Fragment-based mobile device application streaming utilizing crowd-sourcing

• US 9,717,985 B2
• Filed: 04/11/2014
• Issued: 08/01/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Inventors: Quan, Justin, Chan, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zare, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): Danzig, Reva R
• Application Number:
  US14/251,463
• Publication Number:
  US 20140221093A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,208 Days
• Field of Search: 707703, 709223
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/215 comprising means for detecting acoustic signals, e.g. using a microphone
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/34 using peer-to-peer connections
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/358 Adapting the game course according to the network or server load, e.g. for reducing latency due to different connection speeds between clients
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/52 involving aspects of the displayed game scene
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/60 Generating or modifying game content before or while executing the game program, e.g. authoring tools specially adapted for game development or game-integrated level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/538 for performing operations on behalf of the game client, e.g. rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5017 Task decomposition
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• 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

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 sending one or more messages to cause a plurality of computing devices that can be used to execute the compute task to be identified, sending at least one message to initiate execution of the compute task to determine the plurality of application fragments including a first application fragment and a second application fragment, collecting fragment information associated with the application fragments from one or more of the plurality of computing devices, storing the fragment information at a storage device, determining that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment based on a fragments relationship data structure, and streaming the second application fragment to a mobile game computing device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

in response to an indication received at a server system associated with a first party to initiate a crowd sourced compute task, sending, by the server system, one or more messages to identify a plurality of computing devices that can be used to execute the crowd sourced compute task, the crowd sourced compute task including execution of a plurality of computer simulations to determine a plurality of executable application fragments of a mobile game application, the identified computing devices being made available for use in association with the crowd sourced compute task by a plurality of second parties;

sending, by the server system, at least one message to the identified computing devices to initiate execution of the crowd sourced compute task at the identified computing devices and to distribute to the identified computing devices compute jobs that are part of the crowd sourced compute task for determining the plurality of application fragments, including a first application fragment and a second application fragment determined based on execution of the distributed compute jobs at the identified computing devices,

wherein each application fragment of the plurality of application fragments corresponds to a portion of the mobile game application,

wherein the portion of the mobile game application that the first application fragment corresponds to is any of a scene in the mobile game application, a level of the mobile game application, or a help portion of the mobile game application;

receiving, by the server system, fragment information associated with the application fragments from the identified computing devices that executed the distributed compute jobs;

storing, by the server system, the fragment information at a storage device;

determining, by the server system, that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment based on a fragments relationship data structure, the fragments relationship data structure associating the first application fragment with the second application fragment, based on an analysis of the fragment information that indicates that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the mobile game application; and

streaming, by the server system, via a network component, the second application fragment to a mobile game computing device based on the determination that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment,

wherein the first application fragment corresponds to an activity in a first operating system environment, wherein the second application fragment corresponds to the activity in a second operating system environment, the first operating system environment being a different type of operating system environment from the second operating system environment.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to an indication to initiate a second crowd sourced compute task, sending, by the server system, to the identified computing devices, at least one additional message to initiate execution of the second crowd sourced compute task to generate the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a resource dependency data structure, wherein for each specific application fragment of the plurality of application fragments, the resource dependency data structure indicates resources that are needed to run the specific application fragment.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the streaming of the second application fragment comprises streaming the second application fragment along with resources that are needed by the second application fragment as indicated by the resource dependency data structure.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

incorporating resources that are needed to run the second application fragment into the second application fragment, based on the resource dependency data structure.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the second application fragment includes all resources that are needed by the second application fragment.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the resources that are needed by the second application fragment include any of a portion of code of the mobile game application, images, icons, text, audio, video, or 3D models.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to an indication to initiate a second crowd sourced compute task, sending, by the server system, to the identified computing devices, at least one additional message to initiate execution of the second crowd sourced compute task to instruct the identified computing devices to generate respective resource dependency data structures, wherein for each specific application fragment of the plurality of application fragments, the respective resource dependency data structure indicates resources that are needed to run the specific application fragment.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a portion of resources that are needed by the second application fragment are not included in the second application fragment, and wherein the streaming of the second application fragment comprises streaming the second application fragment along with the portion of the resources that are needed by the second application.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of identified computing devices are controlled by the second parties, respectively, independently from the server system and the first party.

12. A server comprising:

a processor;

a network component, coupled to the processor, through which to communicate over a network with remote devices; and

a storage device coupled to the processor, the storage device storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the server to perform operations including;

sending, by the server, one or more messages to identify a plurality of computing devices that can be used to execute a crowd sourced compute task, the crowd sourced compute task including execution of a plurality of computer simulations to determine a plurality of executable application fragments of a mobile game application, wherein the server is associated with a first party and the identified computing devices are made available for use in association with the crowd sourced compute task by a plurality of second parties;

sending, by the server, at least one message to the identified computing devices to initiate execution of the crowd sourced compute task at the identified computing devices and to distribute to the identified computing devices compute jobs that are part of the crowd sourced compute task for determining the plurality of application fragments, including a first application fragment and a second application fragment determined based on execution of the distributed compute jobs at the identified computing devices,

wherein each application fragment of the plurality of application fragments corresponds to a portion of the mobile game application,

wherein the portion of the mobile game application that the first application fragment corresponds to is any of a scene in the mobile game application, a level of the mobile game application, or a help portion of the mobile game application;

receiving, by the server, fragment information associated with the application fragments from the identified computing devices that executed the distributed compute jobs;

storing, by the server, the fragment information at a second storage device;

determining, by the server, that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment based on a fragments relationship data structure, the fragments relationship data structure associating the first application fragment with the second application fragment, based on an analysis of the fragment information that indicates that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the mobile game application; and

streaming, by the server, via the network component, the second application fragment to a mobile game computing device based on the determination that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment.

