WO2010091370A2 - Systèmes et procédés pour capturer des informations disparates - Google Patents

Systèmes et procédés pour capturer des informations disparates Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2010091370A2
WO2010091370A2 PCT/US2010/023518 US2010023518W WO2010091370A2 WO 2010091370 A2 WO2010091370 A2 WO 2010091370A2 US 2010023518 W US2010023518 W US 2010023518W WO 2010091370 A2 WO2010091370 A2 WO 2010091370A2
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Prior art keywords
content
information set
information
normalized
user
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WO2010091370A3 (fr
Inventor
Raheel H. Retiwalla
Anthony J. Sukiennik
Jr. Eugene J. Rodgers
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CLEARWAY INSIGHT LLC
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CLEARWAY INSIGHT LLC
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Publication of WO2010091370A2 publication Critical patent/WO2010091370A2/fr
Publication of WO2010091370A3 publication Critical patent/WO2010091370A3/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
    • G06F16/958—Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
    • G06F16/972—Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation

Definitions

  • the present invention relates generally to improved systems and methods for storing and accessing information, in particular the invention relates to processor based systems and methods for storing and accessing information sets having different data formats.
  • a method to normalize an information set comprising the steps of receiving a first information set having at least one first information characteristic, receiving a second information set having at least one second information characteristic at least one of the first and second information characteristics corresponding to at least one normalizing characteristic and storing in a memory the first and second information characteristics to a set of normalized fields according to the normalizing characteristic to create a first and second normalized information set.
  • a capture system for normalizing an information set comprising a means to receive a first and second information set each having a set of information characteristics, at least one of the first information characteristics and one of the second information characteristics corresponding to at least one normalizing characteristic and a means to store in a memory at least one of each of first and second information characteristics to a normalized field according to the normalizing characteristic to create a first and second normalized information set.
  • the computer program product further comprises an identification software module capable of automatically recognizing the first and second information characteristic corresponding to the at least one normalizing characteristic and an activity audit software module capable of auditing the storing in the memory.
  • an identification software module capable of automatically recognizing the first and second information characteristic corresponding to the at least one normalizing characteristic
  • an activity audit software module capable of auditing the storing in the memory.
  • the first and second information sets have a first and second data format respectively, at least one of the first and second information set is a comment or a rating and the unique content identifier and unique relationship identifier is a field in a content reference table.
  • a computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for enriching an information set, said method comprising the steps of providing a system, wherein the system comprises distinct software modules, and wherein the distinct software modules comprise a programmatic service interface module, an enrich module, a normalization module and a database interface module, receiving a transaction to enrich a first information set stored in a memory with a second information set with the programmatic service interface module, the first information set having a unique content identifier, ensuring the second information set has a unique content identifier with a normalization module and relating the first unique content identifier with the second unique content identifier with the enrich module to create a unique relationship identifier whereby the first information set is enriched with a relationship to the second information set.
  • a processor based method for sharing normalized information comprising the steps of mapping from a memory a user identification field to a group identification field the user identification field corresponding to at least one user and the group identification field corresponding to a plurality of users, mapping the user identification field and the group identification field corresponding to a security identification field, the security identification field corresponding to a security community and mapping at least one normalized information set to the security identification field whereby the normalized information set can be shared with the at least one user according to the security community.
  • the sharing method wherein the normalized information set includes a first information set having a first data format and a second information set having a second data format.
  • the sharing method further comprising a single graphical user interface allowing selective sharing of the normalized information set with the at least one user.
  • the single graphical user interface may further comprises a shared canvas having a publishable insight portion and a private insight portion, the publishable insight panel allowing the user to selectively share at least one information set with a data network and the private insight panel allowing selective sharing of at least one information set with the security community.
  • the methods may further include the single graphical user interface comprising a web exploration inquiry model allowing a query of the shared normalized information set, the single graphical user interface allowing sharing of at least one information set with a data network, the shared canvas further comprising a user interface allowing the creation of a relationship between the information sets, and the shared canvas further comprising an ordered list field allowing selective ordering of the relationships.
  • a processor based system for sharing normalized information comprising a means for mapping from a memory a user identification field to a group identification field, the user identification field corresponding to at least one user and the group identification field corresponding to a plurality of users, the user identification field and the group identification field corresponding to a security identification field, the security identification field corresponding to a security community and a means for mapping at least one normalized information set to the security identification field whereby the normalized information can be shared with the at least one user according to the security community.
  • the sharing system wherein the means for mapping from a memory comprises a sharing module of computer readable program code and the means for mapping at least one normalized information set to the security identification field comprises the sharing module.
  • the sharing system wherein the sharing module further comprises a single graphical user interface further having a shared canvas having a publishable insight portion and a private insight portion, the publishable insight panel allowing the user to selectively share at least one information set with a data network and the private insight panel allowing the user to selectively share at least one information set with the security community.
  • a computer program product for sharing wherein the at least one normalized information set includes a first information set having a first data format and a second information set having a second data format.
  • the computer program product further comprises a single graphical user interface module allowing selective sharing of the normalized information set with the at least one user.
  • the share module further comprises a single graphical user interface further comprising a shared canvas having a publishable insight portion and a private insight portion, the publishable insight panel allows selective sharing of at least one information set with a data network and the private insight panel allows selective sharing of at least one information set with the security community.
