A method for providing access to a computing environment includes the step of receiving, by a broker machine, a request from a client machine for access to a computing environment, the request including an identification of a user of the client machine. One of a plurality of virtual machines is identified, the identified virtual machine providing the requested computing environment. One of a plurality of execution machines is identified, the identified execution machine executing a hypervisor providing access to hardware resources required by the identified virtual machine. A connection is established between the client machine and the identified virtual machine.

Methods and systems for providing access to a computing environment

A method and system for indexing, searching, and retrieving information from timed media files based upon relevance intervals. The method and system for indexing, searching, and retrieving this information is based upon relevance intervals so that a portion of a timed media file is returned, which is selected specifically to be relevant to the given information representations, thereby eliminating the need for a manual determination of the relevance and avoiding missing relevant portions. The timed media includes streaming audio, streaming video, timed HTML, animations such as vector-based graphics, slide shows, other timed media, and combinations thereof.

Method and system for indexing and searching timed media information based upon relevance intervals

Methods and apparatus for selectively caching (and de-caching) video content in network so as to reduce content transformation requirements and also cache storage requirements. In one embodiment, a content caching controller associated with a content server differentiates content requests based on content attributes such as the requested codec format (e.g., MPEG or Windows Media), resolution, bitrate, and/or encryption type or security environment. If the content requested by a user is not available with the requested attribute(s), the content server transfers to content to the user by first transforming it. The content server also speculatively caches the transformed content locally, so that a future request for the same content with the same attributes can be filled by transferring without the intermediate transformation step. The controller allows the network operator to optimize use of available storage and transcoding resources.

Methods and apparatus for content caching in a video network

Methods and apparatus for selecting and delivering advertising or promotional content based on, eg, the attributes of a desired demographic In one embodiment, the invention enhances advertising or promotional penetration into a particular demographic of a network subscriber pool by correlating the advertising/promotion (and even the contextual program content) with specific users or groups of users within the pool This approach decouples the advertising or promotion from any given program or lineup, and gives the network operator flexibility in deciding where, when, and how often to insert advertisements or promotions in order to achieve the desired result Dynamic network architectures such as broadcast switched architectures can also be leveraged to further enhance flexibility and targeting precision In effect, the network advertising or promotion model is made results-driven (versus program-centric) Subscriber privacy is also optionally maintained, thus ensuring that stored data is not traceable to a specific user

Methods and apparatus for user-based targeted content delivery

iTV content is created and deployed using a server component adapted to allow content developers to create applications according to an authoring specification that describes a framework for same; a transport component configured to optimize and deliver the applications to one or more clients; and a client component adapted to render the applications through a television so as to permit user interaction therewith. The authoring specification provides for the presentation of content through one or more templates defined therein, allowing application definition and behavior to remain common across multiple client device types, middleware platforms, and/or iTV operating environments. The framework for applications accommodates advertising, promotions, content placement packages and/or programming campaign definitions, so as to permit a selection of a specific advertisement, promotion or content at a time of preparation of the iTV content by the server, and/or a time of execution of the applications by the client.

System and method for construction, delivery and display of iTV content

Aggregating media content catalog data from a plurality of content providers. The catalog data is merged according to rules and provided to a user on a scheduled basis or on demand. In an embodiment, the merged catalog data represents an incremental update to previously delivered catalog data.

Media content catalog service

Providing a program guide for digital and analog broadcast television channels specific to a geographic region. A computing device sends a program guide request including a geographic identifier to another computing device. In response, the other computing device filters a master program guide as a function of the geographic identifier to create the requested program guide. The created program guide includes a call sign, physical channel, major channel, and content listing for each of the digital broadcast television channels. In one embodiment, the digital broadcast television channels conform the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standard.

Delivering a geographic-specific comprehensive program guide

Identifying a location of a metadata package to an application program. The system maintains a plurality of metadata packages and locations associated therewith. The plurality of metadata packages is filtered based on attributes in a request received from the application program to identify at least one metadata package. The location associated with the identified metadata package is sent to the application program.

Downloading data packages from information services based on attributes

Example apparatus and methods concern managing the encoding and storing of game clips that are automatically generated to record video game highlights. Encoding game clips for smooth streaming using adaptive bit rates requires significant processing resources and storing the multiple bit rate encodings consumes significant storage. Therefore, example apparatus and methods compute a predicted popularity for a game clip based on user factors (e.g., status), video game factors (e.g., popularity), game clip factors (e.g., importance of event, uniqueness of event), or other factors. Predicted popularity may differ from actual popularity, therefore the popularity score may be recomputed using actual observations (e.g., number of views of the game clip). Additionally, actual observations may identify correlations between the factors used to predict popularity and the factors that actually determine popularity. Therefore, the prediction function may be dynamically updated to improve the prediction function and thus to improve the user experience.

Game clip popularity based control

Identifying a location and download schedule of web services. Responsive to a request from the application program, the system generates a list of the web services available to an application program along with locations and schedule times associated with the web services. The schedule times implement load management of the web services. The application program accesses the web services at the identified locations at the determined schedule times.

Stephen Husak

Papers

Media content catalog service

Delivering a geographic-specific comprehensive program guide

Downloading data packages from information services based on attributes

Game clip popularity based control

Identifying information services and schedule times to implement load management