System method and model for social synchronization interoperability among intermittently connected interoperating devices

• US 9,436,525 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2011
• Issued: 09/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: David E. Kahn
• Original Assignee: Covia Labs, Inc.
• Inventors: Illowsky, Daniel, Bernstein, Bruce, Mirabella, Richard, Pieb, Wolfgang, Sidney, Raymond, Tiberi, Richard, Wenocur, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Phung, Luat
• Assistant Examiner(s): Waqas, Saad A
• Application Number:
  US13/175,409
• Publication Number:
  US 20120137282A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,894 Days
• Field of Search: 709/221
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2082 Data synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2365 Ensuring data consistency and integrity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/445 by mutual authentication, e.g. between devices or programs
• 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 2209/5015 Service provider selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2113 Multi-level security, e.g. mandatory access control
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/30 Creation or generation of source code
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/41 Compilation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 Incremental updates; Differential updates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/449 Object-oriented method invocation or resolution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 : the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 : considering hardware capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 : Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 : Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 : via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 : Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 : In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 : Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 : Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 : Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1068 : Discovery involving direct consultation or announcement among potential requesting and potential source peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1072 : Discovery involving ranked list compilation of candidate peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 : Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 : Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 : Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/24 : Negotiation of communication capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/328 : in the presentation layer [OSI layer 6]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 : having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/00 : Reducing energy consumption in communication networks

Abstract

System, device, method, and computer program and computer program products for providing communicating between devices having similar or dissimilar characteristics and facilitating seamless interoperability between them. Computer program software and methods of and systems and devices for sharing of content, applications, resources and control across similar and dissimilar permanently or intermittently connected electronic devices. Devices, systems, appliances, and the like communicating and/or interoperating within the framework provided. A social synchronization interoperability method, such as a Dart Social Synchronization method provides an efficient and easy to administrate method for synchronizing specific sets of data and/or operations across any number of devices and protocols without the need for every device to contact a master device, or for any device to act as a master. Social synchronization of devices and content provides an advantageous alternative to mastered synchronization techniques.

Claims

1. A method for maintaining synchronization of resources and synchronization information across one or more dynamically created teams of homogeneous or heterogeneous interoperability devices, wherein the interoperability devices run an interoperability engine, wherein the interoperability engine supports self-distribution and execution of threads of an interoperability application across a team of interoperability devices, then synchronizes events across the threads as part of one event-driven application run-time established across the team of devices, which are intermittently or continuously directly connected or indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices, wherein all such connected devices are part of the team, comprising:

(1) running on an interoperability device, an initiating interoperability application, wherein the interoperability application is a single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image with a single address space and a single data space shared across all its threads and wherein all of the code threads needed to run the interoperability application across a team of interoperability devices are initially contained in the single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image; and

(2) teaming of other interoperability devices by the initiating interoperability application, wherein an intermittent or continuous connection is made to other devices and the initiating application spreads synchronization IDs and other synchronization information to the newly teamed devices, wherein the synchronization method further includes (a) initiating a communication session between any two teamed devices, (b) comparing the IDs on one device with the IDs on the other device, (c) running the interoperability application threads associated with every matching ID on each device that has the matching ID indicating it has data or resources or control functions to be synchronized, (d) spreading the event driven run time execution of the interoperability application across the two devices'"'"' threads, and (e) performing, by the interoperability application which has its operations spread across the two devices, the synchronization events via the threads, wherein the synchronization events are executed identically across the threads, which share the single data address space and single code address space of the single initiating interoperability application, wherein only the initiating interoperability application or any of its distributed threads, having no logical master, sends over a serialized channel synchronized events in an exact same order to be placed onto queues of its directly connected devices or its devices indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes (3) the repetition of the teaming of other devices, wherein the interoperability application running on any one or more of the teamed devices acts as the initiating interoperability application so the team of devices can continue to grow.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the method further includes (4) synchronizing resources among and between the devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the interoperability information includes:

(i) one or more IDs to be used to signify that devices are coupled for a particular synchronization purpose;

(ii) one or more interoperability application threads associated with the IDs which can be executed to carry out the synchronization purpose; and