  • FIG. 1 shows a high-level functional diagram illustrating the general methods of one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 3 shows a process diagram illustrating the process steps of one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 4 shows a table depicting the database structure used to store references or marks to disparate captured and normalized information according to one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 5 shows a high-level process diagram illustrating the flow of information according to one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 6 shows a process diagram illustrating one embodiment of the processes used to identify and dispatch the various information types submitted to the information capture system
  • FIG. 8 shows a process diagram illustrating one embodiment of the sub-processes used to normalize and capture information whose source is the Microsoft Office Outlook communication and collaboration application program;
  • FIG. 9 shows a process diagram illustrating one embodiment of the sub-processes to normalize and capture information which is accessible through the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) from within public or private networks;
  • HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol
  • FIG. 10 shows a process diagram illustrating one embodiment of the sub- processes to normalize and capture isolated sets of keywords also known as Abstract Content;
  • FIG. 11 shows a functional diagram of one embodiment of an information capture system;
  • FIG. 12 shows a functional diagram of one embodiment of a server program product
  • FIG. 13 shows a functional diagram of one embodiment of a client program product
  • FIG. 14 shows a functional diagram of one example embodiment of systems and method to capture disparate information
  • FIG. 15 shows a functional diagram of one example embodiment of a user interface capable of using drag and drop functionality to trigger execution of a variety of transactions on disparate content
  • FIG. 16A shows a an alternative embodiment of a user interface which exposes contextual commands associated with representations of content from within a variety of content sources which can be used to trigger execution of a variety of transactions on disparate content;
  • FIG. 16B shows one embodiment of the program calls used with FIG. 16A.
  • FIG. 16B shows one embodiment of the program calls used with FIG. 16A.
  • 17A shows one embodiment of a capture interface to select web content
  • FIG. 17B shows one embodiment of the program calls used with FIG. 17A
  • FIG. 18A shows one embodiment of a capture interface to select file content
  • FIG. 18B shows one embodiment of the program calls used with FIG. 18 A
  • FIG. 19A shows one embodiment of a capture interface to select outlook content
  • FIG. 19B shows one embodiment of the program calls used with FIG. 19 A
  • FIG. 20A shows one embodiment of a capture interface to select abstract content
  • FIG. 20B shows one embodiment of the program calls use with FIG. 20A;
  • FIG. 21A shows one embodiment of a capture interface to select custom content
  • FIG. 21B shows one embodiment of the program calls use with FIG. 21A;
  • FIG. 22 shows a functional diagram of one embodiment of relating content
  • FIG. 23 shows a system overview of one embodiment of relating content to content or comments and the reporting of such activity
  • FIG. 24 shows a system overview diagram summarizing one embodiment of the relationships between disparate content and the reporting which reflect these relationships ;
  • FIG. 25 shows an overview of one embodiment of system interfaces employed to enrich content
  • FIG. 26 summarizes one embodiment of database structures used to relate disparate content
  • FIG. 27 summarizes one embodiment of system logic process used to relate two nodes of disparate content
  • FIG. 28 summarizes of one embodiment of database structures used to comment on disparate content
  • FIG. 29 summarizes one embodiment of system logic process used to comment on a node of disparate content
  • FIG. 30 shows a system overview diagram of one embodiment of rating content and the reporting of such rating activity;
  • FIG. 31 summarizes one embodiment of system logic process used to positively or negatively rate a node of disparate content;
  • FIG. 32 shows a system overview diagram of one embodiment of summarizing and reporting transactional activity performed on disparate content
  • FIG. 33 illustrates a functional overview of one embodiment of how disparate content can be normalized and enriched through transactional activity and the reporting of such activity;
  • FIG. 34 summarizes the interdependence of the user interface, capture and normalization, and the enrichment processes used to relate disparate content in one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 35A summarizes one embodiment of how a user interface activity results in a content relationship transaction within the system
  • FIG. 35B shows one embodiment of a programmatic interface to create a content relationship within the system
  • FIG. 36 summarizes the interdependence of the user interface, capture and normalization, and the enrichment processes used to comment on disparate content in one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 37A summarizes one embodiment of how a user interface activity results in a content comment transaction within the system
  • FIG. 37B shows one embodiment of a programmatic interface to create a comment relationship with content within the system
  • FIG. 38 summarizes the interdependence of the user interface, capture and normalization, and the enrichment processes used to rate disparate content in one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 39A summarizes one embodiment of how a user interface activity results in a content rating transaction within the system
  • FIG. 39B shows one embodiment of a programmatic interface to rate content within the system
  • FIG. 40 summarizes one embodiment of system process used to inquire about transactional activity performed on disparate content within the system
  • FIG. 41 summarizes one embodiment of the system process used to inquire about transactional activity performed by specific users within the system
  • FIG. 42 summarizes one embodiment of the system process used to inquire about transactional activity performed during a specific time period within the system
  • FIG. 43 summarizes one embodiment of the effect of user activity to normalize and enrich content within the system and how the results of this activity can be shared in one embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 44 summarizes one embodiment of how content and enrichments performed on this content can be organized and shared in standard formats by collaborating users
  • FIG. 45 shows one embodiment of how content and enrichments performed on this content can be selectively shared to broader groups of users
  • FIG. 46 summarizes one embodiment of the process flow used to more broadly share content or enrichments resulting from transactions performed on this content
  • FIG. 47 summarizes how inquiries and reporting on content can performed in multiple dimensions defined by the transactional activity performed on the content
  • FIG. 48 shows a cycle of inquiry activity
  • FIG. 49 shows how dynamic inquiries on content can be transformed into organized summaries of the content and the enrichments which surround the content in embodiments of the invention
  • FIG. 50 summarizes one embodiment of the process flow used to create, comment on, and published organized
  • FIG. 51 illustrates components of one embodiment of the canvas used to collaboratively compile and publish organized grouping of content
  • FIG. 52 summarizes one embodiment of transformation from the collaborative content canvas to a standard web page rendering of organized content and distribution through common publishing outlets
  • FIG. 53 summarizes one embodiment of how enrichments surrounding content can be exposed to the user from within the original source of the content ;
  • FIG. 54 shows a generalized model for triggering multidimensional inquiries on content originating at the original content source;
  • FIG. 55 summarizes the multidimensional content inquiry capabilities and how they are derived from the system database interrelationships for embodiments of the invention;
  • FIG. 56 summarizes how selected content can be organized to communicate specific insights about the content in embodiments of the invention.
  • FIG. 57 summarizes one embodiment of the database model and the conceptual models used to secure content or enrichments to this content at varying levels of user or group access;
  • FIG. 58 summarizes how highly secured content and enrichments can be shared more broadly and further enriched with collaborative transactional activity in embodiments of the invention.
