Storage access technique for captured data

• US 8,681,225 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2006
• Issued: 03/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Invention Science Fund I, L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: The Invention Science Fund I, L.L.C. (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Levien, Royce A., Lord, Robert W., Malamud, Mark A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Daniels, Anthony J
• Application Number:
  US11/397,357
• Publication Number:
  US 20060279643A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,913 Days
• Field of Search: 348/207.99
• US Class Current: 348/207.99
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00132 in a digital photofinishing system, i.e. a system where digital photographic images undergo typical photofinishing processing, e.g. printing ordering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00137 Transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00153 for sharing images with a selected individual or correspondent
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00156 with a group of selected individuals or correspondents
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/0084 Digital still camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/765 Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/781 on disks or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/907 using static stores, e.g. storage tubes or semiconductor memories H04N5/91 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/7921 for more than one processing mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A technique processes captured data on a device, wherein selected captured data of a given quality resolution is transferred via a communication link to a separate storage location for future availability. A storage protocol may include different storage organization categories. A possible aspect includes an identifier record to enable future accessibility to selected captured data by one or more authorized parties or approved devices.

Claims

1. A method for data management comprising:

obtaining captured data on a device, which captured data has a given high quality resolution, wherein the given high quality resolution includes a quality parameter;

transferring some or all of the captured data via a communication link to a separate storage location for future availability, wherein a transferring device transfers to the separate storage location the some or all captured data when the quality parameter for the some or all captured data exceeds an output capability of the transferring device, wherein selected captured data is initially received at the separate storage location without a significant loss of the given quality resolution;

including allowing an authorized user associated with the device to select an automatic transfer mode wherein the selected captured data is automatically transferred to the storage media at the separate storage location;

(a) in accordance with a storage protocol for keeping a saved version of the selected captured data at the separate storage location, the storage protocol including processing the selected captured data to enable automatic allocation among different storage organization categories prior to the transferring of some or all of the captured data and enabling retrieval of the selected captured data back to the device or a designated device as a function of bandwidth on the communication link; and

maintaining an identifier record to enable future accessibility to the selected captured data by one or more authorized parties or approved devices, wherein

the different storage organization categories are at least partially based on a commercial value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the commercial value is at least partially associated with time value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the time value is within a preselected time window.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

providing the identifier record generated by the device.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

providing the identifier record generated at the separate storage location.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing the future accessibility via a communication link with an approved device.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing the future accessibility via a communication link with an authorized party.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing restricted accessibility to the saved version of the selected captured data based on a fee schedule.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said providing restricted accessibility includes:

providing a fee schedule that includes at least a fee allocation paid to an entity responsible for the separate storage location.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing the storage protocol that allows access to the saved version of the selected captured data by an authorized third party.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a fee schedule that includes at least a fee allocation paid by or on behalf of an authorized user associated with the device or an authorized third party.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

approving a storage format for the saved version of the selected captured data based on accessibility to substantially non-altered data components.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

approving a storage format for the saved version of the selected captured data based on accessibility to regenerated or transformed data components.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining an identifier record includes:

providing an exemplar or abbreviation or indicia that includes one or more of the following;

symbol, code, name, title, icon, date, excerpt, characteristic, form, alternate format, listing, reorganization, aggregation, summary, reduction, representation, sample, thumbnail, image, preview, group specimen, and sub-group element.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

providing an exemplar or abbreviation or indicia that is recognizable by the authorized party or by the approved device.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data includes:

implementing a transfer via a wireless link to the separate storage location.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data includes:

implementing a transfer based on one or more of the following criteria;

rule, user input, user state, configuration, commercial, personal, context, space, device memory, device capability, bandwidth, separate storage memory, separate storage capability, separate storage accessibility, cost, task, preference, storage protocol, security, privacy, affiliation, and membership.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data includes:

implementing a transfer to one or more of the following types of storage schemes;

backup, archive, removable, rewritable, permanent, server, base station, network storage, web site, central, integrated;

