Aol Inc.

Facebook, Inc.

America Online, Inc.

Netscape Communications Corporation

Vidur Apparao

Christopher Robert Waterson

John Bandhauer

Scott Furman

An enhanced metadata structure and associated process is provided which captures and stores metadata gathered about the source and usage of a media asset or file. The source and usage metadata is integrated, such as by encoding within the enhanced media file, as the media asset is transferred and used. The integrated metadata accumulates, as a trail of source information and usage information in the enhanced media asset, and can be extracted upon arrival at a target computer system.

Display of media asset information

Processes and system for accessing externally stored metadata associated with a media asset using a unique identifier incorporated into the asset itself

Tracking usage of a media asset

Tracking source and transfer of a media asset

Tracking source and usage of a media asset

A digital asset management system and method is responsive to user interactions with digital assets. A ranking of digital assets is generated based upon user interactions, to reflect the value of the digital assets to the user. The ranking is based in part on access frequency and recency, and the number and types of uses of the digital assets. An access hierarchy is derived from the ranking, wherein higher ranked digital assets are more easily accessed than lower ranked digital assets. Different types of uses can be distinguished, so that some types of uses imbue an asset with greater value than others. The types of uses may include passive viewing or playback, file sharing, transport, and editing. Subjective values may be assigned by the user to each digital asset that can be factored into the ranking independently of usage patterns. A volatility-dampening attribute moderates volatility in the access hierarchy.

Method and system for managing digital assets

Process and system for locating a media asset based on audit trail information incorporated into the asset itself

Process and system for incorporating audit trail information of a media asset into the asset itself

System for incorporating information about a source and usage of a media asset into the asset itself

A digital asset management system and method is responsive to user interactions with digital assets. A ranking of digital assets is generated based upon user interaction, to reflect the value of the digital assets to the user. The ranking is based in part on access frequency and recency, and the number and types of uses of the digital assets. An access hierarchy is derived from the ranking, wherein higher ranked digital assets are more easily accessed than the lower ranked digital assets. Different types of uses can be distinguished, so that some types of uses imbue an asset with greater value than others. The types of uses may include passive viewing or playback, file sharing, transport, and editing. Subjective values may be assigned by the user to each digital asset that can be factored into the ranking independently of usage patterns. A volatility-dampening attribute moderates volatility in the access hierarchy.

A simple, user-friendly method and apparatus for establishing and maintaining a categorized Web browsing history uses a directory service, such as the Open Directory Project, to get category metadata about visited URLs. Metadata thus obtained are used to present a user's personal browser history in a category based hierarchy.

Categorized web browsing history

The digital asset management system is responsive to user interactions with digital assets. Based on user interaction, the system generates a ranking of digital assets to reflect the value of the digital assets to the user. The ranking is based in part on access frequency and recency, and the number and types of uses of the digital assets. An access hierarchy is derived from the ranking that stores the digital assets so that higher ranked digital assets are more easily accessed from storage than lower ranked digital assets. The digital assets can include any of digital images, audio files, and Uniform Resource Locators. The system can also distinguish between different types of uses, such as passive viewing or playback, file sharing, transport, and editing. The system preferably allows subjective values to be assigned to digital assets that can be factored into the ranking independently of usage patterns.

A sprite engine or compositor that is well-adapted to a variety ofadaptable to a host platforms and that minimizes the amount of drawing that occurs on a refresh of a framebuffer display area. The invention exploits the host platform's abilities to perform both back-to-front and front-to-back drawing algorithms, where the choice of algorithm used depends upon whether a sprite is opaque or transparent. Each sprite registers itself with a sprite engine, identifying whether or not the sprite is wholly opaque or notis transparent, the bounding area of the sprite, and the function that the sprite uses to draw. The function can be the drawing routine that is available from the host platform or operating system. The sprite engine keeps track of the Z position of each sprite and examines each sprite to determine if the sprite overlaps a particular region that needs to be refreshed. Sprites that are rectangular and opaque are considered special cases that can be easily drawn using athe host platform's front-to-back drawing algorithm. In a top-down manner, by Z position, all sprites that are opaque are allowed to draw. All other kinds of sprites are drawn in a back-to-front manner. When a transparent sprite is found, the sprite engine searches the remaining sprites in a bottom-up manner and draws the sprites with a Z position below the transparent sprite, finishing with the transparent sprite, using a back-to-front algorithm in the remaining region.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Vidur Apparao