  • FIG. 59 summarizes how highly secured content and enrichments can be organized and shared more broadly and further enriched with collaborative transactional activity in embodiments of the invention.
  • Capture any act of identifying, classifying and/or normalizing information, or any representation of information. Capture may also include recording information or a representation of that information or representation of information in either a permanent or temporary form such as a computer memory.
  • Processor-based any analog or digital processing system having data processing and memory capabilities such as but not limited to servers, phones, ipods, laptops, televisions or computers. This includes system having processing and memory capabilities that may reside in a single device or may reside in a combination of devices as may be found in, but not limited to a networked computing environment.
  • Context additional information that can be gained directly or indirectly from other information or a combination of information.
  • Disparate any type of difference or distinctiveness between multiple items such as but not limited to quality, character, format or type.
  • Enhancements systems and methods that can be used on a stand-alone basis or can be used to supplement, in whole or in part, other systems and methods.
  • Enrich to improve the quality, clarity or relevance of something, usually by adding or relating something else to it.
  • enrichments to information can be represented as forming relationships between two nodes of content, relating comments to a node of content or relating positive or negative ratings to a node of content.
  • Electronic Content data, information, information sets or representations of data or information in a processor based system such as a computer or phone.
  • Examples of electronic content is generally the substance (as written matter, illustrations, related meta-data, etc.) offered as documents, graphics or other records stored and accessible from personal computers, private networks, databases, custom application programs, or the World Wide Web.
  • Information any type of data or representations of data, at any stage of processing (input, output, storage, transmission, etc.) in a processor based system, apparatus or method.
  • An information set is one or more elements of information.
  • Network Cloud any large communications network such as but not limited to wide area networks (WANs) such as the Internet, or private secured networks maintained by various organizations.
  • WANs wide area networks
  • private secured networks maintained by various organizations.
  • Normalize to make conform to or reduce to a norm or standard or classify according to a norm or a standard. Normalize includes the conforming or classifying of information itself or representations of that information.
  • Relationship an entity that joins two normalized nodes of content by creating a cross reference between them. When inquires which can inquire the set of relationships which include a targeted node of content, the cross reference to the second node of content included in any relationship which includes the targeted node of content can be revealed. The availability of the cross references formed by relationships enrich both nodes of content by adding additional context provided as result of explicit action by some user or implicit action by some other process.
  • Secure any method of allowing selective access (including, by choice, universal access) to information or a resource or resources.
  • Security Community a grouping of users or information that can be secured, separated or is otherwise accessed selectively from other groupings of users or information.
  • a community includes a grouping of a single user or a single piece of information.
  • a community may include groupings of information accessible by different users such as different projects that are being worked by different users.
  • Transaction an action, usually resulting in some persistent database records, which is performed relative to some content.
  • the act of capturing and normalizing content is considered to be a transaction.
  • the act of forming a relationship between two normalized nodes of content is considered a transaction which serves to enrich each node of content by persisting additional context within a database.
  • a capture system for capturing and normalizing disparate electronic content 1 in a secure network cloud can provide capture services 4 that define and create a common format and a single location 5 where the content can be referenced for the purpose of providing later access or restoring the prior context in which this content might have been accessed or acted upon. It is understood that some of the functions of the systems and methods are described as being shared and/or communicated over a data network, but they can also be shared/communicated within a local system without having to use a data network. Embodiments of the systems and method may use a set of database tables (described below) to reference disparate content in a central, secured, network accessible location.
  • Embodiments may employ user interface techniques 2 such as, but not limited to, drag and drop operations to allow the user to capture, classify and normalize disparate electronic content.
  • Embodiments also provide programmatic interfaces 3 which can allow software within the system or software implemented in cooperating applications which access the system program interfaces (described below) to capture, classify and normalize disparate electronic content.
  • the data store which results from the identification and normalization of disparate electronic content can be used as a base to enrich, or attach additional information or context to the content referenced within the capture system.
  • the data store can also be used to share content within different communities.
  • These extensions represent separate and distinct systems which may be designed to leverage the benefits of the system being presented herein.
  • Embodiments of systems and methods to enrich content use additional database tables to allow relationships between disparate content to be created and reviewed from within a single, secured, network accessible location.
  • the systems and methods employ user interface techniques such as, but not limited to, drag and drop operations to allow the user to create relationships between disparate electronic content.
  • the enrichment enhancements also use a database table to allow comments about disparate content to be created and related to this disparate content and to also allow these comments to be treated as a new type of content which may have value in its own right.
  • the enrichment enhancements also use a database table to allow disparate content to be rated positively or negatively by users. This adds a new dimension to the disparate content since it can now be reviewed in a way which reflects popular opinion about its relative value.
  • disparate content can be accessed in a normalized fashion, as facilitated by the described system and methods to capture disparate information, and once this content has been enriched via transactions executed from within the system and methods for enriching disparate information, it becomes more possible for users to electronically context the context which binds disparate content in the human mind.
  • the system provides easy access to all of the disparate content normalized and referenced within a centralized data store; the system can report, on demand, the relationships that have been made between normalized content thus revealing contextual groupings of content which have been previously defined by one or more users; the system can report, on demand, all of the transactional activity which has been performed on a particular node of normalized content; the system can report, on demand, which users have initiated transactional activity on a particular node of normalized content; the system can report, on demand, all of the descriptive comments which have been related to a particular node of normalized content; the system can report, on demand, all of the transactional activity which has been performed on any normalized content by a particular user; the system can report, on demand, all of the transactional activity which has been performed on any normalized content by a particular group of related users; the system can report, on demand, all of the transactional activity which has been performed during a specific period in time; the system can report, on demand, all of the transactional activity which has been performed during a
  • One embodiment of methods to capture disparate information generally comprises the steps of identifying the type of content present, storing that content or data, or a representation of that data or a mark to that data in a central database in manner whereby the information can later be requested and accessed through the use of several user interface methods.
  • FIG. 2 summarizes the process illustrated in the high level diagram above in FIG. 1.
  • the capture system first identifies the type of content to be captured.
