Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microysytems, Inc.

Jakob Nielsen

Bruce Tognazzini

Bob Glass

Robert Glass

B J Fogg

Bj Fogg

Donald R Gentner

Earl Johnson

Andrea Mankoski

Search queries to a search engine are collected over a period of time and used as a source of terms for selectively adding to documents. The terms may be added as meta-tags for enhancing information retrieval. Also, candidate terms may be submitted to the search engine and the most relevant documents retrieved. These documents, or portions thereof, are reviewed to determine if the content is substantially related to the term. If it is, the term is added to the document as a meta-tag and the search engine index is updated to reflect the addition. Employing this invention, search engine results will adapt to changes in usage of search terms.

Adaptive meta-tagging of websites

Communications bandwidth available to network servers and computers running client processes is allocated among connections available to those devices based on sets of priorities. Those priorities include type of information being retrieved, how fast user connections can receive information, which part of a document is being transmitted, user identity, stored indicia indicating importance of the document and the state of application processes running on said computer. Bandwidth is reallocated on an event driven basis upon arrival of a new request for retrieval, finishing sending information in response to a retrieval request, cancellation of a retrieval request, detection of the inability of a user connection to use all of the bandwidth allocated to it, a change of priority and timeout of a timer.

Latency-reducing bandwidth-prioritization for network servers and clients

Techniques for using the Internet to establish an international telephone call using a callback service where there is a rate difference between the source and destination countries are disclosed. In one approach the customer sends the call information to the callback service by connecting to their website and by completing an Internet based form. Alternatively call information can be provided in an e-mail. The callback service database places the call soon after the call information is received.

Internet-activated callback service

A graphical user interface uses scroll bars having a single pixel width and a much larger scroll button or thumb. Both the scroll bar and the scroll button may be controlled to have selective degrees of transparency so that they underlying image information may be seen under certain conditions. In one application, the scroll bar itself is invisible until a cursor approaches to within a specified proximity. The graphical user interface permit scroll bars to be displayed which follow an arbitrary path in either two or three dimensions.

Scroll bars with user feedback

A method and apparatus that allows a Web page designer to specify tooltips for his Web page. Tooltips are text areas that display automatically when the user places the cursor over predetermined text on a display device. The invention also enables Web browser software to display the tooltips specified by the designer. The HTML format extension allows a Web page designer to specify the text over which the user must place the cursor to activate tooltips. The HTML extension also allows the designer to specify the tooltip text that will be displayed when the cursor reaches the specified text. Using the present invention, the designer only needs to specify tooltips for any given information once per page, even though the displayed information may appear multiple times on the Web page.

Tooltips on webpages

A method retrieves a web file and sorts one or more information element references according to a priority attribute associated with each reference. After ranking the information element references by priority, the method then retrieves each information element in the order that their references were ranked. After receiving an information element, the method acts upon the information element in the appropriate manner. Typical objects, and their actions, would include displaying an image file, executing an applet, or playing an audio file. By using the steps of the method, more important objects are retrieved before less important objects, thus allowing action upon the more important objects sooner than such action is allowed using methods available in the prior art.

Method and system for prioritized downloading of embedded web objects

Method and system for escrowed backup of hotelled world wide web sites

An eyetracker is used to control power to an electrical device such as a computer display screen so that power consumption is reduced when a user's eyes and therefore a user's attention are not directed to the device. A motion detector activates a proximity detector and/or an IR detector to ensure that power is applied only when a user is actually present.

Eyetrack-driven illumination and information display

When retrieving documents over a network, such as the Internet, the font size imposed by default or by a style sheet is sometimes not the right size for comfortable viewing by a user. A database of font size changes made by a user to particular documents is maintained and used to infer a font size preference for a document. A document is displayed using a recorded preference. If no preference is found for a document, a check is made to determine if a preference has been specified for a different document related to that document by having a common portion of a network address. That is, if a preference had been specified for one chapter of a document having a particular network address, a preference would be inferred for other chapters of the document based on a common portion of a hierarchical address.

Adaptive font sizes for network browsing

A broadcast video signal is captured on user command and processed to identify network addresses contain therein. Network addresses are stored together with information about the program during which they originated. Identified network addresses are accessed over the network to validate their correctness and a snapshot of the page displayed is stored and related to the network address. An HTML file is constructed showing the original image from which the HTML file was constructed, the address(es) extracted from the original image as hypertext lines and snapshots of the corresponding images. By viewing the HTML file, a user can quickly determine if he wishes to retrieve information from the network addresses and can do so by clicking in the hypertext links.

Retrieving information from a broadcast signal

Scrolling techniques for computing devices are disclosed which respond to the amount of tilt, measured against a reference, experienced by a control unit. The user set the reference by activating a switch while the control unit is in an orientation selected by the user. Once the reference is set, the direction and rate of scrolling is determined by the direction and amount of tilt. The control unit may be built into a hand held computing device such as the Sun Pad.

Tilt-scrolling on the sunpad

Rendered wire frame models of objects offered for sale can be downloaded and displayed as virtual objects in the context of an environment in which a real object would be actually used. The rendered models are located and oriented so that they appear exactly as a real object would appear when placed in the environment. A video camera captures the environment and a two dimensional perspective view of the rendered wire frame model is combined with an image of the environment to show how the object will look when actually installed.

Opaque screen visualizer

A network address is captured from a source document or signal and is stored in a data structure such as a list for subsequent use. When a network resource at the network address is subsequently visited, the network address is automatically deleted from the list. The list storage and deletion functions are integrated into a World Wide Web browser. If a connection cannot be established using the network address, the connection is retried, and the network address is marked for delection after a pre-determined number of retries. Thereafter, if another connection attempt fails, a user may delete the network address or retain it for another retry after a user-defined time. Identified network addresses are accessed over the network to validate their correctness and a snapshot of the page displayed is stored and related to the network address.

System for managing and automatically deleting network address identified and stored during a network communication session when the network address is visited

Rendered wireframe models of objects offered for sale can be downloaded and displayed as virtual objects in the context of the actual environment in which they will be actually used. The rendered models are located, scaled and oriented so that they appear exactly as a real object would appear when placed in the actual environment. A transparent display permits the environment to be viewed concurrently with display of the rendered wireframe model.

Transparent sunpad for home shopping

Apparatus, methods, systems and computer program products are disclosed to provide electronic mail systems with the capability for a group of trusted users to collectively determine whether a given electronic mail message is junk e-mail. Further, if the given electronic mail message is determined to be junk mail, the e-mail systems of other trusted users in the group dispose of unviewed copies of the junk e-mail. Thus, the invention reduces the exposure of junk e-mail messages to the group of trusted users.

Growing community of inventors

Atherton, CA, United States of America

Jakob Nielsen