13. The server of claim 12, further comprising:

generating the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

14. The server of claim 12, further comprising:

in response to an indication to initiate a second crowd sourced compute task, sending, by the server, to the identified computing devices, at least one additional message to initiate execution of the second crowd sourced compute task to generate the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

15. The server of claim 12, further comprising:

streaming the first application fragment to the mobile game computing device, wherein the streaming of the second application fragment follows sequentially the streaming of the first application fragment.

16. The server of claim 12, further comprising:

generating a resource dependency data structure, wherein for each specific application fragment of the plurality of application fragments, the resource dependency data structure indicates resources that are needed to run the specific application fragment.

17. The server of claim 16, wherein the streaming of the second application fragment comprises streaming the second application fragment along with resources that are needed by the second application fragment as indicated by the resource dependency data structure.

18. The server of claim 16, further comprising:

incorporating resources that are needed to run the second application fragment into the second application fragment, based on the resource dependency data structure.

19. The server of claim 18, wherein the second application fragment includes all resources that are needed by the second application fragment.

20. The server of claim 18, wherein the resources that are needed by the second application fragment include any of a portion of code of the mobile game application, images, icons, text, audio, video, or 3D models.

21. The server of claim 12, further comprising:

in response to an indication to initiate a second crowd sourced compute task, sending, by the server, to the identified computing devices, at least one additional message to initiate execution of the second crowd sourced compute task to instruct the identified computing devices to generate respective resource dependency data structures, wherein for each specific application fragment of the plurality of application fragments, the respective resource dependency data structure indicates resources that are needed to run the specific application fragment.

22. The server of claim 12, wherein a portion of resources that are needed by the second application fragment are not included in the second application fragment, and wherein the streaming of the second application fragment comprises streaming the second application fragment along with the portion of the resources that are needed by the second application.

23. The server of claim 12, wherein the plurality of identified computing devices are controlled by the second parties, respectively, independently from the server and the first party.

24. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions, comprising:

instructions for causing a server system to send one or more messages to identify a plurality of computing devices that can be used to execute a crowd sourced compute task, the crowd sourced compute task including execution of a plurality of computer simulations to determine a plurality of executable application fragments of a mobile game application, wherein the server system is associated with a first party and the identified computing devices are made available for use in association with the crowd sourced compute task by a plurality of second parties;

instructions for sending, by the server system, at least one message to the identified computing devices to initiate execution of the crowd sourced compute task at the identified computing devices and to distribute to the identified computing devices compute jobs that are part of the crowd sourced compute task for determining the plurality of application fragments, including a first application fragment and a second application fragment determined based on execution of the distributed compute jobs at the identified computing devices,

wherein each application fragment of the plurality of application fragments corresponds to a portion of the mobile game application,

wherein the portion of the mobile game application that the first application fragment corresponds to is any of a scene in the mobile game application, a level of the mobile game application, or a help portion of the mobile game application;

instructions for receiving, by the server system, fragment information associated with the application fragments from one or more of the plurality of computing devices;

instructions for storing, by the server system, the fragment information at a storage device;

instructions for determining, by the server system, that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment based on a fragments relationship data structure, the fragments relationship data structure associating the first application fragment with the second application fragment, based on an analysis of the fragment information that indicates that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment during operation of the mobile game application; and

instructions for streaming, by the server system, via a network component, the second application fragment to a mobile game computing device based on the determination that the second application fragment follows the first application fragment.

25. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising:

instructions for generating the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

26. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising:

instructions for sending, by the server system, to the identified computing devices, at least one additional message to initiate execution of a second crowd sourced compute task to generate the fragments relationship data structure, wherein the fragments relationship data structure associates one or more next application fragments with the first application fragment to indicate that each of the one or more next application fragments follows the first application fragment, each of the one or more next application fragments respectively following the first application fragment at different times of operation of the mobile game application.

27. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising:

instructions for streaming the first application fragment to the mobile game computing device, wherein the streaming of the second application fragment follows sequentially the streaming of the first application fragment.

28. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising:

instructions for generating a resource dependency data structure, wherein for each specific application fragment of the plurality of application fragments, the resource dependency data structure indicates resources that are used during execution of the specific application fragment.

29. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 28, wherein the streaming of the second application fragment comprises streaming the second application fragment along with resources that are needed by the second application fragment as indicated by the resource dependency data structure.