  • the type of content to be captured and identified can be specified explicitly as a parameter within a programmatic interface pre-defined by the system.
  • the type of content to be captured can be detected implicitly through various tests. This normally occurs during user interface submission to the system since the user has the ability to submit a wide variety of content with a common user interface technique such as drag and drop. This automatic content type detection process will be discussed in detail later in this document.
  • this embodiment of the capture system ensures that the content will be available from within the secured network. For example, if the content has originated locally in memory on the user' s personal computer or private network, the system uploads the content, a representation of the content or a mark to that content to a central memory in the secure system network so that it can be treated in an equivalent fashion (normalized) to other content which may already be accessible on the secure system network.
  • step 3 the capture system creates a permanent reference or mark to the content within the system database. Details of the format of this reference, or mark, in this embodiment will be discussed later in this document.
  • This auditing can include logging information such as the date and time when the activity was performed, what system user initiated the activity, and the nature of the activity.
  • step 315 comprises receiving content or information from the capture system interfaces.
  • This information is generally data communicated over a data bus or data network, even if the source and destination of the communicated data reside on the same processor based client or server device, using transmitters such as, but not limited to computers, phones, PDAs, sensors or any other device capable of communicating data.
  • the location where the processing for a particular step in the process is performed is not limited. That is, a particular step may be performed on the client device such as a personal computer or smart phone through a user interface if it is sufficiently powerful to successfully complete the step.
  • the raw data may be immediately transmitted to the system server through a programmatic interface which may perform the preliminary steps normally performed on a more capable system client device.
  • Step 320 comprises identifying the specific type of information that has been received based on the information characteristics received.
  • One embodiment of the identification or recognition processes within this step is shown in FIG. 6 and discussed below.
  • this step comprising identifying the information type based on identifying a normalizing characteristic such as, but not limited to known data formats and protocols, such as but not limited to Microsoft Outlook, HTML web content and other common data formats.
  • the normalizing characteristic can come from any of the information characteristics.
  • the identification is made using a web content navigation module within a client capture user interface that inspects data embedded in web pages defined within public or proprietary formats to identify the normalizing characteristic.
  • Step 325 comprises normalizing the information within the capture system.
  • this step comprises using the data characteristics recognized in step 320 to pull or map content into a normalized format within the capture system.
  • FIGS. 7-10 illustrate how information can be recognized and normalized for several data formats.
  • FIG. 4 illustrates one embodiment of the database format that can be used to normalize the data received. FIGS. 4 and 7-10 are discussed in detail later in this description.
  • Step 330 comprises assigning a unique content identifier, or mark, and acknowledging or assigning a uniform resource identifier as a location reference for the normalized content being captured within the system.
  • the mark allows the content, or a representation of the content, regardless of its original source, to be retrieved and reviewed, in a consistent fashion. It is understood that in some embodiments, the uniform resource identifier may not need to be assigned, but may be one of the information characteristics received with the information set.
  • Step 335 comprises allocating database resources to store the mark to the normalized content.
  • the normalized content can be stored within database tables in system memory and can be later retrieved using the content type and a unique database identifier which differentiates that content from other content of the same type.
  • the system allows the content to be externally referenced by submitting a mark.
  • This step can also comprise storing the content in the database.
  • Step 340 comprises creating and storing a log, or permanent activity audit trail, of the activity that was performed to normalize and capture the content into the capture system.
  • the system logging facility has the flexibility to log follow-on activity related to the captured content thus providing a comprehensive audit beyond the scope of capture alone.
  • Step 345 comprises making the information and mark available for access by other components of the capture system, external systems or users. For example, this availability may include limiting access privileges to a certain class or community of users that are able to have access to content associated with that mark.
  • This step may also include reporting the capture of the content and information about the mark to the public or a pre-defined set of users through tools internal to the system or potentially external tools such as Twitter, email, Facebook, or Myspace.
  • Step 350 comprises recognizing a request for information stored within the capture system.
  • the request may be a specific inquiry to return previously captured content or the request may be a general request for other information, including audit information, which may be correlated to the captured content.
  • Step 355 comprises correlating the request to the marks and their associated captured content.
  • the system receives a uniform resource identifier as a request and then maps that identifier to marks which can be used to satisfy a request to return information about the content referenced by the mark in accordance with the nature of the request.
  • Step 360 comprises presenting the results correlated to the request to the requestor. This presentation may be made with any type of user interface such as but not including an audio transmitter, a visual display or a printer.
  • the process is concluded.
  • One embodiment allows the content to be made available in a secure network like an intranet of a company or on a public network such as the Internet. Once this content normalization has occurred, users and applications are able to leverage this referenced content and have a single consistent interface to build context about this content at the direction of the user.
  • step 2 the system tests whether the submitted content is in Microsoft Office
  • Outlook format If the submitted data packet is in the OutlookDataObject format, the system executes the process outlook content process discussed below.
  • step 3 the system tests whether the submitted content is a network accessible uniform resource locator. If the submitted text content is in the format of a URI (Universal Resource Identifier which uses secure or unsecure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http or https) providing unambiguous access to content on the internet or a secured private network, the system executes the process network content process.
  • URI Universal Resource Identifier which uses secure or unsecure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http or https) providing unambiguous access to content on the internet or a secured private network
  • step 4 the system tests whether the submitted content is abstract. If submitted text does not follow any known content format, it can be considered as abstract content. Keywords such as "Project X" or "Patent Application” would be considered abstract content according to this test. The words “Patent Application” may be considered as meaningful in some way to the user.
  • the system provides a process abstract content process to allow keywords such as described here to be referenced in the same way as other more formal content as described above is referenced by the system.
  • step 5 the system tests whether the content follows the custom integration format for applications external to the system. Content which might be of value to the user may be locked inside the user interface of custom applications.
  • the system provides specifications which allow custom applications to expose their data for referencing by the system through the process custom content process. These specifications are considered trade secrets and will be disclosed to external developers upon agreement to keep such specifications confidential until such time that the specifications are released for public consumption.
  • steps 1-5 do not recognize the content, the content is rejected.
