PREPROCESSING OF CLIENT CONTENT IN SEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE

• US 20140324817A1
• Filed: 05/24/2013
• Published: 10/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Diab, Wael William, Rajakarunanayake, Yasantha Nirmal, Bennett, James Duane
• Application Number:
  US13/902,744
• Publication Number:
  US 20140324817A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/709
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A system and method is provided to distribute preprocessing of client device content. The client device performs preprocessing or alternatively transfers search accessible content to remote systems for preprocessing such as search system infrastructure, set-top boxes, other client devices, etc. Client device content is preprocessed so as to provide, for example, a preview of images available by providing thumbnails of the images, small excerpts of text or a video preview. Offloading of client device content preprocessing duties reduces web server operational requirements and subsequent power needs. Additionally, preprocessing of searchable content can be distributed across multiple content hosts and search infrastructure elements.

Claims

1. A method performed by a client device, the method comprising:

preprocessing one or more portions of content hosted by the client device to produce preprocessed data;

communicating to a search system infrastructure the preprocessed data;

receiving a request from the search system infrastructure to access the one or more portions of content hosted by the client device; and

supporting access to the one or more portions of content by the search system infrastructure.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the preprocessed one or more portions of content hosted by the client device is uploaded to the search infrastructure after preprocessing in one or more preprocessed formats.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the preprocessing step comprises reducing data size of the content to decrease overall search infrastructure system traffic.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of preprocessing further comprises the client device requesting at least part of the preprocessing from a remote device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the remote device comprises one or more of:

a search system infrastructure processing module, a set-top box (STB), gateway device, access point (AP) and another client device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the preprocessing step comprises one or more of:

indexing;

reverse indexing;

creating digital signatures;

creating content characteristics;

translating, transcoding, resizing, reformatting versions;

creating meta data;

creating security related data;

creating user profile related information;

creating group profile related information;

creating user interaction data;

creating popularity related information; and

creating associated client device content text.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising securing a remote storage location for storing a copy of the one or more portions of the content hosted by the client device and communicating the secured remote storage location to the search system infrastructure.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of securing a remote storage space includes one or more of:

continuous access to the search system infrastructure of the content hosted by the client device, large scale access to the content, backup of the content hosted by the client device, and a vehicle for collecting royalties or payments for accessed content.

9. A system supporting searching comprising:

a preprocessor preprocessing one or more portions of content hosted by a client device to produce preprocessed data;

a search system infrastructure receiving the preprocessed data, the search system infrastructure servicing a search request and producing a search result including at least one instance of the preprocessed data; and

wherein the search infrastructure supports access to the one or more portions of content hosted by a client device represented in the search result.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a preprocessor preprocessing one or more portions of content hosted by web servers.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a preprocessing coordination module to coordinate preprocessing of one or more of:

the one or more portions of content hosted by the client devices and the one or more portions of content hosted by web servers.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the preprocessing coordination module coordinates preprocessing according to processing loads of one or more of:

the client devices and the web servers.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the preprocessor comprises a plurality of modules including at least one crawler downloader module to preprocess the one or more portions of content hosted by a client device.

14. A system supporting searching comprising:

a search infrastructure;

the search infrastructure comprising a crawler including a plurality of modules to retrieve preprocessed data from a plurality of content hosting systems;

a search service searching the retrieved preprocessed data according to a received searching device request to produce a search result; and

wherein the search service supports a communication pathway between the searching device and the content hosting systems hosting one or more portions of the search results.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of content hosting systems comprise at least client devices hosting searchable content.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of content hosting systems comprise at least client devices hosting searchable content and web servers hosting searchable web content.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a preprocessing coordination module to coordinate preprocessing of one or more of:

content hosted by the client devices hosting searchable content and the web servers hosting searchable web content.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the plurality of modules comprise at least one web crawler downloader module to preprocess one or more portions of the content hosted by the web servers hosting searchable web content.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the search service further comprises one or more search engines to provide the search results, including at least one instance of the content hosted by the client devices, to the searching device.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of modules comprise at least one crawler downloader module to preprocess one or more portions of the content hosted by the client devices hosting searchable content.