Method and apparatus for providing recommendations to a user of a cloud computing service

• US 10,235,013 B2
• Filed: 10/09/2014
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Ho, Edwin
• Primary Examiner(s): Srivastava, Vivek
• Assistant Examiner(s): Asres, Hermon
• Application Number:
  US14/511,146
• Publication Number:
  US 20150095427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,622 Days
• Field of Search: 709204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/001 Synchronization between nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

A method and apparatus is disclosed for transferring digital content from a computing cloud to a computing device and generating recommendations for the user of the computing device.

Claims

1. A system for facilitating sharing of user-uploaded contents between electronic devices used by a user, the system comprising:

a server comprising;

one or more storages for storing user-uploaded audio contents associated with a plurality of content stores for a plurality of users, each of the plurality of content stores being associated with a corresponding user and being associated with user-uploaded audio contents uploaded by at least one electronic device used by the corresponding user, and each of the plurality of content stores being accessible by devices used by the corresponding user via authorization of the corresponding user, and

a processor configured to at least;

control to receive an audio content being uploaded by a first electronic device used by a user,

control the one or more storages to store the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device in a content store associated with the user,

control to transmit, based at least on storing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device, information regarding the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device toward a second electronic device used by the user, to notify the second electronic device of the audio content uploaded to the content store associated with the user,

control to receive, from the second electronic device, a request for the audio content of which the information has been transmitted toward the second electronic device, and

control to transmit, based at least on the request, a portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device toward the second electronic device; and

the second electronic device comprising;

a processor configured to at least;

control to present, on a display of the second electronic device, information regarding audio content to be received by the second electronic device based at least on receiving the information regarding the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device,

control to send, to the server, the request for the audio content uploaded,

control to receive the portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device, and

control to reproduce the received portion of the audio content uploaded while the second electronic device is receiving, from the server, another portion of the audio content uploaded,

wherein the processor of the server is configured further to authorize up to N number of devices to access the content store associated with the user, where N is a predetermined number greater than one.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the received portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device is received by the second electronic device as a plurality of segments.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the received portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device is downloaded into a buffer in the second electronic device and is played from the buffer.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the processor of the second electronic device is further configured to reproduce the received portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device by:

downloading a first portion of the plurality of segments into a first buffer;

playing the first portion of the plurality of segments contained in the first buffer; and

downloading, while the first portion of the plurality of segments contained in the first buffer is being played, a second portion of the plurality of segments into a second buffer,

wherein the plurality of segments of the audio content are each streamed to the second electronic device.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the processor of the second electronic device is further configured to:

switch to the second buffer from the first buffer for playing the second portion of the plurality of segments from the second buffer when playing of the first portion of the plurality of segments is completed, wherein the switch is performed without silence gaps.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the second electronic device does not support progressive downloading.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the second electronic device further comprises a third buffer, and the processor of the second electronic device is further configured to:

download a third portion of the plurality of segments for a next item on the information regarding the audio contents to be received by the second electronic device while the first portion of segments and the second portion of segments for a current item on the list is played using the first buffer and the second buffer.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor of the second electronic device is further configured to:

download, while the portion of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device is being played on the second electronic device, a portion of other audio content into a buffer, and

playing the portion of the other audio content from the buffer on completion of playing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device,

wherein the portion of the other audio content is already downloaded to the second electronic device, wherein the portion of the other audio content does not have user-noticeable silence gaps during the playing of the portion of the other audio content.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device comprises one or more ringtones, music, podcasts, and radio feeds.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein contents stored in the second electronic device and the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device and stored in the content store associated with the user are presented differently in a list of contents displayed by the second electronic device.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the content store associated with the user is previously created for the user, previous to the storing of the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device.

11. A server for facilitating sharing of user-uploaded contents between electronic devices used by a user, the server comprising:

one or more storages for storing user-uploaded audio contents associated with a plurality of content stores for a plurality of users, each of the plurality of content stores being associated with a corresponding user and being associated with user-uploaded audio contents uploaded by at least one electronic device used by the corresponding user, and each of the plurality of content stores being accessible by devices used by the corresponding user via authorization of the corresponding user, and

a processor configured to at least;

control to receive an audio content being uploaded by a first electronic device used by a user,

control the one or more storages to store the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device in a content store associated with the user,

control to transmit, based at least on storing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device, information regarding the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device toward a second electronic device used by the user, to notify the second electronic device of the audio content uploaded to the content store associated with the user and to cause the second electronic device to provide information regarding audio contents to be received by the second electronic device based at least on the transmitted information,

control to receive, from the second electronic device, a request for the audio content of which the information has been transmitted toward the second electronic device, and

control to transmit, based at least on the request, a portion of the audio content uploaded toward the second electronic device so that the transmitted portion of the audio content is to be reproduced by the second electronic device while the second electronic device is receiving, from the server, another portion of the audio content uploaded,

wherein the processor is further configured to authorize up to N number of devices to access the content store associated with the user, where N is a predetermined number greater than one.

12. The server of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to control to provide information regarding audio contents to be received by the second electronic device as a list.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein contents stored in the second electronic device and the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device stored in the content store associated with the user are presented differently in the list.

14. A method of a server for facilitating sharing of user-uploaded contents between electronic devices used by a user, the method comprising:

storing user-uploaded contents associated with a plurality of content stores for a plurality of users, each of the plurality of content stores being associated with a corresponding user and being associated with user-uploaded contents uploaded by at least one device used by the corresponding user, and each of the plurality of content stores being accessible by devices used by the corresponding user via authorization of the corresponding user;

receiving an audio content being uploaded by a first electronic device used by a user;

storing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device in a content store associated with the user;

transmitting, based at least on storing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device, information regarding the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device toward a second electronic device used by the user, to notify the second electronic device of the audio content uploaded to the content store associated with the user and to cause the second electronic device to provide information regarding audio contents to be received by the second electronic device based at least on the transmitted information;

receiving, from the second electronic device, a request for the audio content of which the information has been transmitted toward the second electronic device;

transmitting, based at least on the request, a portion of the audio content uploaded toward the second electronic device so that the transmitted portion of the audio content is to be reproduced by the second electronic device while the second electronic device is receiving, from the server, another portion of the audio content uploaded,

wherein the server is configured to authorize up to N number of devices to access the content store associated with the user, where N is a predetermined number greater than one.

15. A non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing instructions executable by a processor of a server to cause the processor to at least:

control to store user-uploaded audio contents associated with a plurality of content stores for a plurality of users, each of the plurality of content stores being associated with a corresponding user and being associated with user-uploaded audio contents which are uploaded by at least one device used by the corresponding user, and each of the plurality of content stores being accessible by devices used by the corresponding user via authorization of the corresponding user;

control to receive an audio content being uploaded by a first electronic device used by a user;

control store the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device in a content store associated with the user;

control transmit, based at least on storing the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device, information regarding the audio content uploaded by the first electronic device toward a second electronic device used by the user, to notify the second electronic device of the audio content uploaded to the content store and to cause the second electronic device to provide information regarding audio contents to be received by the second electronic device based at least on the transmitted information;

control to receive, from the second electronic device, a request for the audio content of which the information has been transmitted toward the second electronic device; and

control to transmit, based at least on the request, a portion of the audio content uploaded toward the second electronic device so that the transmitted portion of the audio content is to be reproduced by the second electronic device while the second electronic device is receiving, from the server, another portion of the audio content uploaded,

wherein the instructions are executable to further cause the processor to at least control to authorize up to N number of devices to access the content store associated with the user, where N is a predetermined number greater than one.