Resource based mobile device application streaming

• US 9,210,203 B2
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Issued: 12/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Nextbit Systems, Inc. (Razer Incorporated)
• Inventors: Quan, Justin, Chan, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): BAYARD, DJENANE M
• Application Number:
  US14/158,733
• Publication Number:
  US 20140136664A1
• Time in Patent Office: 690 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

Technology for decomposing an application into fragments and streaming the application in fragments is disclosed herein. According to at least one embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes steps of determining multiple application fragments of a computer application, wherein each application fragment of the application fragments includes a code to present at least one interface of the computer application; storing the application fragments at a storage device; generating a resource dependency data structure, wherein for each specific application fragment of the application fragments, the resource dependency data structure includes identifications of resources that are needed for running the specific application fragment; and streaming, via a network component, at least one application fragment of the application fragments to a computing device.

Claims

1. A method for streaming an application, the method comprising:

accessing a first application fragment corresponding to a portion of a computer application, the first application fragment having previously been determined based on an analysis of user interfaces of the computer application such that the first application fragment is capable of displaying at least one user interface;

receiving, from a mobile device, an indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate a second application fragment;

determining that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment based on an access of a fragments relationship data structure, the fragments relationship data structure associating the first application fragment with the second application fragment based on a determination that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application; and

streaming, via a network interface and to the mobile device, the second application fragment based on the indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, and based on the fragments relationship data structure indicating that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application,

wherein the first application fragment corresponds to an activity in a first operating environment, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to the activity in a second operating environment, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to detecting a transition from doing the activity on a first device to doing the activity on a second device, the first device hosting the first operating environment and the second device hosting the second operating environment, the first operating environment being a different type of operating environment from the second operating environment.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment by accessing the fragments relationship data structure to obtain an indicator for the second application fragment.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from a mobile device, a request for the second application fragment, the mobile device having sent the request based on a determination that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, the request being an indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second fragment, and

based on the fragments relationship data structure indicating that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application; and

determining that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment by receiving the request for the second application fragment, the request sent based on the access of the fragments data structure, the access indicating that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment corresponds to a first user interface that corresponds to displaying a first level of a video game, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to a second user interface that corresponds to displaying a second level of a video game, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to a transition from the first level of the video game to the second level of the video game.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment was determined based on an analysis of a first user interface corresponding to a first level of a video game such that the first application fragment is capable of displaying the first level of the video game, and wherein the second application fragment was determined based on an analysis of a second user interface corresponding to a second level of a video game such that the second application fragment is capable of displaying the second level of the video game.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment corresponds to a first user interface and includes images, icons, text, audio, video, 3D models, or other data needed to display the first user interface, and wherein the second application fragment corresponds to a second user interface and includes images, icons, text, audio, video, 3D models, or other data needed to display the second user interface.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment corresponds to a first level of a video game, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to a help portion of the video game, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to receiving an indication that a user wants help.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment corresponds to a first scene in a video game, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to a second scene in the video game, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to a transition from the first scene to the second scene.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment corresponds to a first activity in a productivity application, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to a second activity in the productivity application, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to a transition from the first activity to the second activity.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates multiple next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the multiple next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the multiple next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the computer program.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application fragment was determined based on an analysis of a first user interface by running the computer application on an emulator, that simulates the computer application running on a mobile device, to determine resources needed to display the first user interface.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the resources needed to display the first user interface include a portion of code of the computer application, images, icons, text, audio, video, and 3D models and wherein the first application fragment includes the portion of the code of the computer application, the images, the icons, the text, the audio, the video, and the 3D models.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the mobile device, resource information indicating that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second fragment.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining an amount of available resources of the mobile device based on the mobile device resource information; and

comparing the amount of the available resources to an amount of resources required for the second application fragment to determine whether the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment.

15. A method comprising:

receiving and running, by a mobile device, a first application fragment corresponding to a first portion of a computer program, the application fragment having previously been determined based on an analysis of user interfaces of the computer application such that the first application fragment is capable of displaying at least one user interface;

sending, by the mobile device, an indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate a second application fragment corresponding to a second portion of the computer program; and

receiving, by the mobile device, the second application fragment, the second application fragment sent based on the indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, and based on data from a fragments data structure indicating that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application,

wherein the fragment data structure includes one or more application fragments that follow an application fragment during operation of the computer application, the one or more application fragments being determined by running the application through an emulator, the emulator determining the one or more application fragments based on the resource dependency of the one or more application fragments, the resource dependency of a given application fragment being a function of one or more resources required to display at least one user interface associated with the given application fragment, and wherein the emulator enables the splitting of the computer application into the first application fragment and the second application fragment when the resource dependency of a first user interface of the computer application changes from the resource dependency of a second user interface of the computer application, the first application fragment corresponding to the first user interface and the second application fragment corresponding to the second user interface.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving, by the mobile device, a third application fragment, the third application fragment sent based on an indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the third application fragment, and based on data from the fragments data structure indicating that the third application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application;

running, by the mobile device, the third application fragment in response to an indication that the first application fragment is transitioning to the third application fragment.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

deleting, by the mobile device, the second application fragment without having run the second application fragment.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

sending, by the mobile device, a request for the second application fragment, the mobile device sending the request based on a determination that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, the request indicating that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second fragment.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

sending, by the mobile device, resource information of the mobile device indicating that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment.

20. A system comprising:

a communication device through which to communicate with remote devices;

a storage device;

a processor coupled to the communication device and to the storage device; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing instructions which when executed by the processor cause the system to perform operations including;

accessing the storage device containing multiple application fragments, each of the application fragments corresponding to a portion of a computer application, the application fragments having previously been determined based on an analysis of user interfaces of the computer application such that each of the application fragments is capable of displaying at least one user interface;

receiving, from a mobile device, a request for a second application fragment,

the mobile device having sent the request based on a determination that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, and

based on a fragments relationship data structure indicating that the second application fragment follows a first application fragment during operation of the computer application;

receiving, from the mobile device, an indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, the indication being the request for the second application fragment; and

streaming, via the communication device and to the mobile device, the second application fragment based on the indication that the mobile device has adequate resources to accommodate the second application fragment, and based on the fragments relationship data structure indicating that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the computer application,

wherein the first application fragment corresponds to an activity in a first operating environment, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to the activity in a second operating environment, and wherein the second application fragment follows the first application fragment in response to detecting a transition from doing the activity on a first device to doing the activity on a second device, the first device hosting the first operating environment and the second device hosting the second operating environment, the first operating environment being a different type of operating environment from the second operating environment.

21. The system of claim 20, the operations further including:

determining, prior to accessing the storage device containing multiple application fragments, the application fragments based on an analysis of user interfaces of the computer application such that each of the application fragments is capable of displaying at least one user interface.

22. The system of claim 21, the operations further including:

generating the fragments relationship data structure based on a determination of a subset of the application fragments that follow each of the application fragments during operation of the computer application.

23. The system of claim 22, the operations further including:

simulating, using an emulator, the computer application running on the first mobile device to determine the application fragments, and to determine the subset of the application fragments that follow each of the application fragments during operation of the computer application.