Abstract:
At least some embodiments of this invention provide for an easy way to share mobile content found as a result of searching and/or browsing on the Internet. Aspects of t he invention provides software, systems (meaning software and hardware to run the software) or an exchange of signals with users to provide a mobile content service. Other related aspects provide methods for providing or using such a search service. According to one aspect there is provided a system to provide a search service for finding and sharing online content, the system being arranged to receive a search query from a user on a mobile device, send search results to a use s mobile device, prompt the user to select one or more items from the search results to be published, and publish the selected item or items. Publishing includes sending the selected item or items to a recipient associated with a share link configured by a user, to a users public stream of results which is visible to any user, to a use s private stream which is visible only to the user or to nominated friends and/or as an electronic greeting to another user. The system may also be arranged to provide to a user sending instructions explaining how to publish the selected search results to a third party recipient using the messaging function of the mobile device but not to send the sending instructions to the third party recipient without the sending instructions.
Abstract:
A system (29, 39, 59) generate s spoiled audio thumbnails representing corresponding audio content items for a user to browse, such that during audio presentation of a given thumbnail the audio presentation is spoiled by a voice over or similar, but still enables recognition of the corresponding audio content item. This can encourage users to access the original item, and avoid the original items being regenerated from the thumbnails, or being enjoyed instead of the original. This is particularly useful where the audio thumbnail has some value itself, such as for u se as a ringtone by mobile users. It can be useful for music libraries and search engines.
Abstract:
A search service provides a set of search results in response to a search query from a user, and provides one or more suggested search queries, for selection by the user to generate more search results, at least one of the suggested search queries havi ng a correspondence with a corresponding subset of one or more of the search results. The set of search results are sent with an indication of the corresponding suggested search queries, for presentation to the user with a visual representation of the corr espondence. Such a visual representation can mean locating the suggested search 10 query adjacent to its corresponding search result, and can enable a user to select an appropriate further search query more quickly with a minimum of clicks, or less time for a user reviewing less relevant information or more efficient use of screenspace.
Abstract:
A search engine (50, 35, 45,103) can find content items in a first corpus (6, 30), and return search results to the user as it ems ranked according to mentions in a second corpus (7, 77, 87, 30), of the respective found content items. This i ntroduces a degree of independence or separation between the scope and type of the information for ranking and the scope and type of the content items used for responding to the search query. The second corpus can be limited to human moderated discussion site, to provide a more reliable measure of how topical is the item. The first corpus can be limited to mobile web pages. The ranking can also involve a count of mentions in plain text referri ng to the respective found content items, or be according to a social distance between the user and another user, to whom the respective content item is related.
Abstract:
A search engine (50, 35, 60, 63, 103) interact s (17) with the user while they are accessing (7) an existing online conte nt item to enable the user to create a mobile web version of at least a portion of that existing online content item. The mobile version is stored (37, 63) and indexed (35, 709) as a user created search result, retrievable by the search engine in response to a search query (47). This can produce better results than automated conversion, and thus improve mobile search. The interaction can involve constraining a size and text format of the mobile web version so it can reasonably be viewed on a screen of a han d held mobile device.
Abstract:
A data storage system comprising a plurality of storage devices, each storage device comprising a plurality of storage nodes and each storage node comprising a plurality of logical partitions such that there are at least Q copies of a particular logical partition in the storage system. Each logical partition is divided into a plurality of sub-ranges which are individually lockable to both data input and data output whereby data in a particular logical partition is synchronisable sub-range by sub-range with the other copies of said particular logical partition. A method of maintaining such a data storage, including creating and updating data in the data store, recovering from failure of an element of the data store and/or increasing capacity in the data store.
Abstract:
There is described a method of browser-server communication in a communication system (10, 120) comprising microbrowser software (40), microserver software (50) and a remote server (170). The microbrowser software (40) is operable to transmit requests for at least one of content and executable software via HTTP channels (85, 100, 150) to one or more of the microserver software (50) and the remote server (170), and to receive one or more of the content and executable software back from one or more of the microserver software (50) and the remote server (170) via the HTTP channels (85, 100, 150). The method is of advantage in that the microbrowser software (40) can be informed of at least one of the supplementary content and executable software from one or more of the server (170) or the microserver software (50) in the context of the system (10, 120) being HTTP-based.