System and method for enabling disconnected Web access

• US 20040012625A1
• Filed: 07/22/2002
• Published: 01/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ye, Yiming, Yu, Philip S., Lei, Hui
• Granted Patent: US 7,900,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching

Abstract

A system and method for supporting offline Web browsing. A user interests profile comprising content and attribute preferences of Web pages the user may be interested in is provided. Based on that user'"'"'s profile, there is generated an interestingness values for each of candidate Web pages. From a hoard request initiated by a user, received one or more Web pages are selected and downloaded based on their respective interestingness values. These Web pages are stored for later viewing by the user when offline. The candidate Web pages include base Web pages which are supplied by the user in the hoard request, and linked Web pages which are reachable from the base pages. Thus, an interestingness value may be computed as the interestingness of a hyperlink associated with a Web page reachable from a base Web page, the interestingness value of a hyperlink being based upon the similarity of a linked Web page to the base Web page and/or to that user'"'"'s interests profile.

Claims

1. A method for supporting offline Web browsing comprising the steps of

a) maintaining a user interests profile of that user'"'"'s web-browsing behavior;

b) receiving a hoard request for downloading one or more Web said pages;

c) generating interestingness values of candidate Web pages based on that user'"'"'s interests profile and associating an interestingness value with each Web page;

d) selecting one or more candidate Web pages to hoard based on their respective interestingness values and downloading said selected Web pages; and

,

e) storing said Web pages for later viewing by said user when offline.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interests profile includes one or more of content preferences of Web pages the user may be interested in, or attribute preferences of Web pages the user may be interested in, or combinations of both content and attribute preferences.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said content preferences describe contents of a Web page that are of interest to a user, said content preferences being expressed in terms of relevant words and phrases and their respective weights.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the attribute preferences describe attributes of Web pages that are of interests to a user, said attribute preferences being expressed in terms of attributes including one or more of file type, file size, file location information and their respective weights.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said location information includes the URL of that Web page and prefixes of the URL.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein said user interests profile comprises one or more content vectors and attribute vectors comprising said content preferences and attribute preferences, respectively, associated with Web pages said user may be interested in, said step of maintaining a users interest profile includes constructing said content and attribute vectors.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said step a) of maintaining a user interests profile comprises the steps of:

monitoring a user'"'"'s Web page browsing behavior, and dynamically updating said content and attribute vectors based on the Web pages browsed by that user.

8. The method of claim 1, further including enabling the user to directly access and modify that user'"'"'s interests profile.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the candidate Web pages include base Web pages which are supplied by the user in said hoard request, and linked Web pages which are reachable from the base pages.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein an interestingness value is supplied directly by the user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein an interestingness value comprises a default value.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein an interestingness value is computed as the interestingness of a hyperlink associated with a Web page reachable from a base Web page.

13. The method of claim 12, further including computing an interestingness value of a hyperlink leading to said reachable Web page according to steps of:

f) calculating one of;

a similarity of a linked Web page to the base Web page and obtaining a first similarity measure, or a similarity of a linked Web page to the user'"'"'s interests profile and obtaining a second similarity measure, or calculating both;

g) utilizing either of said first and second similarity measures or, combining said first and second similarity measures to obtain a similarity result; and

,

h) combining the similarity result with the interestingness value of the base Web page.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein calculating a linked Web page'"'"'s similarity to a user interests profile includes accounting for similarity of content.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein calculating a linked Web page'"'"'s similarity to the base Web page includes accounting for similarity of attributes.

16. The method of claim 14, further including the step of determining the content information of a linked Web page.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the content information is based on the surrounding text to the hyperlink in the base Web page.

18. A system for supporting offline Web browsing, comprising:

means for maintaining a user interests profile associated with Web pages that a user may be interested in;

means for receiving a user hoard request and generating interestingness values associated with candidate Web pages based on that user'"'"'s interests profile, said interestingness value associated with each candidate Web page;

means in communication with the World Wide Web for downloading of one or more Web pages based on their associated interestingness values;

a storage device for temporarily storing downloaded one or more said Web pages; and

,

interface device for enabling subsequent viewing of said one or more downloaded Web pages while that user is disconnected from said Web.