distributed, dispersed, fragmented, non-altered, transformed, encoded, bitmap, compression, volatile, replicated, third party, storefront, mobile, vehicle, residence, office, shared, proprietary, and rights-managed.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing three or more of the following types of storage organization guidelines to facilitate future accessibility;

original high resolution, permanent high resolution, temporary high resolution, lower resolution, temporary lower resolution, permanent lower resolution, deleted high resolution, deleted lower resolution, deleted content, included content, excluded content, subject matter, event, author, creator, participant, redundancy, repetition, quality, size, resolution, fidelity, tagged, preview, sample, group, sub-group, composite group, individual, personage, entity, item, content, composition, summary, augmentation, attribute, content category, frequency, and inventory.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

processing the selected captured data to accomplish an allocation of the selected captured data among the one or more storage organization categories, which allocation is established automatically by the device prior to the transferring to the separate storage location.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

processing the selected captured data to accomplish an allocation of the selected captured data among the one or more storage organization categories, which allocation is determined by an authorized user associated with the device prior to the transferring to the separate storage location.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

processing the selected captured data to accomplish an allocation of the selected captured data among one or more storage organization categories, which allocation is determined by the authorized user associated with the device after the selected captured data is received at the storage location.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

providing one or more of the following types of identifier records to facilitate accessibility from the authorized party or from the approved device to the saved version of the selected captured data;

exemplar, abbreviation, indicia, symbol, code, name, title, icon, date, excerpt, characteristic, form, alternate format, listing, reorganization, aggregation, summary, reduction, representation, sample, thumbnail, image, preview, group specimen, sub-group element, unique, non-unique, arbitrary, global, semantic, public, private, and encoded.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

providing one or more of the following types of identifier records to facilitate accessibility by the authorized party or by the approved device to the saved version of the selected captured data;

exemplar, abbreviation, indicia, symbol, code, name, title, icon, date, excerpt, characteristic, form, alternate format, listing, reorganization, aggregation, summary, reduction, representation, sample, thumbnail, image, preview, group specimen, sub-group element, unique, non-unique, arbitrary, global, semantic, public, private, and encoded.

23. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

enabling an approved device or an authorized party to locate the saved version of the selected captured data by reference to the identifier record.

24. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

maintaining the identifier record that enables an authorized user associated with the device or an authorized third party to use a different device to obtain future accessibility to the saved version of the selected captured data.

25. The method of claim 1 wherein said obtaining captured data on the device includes:

obtaining one or more of the following types of captured data;

text, image, graphics, voice, music, sound, audio, video, audio/visual, monochrome, color, data log, measurement, instruction, biomedical, financial, sensor, environmental, personal, public, transactional, shopping, commercial, security, automotive, device-diagnostic, game, and virtual world.

26. The method of claim 1 wherein said obtaining captured data includes:

obtaining one or more of the following types of captured data;

still image, image stream, and combination of still image and image stream.

27. The method of claim 1 wherein said obtaining captured data includes:

obtaining one or more of the following types of captured data;

real-time, time-delayed, original, copied, scanned, faxed, sensed, detected, derived, computed, modified, composite, enhanced, reduced, filtered, edited, condensed, compressed, compiled, retransmitted, forwarded, stored, cached, prefetched, processed, raw, live, hatched, and uploaded.

28. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

enabling an authorized user associated with the device to make the selection of the captured data to be saved on storage media at the storage location based at least in part on making the captured data available to the authorized user associated with the device prior to the transferring.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein said making the captured data available prior to the transferring includes:

employing one or more of the following features for making the captured data available to an authorized user associated with the device;

printout, screen display, viewfinder display, display monitor, thumbnail display, removable memory, device memory, audio, tactile, alert, notification, transmittal to other device, and instructional.

30. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

making a selection of the captured data to be saved on storage media at the storage location based at least in part on a set of rules configured by an authorized user associated with the device.

31. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data via the communication link includes:

allowing the authorized user associated with the device to select the automatic transfer mode wherein the selected captured data is automatically transferred to the storage media at the separate storage location by implementing the automatic transfer mode based on inadequate memory associated with the device.

32. The method of claim 31 further comprising:

allowing an authorized user associated with the device to make a determination or modification of an applicable storage organization category after the selected captured data has been transferred from the device.

33. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data via the communication link includes:

operating the device in a delayed transfer mode wherein the selected captured data is temporarily stored on memory associated with the device prior to the transferring to the separate storage location.

34. The method of claim 33 further comprising:

providing authorized user accessibility to the selected captured data temporarily stored on the memory associated with the device.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein said providing user accessibility includes:

providing authorized user accessibility to one or more representative samples of the selected captured data temporarily stored on the memory associated with the device.

36. The method of claim 1 wherein said maintaining the identifier record includes:

allowing one or more excerpt or transformation of the selected captured data to be retained for future reference on memory associated with the device.

37. The method of claim 36 further comprising:

providing one or more of the following types of annotation information associated with the excerpt or transformation of the selected captured data;

date, topic, event, device user, wireless storage destination, applicable storage protocol, organization category, resolution quality, scheduled deletion, scheduled quality downgrade, and fee schedule.

38. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data includes:

making a transfer of the selected captured data to storage media owned or controlled by an authorized user associated with the device.

39. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferring some or all of the captured data includes:

making a transfer of the selected captured data to a storage media owned or controlled by a third party.

40. The method of claim 1 wherein selected captured data is initially received at the separate storage location as data.

41. The method of claim 1 wherein selected captured data is initially received at the separate storage location, wherein the separate storage location is a computer readable storage device on a network device.

42. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected captured data is automatically transferred to the storage media at the separate storage location includes at least saving the captured data on storage media at the separate storage location based at least on a set of rule configured by an owner or operator of the separate storage location.

43. The method of claim 1 wherein the commercial value is at least partially associated with a color value of the some or all captured data.

61. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining captured data on a device includes:

obtaining captured data on a device, the device including at least a game console, a digital camera, a cell phone, a printer, a refrigerator, an airplane, or a car.

62. The method of claim 1 wherein transferring some or all of the captured data via a communication link to a separate storage location for future availability comprises:

transferring some or all of the captured data via a communication link to a separate storage location on a device owned or controlled by a third party.

63. The method of claim 1 wherein transferring some or all of the captured data via a communication link to a separate storage location for future availability comprises:

transferring some or all of the captured data via a communication link to a separate storage location on a device having one or more rules configured by at least one of an owner or operator of the device.

44. A system for captured data storage management comprising:

a data capture device wherein captured data has a given high quality resolution, wherein the given high quality resolution includes a quality parameter;

a communication link for transferring some or all of the captured data to a separate storage location for future availability, wherein a transferring device transfers to the separate storage location the some or all captured data when the quality parameter for the some or all captured data exceeds an output capability of the transferring device, wherein selected captured data that is initially received at the separate storage location has a given high quality resolution in accordance with a storage protocol for keeping a saved version of the selected captured data at the storage location, the storage protocol including processing the selected captured data to enable automatic allocation among different storage organization categories prior to the transferring of some or all of the captured data and enabling retrieval of the selected captured data back to the device or a designated device as a function of bandwidth on the communication link; and

an identifier record maintained at the capture device and/or at the separate storage location to enable future accessibility to the selected captured data by one or more authorized parties or approved devices, wherein

the different storage organization categories are at least partially based on a commercial value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the commercial value is at least partially associated with time value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the time value is within a preselected time window.

45. The system of claim 44 wherein said data capture device includes:

a portable device.

46. The system of claim 44 wherein said data capture device includes:

a capture device having one or more of the following storage capabilities;

dedicated wireless link to remote storage, non-dedicated wireless link to remote storage, wireless link to multiple remote storage units, volatile memory, permanent memory, rewritable memory, internal memory, removable memory, backup memory, distributed memory, flash memory, and memory card.

47. The system of claim 44 wherein said data capture device includes:

a device owned or controlled by a third party, wherein the separate storage location is also owned or controlled by the same third party.

