Flow computing

• US 7,774,299 B2
• Filed: 05/09/2005
• Issued: 08/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wong, Curtis G., Drucker, Steven M., Kajiya, James T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham; John R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Uddin; Mohammed R
• Application Number:
  US11/124,856
• Publication Number:
  US 20060253685A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,919 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2
• US Class Current: 707/602
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3423 where the assessed time is active or idle time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system

Abstract

Systems and methods directed at providing flow computing. An application configured with flow computing capabilities can determine possible results that are intended by a user based on one or more user-initiated actions. The application identifies idling computing resources in the computing device that are available and automatically performs other actions to produce the possible results using the idling computing resources. The application caches the results and provides at least one of the cached results in an interactive data stream. The user directs the data stream by selecting pre-generated choices to achieve the desired outcome.

Claims

1. One or more device-readable storage media encoded with device-executable instructions including steps comprising:

identifying a user-initiated action performed in an application executing in a computing device;

determining at least two possible results that the user-initiated action is intended to achieve;

identifying idle computing resources in the computing device that are available;

automatically performing other actions in the application to produce at least one of the possible results using the idling computing resources;

determining a usage trajectory based, at least in part, on the user-initiated action and an output of a usage analyzer which is configured to analyze user usage pattern for an application;

enabling a selection to direct the interactive data stream;

in response to receiving the selection, including other possible results in the data stream in accordance with the selection;

storing the possible results in a memory of the computing device;

providing the at least one of the possible results by retrieving from the memory, wherein the possible results are determined based on a prediction algorithm, wherein the prediction algorithm accounts for at least one of a user preference, a user profile, historical personal behavior, or context of a current activity trajectory, wherein the usage trajectory is an Activity Profile Trajectory, wherein the Activity Profile Trajectory determines the most likely tasks that a user is trying to accomplish based on the user'"'"'s historical preferences and activities;

determining possible results based on the usage trajectory; and

providing at least one of the possible results in an interactive data stream.

2. The one or more device-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the selection includes at least one of accept, reject, modify, more like this or less like this.

3. The one or more device-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the user-initiated action includes at least one of a click on a link, entry of data, a selection from a menu, or a command.

4. The one or more device-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing a computer to perform:

presenting the trajectory as a semantic map; and

indicating a current activity focus on the semantic map.

5. The one or more device-readable storage media as recited in claim 4, further comprising instructions for causing a computer to perform enabling a user to move the current activity focus on the semantic map.

6. A computing device configured with a computer-readable storage medium encoded with computer-executable components comprising:

an application configured to perform actions;

an analyzer configured to determine a usage trajectory associated with the application based, at least in part, on the actions performed by the application;

a computing resource manager configured to monitor computing resources of the computing device, the computing resource manager further configured to identify idling computing resources, wherein the computing resource manager includes a processing monitor being configured to identity idling processing resources that are not being used to perform existing tasks and a networking monitor being configured to determine available bandwidth that is not being used by any applications;

a flow computing module configured to determine at least two possible results intended by the performed actions based, at least in part, on the usage trajectory determined by the analyzer, the flow computing module also configured to instruct the application to generate the possible results using the idling computing resources and to store the generated results in a memory of the computing device, the flow computing module further configured to provide at least one of the generated results in an interactive data stream, wherein the generated results are generated ahead of time and a provided in the interactive data stream without requiring a user to perform actions with the applications to generate the results in real time; and

wherein the flow computing module is also configured to represent the usage trajectory in a semantic map and to include an indicator on the semantic map to represent an activity focus and wherein the flow computing module is further configured to provide the semantic map to a user and to enable the user to modify the activity focus by moving the indicator along the semantic map.

7. The computing device as recited in claim 6, wherein the flow computing module is further configured to provide selectable options for directing the data stream and, upon receiving a selection of the options, to include other generated results in the data stream based, at least in part, on the selection.

8. The computing device as recited in claim 6, the analyzer is further configured to determine the usage trajectory from evaluating at least one of options that have been selected by a user, the context of the tasks performed by the application, or a structure or a usage frequency of commands associated with the application.

9. The computing device as recited in claim 6, wherein the application includes at least one of an information processing application, a word processor, a presentation tool, a spreadsheet, a database, a media viewing and editing tool, a web authoring tool, a media content software, a viewing and editing tool for video, graphics, audio or images, a web browser, or a media player.

10. A system comprising:

a usage analyzer for anticipating at least two possible results that a user may desire from an application;

a flow computing module for using background computing cycles and a computing resource manager includes a processing monitor being configured to identity idling processing resources that are not being used to perform existing tasks and a networking monitor being configured to determine available bandwidth that is not being used by any applications to automatically generate at least one of the possible results; and

wherein the flow computing module is configured to determine a usage trajectory based, at least in part, on the user-initiated action and a usage analyzer which is configured to analyze user usage pattern for an application and to enable the user to choose from the possible results to achieve a desired outcome, without requiring the user to initiating commands in the application to generate the results, to receive data associated with an application for automatically generating graphs from the received data using the background computing cycles of a processor, wherein the graphs are determined to be desirable by the user and wherein the graphs are generated without any command issued by the user; and

to provide the graphs to the user for selection.

11. The system as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

a flow computing module configured to

receive an instruction from the user to browser to a first web location;

automatically download data from other web locations associated with the first web location using the background computing cycles, wherein the background computing cycles include idling processing cycles and unused networking bandwidth;

cache the downloaded data; and

provide the downloaded data to the user in an interactive data stream.