Showing papers on "Upload published in 2010"

Finding a needle in Haystack: facebook's photo storage

Abstract: This paper describes Haystack, an object storage system optimized for Facebook's Photos application Facebook currently stores over 260 billion images, which translates to over 20 petabytes of data Users upload one billion new photos (∼60 terabytes) each week and Facebook serves over one million images per second at peak Haystack provides a less expensive and higher performing solution than our previous approach, which leveraged network attached storage appliances over NFS Our key observation is that this traditional design incurs an excessive number of disk operations because of metadata lookups We carefully reduce this per photo metadata so that Haystack storage machines can perform all metadata lookups in main memory This choice conserves disk operations for reading actual data and thus increases overall throughput

Network scanner for global document creation, transmission and management

Abstract: A network scanner, communication protocols, and client and server programs and are provided which provide an improved way to transmit legally binding documents, obviating the need for outmoded, legacy fax transmissions. Using the network scanner, a document may be scanned and transferred directly into any shared folder inbox residing on any computer attached to the Internet. Enhanced server systems and network communications and messaging protocols are provided that are more practical to use than email for sending documents such as executed legal documents or other documents requiring robust integrity and authenticatability. Similarly, the inventive network scanner, server systems and communication protocols provide improved ways to perform large file transfers and to manage bandwidth to minimize problems associated with uploading/downloading large files as attachments to/from email servers and for enabling user control over VoIP quality during file transmission sessions.

Personal data vaults: a locus of control for personal data streams

Abstract: The increasing ubiquity of the mobile phone is creating many opportunities for personal context sensing, and will result in massive databases of individuals' sensitive information incorporating locations, movements, images, text annotations, and even health data. In existing system architectures, users upload their raw (unprocessed or filtered) data streams directly to content-service providers and have little control over their data once they "opt-in". We present Personal Data Vaults (PDVs), a privacy architecture in which individuals retain ownership of their data. Data are routinely filtered before being shared with content-service providers, and users or data custodian services can participate in making controlled data-sharing decisions. Introducing a PDV gives users flexible and granular access control over data. To reduce the burden on users and improve usability, we explore three mechanisms for managing data policies: Granular ACL, Trace-audit and Rule Recommender. We have implemented a proof-of-concept PDV and evaluated it using real data traces collected from two personal participatory sensing applications.

Method and system for facilitating synchronizing media content between a vehicle device and a user device

Abstract: A user uploads content such as files containing audio, video, graphical, data, points of interest, and other information from a user device such as a personal computer to a central server over the internet. Upon determining that a trigger event has occurred, communication and processing circuitry in a vehicle device automatically download the previously uploaded content over the interne and a short-range wireless network and store the content for use by a device such as an audio/visual/navigation unit. Examples of a trigger event include proximity to a short-range wireless communication network coupled to the internet, presence within a geofence, turning off a vehicle's engine, or detecting an SMS wake-up message while the vehicle device's main processor, transceivers not used for SMS, and auxiliary circuitry are in sleep mode. The short-range wireless network can be a vehicle owner's home network, or a commercial wi-fi hot spot, or subscription wireless service.

System, and associated method, for downloading an application

Abstract: A method for facilitating the downloading of an application from a server computer to a client device, whereby the client device generates to the server computer an initiation request for information describing available applications. In response to receipt of the initiation request, the server computer retrieves, for each available application, information describing the respective application, and a link to an application descriptor for the respective application. The server computer transmits the information and link to the client device, which in turn displays the information and stores the link. When the user selects an application, the link for the selected application is recalled and is reached on the server computer for retrieval of the application descriptor. From the application descriptor, the client device may determine whether the application fits the device profile and, hence, whether to download the application.

