Remote browsing and searching

• US 9,092,405 B1
• Filed: 01/26/2012
• Issued: 07/28/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hayden, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Ries, Laurie
• Application Number:
  US13/358,989
• Time in Patent Office: 1,279 Days
• Field of Search: 715/229
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A remote browsing and searching process is directed to the generation and management of a remote browse session at a network computing provider. Responsive to a search request, the network computing provider provides search results corresponding to historical content representations associated with content previously requested by the client computing device, or search results corresponding to content representations associated with current content, or to both. The network computing and storage provider may determine the search results based on a navigation path associated with a previous request for content, based on navigation paths of other client computing devices, based on relationships or differences between various versions of content, or based on any number of other factors. Interactive displays may be provided to client computing devices, allowing a user to refine the search results, zoom and manipulate content representations, and view relationships, similarities, and differences in content representations.

Claims

1. A system for presenting versions of web pages, the system comprising:

a network computing provider in communication with a client computing device, the network computing provider comprising a network computing component executing on one or more physical network computing devices, wherein each physical network computing device comprises hardware configurable to execute specific computing instructions, the network computing component configured to;

determine at least one difference between a first version of a web page and a second version of a web page, wherein the first version and second version of the web page comprise different versions of the web page as retrieved from a content provider in response to different browse session requests for the web page from a client computing device, and wherein the first version of the web page was accessed at a different time than the second version of the web page;

cause display of a first object, the first object representing the first version of the web page;

cause display of a second object at least partially obscured by display of the first object, the second object representing the second version of the web page; and

cause display of an interactive timeline, wherein display of the first object representing the first version of the web page is at least partially replaced by display of the second object in response to a user interaction with the interactive timeline, and wherein at least one of the first object or the second object comprises a visual indicator of the at least one difference between the first version of the web page and the second version of the web page.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in a portion of text of the first version of the web page and a corresponding portion of text of the second version of the web page.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in a visual representation of a portion of the first web page and a visual representation of a corresponding portion of the second version of the web page.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in a structure of a portion of the first version of the web page and a structure of a corresponding portion of the second version.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indicator of the at least one difference comprises at least one of highlighting, underlining, outlining, or altering an original color.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the first object is caused to be displayed substantially covering the second object, and wherein the first object is at least partially transparent, providing a view of the second object and the visual indicator of the at least one difference.

7. The system of claim 1, the network computing component further configured to cause display of a third object, the third object representing a third version of the web page at a different time than the second version of the web page and the first version of the web page.

8. A computer-implemented method for presenting versions of network resources, the method comprising:

under the control of a network computing component executing on one or more physical computing components of a network computing provider, the physical computing components configured to execute specific instructions,

receiving user input from a client computing device, the user input requesting display of a plurality of versions of a network resource;

causing display of a plurality of objects, each object comprising a visual representation of a corresponding one of the plurality of versions of the network resource as previously retrieved from a content provider, wherein the plurality of versions were previously retrieved from the content provider at different times in response to a plurality of browse session requests for the network resource received from the client computing device, and wherein display of a first object of the plurality of objects at least partially obscures display of a second object of the plurality of objects; and

causing display of an interactive timeline, wherein display of at least one the first object of the plurality of objects corresponding to the plurality of versions of the network resource is at least partially replaced by display of the second object in response to a user interaction with the interactive timeline.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the network resource comprises at least one of a web page, image, video, animation, applet, or document.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein causing display of the plurality of objects comprises performing at least a portion of the graphics processing at the network computing provider.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the visual representations of the plurality of versions of the network resource each represent the network resource as it existed at a time it was retrieved according to a request of the client computing device.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising determining at least one difference between at least two of the plurality of versions of the network resource.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in at least a portion of textual content of the at least two of the plurality of versions of the network resource.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in at least a portion of visual content of the at least two of the plurality of versions of the network resource.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in at least a portion of the structure of the at least two of the plurality of versions of the network resource.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the display comprises a visual indicator of the at least one difference.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the visual indicator of the at least one difference comprises at least one of highlighting, underlining, outlining, or altering an original color of a different portion of at least one of the plurality of versions of the network resource.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the first object is at least partially transparent such that the second object is visible.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein a visual indicator of a difference between the first version and the second version is visible.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising receiving a user input from the client computing device, and in response to receiving the user input causing the first object representing the first version and the second object representing the second version to be displayed substantially adjacent each other.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 20, wherein the input received from the client computing device comprises one of a mouse click, voice command, touch screen command, or keyboard entry.

22. A computer-implemented method for presenting versions of network resources, the method comprising:

under the control of a network computing component executing on one or more physical computing components of a network computing provider, the physical computing components configured to execute specific instructions,

retrieving, from an electronic data store, a plurality of historical representations of a network resource as previously obtained from a content provider, the plurality of historical representations obtained from the content provider in response to a plurality of browse session requests for the network resource received from a particular client computing device at one or more previous times, wherein the content provider is separate from the network computing component;

determining at least one difference between at least two of the plurality of historical representations; and

generating a user interface comprising an interactive timeline and at least two objects, each object of the at least two objects comprising a visual representation of a corresponding one of the at least two historical representations, wherein a first object of the at least two objects comprises a visual indicator of the at least one difference, wherein a second object of the at least two objects is at least partially obscured by display of the first object, and wherein display of the first object is at least partially replaced by display of the second object in response to a user interaction with the interactive timeline.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein the at least one difference comprises a difference in one of the text, layout, or structure of at least two of the plurality of historical representations.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein determining at least one difference comprises comparing at least two of the plurality of historical representations to detect the at least one difference.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein determining at least one difference comprises obtaining data identifying the at least one difference.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein generating the visual indicator comprises altering a historical representation to include the visual indicator when displayed.