TECHNIQUES FOR LOCAL PERSONALIZATION OF CONTENT

• US 20080289013A1
• Filed: 05/18/2007
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Burch, Lloyd Leon, Morris, Cameron Craig
• Granted Patent: US 8,490,198 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6209 to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment

Abstract

Techniques for the local personalization of content are presented. A content personalization service is dynamically pushed from a server environment to a client processing environment associated with a principal on demand. The content personalization service interjects itself between content that the principal attempts to view and access within the client processing environment and modifies and personalizes that content on behalf of the principal before the principal can view or access the content.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

authenticating a principal who is requesting access to a content personalization service;

acquiring the content personalization service when the principal is authenticated in response to an identity associated with the authenticated principal; and

dynamically delivering, over a network connection, the content personalization service to a local processing environment associated with the principal, and wherein the content personalization service when processed in the local processing environment of the principal modifies and personalizes content delivered over the network connection to the principal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein authenticating further includes requesting a third-party trusted identity service to assist in authenticating the principal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein acquiring further includes accessing a repository using the identity to acquire the content personalization service, which is tailored to the principal and previously supplied to the repository by the principal.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically delivering further includes providing the content personalization service as an extensible style sheet transformation (XSLT) application or JAVA script application to a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser of the principal, wherein the XSLT or JAVA script application processes against the content that the principal attempts to access within the WWW browser and personalizes a presentation of the content before the content is presented to the principal within the WWW browser for viewing and access.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically delivering further includes providing the content personalization service as a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser plug-in that self-loads and self-installs within a WWW browser of the principal, and wherein the WWW browser plug-in processes against the content that the principal attempts to access within the WWW browser and personalizes the content by modifying the content before the content is presented to the principal within the WWW browser for viewing and access.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

dynamically acquiring settings associated with the local processing environment; and

configuring the content personalization service in response to the settings before dynamically delivering the content personalization service to the local processing environment of the principal.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising, redirecting the principal to indirectly make the request for access to the content personalization service when the principal is detected as initially logging into the network connection.

8. A method, comprising:

requesting a content personalization service from a remote service over a network;

supplying credentials to authenticate a principal associated with the content personalization service;

receiving the content personalization service from the remote service when the credentials successfully authenticated the principal; and

dynamically installing and processing the content personalization service within a local processing environment of the principal to modify and personalize content that the principal attempts to access from the network before that content is presented and available to the principal within the local processing environment.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising, processing the method as a local service within the local processing environment that is activated when the principal attempts to initially log into the network.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising, processing the method in response to the principal activating a uniform resource locator (URL) or identifier (URI) link within a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser or supplying an Internet Protocol (IP) address to an address bar within the WWW browser.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising, processing the content personalization service to do one or more of the following within a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser of the principal:

automatically populating selective fields of a WWW form with personal data of the principal;

removing portions of the content before presenting within the WWW browser;

adding additional content before presenting within the WWW browser; and

customizing a display presentation before presenting the content within the WWW browser.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein supplying further includes interacting with the principal to acquire the credentials.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein supplying further includes automatically acquiring at least some portion of the credentials from the local processing environment on behalf of the principal.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising one or more of the following:

supplying settings associated with the local processing environment to the remote service before receiving the content personalization service from the remote service; and

configuring the content personalization service after receipt of the content personalization service in response to the settings of the local processing environment.

15. A system, comprising:

a content personalization service implemented within and to process on a client machine of a client processing environment associated with a principal; and

a personalization delivery service implemented within and to process on a server machine that is remote over a network connection from the client machine, wherein the personalization delivery service is to dynamically deliver for installation and processing to the client machine the content personalization service for the principal when the principal is properly authenticated to the personalization delivery service, and wherein the content personalization service is to intercept, modify, and personalize content on the client machine before the principal accesses and views the content.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the content personalization service is to be processed as a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser plug-in that processes within a WWW browser of the client machine.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the personalization delivery service is to acquire settings associated with the client machine and the client processing environment and is to configure the content personalization service for those settings before delivery to the client machine.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the content personalization service is to be initially received from or defined by the principal within an environment of the personalization delivery service during a prior interaction and before the principal requests the content personalization service from the personalization delivery service.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the personalization delivery service is to dynamically update and modify the content personalization service in response to dynamic policy evaluation or dynamically received instruction and is to push the update to the client machine.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the personalization delivery service is to dynamically push the content personalization service to the client machine when the principal logs into the network connection or when the principal logs into the personalization delivery service.

21. A system, comprising:

a content personalization service repository implemented in a machine-accessible medium and accessible on a server machine within a server processing environment; and

a personalization delivery service implemented and to process on the server machine or a different machine accessible within the server processing environment, wherein the personalization delivery services manages a plurality of content personalization services housed in the content personalization service repository on behalf of a plurality of principals, and wherein the personalization delivery service is to dynamically push the content personalization services to client processing environments associated with the principals, the client personalization services process within the client processing environments to modify and personalize content before that content is viewed and accessed by the principals.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein at least some of the content personalization services are initially supplied to or defined within the content personalization service repository by some of the principals.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein at least some of the content personalization services are initially supplied to or defined within the content personalization service repository by an administrator on behalf of some of the principals.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein at least some of the content personalization services are World-Wide Web (WWW) browser plug-ins that are delivered to WWW browsers for dynamic loading and processing within the client processing environments.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the personalization delivery service is automatically invoked for processing by one or more of the following:

specific requests received from the principals, login attempts made by the principals access a network connection, and login attempts made by the principals to access the personalization delivery service.