  • the system has been designed to support any type of content, but may not yet have implemented content normalization processes for some types of content. If the content type decision making process does not identify a known and supported content type, the system will notify the user that the content submitted to the system may not have been normalized and captured.
  • FIG. 7 shows an overview of one embodiment of the process file content process for data content such as computer files with the encircled numbers representing process steps.
  • This process uses type information from the local system registry which is a repository managed by the operating system which allows applications to define content types.
  • the encircled numbers represent the different steps of the process.
  • step 1 the type of file content can be ascertained by querying the system registry of the personal computer making the request to upload, normalize, and capture the content. Based on the file extension (the rightmost end portion of filename following a period or dot character), the registry might return "Microsoft Word Document" for a file named
  • the title of file content can be derived from the file's name within its folder or from a specific title the user may have entered using the operating system file metadata feature.
  • step 2 the system can provide a much more human readable name than the full filename might provide.
  • “C: ⁇ folder ⁇ PatentApplication.doc” might have a simplified title of
  • the binary content of the file can be accessed using standard operating system functions. With step 3 the actual contents of a file or document can be accessed and encoded for uploading to the system network so that they can be made more widely accessible. Although it the system network is described as a secure system network, it is understood that embodiments do not require the network or storage services to be secure networks or storage.
  • step 4 the formal request to normalize and capture the local or network file is packaged. Such a request will submit the binary file content data to the system along with the content type, file name, system user identifier, the local source path of the file content, and the personal computer identifier from which the request is being made.
  • HTML Hypertext Markup Language
  • HTML can be the format used to represent the content in its normalized form on the system secured network.
  • the Outlook content is saved in HTML format so that it may then be more widely viewed within the context of standard web browsers capable of displaying documents formatted using HTML.
  • Outlook content type is type, item title, and the Outlook EntrylD to the Outlook content capture process service method.
  • the system fills in the appropriate fields in the system reference database from the submitted parameters and values resultant from the capture process to include generating and assigning a unique content ID.
  • FIG. 9 shows an overview of one embodiment of the process network content process related to network accessible content such as Internet browser content. Below is a discussion of how content which can be addressed and presented by a web browser application can be captured by the system.
  • the submitted URI is considered as an alias for the URI returned from the server.
  • step 3 If no title can be retrieved from the response returned from the server, a title is generated from the submitted URI with step 3. This title is intended to be more human readable that the submitted URI.
  • step 4 The content capture process maintains a list of common web content types which may be submitted to the system. With step 4, if the submitted URI matches one of these content types based on the configuration of the URI, the content type will not be set to the generic "web page" type which is used as the default.
  • FIG. 10 shows an overview of another embodiment of the process abstract content process as it may relate to abstract content such as keywords.
  • the submitted content does not represent a URI which references existing content and does not follow the format of a URI, the content is treated as abstract content or keywords which will be transformed into content by the content capture process.
  • step 1 the title of the content will be equivalent to the keywords submitted to the content capture process.
  • step 2 In order to normalize the abstract content to make it equivalent to other content within the system, with step 2, one embodiment of the content capture process creates an HTML
  • the system uniform resource identifier is derived and stored in the system reference database.
  • the system fills in the appropriate fields in the system reference database from the submitted parameters and values resultant from the capture process to include generating and assigning a unique content ID.
  • the methods may perform most of the steps on a local computing device.
  • the steps will capture and provide access to content residing locally on the computing device without having to share/communicate information with a remote computing device.
  • This type of embodiment would provide normalization of content on a self contained system without any requirement to connect to a network to review the content. This might be useful in applications which require high levels of security.
  • the methods for enriching disparate content facilitates the execution of transactions against the normalized content by creating relationships to database entities which serve to augment or enhance the raw content captured within the system.
  • Forming relationships between nodes of normalized content allows enriched content inquiries to reveal cross references which may reveal valuable rich context when users re-encounter this content after forming the relationships.
  • additional insight can also be revealed by following the overall activity of users who may have shown interest in common content.
  • a User 4 working within a Security Community 5 can initiate Transactions 6 which serve to enrich the normalized content.
  • Transactions to create relationships 7 between nodes of content and to log comments on content 8 can be initiated and audited 9 with attribution to the User, time- stamped, and with appropriated access security.
  • Transactional activity on normalized content produces a framework for the system to return rich information based on inquiries 10 centered on both content 11 and users 12 who have acted upon the content.
  • FIG. 24 summarizes how the enrichment enhancements use the results of the capture methods and provides the ability to interrelate elements of this normalized content. By providing system users access to enriched views of this content which may make this content more useful towards the completion of the user's tasks, projects, or missions.
  • FIG. 24 reflects utility of the relationship process as one of the tools used to enrich content. The relationship process comprises the process illustrated in FIG. 26, FIG. 34, FIG. 35A and the descriptions that accompany these illustrations.
  • disparate content from any supported source 1 is normalized 1 by the capture systems and methods 2 into normalized content accessible from a common location or node 3, allowing a content relationship system to reflect the practical affinity of content with respect to the concepts reflected in this content 4 making it possible to leverage the insight defined by these relationships whenever individual nodes of content are encountered in the user's workflow 5 while auditing 6 all of the activity related to the content and allowing this activity to be reviewed in dimensions which include time, activity type, and the originating user.
  • the enrichment enhancements facilitate user interfaces 2 within system applications 2 to integrate and enrich disparate content 1 using content enrichment services 4 provided by the system.
  • a variety of content enrichment transactions (5, 6, 7) are provided by the system which record the effect of the transactions within a secured, network accessible database.
  • a variety of database tables store and maintain the enriched context surrounding content and the transactions performed on this content. Relationships 5, comments 6, and ratings 7 are examples of methods of enriching content. It is possible to extend the definition of enrichment by providing a framework to integrate custom transactions 8 which might define, build, and expose broader enriched context surrounding disparate content.
  • the system exposed by these enhancements is also open for exploitation by external applications 3 written by third party developers who agree to the terms and conditions on the use of the programmatic interfaces 3 to the system content enrichment services 4.