19. The system for supporting offline Web browsing as claimed in claim 18, further including means for extracting attributes and content preferences associated with viewed user Web pages, said content preferences being expressed in terms of relevant words and phrases and their respective weights according to user'"'"'s interest and, said attributes of Web pages being described as one or more of:

file type, file size, file location information and their respective weights according to user'"'"'s interest.

20. The system for supporting offline Web browsing as claimed in claim 18, wherein the candidate Web pages include initial Web pages which are supplied by the user in said hoard request and linked Web pages which are reachable from the base pages.

21. The system for supporting offline Web browsing as claimed in claim 18, wherein said means in communication with the World Wide Web includes a proxy server device for downloading of one or more Web pages while connected to the Web and storing said downloaded Web pages in said storage device.

22. The system for supporting offline Web browsing as claimed in claim 21, wherein candidate Web pages include base Web pages which are supplied by the user in said hoard request, and linked Web pages which are reachable from the base pages, said system further including means for computing an interestingness value of a hyperlink associated with a Web page reachable from a base Web page.

23. The system for supporting offline Web browsing as claimed in claim 22, wherein said means for computing an interestingness value of a hyperlink leading to said reachable Web page comprises:

means for calculating one of;

a similarity of a linked Web page to the base Web page and obtaining a first similarity measure, or a similarity of a linked Web page to the user'"'"'s interests profile and obtaining a second similarity measure, or calculating both;

means for utilizing either of said first and second similarity measures or, combining said first and second similarity measures to obtain a similarity result; and

, means for combining the similarity result with the interestingness value of the base Web page.

24. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for supporting offline Web browsing, the method steps comprising:

a) maintaining a user interests profile of that user'"'"'s web-browsing behavior;

b) receiving a hoard request for downloading one or more Web said pages;

c) generating interestingness values of candidate Web pages based on that user'"'"'s interests profile and associating an interestingness value with each Web page;

d) selecting one or more candidate Web pages to hoard based on their respective interestingness values and downloading said selected Web pages; and

,

e) storing said Web pages for later viewing by said user when offline.

25. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, wherein the user interests profile includes one or more of content preferences of candidate Web pages the user may be interested in, or attribute preferences of candidate Web pages the user may be interested in, or combinations of both content and attribute preferences.

26. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 25, wherein the content preferences describe contents of a Web page that are of interest to a user, said content preferences being expressed in terms of relevant words and phrases and their respective weights.

27. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 25, wherein the attribute preferences describe attributes of Web pages that are of interests to a user, said attribute preferences being expressed in terms of attributes including one or more of file type, file size, file location information and their respective weights.

28. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, wherein the location information includes the URL of that Web page and prefixes of the URL.

29. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, wherein said user interests profile comprises one or more content vectors and attribute vectors comprising said content preferences and attribute preferences, respectively, associated with Web pages said user may be interested in, said step a) of maintaining a user interests profile includes constructing said content and attribute vectors.

30. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 29, wherein said step a) of maintaining a user interests profile comprises the steps of:

monitoring a user'"'"'s Web page browsing behavior, and dynamically updating said content and attribute vectors based on the Web pages browsed by that user.

31. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, further including the method step of enabling the user to directly access and modify that user'"'"'s interests profile.

32. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, wherein the candidate Web pages include base Web pages which are supplied by the user in said hoard request, and linked Web pages which are reachable from the base pages.

33. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 24, wherein an interestingness value is supplied directly by the user.

34. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 32, wherein an interestingness value is computed as the interestingness of a hyperlink associated with a Web page reachable from a base Web page.

35. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 34, wherein the method steps further include computing an interestingness value of a hyperlink leading to said reachable Web page according to steps of:

f) calculating one of;

a similarity of a linked Web page to the base Web page and obtaining a first similarity measure, or a similarity of a linked Web page to the user'"'"'s interests profile and obtaining a second similarity measure, or calculating both;

g) utilizing either of said first and second similarity measures or, combining said first and second similarity measures to obtain a similarity result; and

,

h) combining the similarity result with the interestingness value of the base Web page.

36. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 35, wherein the step of calculating of a linked Web page'"'"'s similarity to a user interests profile includes accounting for similarity of content.

37. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 35, wherein the step of calculating a linked Web page'"'"'s similarity to the base Web page includes accounting for similarity of attributes.

38. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 36, further including the step of determining the content information of a linked Web page.

39. The program storage device readable by machine according to claim 38, wherein the content information is based on the surrounding text to the hyperlink in the base Web page.