Method of providing content to a target device in a network

• US 20050096870A1
• Filed: 10/08/2004
• Published: 05/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Butler, Mark Henry
• Granted Patent: US 7,516,045 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

A method of enabling a plurality of entities to have sufficient information concerning at least one device and at least one content item, such that each individual entity can arbitrate concerning a performance of said device and said content, on the basis of said device information and said content information.

Claims

1. A method of diagnosing faults in performance of providing content to display devices and displaying the content provided, the method including the step of providing to a plurality of entities sufficient information concerning (a) at least one device and (b) at least one content item, such that each individual entity is able to arbitrate concerning a performance of said device and said content, on the basis of said device information and said content information.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said content information comprises:

at least one capability class description, which describes attributes of a class of content components.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said device information comprises:

at least one device profile describing content delivery capabilities of a device.

4. A process for enabling enterprises to work together to establish systems which operate correctly wherein components of the system use a semantic web for negotiating capabilities, said process comprising:

receiving at least one content item;

receiving a capability class description describing capabilities of a class of devices;

receiving a mapping of the content to the device capability class;

applying said mapping to said content, to determine whether said mapping correctly maps said content to said capability class descriptions;

testing said mapped content against a device.

5. The process as claimed in claim 4, further comprising:

depending upon a result of said test;

generating a message indicating that said mapped content has failed to display on said device.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising:

generating a diagnostic message describing whether a fault is attributable to at least one of the following;

a fault in a mapping of said content to a said device capability class;

a fault in a device capability class description;

a fault in a devices conformity to said device capability class description.

8. The system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said test component comprises a test program operable by a device manufacturer.

9. The system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said test component comprises a test program operable by a content provider enterprise.

7. A system for enabling enterprises to work together for establishing systems which operate correctly, wherein components of said system are operable for negotiating capabilities of said system using a semantic web structure, said system comprising:

at least one openly available capability class description; and

a test component capable of testing whether a content item maps to a device, and whether said device conforms with said device capability class description.

10. A test method for testing that content is displayable by at least one device, said method comprising:

establishing a device capability description describing capabilities of a device class, of which said device is a member;

establishing a mapping of said content to said capability class description; and

mapping said content to said device capability using said mapping data; and

testing said device to establish that said device conforms to said capability class description.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, comprising:

testing said mapped content on a device of a type falling within said capability class description.

12. The method as claimed in claim 10, comprising:

testing said mapped content on a device emulator of a type falling within said capability class description.

13. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein:

if, as a result of said testing, said content does not correctly map to said device, a fault report is generated.

14. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein:

if, as a result of said testing, said content does not correctly map to said device, a fault report is generated; and

said fault report is made available to a community of enterprises over a communication network.

15. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein said mapping data is made available to a community of enterprises over a communications network.

16. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein said capability class description is made available to a community of enterprises, over a communications network.

17. A test method for verifying whether a content item is correctly displayable on a device, said method comprising;

providing a device capability class description describing a set of capabilities of a class of devices to which a said device is designed to belong to;

providing a mapping of a content item to said device capability class description;

testing that said content displays correctly on a device emulator.

18. A system for enabling design of display devices to display content items, said system comprising:

at least one device profile server computer entity, said device profile server capable of supplying a device profile detailing technical capabilities of at least one display device;

at least one content provider server computer entity capable of serving at least one content item for display on a said display device; and

at least one test component, said test component operable for;

mapping said content to a said capability class description using a said mapping data; and

testing said mapped content on a test device.

19. The system as claimed in claim 18, wherein said test component comprises a device emulator application.

20. The system as claimed in claim 18 wherein said test component is operable for generating a test result message indicating whether said mapped content correctly displays on said test device or not.

21. The method as claimed in claim 18, wherein said content item comprises a plurality of content components;

and

said mapping data comprises, for each said content component, a mapping between said content component and a description of a capability of a class devices comprising at least one device.

22. Program instructions for controlling a computer entity for verifying that a content item can be correctly displayed on a display device, said instructions comprising instructions for:

receiving a capability class description describing capabilities of a class of devices;

receiving a said content component;

receiving a mapping data for mapping said content item to a device within said capability class description;

mapping said content to said capability class using said mapping data; and

displaying said mapped content on said test device.

23. Program instructions as claimed in claim 22 comprising instructions for:

generating a fault report describing a fault in displaying content on said test device.

24. Program instructions as claimed in claim 22, comprising instructions for:

communicating a fault report describing a fault in displaying said content on said test device, to a server computer entity.

25. A server computer entity capable of storing:

a set of contact details for a set of persons responsible for setting device profiles;

a set of contact details for a set of persons responsible for generating content;

said server computer entity operable for;

receiving a fault report from a test component, said fault report describing a fault in displaying a content item on a device;

identifying whether the said fault report is addressed to a said person responsible for generating a device profile, or a said person responsible for generating content; and

sending said fault report to said selected person as appropriate.

26. A method for fault reporting of faults in displaying content on a display device, said method comprising:

a set of contact details for a set of persons responsible for setting device profiles;

a set of contact details for a set of persons responsible for generating content;

said server computer entity operable for;

receiving a fault report from a test component, said fault report describing a fault in displaying a content item on a device;

identifying whether the said fault report is addressed to a said person responsible for generating a device profile, or a said person responsible for generating content; and

sending said fault report to said selected person as appropriate.

27. A method of providing content to a target device in a network from a content server, comprising the steps of:

establishing, from data provided by the target device, its capabilities in manifesting the content to a user;

mapping the target device'"'"'s capabilities to a particular class of a plurality of classes of capabilities;

selecting, from a plurality of versions of the content which are indexed by capability class, a version of the content capable of manifestation by a device of the particular capability class; and

establishing, if the target device is unable to manifest the content, whether this is as a result of;

an incorrect representation of the target device'"'"'s capabilities, an incorrect mapping of the target device'"'"'s capabilities to the particular capability class, or the content in the selected version of the content not being capable of manifestation by a device having capabilities in the particular class.