  • disparate content 1 has been previously, or will be dynamically, integrated into a normalized content data store 3 using the capture system and methods 2 described earlier.
  • the enrichment process 4 can now exploit and enrich the normalized content 3 by creating content relationships 5 which bind nodes of content as the direction of the user.
  • Enriched content inquiries 6 may now present the user with insight in the form of cross references between disparate nodes of normalized content. These relationships help restore prior context whenever and wherever the user may re-encounter any node of content as illustrated in 6.
  • each node of normalized content has a unique content identifier (ID) as well as a locator (a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI) and a title.
  • ID unique content identifier
  • locator a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI
  • the unique content identifier or ID is used as a linkage to all other tables which will be used to enrich the normalized content referenced by this ID.
  • the content relationships are structured, in this embodiment, as distinct rows within a content relationship database table which refers to the unique identifiers of the 2 nodes of normalized content which should be related. Inquiries can then be structured in many different ways.
  • the system would first locate the appropriate row within the normalized content references table 3, and then return all rows within the content relationships table 4 where the unique identifier of the desired content is present in either "Referencel” or “Reference2" in the relationships table 4. The results can then be displayed as illustrated in enriched content inquiries 6.
  • a user interface model is presented where simple actions such as dragging and dropping content such as a file onto a link to a web page within a web browser can be recognized as a transaction to trigger a process to form a relationship between the 2 nodes of content.
  • FIG. 27 One functional diagram of a user interface model is shown in FIG. 27.
  • the target content destination for the drag and drop of a file 1 in this case the link to web page 2 is sensed by a browser extension 3 component provided in this embodiment which serves to trigger the process logic to create the content relationship 4.
  • a browser extension is a type of computer software component which is able to sense web browser activity and events as it display content and can add functionality or add options to the user within the context of this content based on additional content or commands which the browser extension may present.
  • the drag and drop transaction identifies the source content, in this case File A, and the destination content, in this case Web Page B.
  • the process first ascertains if both the source and destination content nodes have been normalized (5 and 7) within the system. If the source content needs to be normalized, it will be done by first invoking the capture and normalization process in step 6. If the destination content needs to be normalized, it will be done similarly in step 8 of the process. Relating the source and destination content can now be done in step 9 and will result in the database activities described earlier.
  • FIG. 31 One functional diagram of a user interface model to create ratings for content is shown in FIG. 31.
  • a user interface model is presented where simple actions such as revealing a context action menu relative to content such as link to a web page 1 within a web browser can trigger a process to log and/or increment a positive or negative rating related to the noteworthy content 1.
  • the noteworthy content which warrants a rating in this case the link to web page B is sensed by a browser extension 2 component provided in this embodiment which serves to trigger the process logic 4 to log and/or increment the rating and relates 8 the rating log record to the noteworthy content.
  • FIG. 44 functionally summarizes one embodiment of methods 4 to share, in an organized and secure way, the products of the systems and methods to capture 2 and enrich 1 disparate information.
  • the methods to share disparate information 4 facilitates the access and extraction of selected content and enrichments to this content from the secure, normalized data store 3.
  • a collaborative security community 5 is created and ensures that a defined list of collaborating users 7 will be able to access a shared insight canvas 6 where they may collectively accumulate a set of related content and commentary which may contribute to some personal or group objective.
  • one of the collaborating users 7 may decide to privately or publicly publish the collective insights by transforming 8 the canvas 6 into "Web Page" form for delivery using standard web browser technology.
  • the composition of and the optional publication of a shared insight canvas is only one embodiment of the active sharing model.
  • One model of sharing can be done using a passive sharing model.
  • the system may be used in a highly secure private security community 1 where all transaction or activity related to normalized content (3, 4) can be reviewed only by the user who submitted the content to the system and transacted on this content.
  • FIG. 45 shows that, as a result of some transactional activity, comments and relationships have been made to some content (3, 4) and that of subset of these comments and relationships have been selected for sharing by the user.
  • FIG. 48 illustrates the cycle of multidimensional passive sharing, this cycle shows how encountering some content 1 may lead to some users 2 whose activity overlaps with a time period 3 which reveals other content 5 accessed by other users 5 who have transacted on content 5 which, in turn, may relate to our original interests 1.
  • FIG. 50 Although there is no prerequisite that information from with the system be available before creating and populating a shared insight canvas, it is common that pre-existing enriched content (1, 2, 3) will serve as a basis for active sharing.
  • pre-existing enriched content (1, 2, 3) will serve as a basis for active sharing.
  • any user authorized to extend the canvas can integrate 5 or relate 6 content from any source.
  • Freeform comments 7 can be interspersed wherever desired within the shared insight canvas to help express the purpose of the communication.
  • additional users 8 can be invited to contribute their insights to the topic at hand and about the content already integrated within the canvas. Reordering of comment or content segments is possible within the canvas to allow the topic or topics to be presented in the most efficient manner.
  • any authorized collaborator can publish the canvas in browser compatible web page format for secured or public consumption.
  • the shared insight canvas allows an ordered set of content and / or comment segments to be compiled and composed by a collaborative team.
  • the canvas is an acceptable way to deliver the insight.
  • an individual or collaborative team may wish to publish the insight compiled within a canvas more broadly in web page format 2 within a private network, or to the orld Wide Web.
  • This embodiment transforms the ordered content from the publishable section of the canvas into hypertext markup language (HTML) so that the insights compiled within the canvas can be explored using standard browser technology.
  • the published web page can be automatically posted through popular networking portals like Facebook and Twitter.
  • a processor based device such as but not limited to a computer, or a network of client and server computers, executing a sequence of program instructions for carrying out the steps of the methods, assuming all required data for processing, communicating or receiving data is accessible to the computer, which sequence of program instructions may be embodied in a computer program product comprising media storing the program instructions.
  • a processor- based system by which the method of the present invention may be carried out is shown a system 1100 in FIG. 11.
