DISPERSED STORAGE CAMERA DEVICE AND METHOD OF OPERATION

• US 20110102546A1
• Filed: 06/13/2010
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Dhuse, Greg, Volvovski, Ilya, Baptist, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,900,150 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1004 to protect a block of data words, e.g. CRC or checksum G06F11/1076 takes precedence; security arrangements for protecting computers or computer systems against unauthorized activity G06F21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1408 by using cryptography for digital transmission H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2107 File encryption
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2151 Time stamp
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/34 Encoding or coding, e.g. Huffman coding or error correction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0819 Key transport or distribution, i.e. key establishment techniques where one party creates or otherwise obtains a secret value, and securely transfers it to the other(s) network architectures or network communication protocols for key distribution in a packet data network H04L63/062
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0863 involving passwords or one-time passwords network architectures or network communication protocols for using one-time keys in a packet data network H04L63/067
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0894 Escrow, recovery or storing of secret information, e.g. secret key escrow or cryptographic key storage

Abstract

A distributed storage network contains a user device that has a computing core, a DSN interface and either an integrated or an externally-connected camera or sensor. The camera or sensor collects data from its surrounding environment and processes the data at least partially through error coding dispersal storage functions that include slicing the data into a plurality of error-coded data slices. The error-coded data slices are output by the user device for one or more of storage within a dispersed storage network (DSN) memory, playing on a destination player, or broadcast consumption over a network. A storage integrity unit manages the storage capacity, use, and/or throughput of the system to ensure that data is processing in a real time or near real time so that data can be accurately processed and perceived by targeted end users.

Claims

1. A dispersed storage device comprising:

a sensing device for sensing and capturing environmental data in its surroundings into one or more data objects;

a computing core that can perform distributed data storage operations for receiving and processing the one or more data objects near real time into two or more data segments and then slicing each of the data segments into two or more data slices whereby the data slices are processed to improve error correction and security of the one or more data objects over time, whereby a plurality of processed slices are created; and

a distributed data storage network interface circuit for outputting the plurality of processed slices out from the dispersed storage device for eventual storage and deprocessing over a network whereby the eventual storage and deprocessing allows for inspection of the data objects in a more secure and error-correctable manner over the network.

2. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the sensing device is a camera that captures a sequence of image data frames from its surroundings and uses the sequence of image data frames as the environmental data.

3. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the sensing device is a non-visible spectrum detector that captures a sequence of non-visible spectrum data values over time from its surroundings and uses the non-visible spectrum data values as the environmental data.

4. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein acoustic information is collected as part of the environmental data.

5. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein sensing device captures depth/3D information as part of the environmental data.

6. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the sensing device is configured with a camera in a configuration selected from a group consisting of:

an integrated camera that is integrated into a same housing that is used for the computing core and memory of the sensing device, and a separate camera that is connected by a cable to the housing that is used for the computing core and memory of the sensing device.

7. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the computing core provides control information to the sensing device, the control information being selected from a group consisting of information to:

select the video compression algorithm to utilize, select a camera position schedule, pan left, pan right, zoom in, zoom out, change from visible mode to infrared mode, match a pattern, and enable a new software load.

8. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the environmental data is stored with metadata selected from a group of metadata consisting of:

a timestamp, location information, pattern recognition information, camera setting information, camera direction, camera type, camera software version, 3D rendering data, depth data, facial recognition flags/alerts or information, internet protocol address, and a camera ID.

9. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein the environmental data is processed using an error coding dispersal storage function to output the plurality of processed slices.

10. The dispersed storage device of claim 1 wherein deprocessing information is appended to the environmental data so that an authorized player can deconstruct the plurality of processed slices back into the original environmental data.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein a sensing device is configured with a camera to collect the visual information in a configuration selected from a group consisting of an integrated camera that is integrated into a same housing that is used for the computing core and memory of the sensing device, and a separate camera that is connected by, a cable to the housing that is used for the computing core and memory of the sensing device.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein deprocessing information is appended to the one of either the data slices or data objects so that an authorized player can deconstruct the plurality of processed slices back into the original visual information.

11. A method for capturing and broadcasting visual information, the method comprising:

capturing the visual information in real time and storing the visual information in data objects in memory;

attaching metadata to the data objects wherein the metadata contains additional data associated with the visual information;

processing the data objects into data-protected and error-correction-enabled data slices in near real time to when the data objects were stored in memory;

processing the data slices for transmission through a network interface whereby the data slices are destined to be transmitted and stored using different physical locations across a network to improve security and data recovery of the data objects; and

occasionally processing the data slices to either remove them from storage in the different physical locations or to additionally compress the data slices to improve memory utilization in the different physical locations.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the sensing device is also a non-visible spectrum detector that captures a sequence of non-visible spectrum data values over time as part of the visual information.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein acoustic information is collected as part of the visual information to create audio/visual information.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein sensing device captures depth/3D information as part of the visual information.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein a computing core provides control info to a sensing device that collects the visual information, the control information being selected from a group consisting of information to:

select the video compression algorithm to utilize, select a camera position schedule, pan left, pan right, zoom in, zoom out, change from visible mode to infrared mode, match a pattern, and enable a new software load.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the visual information is stored with metadata selected from a group of metadata consisting of:

a timestamp, location information, pattern recognition information, camera setting information, camera direction, camera type, camera software version, 3D rendering data, depth data, facial recognition flags/alerts or information, interne protocol address, and a camera ID.

19. A dispersed storage player device comprising:

a distributed storage network interface for receiving near real time data slices from a network and receiving decode information on how to process the near real time data slices to recover a stream of real time audio/visual information;

a computing core that executes a distributed storage processing algorithm wherein the distributed storage processing algorithm processes the near real time data slices to error correct the data, decode the data, and assemble the data into the stream of real time audio/visual information;

memory for storing the stream of real time audio/visual information; and

a display coupled to the memory for displaying the audio/visual information in close time proximity to its placement in the memory.

20. A dispersed storage integrity processing unit comprising:

a computing core;

memory coupled to the computing core; and

a distributed storage network interface coupled to the computing core wherein the computing core, memory, and distributed storage network interface are collectively operable to;

monitoring video-based files stored in a distributed storage network memory structure to determine if any video-based files should be either;

(i) removed from distributed storage network memory structure;

or (ii) compressed or reduced in size, to free up additional memory in the distributed storage network memory structure, wherein each of the video-based files comprise a plurality of data slices that are stored across a plurality of distributed storage units;

locating, processing, reducing in total memory size, and re-writing over time those data slices that are determined to need a reduction in memory usage requirements within the distributed storage network memory structure; and

locating and deleting those data slices associated with at least one video-based file that are determined to require removal from the distributed storage network memory.