Xerox Corporation

Palo Alto Research Center Inc.

Jana Zdislava Sedivy

Mark Webster Newman

Trevor F Smith

Warren Keith Edwards

Shahram Izadi

W Keith Edwards

Karen Marcelo

Jason I Hong

Diana Kathryn Smetters

Dirk Balfanz

Paul J Stewart

Hao-Chi Wong

A system and method for prioritizing components is provided. Components, including at least one requester components and at least two service components are maintained. The components each include a historical context and access information. The requester component requests the historical contexts associated with one or more of the service components. The one or more service components are filtered to determine which of the one or more service components are accessible to the requester component using the access information. The accessible service components for the requester component are prioritized based on the associated historical contexts.

System and method for prioritizing components

A system and method for accumulating a historical context of interactions between components is presented. A plurality of components that each have a component context and which include at least one of a requester component and at least one of a service component are maintained. An interaction including the requester component requesting an operation to be performed by the service component is identified by sending the component context of the requester component to the service component. The component context of the requester component is recorded into the component context of the service component as contextual metadata.

System and method for accumulating a historical context of interactions between components

System and method for providing secure resource management. The system includes a first device that creates a secure, shared resource space and a corresponding root certificate for the shared space. The first device associates one or more resources that it can access with the shared space. The first device invites one or more other devices to join as members of the space, and establishes secure communication channels with the devices that accept this invitation. The first device generates a member certificate for each accepting device, and sends the root certificate and the generated member certificate to the device through the secure channel. These devices may then access resources associated with the shared space by presenting their member certificates. Further, members of the shared space may invite other device to join the space, and may create member certificates in the same manner as the first device.

System and method for providing secure resource management

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates dynamic delivery of service profiles to a client. During operation, the system performs a discovery operation to allow the client to discover new services on a network. If a new service is discovered for which the client does not possess a service profile, the client to obtains the service profile from the new service and subsequently installs it, thereby enabling the client to interact with the new service.

Method and apparatus for dynamically delivering service profiles to clients

Methods, systems, apparatus and program products for accumulating a historical context of interactions between components in an environment where each of the components has a component context that can be revealed. The components include a requester component and a service component. The requester component requests an operation to be performed by the service component. The requester component passes its context to the service component with the operational request. The requester component context is recorded as service component contextual metadata and becomes part of the historical context.

Methods, apparatus, and program products for utilizing contextual property metadata in networked computing environments

Methods, apparatus and program products for using historical contextual data in a ubiquitous computing environment. The historical contextual data can be dispersed among components in an environment or logging services as well as stored on a particular component or logging service. The historical contextual data can be used to help create or re-create component configurations within the relevant environment through the use of abstract applications and abstract components. Abstract applications can be specified to create connections with specific components. Abstract applications can also be generalized so that they need not create connections with specific components, but can create component connections that perform a desired function by determining which components to use from the available components, and how to connect the selected components to perform the function.

Methods, apparatus, and program products for abstract applications/components in a ubiquitous computing environment

A system for enabling components on arbitrary networks to communicate includes a plurality of arbitrary components, such as computers, servers, laptops, facsimile machines, copier machines and cellular telephones, including applications operating on those components, such as word processing or data base applications, connected together by one or more networks that may use the same or different protocols. A method includes a first component, such as a computer, obtaining aggregate objects from other components, such as a laptop or server. Each of the aggregate objects are associated with discovered component objects of the other components, such as the laptop or server. The first component selects at least one of the components associated with the aggregate objects, and invokes universal interfaces associated with the selected arbitrary components to communicate with other arbitrary components.

System and method for enabling components on arbitrary networks to communicate

Methods, systems, apparatus and program products for gathering contextual history from components in an environment and applying an operation on the gathered history to assist a user in selecting which components to use in the environment.

Methods, apparatus, and program products for configuring components in networked computing environments

Methods and systems for enabling arbitrary components to control communications, such as data transfers, without having or requiring prior knowledge of each other. The system includes a component that creates controller objects for a communication, such as a data transfer involving several components. Further, the component associates the controller objects with a communication session object of the data transfer, such as a data transfer session object. One or more of the components involved in the data transfer obtain the controller objects through the data transfer session object and execute source-specific instructions included in the obtained controller objects to generate user interfaces. The user interfaces enable the components to control aspects of the communication, such as the data transfer.

System and method for controlling communication

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates transferring data between system components. During operation, the system receives a transfer session object at a data sink component through a universal data transfer interface, wherein the transfer session object contains mobile code that implements a source-specific data transfer protocol for communicating with a data source component. Next, the system retrieves data from the data source component through the transfer session object. In this way, the data sink component can retrieve data from the data source component without having to be preconfigured with the source-specific data transfer protocol for communicating with the data source component.

Method and apparatus for facilitating data transfers between arbitrary components

A system and method for assessing component capability to accept and execute mobile code includes a first component coupled via a network to a second component. The first component uses a predicate object to determine whether the second component can accept mobile code, such as a data type handler object or an applet. The instructions included in the predicate object are executed in the environment of the second component, although they can be executed in the first component environment. The execution of these instructions in the second component environment causes the second component to respond to a series of basic tests, such as whether the second component has access to required libraries, software versions and/or peripherals. Additionally, a predicate object creation module is disclosed for generating predicate objects that are specific to the objects desired, such as a data type handler object or a controller object.

System and method for assessing component capabilities

System and method for enabling arbitrary components to control communications without having or requiring prior knowledge of each other. The system includes a first component that creates controller objects and provides the objects to other components. The controller objects include instructions which when executed by the other components enable the components to generate user interfaces for controlling the first component. Further, the controller objects are encrypted and are used to authenticate the senders or receivers of the objects.

System and method for securely controlling communications

Handling data at one of a plurality of components, wherein the plurality of components includes at least a sink component and a source component. The source component transfers data to the sink component, and the sink component accesses an obtained data type handler object to invoke an interface implemented by the handler object. The invoked type handler interface includes source-specific instructions that are executed by the sink component regardless of whether the data is a format that the sink natively understands.

Method and system for handling data

A system and method for implementing data transfer security mechanisms. The method includes a first component transferring a data type handler object to a second component. The second interface invokes an interface accessible through the date type handler object which includes instructions that are executed by the second component to implement a data transfer security mechanism. Further, the data type handler interface can be encrypted, include cryptographic keys, and/or include digital signatures.

System and method for dynamically enabling components to implement data transfer security mechanisms

Methods and systems for enabling arbitrary components to communicate with each other. The communication system includes a first set of components associated with one or more universal interfaces that include mobile code. The one or more universal interfaces comprise a data source interface, a data sink interface, an aggregation interface, a mutable aggregation interface, a context interface, a notification interface or a user interface. Further, the universal interfaces associated with the first set of components can be provided to and implemented by a second set of components to enable the second set of components to communicate with the first set of components despite the first set and the second set of component utilizing different communication mediums or protocols.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Jana Zdislava Sedivy