  • the server subsystem 1120 includes a processing unit, which houses a processor 1122 or multiple processors, input/output elements 1124, memory 1126 and other systems components that implement a general or special purpose processing system or computer that may execute a computer program product 1128 comprising media, for example a compact storage medium such as a compact disc, which may be read by processing unit through disc drive or any means known to the skilled artisan for providing the computer program product to the general purpose processing system for execution thereby.
  • the server program product 1148 may also be stored on hard disk drives within processing unit or may be located on a remote system such as a server, coupled to processing unit, via a network interface, such as an Ethernet or wireless interface.
  • modules may be added to perform functions specific to the application such as facilitate the integration of custom content or other extensions to the functionality described herein.
  • the server program product may be working with "dumb" clients and therefore the server can also include modules that provide the user interface or capture interface functionality.
  • the user interface is a single graphic user interface that consolidates the user's access to the system features. These modules may interface with the any other module within the application including the programmatic service interface module, the normalization module or the system content inquiry modules described above.
  • the client program product 1300 generally includes a capture interface module, a programmatic service interface module, a capture and normalization module and a system content inquiry module. These elements are highlighted as those aligning with callout A in the figure. These modules typical communicate and coordinate their functions through services which engage server program modules to accomplish the desired capture or inquiry functions.
  • any other type of peripheral capable of communicating information can also be used such as but not limited to Personal Data Assistant's like a Blackberry, Palm or iPod, Point of Sale devices or netbooks.
  • the division of labor between the client and server may shift to the server for less capable client devices and to the client for more capable client devices.
  • this example embodiment allows users 2 to access disparate content 1 in such a way as to eliminate the fundamental formatting and storage differences between the disparate content 1 as symbolized by the varying shapes in the illustration.
  • the system maintains a list of authorized users 7 who can submit content to the system.
  • the system also maintains a comprehensive activity audit 8 to ensure that content introduced and manipulated within the system can be attributed to a specific authorized user 7 at a specific point in time.
  • a Content Reference Table represents the normalized fields for normalized information within memory or node 6.
  • the system normalizes content through the use of a relationship database to store references to the disparate content captured and normalized by the system.
  • the field structure of the content reference data table would follow the form shown in the Content Reference Table below.
  • the unique number data type can be described as follows.
  • the unique number is an integer numeric value assigned by a system service from a pool of potential integer values ranging from 0 to 264 (a 64 bit integer value).
  • a central system service is invoked through a programmatic interface to assign the unique 64 bit integer value which will be used as the unique content identifier.
  • a Global Unique Identifier (GUID) or any other unique alphanumeric variable could be used equivalently to serve as the unique content identifier.
  • GUID Global Unique Identifier
  • Other methods of generating a unique number or alphanumeric variable can also be used and are contemplated.
  • the capture and normalization process for any disparate content submitted to the system will create a time stamped activity audit record which will be attributed to the user who initiated the activity.
  • This activity audit capability provides a time ordered list of content that individual users have accessed within or submitted to the system.
  • the Activity Audit Table below represents data within node 8 in FIG. 14.
  • user interfaces 3 can be implemented in several different models. Content may be submitted to or acted upon by the system in many ways by the user as facilitated by system software integrated within the user's desktop. We will describe two of the distinct user interface models used in this embodiment which could be used to submit content form capture and normalization by the system. These and other potential user interface models ultimately interface to the system through its programmatic interfaces. Other user interface models, including voice recognition or probes implanted within the user's brain could be used to accomplish the same function as the methods described below. The point of emphasis in this discussion is to define user interfaces which can accomplish the following tasks. First, identify content from disparate sources in a way where and address can be used to later access this content. Second, perform a well defined transaction on the content once it has been identified. A transaction can be defined as "an action that adds, removes, or changes data in a database or other computer program".
  • One user interface model comprises a drag and drop model. As illustrated in FIG.
  • the system may make available, on the desktop and / or within system application programs, specific "User Interface" icons or other visual elements which indicate a location, where if content is dropped, the system will initiate a well defined transaction process on that content.
  • the drop event logic behind the capture interface element is: (1) be able to uniquely identify dropped content from among the content types supported by the system (the content identification methodologies are outlined in more detail in the specific discussion of the content specific capture processes); (2) ensure that the dropped content has been captured and normalized by the system as this is a prerequisite for any enriched transaction processing; and (3) if the transactional command implied by the target of the drag and drop operation goes beyond simple capture and normalization, the command will initiate, through the system programmatic interface, the specific system transaction process responsible for enriching the submitted content.
  • the system may provide integration add-ins or extensions into a wide variety of content management programs and implement widely known methods for providing context sensitive actions to be performed based on menu items exposed when the user performs an action such as right clicking the mouse over some content exposed by the application.
  • the application programming interfaces to web browsers, email client applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Windows Explorer, the Microsoft Windows Desktop, and other applications programs are well documented and widely accessible through most programming languages.
  • a context menu handler is implemented within an application program which supports context sensitive actions to be performed on the content the application exposes, the content type is generally implied or supplied by the application itself.
  • web Content 1 can be dragged and dropped by the user onto any system capture interface 2 exposed on the desktop or within any system enabled application. Web content can also be directly submitted to the programmatic interface 3 by any system application or other application with proper authentication. [00265] Of all content types supported in this embodiment, web content could be considered to be the base content type.
  • web content In its native form being displayed or referenced within a web browser application, web content is represented by a URI (Universal Resource Identifier) which may be a URL (Universal Resource Locator). Within this system, web content will also be referenced with a URI. Symbolically, because there is no real change in the state of the web content, it is seen to "keep its shape" as illustrated in FIG. 17A.
  • URI Universal Resource Identifier
  • URL Universal Resource Locator
  • a drag and drop capture interface 2 if the capture interface recognizes that the dropped text or link content is in the format of a URI (Universal Resource Identifier) which uses secure or unsecure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http or https) providing unambiguous access to content on the internet or a secured private network, the URI will be forwarded as web content to the programmatic interface 3.
  • URI Universal Resource Identifier
  • https secure or unsecure Hypertext Transfer Protocol
  • FIG. 18A and 18B File content capture and normalization process is shown in FIG. 18A and 18B.