Driver risk assessment system and method having calibrating automatic event scoring

Abstract: A Driver Risk Assessment System and Method Having Calibrating Automatic Event Scoring is disclosed. The system and method provide robust and reliable event scoring and reporting, while also optimizing data transmission bandwidth. The system includes onboard vehicular driving event detectors that record data related to detected driving events and selectively store or transfer data related to said detected driving events. If elected, the onboard vehicular system will score a detected driving event, compare the local score to historical values previously stored within the onboard system, and upload selective data or data types to a remote server or user if the system concludes that a serious driving event has occurred. Importantly, the onboard event scoring system, if enabled, will continuously evolve and improve in its reliability by being periodically re-calibrated with the ongoing reliability results of manual human review of automated predictive event reports. The system may further respond to independent user requests by transferring select data to said user at a variety of locations and formats.

Google fusion tables: data management, integration and collaboration in the cloud

Abstract: Google Fusion Tables is a cloud-based service for data management and integration. Fusion Tables enables users to upload tabular data files (spreadsheets, CSV, KML), currently of up to 100MB. The system provides several ways of visualizing the data (e.g., charts, maps, and timelines) and the ability to filter and aggregate the data. It supports the integration of data from multiple sources by performing joins across tables that may belong to different users. Users can keep the data private, share it with a select set of collaborators, or make it public and thus crawlable by search engines. The discussion feature of Fusion Tables allows collaborators to conduct detailed discussions of the data at the level of tables and individual rows, columns, and cells. This paper describes the inner workings of Fusion Tables, including the storage of data in the system and the tight integration with the Google Maps infrastructure.

Method and apparatus for machine-to-machine communication registration

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are disclosed for Machine to Machine (M2M) communication registration. The methods provide single and periodic registration and may be device or network based. The devices in the system may be divided into groups. A single device member may perform the basic access steps for the group. Other devices may receive related access information on a control channel and use the information to access the system. The devices may send data, get updates, and then go to sleep. Internet addresses may be released or maintained. During a control cycle, the devices may wake up and listen to the control channel for any paging messages. Individual devices or the entire group may access the system. During a reporting cycle, all the devices may wake up and access the system to connect to the M2M system to upload data.

System and method for content management and distribution

Abstract: A system for management of multimedia content having a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions for implementing a content management component operative to upload the multimedia content and to create at least one compilation from the multimedia content, a market management component operative to assign market-specific data to the compilation, and a store builder resource component operative to generate one or more online stores for promotion of the compilation having the assigned market-specific data.

Cloud based file storage service

Abstract: A server receives from a user's computer a request to store a file and a file hash value. The server determines whether a file with the same hash value is stored on the server. If so, the server grants access to the server's file copy. If not, the server requests the user to upload the file and stores it. The server grants access to the copy by sending the user a pointer to the copy's storage location and associating the user with the pointer in a database. The server can challenge the user's right to access the copy by requesting a file password or a portion of the file stored on the user's computer. The server can limit access to the server's copy to users who successfully respond to the challenge.

ACQUINE: aesthetic quality inference engine - real-time automatic rating of photo aesthetics

Abstract: We present ACQUINE - Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine, a publicly accessible system which allows users to upload their photographs and have them rated automatically for aesthetic quality. The system integrates a support vector machine based classifier which extracts visual features on the fly and performs real-time classification and prediction. As the first publicly available tool for automatically determining the aesthetic value of an image, this work is a significant first step in recognizing human emotional reaction to visual stimulus. In this paper, we discuss fundamentals behind this system, and some of the challenges faced while creating it. We report statistics generated from over 140,000 images uploaded by Web users. The system is demonstrated at http://acquine.alipr.com.

System and method for sharing online storage services among multiple users

Abstract: A system and a method for sharing online storage services among multiple users are provided. The system includes a user communication interface, a file processing module, and an online storage communication interface. The user communication interface is configured to connect to a client end corresponding to a first user. When the user communication interface receives a file upload request and a corresponding upload file from the client end, the file processing module searches for a personal online storage of the first user and a shared online storage of at least one related user of the first user and determines to upload the upload file to a partial online storage of the personal online storage and the shared online storage. The online storage communication interface transfers the upload file to the partial online storage determined by the file processing module.