(iii) access rights.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the access rights are established based on human relationships.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the human relationships are transitive.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the transitive human relationships are based on being a friend of a friend, a member of the same family, or an individual owner or possessor of the devices.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the access rights are established using a social security method.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the interoperability engine synchronizes resources across the team of interoperability devices is carried out by selectively executing threads across a team of the interoperability devices after matching of IDs previously distributed across devices by interoperability applications, manually, or another program.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the matching of IDs is triggered by one or more of the following, a communications link established or reestablished between interoperability devices, the interoperability application explicitly requests a synchronization across the team of devices, or an external input to any of the devices in the team.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein the interoperability information includes:

(i) one or more IDs to be used to signify that devices are teamed for a particular synchronization purpose; and

(ii) one or more interoperability application threads associated with the IDs which can be executed to carry out the synchronization purpose.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the following are true in any combination:

(1) the teams are formed at least in part using a device recruitment procedure or Dart Recruitment;

(2) one or more of the interoperability devices is a DartDevice;

(3) the interoperability application program image conforms to the Interoperability Format or conforms to the DartFormat and/or is a Dart;

(4) the executable threads are Renditions or are Dart Renditions;

(5) the resources are one or more of the types of resources by the Interoperability Source;

(6) the interoperability IDs are created using the social security method; and

(7) the one or more Renditions are generated using one or both of the recruitment method and the creationism method.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein synchronization comprises one or more of the following in any combination:

(1) maintaining independent instances and/or semantics of identified database instances and/or any data that can be represented by a database or element contained in a database in such a manner that changes made independently to the separate instances are resolved to maintain one or more of;

(a) the integrity of the database;

(b) the elements of the database, (c) the semantics of the database and/or interrelationships of elements of the database, and (d) the common identity of the instances of the database;

(2) tracking the adding, deleting or modification of elements in a list of items independently stored and/or modified on devices;

(3) the collecting and/or processing and/or collating of information by a team of devices;

(4) maintaining list of IDs, shared secrets and security settings in order to control and limit access to resources or capabilities of devices;

(5) cross-device management of settings effecting the operation of devices or the team of devices;

(6) configuration management across the devices;

(7) installation of software or content across devices;

(8) taking inventory of devices and/or the resources of the devices or reachable by the devices or for which information is stored and/or maintained by one or more of the devices; and

/or (9) software or content distribution or updating across devices.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the synchronization is done at least in part by the execution of software procedures so that synchronization is done in a way specific to each device and/or subsets of devices and/or the environment thereof.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the growing of a group of teamed devices in a limited or unlimited manner is carried out using one or more of the following:

(1) limiting by a set fanout value so that each device or application is only allowed to bring a predetermined limited number of other devices or applications into the team equal to or within some predetermined magnitude relationship to the fanout value;

(2) limiting by a set generation limit procedure comprising the following;

(a) incrementing a generation tracking value carried by each application package that sends application packages to teamed devices so that each application package sent to newly teamed devices has a tracking value one greater than the sending application package, and (b) limiting by a set generation stop value so that application packages with a generation tracking value equal to the set generation stop value are not allowed to bring new devices or applications into the team;

(3) limiting according the capabilities or resources of the devices;

(4) limiting according to the rules as embodied in the code, data and content of the independently executing images; and

(5) limiting according to the level of security of teamed devices or applications and/or any other required credentials.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the purposes are one or more of the purposes selected from the list of purposes comprising:

(1) maintaining independent instances and/or semantics of commonly identified database instances and/or anything that can be held by a database or element contained in a database in such a manner that changes made independently to the separate instances are resolved to maintain one or more of;

(a) the integrity of the database as encapsulating the intended data and purpose associated with the common identification, (b) the elements of the database, (c) the semantics of the database and/or interrelationships of elements of the database, and (d) the common identity of the instances of the databases;

(2) tracking the adding, deleting, or modifying elements on lists of items independently stored and/or modified on independent devices;

(3) collecting and/or processing and/or collating of information by a team of devices;

(4) maintaining lists of IDs, shared secrets and security settings in order to control and limit access to resources or capabilities of devices;