48. The system of claim 44 wherein said data capture device includes:

one or more of the following type of devices;

still camera, audio recorder, digital audio recorder, audio-visual recorder, video recorder, digital video recorder, video camera, video/still camera, data recorder, telephone, cell phone, transceiver, PDA, computer, server, printer, fax, multi-function device, scanner, copier, surveillance camera, data sensor, mote, distributed imaging element, ingested sensor;

medical sensor, medical imaging, health-monitoring device, traffic management device, media library, media player, vehicle sensor, vehicular device, environmental sensor, implanted device, mobile unit, fixed unit, integral, applied device, worn device, remote, radio, communication unit, scheduler, private, public, shared, residential, business, and office.

49. The system of claim 44 wherein said identifier record includes:

an identifier record maintained at the capture device to facilitate usage or retrieval or distribution or replication or modification or reorganization of the saved version of the selected captured data.

50. The system of claim 44 wherein said identifier record includes:

an identifier record maintained at the separate storage location to facilitate usage or retrieval or distribution or replication or modification or reorganization of the saved version of the selected captured data.

51. The system of claim 44 wherein said identifier record includes:

an exemplar or abbreviation or indicia that is recognizable by the authorized party or the approved device.

52. The system of claim 51 wherein said exemplar or abbreviation or indicia includes three or more of the following:

symbol, code, name, title, icon, date, excerpt, characteristic, form, alternate format, listing, reorganization, aggregation, summary, reduction, representation, sample, thumbnail, image, preview, group specimen, and subgroup element.

53. The system of claim 44 wherein said identifier record includes:

an identifier record maintained at the capture device, which identifier record includes one or more excerpt or transformation of the selected captured data retained for future reference on memory associated with the capture device.

54. The system of claim 53 wherein said identifier record includes:

one or more of the following types of annotation information associated with the excerpt or transformation of the selected captured data;

date, topic, event, device user, wireless storage destination, applicable storage protocol, organization category, resolution quality, scheduled deletion, scheduled quality downgrade, and fee schedule.

55. A computer program product having one or more computer programs for executing a process, the process including:

transferring captured data having a given high quality resolution via a communication link from a capturing device to a separate storage location for future availability, wherein the given high quality resolution includes a quality parameter, wherein a transferring device transfers to the separate storage location the captured data when the quality parameter for the captured data exceeds an output capability of the transferring device, wherein the captured data initially received at the separate storage location maintains at least the given high quality resolution;

wherein the separate storage location is located on a separate device;

implementing a storage protocol for keeping a saved version of selected captured data at the separate storage location, the storage protocol including processing the selected captured data to enable automatic allocation among different storage organization categories prior to the transferring of some or all of the captured data and enabling retrieval of the selected captured data back to the device or a designated device as a function of bandwidth on the communication link; and

maintaining an identifier record to enable future accessibility to the selected captured data pursuant to the storage protocol, wherein

the different storage organization categories are at least partially based on a commercial value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the commercial value is at least partially associated with time value of the some or all captured data, and wherein the time value is within a preselected time window.

56. The computer program product of claim 55 wherein said one or more instructions for implementing the storage protocol for keeping a saved version of the selected captured data includes:

one or more instructions providing the different storage organization categories based at least in part on one or more of the following type of parameters;

temporal, available device memory, available storage location memory, user selected, device limitation, storage location requirement, and recipient choice.

57. The computer program product of claim 55, wherein signal-bearing medium includes:

one or more instructions for establishing the storage protocol that includes different organization categories based at least in part on one or more of the following parameters;

creator, participant, originator, source, owner, proprietary, public domain, goal, subject matter, event, established policy, selected policy, custom policy, redundancy, variety, resolution, reproduction, replication, captured quality, device quality, captured fidelity, device fidelity, commercial value, personal value, expected future use, recipient, required access frequency, expected access frequency, potential distribution, taxonomy, common theme tag, classification, device capability, device attribute, device parameter, storage capability storage attribute, storage parameter, device setting, user task, device context, user context device history, and user history.

58. The computer program product of claim 55 further comprising:

one or more instructions for allowing accessibility to the selected captured data by an authorized party.

59. The computer program product of claim 55 further comprising:

one or more instructions for allowing accessibility to the selected captured data by a designated device.

60. The computer program product of claim 55 further comprising:

storage media or communication media for encoding process instructions.