Peer-to-peer aided live video sharing system

Abstract: Video data from an upload client is received at a hosting node. A request from a download client is received at a bootstrapping node to receive the video data. The download client to receive the video data directly from the hosting node when the hosting node is below a threshold, wherein the threshold is based at least in part on the maximum number of download clients the hosting node can stream to simultaneously. The download client to receive the video data from peers in a peer-to-peer overlay when the hosting node above the threshold.

TopBT: A Topology-Aware and Infrastructure-Independent BitTorrent Client

Abstract: BitTorrent (BT) has carried out a significant and continuously increasing portion of Internet traffic. While several designs have been recently proposed and implemented to improve the resource utilization by bridging the application layer (overlay) and the network layer (underlay), these designs are largely dependent on Internet infrastructures, such as ISPs and CDNs. In addition, they also demand large-scale deployments of their systems to work effectively. Consequently, they require multiefforts far beyond individual users' ability to be widely used in the Internet. In this paper, aiming at building an infrastructure-independent user-level facility, we present our design, implementation, and evaluation of a topology-aware BT system, called TopBT, to significantly improve the overall Internet resource utilization without degrading user downloading performance. The unique feature of TopBT client lies in that a TopBT client actively discovers network proximities (to connected peers), and uses both proximities and transmission rates to maintain fast downloading while reducing the transmitting distance of the BT traffic and thus the Internet traffic. As a result, a TopBT client neither requires feeds from major Internet infrastructures, such as ISPs or CDNs, nor requires large-scale deployment of other TopBT clients on the Internet to work effectively. We have implemented TopBT based on widely used open-source BT client code base, and made the software publicly available. By deploying TopBT and other BitTorrent clients on hundreds of Internet hosts, we show that on average TopBT can reduce about 25% download traffic while achieving a 15% faster download speed compared to several prevalent BT clients. TopBT has been widely used in the Internet by many users all over the world.

Service Scheduling of Vehicle-Roadside Data Access

Abstract: As vehicular networks become popular, more and more people want to access data from their vehicles. When many vehicles want to access data through a roadside unit, service scheduling becomes an important issue. In this paper, we identify some challenges in vehicle-roadside data access. As vehicles move pretty fast, the requests should be served quickly. Also, vehicles may upload data to the roadside unit, and hence the download and upload requests compete for the same bandwidth. To address these challenges, we propose several service scheduling schemes. We first propose a basic scheduling scheme called $\mathcal{D*S}$ to consider both service deadline and data size. We then enhance it by using a single broadcast to serve multiple requests. Finally, we identify the effects of upload requests on data quality, and propose a Two-Step scheduling scheme to provide a balance between serving download and update requests. Simulation results show that the Two-Step scheduling scheme outperforms other scheduling schemes.

Data storage and access systems

Abstract: Data storage and access systems enable downloading and paying for data such as audio and video data, text, software, games and other types of data. A portable data carrier has an interface for sending and receiving data, data memory for storing received content data, and payment validation memory for providing payment validation data to an external device. The carrier may also store a record of access made to the stored content, and content use rules for controlling access to the stored content. Embodiments store further access control data and supplementary data such as hot links to web sites and/or advertising data. A complementary data access terminal, data supply computer system, and data access device are also described. The combination of payment data and stored content data and use rule data helps reduce the risk of unauthorized access to data such as compressed music and video data, especially over the Internet.

Downloadable datasets for a patient monitoring system

Abstract: In general, this disclosure describes techniques for remotely monitoring the health of an ambulatory patient. As described herein, an ambulatory patient may interact with a monitoring device that is located at the patient's home. The monitoring device may prompt the patient to provide responses to health-related questions or requests for physiological characteristics and may upload the responses. A health care professional may then use the responses to evaluate the health of the patient. A set of firmware instructions stored on the monitoring device may cause the monitoring device to perform these functions. These firmware instructions remain the same even when the monitoring device downloads new prompts.

