specific “interestingness”.

/pdf/high-level-describable-attributes-for-predicting-aesthetics-3x988gmugp.pdf

High level describable attributes for predicting aesthetics and interestingness

A method for integrated retrieval and annotation of stored images involves running a user application in which text entered by a user is continuously monitored to isolate the context expressed by the text. The context is matched with metadata associated with the stored images, thereby providing one or more matched images, and the matched images are retrieved and displayed in proximity with the text. The context is then utilized to provide suggested annotations to the user for the matched images, together with the capability of selecting certain of the suggested annotations for subsequent association with the matched images. In a further extension, the method provides the user with the capability of inserting selected ones of the matched images into the text of the application, and further provides for automatically updating the metadata for the matched images.

An agent for integrated annotation and retrieval of images

A method of automatically classifying images in a consumer digital image collection, includes generating an event representation of the image collection; computing global time-based features for each event within the hierarchical event representation; computing content-based features for each image in an event within the hierarchical event representation; combining content-based features for each image in an event to generate event-level content-based features; and using time-based features and content-based features for each event to classify an event into one of a pre-determined set of semantic categories.

Method for event-based semantic classification

A method and system for automatically creating an image product based on assets stored in a user database. A number of stored digital media files are analyzed to determine their semantic relationship to an event and are classified according to requirements and semantic rules for generating the image product. These requirements and rules refine the association between the assets and the event for which the image product is generated. The assets which best meet the requirements and rules of the image product are ranked and the highest ranking ones are included in the image product.

Automatic story creation using semantic classifiers for images and associated meta data

The wide-spread use of image capturing and scanning devices such as digital cameras and low-cost scanners is rapidly resulting in the digital equivalent of the overstuffed shoebox full of snapshots. This paper describes a software system for automatic albuming of pictures to facilitate the creation of consumer albums and album pages. This software system provides consumers an efficient way of organizing and albuming their pictures digitized born different sources. The system includes advanced features such as image event clustering, dud detection, and duplicate detection necessary for automated albuming. The software architecture is based on a simple database structure that can efficiently handle metadata information. The system includes a substantial user interface component that enables the user to preview and edit the generated album.

A software system for automatic albuming of consumer pictures

Various embodiments of the present invention pertain to the organizing of digital content by events, so that retrieval of such digital content in a manner meaningful and logical to users is achieved. In this regard, an event may be defined at least by event boundaries, such as a span of time, a geographic area, an acquirer of digital content, or a subject of digital content. Digital content that can be deemed to accord with the event boundaries may be associated with the event and made available for access and retrieval.

Mark D. Wood

Papers

An agent for integrated annotation and retrieval of images

Method for event-based semantic classification

Automatic story creation using semantic classifiers for images and associated meta data

A software system for automatic albuming of consumer pictures

Event-based digital content record organization