Intel Corporation

Data General Corporation

David B Kinder

Scott Casey

Jason T Cassezza

Jerilyn L Marler

Mary J Lalomia

Andrew T Wilson

Stanley T Mo

Linda Bucsay Welsh

Amanda C Mallare

John F Pilat

Gary Davidian

Anastasia J Czerniakiewicz

A system communicates video information including television content associated with a plurality of channels and ancillary information. Information may be transmitted with the ancillary information that is indicative of the type of content included in the ancillary information. This provides the user, in one embodiment of the present invention, with a visual indication of the type of information that accompanies television content. This helps the user to decide whether the user wishes to view the ancillary information and provides the opportunity to select that enhancement for viewing.

Identifying ancillary information associated with an audio/video program

Embodiments of the present invention provide for broadcast pause and resume for enhanced television. In some embodiments, software key frames identifying a state of a browser at a plurality of points in time may be used for synchronizing a series of graphics to a video stream. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Broadcast pause and resume for enhanced television

Video content may be transmitted with enhanced content or ancillary information that includes viewer loyalty incentives. The viewer loyalty incentives may be in the form of incentives, certificates or other information which may accumulate depending on viewing time. The more the viewer watches, the more incentives the viewer may receive.

Providing a viewer incentive with video content

A system for broadcasting enhanced television content may provide for early notification of web hosting facilities when uniform resource locators may be broadcast with television content. When uniform resource locators are broadcast with television content, a large number of users may attempt to simultaneously access the hosting web site for the uniform resource locator. By providing early warning through the television broadcast system, the web servers which handle the load of attempted web accesses may gear up for the load spike. Through an automatic system, a relatively failsafe procedure may be implemented to ensure that the web hosting facilities receive notice sufficient to enable them to prepare for the onslaught of attempted accesses.

Web site load management

A broadcast pause and resume system may enable replay from a random access memory of video information received from a video distribution source such as cable, broadcast television or satellite distribution as examples. Key frames may be stored which enable the replay from the memory of both video and enhanced content. In some embodiments of the present invention, a reference to stored enhanced content may be stored instead of storing the entire contents of a browser cache.

On-line transactions may be managed between an on-line transaction service and a product vendor inventory management system by providing allocations of dedicated inventory from the system to the service. The service then may complete on-line transactions against the allocation without needing to contact the service to authorize each transaction. This may speed up the rate at which on-line transactions are completed and increase the number of transactions that can be completed by the on-line transaction service.

Managing on-line transactions

Improved apparatus for specifying and computing the current length of varying-length data items, together with methods for computing the current length. The apparatus and methods are used in a digital computer system wherein data items are represented by names associated with name table entry items in memory. The name table entry associated with the name represented by the varying-length data item includes a current number of elements item specifier specifying the address of a current number of elements item which specifies the number of elements currently in the represented varying-length data item. The name table entry further includes an element size specifier specifying the size of the elements. A name processor in the processor uses the current number of elements item specifier to obtain the the address of the current number of elements item and and fetches the current number of elements item from memory. The name translator then calculates the current length using the element size and the current number of elements item.

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Portland, OR, United States of America

David B Kinder