Driver Risk Assessment System and Method Employing Selectively Automatic Event Scoring

Abstract: A Driver Risk Assessment System and Method Employing Selectively Automatic Event Scoring. The system and method provides robust and reliable event scoring and reporting, while also optimizing data transmission bandwidth. The system includes onboard vehicular driving event detectors that record data related to detected driving events, selectively store or transfer data related to said detected driving events. If elected, the onboard vehicular system will score a detected driving event, compare the local score to historical values previously stored within the onboard system, and upload selective data or data types to a remote server or user if the system concludes that a serious driving event has occurred. The system may further respond to independent user requests by transferring select data to said user at a variety of locations and formats.

Requirements for mobile photoware

Abstract: What is the future of digital imaging? Mobile imaging technologies have been changing rapidly and will continue to do so. We explore new developments in cameraphone photography with the goal of improving the design of the next generation of mobile imaging devices. We equipped 26 diverse participants with cameraphones, photo uploading and sharing software, and access to online photo-accounts for 3---5 months. This study allowed us to identify emerging practices in mobile photoware. We report on new and continuing practices across the lifespan of photos in this new imaging environment, including image capture, upload, annotation, archiving, sharing, and viewing. Based on these results, we develop design criteria and implications for designers and makers of mobile devices, mobile imaging and sharing software, and desktop and online photo software.

System for downloading and executing a virtual application

Abstract: A virtual process manager for use with a client application. Both the virtual process manager and the client application are installed on a client computing device. The client application is configured to receive a user command to execute a virtual application at least partially implemented by a virtualized application file stored on a remote computing device. In response to the user command, the client application commands to the virtual process manager to execute the virtualized application file. Without additional user input, the virtual process manager downloads the virtualized application file from the remote computing device and executes the virtual application at least partially implemented by the downloaded virtualized application file on the client computing device. The client application may comprise a conventional web browser or operating system shell process.

System and method for verifying user identity information in financial transactions

Abstract: A system and method for verifying a user's identity during a point-of-sale transaction are provided. The system and method provide for applying for, receiving and verifying a financial services provider card; providing a plurality of requested biometric identification data to a financial services provider; uploading the plurality of biometric identification data of a user requested by the financial services provider via a network connected computing device to a preselected website; storing the plurality of biometric identification data in a remote server coupled to the preselected website; and using the plurality of requested biometric identification data to execute a point-of-sale transaction, wherein a merchant can verify the financial services card with the biometric identification data provided by the remote server or provided by the user via a point-of-sale terminal.

Machine type communication preregistration

Abstract: A method and apparatus for machine type communication (MTC) preregistration are provided. The methods provide single or periodic preregistrations and may be machine to machine (M2M) application function (AF) or device (MTC user equipment based). The devices in the system may be divided into groups and accessed by on a group Internet Protocol (IP) address. Two wake up cycles may be provided, one for control and one for uploading information (a reporting cycle). During the control cycle, the devices may wake up and listen to the control channel for any paging messages. Depending on the paging information, individual devices or the entire group may access the system. In the reporting cycle, all the devices may wake up and access the system to connect to the M2M system to upload data.

Understanding and Improving Ratio Incentives in Private Communities

Abstract: Incentive mechanisms play a critical role in P2P systems. Private BitTorrent sites use a novel incentive paradigm, where the sites record upload and download amounts of users and require each user to maintain its upload-to-download ratio above a specified threshold. This paper explores in-depth incentives in private P2P file-sharing systems. Our contributions are threefold. We first conduct a measurement study on a representative private BitTorrent site, examining how incentives influence user behavior. Our measurement study shows that, as compared with public torrents, a private BitTorrent site provides more incentive for users to contribute and seed. Second, we develop a game theoretic model and analytically show that the ratio mechanism indeed provides effective incentives. But existing ratio incentives in private BitTorrent sites are vulnerable to collusions. Third, to prevent collusion, we propose an upload entropy scheme, and show through analysis and experiment that the entropy scheme successfully limits colluding, while rarely affecting normal users who do not collude.

