Publishing the status of and updating firmware components

• US 7,873,959 B2
• Filed: 06/01/2005
• Issued: 01/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Paul, Jeffrey M., Zhu, Yuhang
• Primary Examiner(s): Dam; Tuan Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): KRETZMER, ERIKA A
• Application Number:
  US11/141,864
• Publication Number:
  US 20060174242A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,057 Days
• Field of Search: 455456-457
• US Class Current: 717/172
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 706/934 Information retrieval or Information management

Abstract

A read-only management object is created to contain information relating to firmware components that can be updated. This information includes a component identifier, a component version and a user-friendly name for the component. The information also includes a state identifier that indicates a state of a device that includes firmware components. Information from the management object can be used by other components as part of a firmware update process. An update management object is dynamically created to deliver an update package to the device. The update package can contain updates to multiple firmware components.

Claims

1. A computer executable system for updating firmware for a mobile computing device, comprising:

a management object that includes identification and version information for a firmware component embodied on a computer readable storage medium of the mobile computing device;

an update object that includes an update package that contains the identification and version information for the firmware component;

an update server that accesses information from the management object and that based on the accessed information identifies the update package of the update object as an available update for the firmware component of the mobile computing device; and

a localization component associated with the update server for automatically identifying the update package of the update object as an available update for the firmware component of the mobile computing device based at least in part on a location of the mobile computing device, the localization component employing an artificial intelligence based scheme comprising a trainable neural network to identify the update package as the available update from among a plurality of available update packages for the firmware component, the artificial intelligence based scheme of the localization component including a classifier, the classifier being a function mapping an input attribute vector to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, the input attribute vector including file descriptor attributes describing the firmware component of the mobile computing device, the classifier identifying the update package as the available update from among the plurality of available update packages based on the identified update packages providing a best fit to the firmware component as compared with other update packages from the plurality of available update packages.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an update module that accesses the identification and version information for the firmware component to determine whether a firmware component update package is available.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the update object further includes a location of the firmware component update package.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the update object package references a localized component.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a peer update module that compares information published by another mobile computing device with the information for the firmware component from the update object and determines whether an updated version of firmware is available from the another mobile computing device for the mobile computing device.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a localization module that identifies an update object that references localized content.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a security module that secures the update object for transmission.

20. The system of claim 3, wherein the location of the firmware component update package is a uniform resource identifier.

8. A computer-implemented method for updating firmware components of a mobile computing device, comprising:

employing a processor to execute the following computer executable acts to update firmware components on the mobile storage device;

accessing information regarding currently installed firmware of the mobile computing device;

comparing individual components of the accessed information to stored versions of firmware;

identifying, based at least in part upon the comparison, a firmware component update package as available updates for firmware components of the mobile computing device;

creating an update object in memory associated with the processor that includes information relating to the firmware component update packages; and

identifying the update package as available updates for firmware components of the mobile computing device based at least in part on a location of the mobile computing device, including employing an artificial intelligence based scheme comprising a trainable neural network to identify the update package as the available update from among a plurality of available update packages for the firmware component, the artificial intelligence based scheme employing a classifier, the classifier being a function mapping an input attribute vector to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, the input attribute vector including file descriptor attributes describing the firmware component of the mobile computing device, the classifier identifying the update package as the available update from among the plurality of available update packages based on the identified update package providing a best fit to the firmware component as compared with other update packages from the plurality of available update packages.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein creating an update object includes at least one of providing a location of an update component or using localization information.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising sending the update object to a mobile computing device.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein sending the update object to a mobile computing device includes at least one of digitally signing the update object or encrypting the update object.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising sending the firmware component package to the mobile computing device.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein creating an update object includes using localization information.

14. A system for managing firmware components of a portable computing device, comprising:

means for accessing information regarding currently installed firmware embodied on a computer readable storage medium of the portable computing device,

means for identifying, based at least in part upon the accessed information, an available firmware component update package as an available update for firmware components of the portable computing device;

means for creating in a memory associated with the computer hardware device an update object that includes information relating to the firmware component update package; and

means for identifying the update package as available updates for firmware components of the mobile computing device based at least in part on a location of the mobile computing device, including employing an artificial intelligence based scheme comprising a trainable neural network to identify the update package as the available update from among a plurality of available update packages for the firmware component, the artificial intelligence based scheme employing a classifier, the classifier being a function mapping an input attribute vector to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, the input attribute vector including file descriptor attributes describing the firmware component of the mobile computing device, the classifier identifying the update package as the available update from among the plurality of available update packages based on the identified update packages providing a best fit to the firmware component as compared with other update packages from the plurality of available update packages.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the means for creating an update object includes means for providing a location of an update component.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the means for creating an update object includes means for sending the update object to a portable computing device.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the means for sending the update object to a portable computing device includes at least one of means for digitally signing the update object or means for encrypting the update object.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the means for sending the update object to a portable computing device includes means for sending the firmware component package to the portable computing device.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the means for creating an update object includes means for using localization information.