(5) inter-device managing of settings effecting the operation of devices or the set of devices;

(6) configuration managing across devices;

(7) installation of software or content across any of the devices;

(8) inventorying of devices and/or the resources of the devices and/or resources reachable by the devices and/or for which information is stored and/or maintained by one or more of the devices; and

/or (9) distributing software or content and/or updating software or content across devices.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is used as an alternative to other synchronization methods because less human administration is necessary and/or the sophistication of the humans who do the administration is not required to be as high as conventional approaches.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the teamed devices are reachable on the Internet as servers running an interoperability engine.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the teamed devices are reachable on a network as servers running an interoperability engine.

21. The computer program product of claim 18, further including instructions for (3) the repetition of the teaming of other devices where the interoperability application packages running on any one or more of the teamed devices acts as the initiating interoperability application program package so that the team of devices can continue to grow.

22. The computer program product of claim 21, further including instructions for (4) synchronizing resources among and between the devices.

20. A computer program product for use in conjunction with a computer system or information appliance, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and a computer program mechanism embedded therein, the computer program mechanism comprising:

a program module that directs the computer system or information appliance to function in a specified manner for maintaining synchronization of resources across one or more dynamically created teams of homogeneous or heterogeneous devices which are intermittently or continuously directly connected or indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices, wherein all such connected devices are part of the team, the program module including instructions for;

(1) running on an interoperability device, an initiating interoperability application, wherein the interoperability application is a single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image with a single address space and a single data space shared across all its threads and wherein all of the code threads needed to run the interoperability application across a team of interoperability devices are initially contained in the single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image; and

(2) teaming of other interoperability devices by the initiating interoperability application, wherein an intermittent or continuous connection is made to other devices and the initiating application spreads synchronization IDs and other synchronization information to the newly teamed devices, wherein the synchronization method further includes (a) initiating a communication session between any two teamed devices, (b) comparing the IDs on one device with the IDs on the other device, (c) running the interoperability application threads associated with every matching ID on each device that has the matching ID indicating it has data or resources or control functions to be synchronized, (d) spreading the event driven run time execution of the interoperability application across the two devices'"'"' threads, and (e) performing, by the interoperability application which has its operations spread across the two devices, the synchronization events via the threads;

wherein the synchronization events are executed identically across the threads, which share the single data address space and single code address space of the single initiating interoperability application, wherein only the initiating interoperability application or any of its distributed threads, having no logical master, sends over a serialized channel synchronized events in an exact same order to be placed onto queues of its directly connected devices or its devices indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices.

23. An interoperability device running an interoperability engine maintaining synchronization of resources across one or more dynamically created teams of homogeneous or heterogeneous devices which are intermittently or continuously directly connected or indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices, wherein all such connected devices are part of the team, the device comprising:

(1) running on the interoperability device, an initiating interoperability application, wherein the interoperability application is a single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image with a single address space and a single data space shared across all its threads and wherein all of the code threads needed to run the interoperability application across a team of interoperability devices are initially contained in the single compiled and linked multi-threaded executable image; and

(2) teaming of other interoperability devices by the initiating interoperability application, wherein an intermittent or continuous connection is made to other devices and the initiating application spreads synchronization IDs and other synchronization information to the newly teamed devices, wherein the synchronization method further includes (a) initiating a communication session between any two teamed devices, (b) comparing the IDs on one device with the IDs on the other device, (c) running the interoperability application threads associated with every matching ID on each device that has the matching ID indicating it has data or resources or control functions to be synchronized, (d) spreading the event driven run time execution of the interoperability application across the two devices'"'"' threads; and

(e) performing, by the interoperability application which has its operations spread across the two devices, the synchronization events via the threads, wherein the synchronization events are executed identically across the threads, which share the single data address space and single code address space of the single initiating interoperability application, and wherein only the initiating interoperability application or any of its distributed threads, having no logical master, sends over a serialized channel synchronized events in an exact same order to be placed onto queues of its directly connected devices or its devices indirectly connected through a sequence of a subset of the team of devices.