LiveSky: Enhancing CDN with P2P

Abstract: We present the design and deployment experiences with LiveSky, a commercial hybrid CDN-P2P live streaming system, which inherits the best of both CDN and P2P. We address several key challenges, including: 1) ease of integration with existing CDN infrastructure, 2) dynamic resource scaling while guaranteeing quality-of-service, 3) providing good user experience, ensuring network friendliness and upload fairness. LiveSky has been used for several large-scale live streaming events in China. Our evaluation results from real-world indicate that such a hybrid CDN-P2P system provides quality and performance comparable to a CDN and effectively scales the system capacity.

Personal data management method based on cloud computing environment

Abstract: The invention discloses a personal data management method based on cloud computing environment. The method takes the server cluster of the cloud computer environment as a background server, a removable storage device as a client and a computer connected with the removable storage device as a host. The method comprises the following steps: the removable storage device is configured to be a disk which can be visited through a driver letter on the host, through the disk, documents are uploaded and downloaded to the background server, the disk is read and written and a green software is used, at the same time, in the document uploading and downloading and the disk reading and writing process, the data is encrypted and decrypted and the document of the background server is kept synchronous with document of the removable storage device client. The invention adopts the removable storage device as the storage client, the data on the removable storage device is encrypted, the green software can be used portably, no mark is left on the host, and the privacy protection of the user is realized. When the data is backed up, the data synchronism of the client and the background server is ensured.

Method for controlling mobile communications

Abstract: A method for controlling mobile communications involves identifying an operator of the mobile vehicle, where the operator is associated with the mobile communications device. The method further includes recognizing, via a telematics unit in the mobile vehicle, a first in-vehicle trigger to initiate a vehicle data upload event with a telematics service center. The vehicle data for the vehicle data upload event includes information of the mobile vehicle and of the operator of the mobile vehicle. Upon receiving the vehicle data at the telematics service center, transmitting a request from the service center to a mobile communications service provider to disable at least one of an incoming communication for the mobile communications device or an outgoing communication from the mobile communications device. The method further involves disabling the incoming and/or outgoing communication.

Method and System for Providing Software Application End-Users with Contextual Access to Text and Video Instructional Information

Abstract: A tool data engine displays instructional information to an end-user of a software application that pertains to one or more tools associated with the software application. The tool data engine displays the instructional information within a graphical user interface (GUI) after the user has indicated interest in that tool. The instructional information includes a detailed description of the tool and one or more video clips associated with the tool. The tool data engine also allows end-users to record and/or upload video clips that demonstrate usage of the tool.

Optimized content distribution based on metrics derived from the end user

Abstract: Some embodiments provide systems and methods for determining a server of a distributed hosting system to optimally distribute content to an end user The method includes identifying an IP address of the end user Based on the IP address, a set of servers send packets to the end user to derive performance metrics The performance metrics are used to determine a server from the set of servers that optimally distributes content to the end user The method modifies a configuration for resolving end user requests such that the optimal server is identified to the end user when the end user requests content from the hosting system Some embodiments determine the optimal server by providing downloadable content that is embedded with a monitoring tool The monitoring tool causes the end user to derive performance metrics for the hosting system when downloading a particular object from a set of servers

Automatic selection method for machine learning in cloud computing environment

Abstract: The invention relates to an automatic selection method for machine learning in cloud computer environment. By using a cloud computing platform, a user can automatically and intelligently build a machine learning mathematic model which meets actual problems without building the operation environment of machine learning, selecting a machine to learn algorithm and even adjusting complicated machine learning functions and accompanying parameters but only using a Web method to upload sample data. Through the method, the use of machine learning is free from the environmental constraints and displays the advantages of the cloud computing platform, so that the machine learning model building is transparent to the user, so as to best reduce the use threshold of machine learning. The automatic selection method for machine learning in cloud computing environment solves the disadvantages of the unpredictability of model building selection, the manual experience of parameter adjustment, the difficulties of common users and the like when machine learning is applied in actual life.