  • File content 1 can be dragged and dropped by the user onto any system capture interface 2 exposed on the desktop or within any system enabled application.
  • File content can also be directly submitted to the programmatic interface 3 by any system application or other application with proper authentication.
  • File content is normalized by the capture and normalization services 4.
  • File content originated from local or network file storage locations is uploaded to a system file storage location so that the content can then be referenced in the same way that web content can be accessed with a URI referencing this uploaded file location.
  • file content can now be referenced with this URI and, symbolically, the file content it is seen to "change its shape" to become more compatible with web content as illustrated above. This shape change is conceptual indications that normalization has taken place for the content, the act of making it react, in many ways, similarly to web content which is the base content type within the system.
  • Source The local or network Source Path is forwarded with the submission so that users can Path later inquire from the local system or network passing in the original Source Path to map this Path to the Content Identifier URI for the uploaded, normalized version of the file.
  • the Unique Identifier Computer ID is submitted so that conflicts with similar paths from other computers can be arbitrated on later inquiries.
  • An inquiry to the system for a file which was uploaded from a local Source Path will only match if the inquiry is made from the same computer from which it was submitted.
  • Other users on other computers may access the normalized file by its Content Identifier URI, but will not be able to match it to a source document on their computer.
  • Outlook content capture and normalization process is highlighted in FIG. 19A and 19B.
  • Microsoft Office Outlook is a widely used email messaging and productivity software application which presents large volumes of content to a large number of users within the context of their information workflow.
  • This embodiment of the invention supports Outlook content as first class content which can be captured and normalized.
  • Outlook content 1 can be dragged and dropped by the user onto any system capture interface 2 exposed on the desktop or within any system enabled application.
  • Outlook content can also be directly submitted to the programmatic interface 3 by any system application or other application with proper authentication. Once received by the programmatic interface 3, Outlook content is normalized by the capture and normalization services 4.
  • Outlook content is copied, transformed, and the resulting data is uploaded to a system file storage location so that the content can then be referenced in the same way that web content can be accessed with a URI referencing this uploaded file location.
  • Outlook content can now be referenced with this URI and, symbolically, the Outlook content it is seen to "change its shape" to become more compatible with web content as illustrated above.
  • This shape change is conceptual indications that "Normalization” has taken place for the content, the act of making it react, in many ways, similarly to web content which is the base content type within the system.
  • the system network accessible rendering of the Outlook content also, in all cases, contains a reference key back to the original Outlook source content.
  • the capture interface comprising a drag and drop case 2
  • the capture interface recognizes that the dropped data packet is in the "OutlookDataObject" format, the packet will be forwarded as Outlook content to the programmatic interface 3.
  • Office Outlook exposes an open programmatic object model which allows external application programs to read and write messages within Outlook.
  • This embodiment of the invention uses this public interfaces to extend and add value to the information provided by communication products such as Outlook.
  • the Outlook Object Model exposes an EntryID field which uniquely identifies Identifier content items within its proprietary data store.
  • the capture and normalization process stores this EntryID in this Source Identifier field to allow users to correlate, at any time, the original Outlook Content to captured and normalized system reference to that content.
  • the example embodiment is also able to capture and normalize abstract content.
  • Abstract content is a term used to convey the concept of transforming a keyword like "Economics" into first class content which can be used as an organizing entity along with content of other types. If we could treat keywords the same way we treat web pages or a document, we could use ideas centered on keywords we might find within this other content as the focal point for threads of research we might want to pursue.
  • abstract content 1 in the form of keywords, can be dragged and dropped by the user onto any system capture Interface 2 exposed on the desktop or within any system enabled application.
  • Abstract content can also be directly submitted to the programmatic interface 3 by any system application or other application with proper authentication.
  • abstract content as keywords are submitted to the capture and normalization process 4, they are transformed, in this embodiment, to a real node of web content whose contents consist solely of the keywords submitted.
  • the web page representation of the keywords can now be referenced with a URI and, symbolically, the abstract content it is seen to "change its shape" to become more compatible with web content as illustrated above. This shape change is conceptual indications that normalization has taken place for the content, the act of making it react, in many ways, similarly to web content which is the base content type within the system.
  • the capture interface 2 recognizes that the dropped data in text format does not follow any known content format, it can be considered as abstract content. For example and not limitation, keywords such as "Project X" or "Patent Application” would be considered abstract content according to this test.
  • the dropped data is recognized as abstract content it is submitted to the programmatic interface 3.
  • Custom content can be defined as any display of content by an application program from a data source than it controls that has some defined context. If this context which defines the content display is saved and presented back to the application program if would be able to restore its content display to the identical state. For example, as outlined in FIG. 21A and 21B, a real estate listing application 2 might be displaying properties from a data source 1 below $300,000 located within the 32339 Zip Code. The application might have an icon or other user interface element which when dragged would create an application context packet 3 which is formatted within the definition of the capture and normalization system's custom content methods 4.
  • the system Once the system (5, 6, 7) have normalized the custom content context packet 8, if the user wishes to restore the saved application context 9, the system, when requested to open the context packet 8 will submit the context packet to through a custom application 2 interface which can, in turn call that application's open interfaces to restore the saved context.
  • the context packet may include the parameters: Price: ⁇ 300,000; and Location Code: 32339.
  • this embodiment of the present invention defines some simple conventions for custom interfaces to be built to allow existing applications to fully participate in sharing their information context within an information ecosystem which also normalizes access to most other common content types.
  • the application context packets described above, once submitted to the system, are packaged as file content with a specific content type of custom application context. Once this packaging as file content has taken place, the remainder of the processing for custom content is identical to that done for file content.
  • the custom application context document type is registered with the operating system and, when opening of the document is requested, the system application program associated with the custom application context document type executes, parses the context and instructs restores the application context using the application interfaces and context parameters specified in the document.
  • the system recognizes the custom application context through the drag and drop format, creates a temporary custom application context document file in computer memory, and submits this binary file data to the programmatic interface 6.
  • the programmatic interface 3, or the service method signature to submit custom content 4 to the capture and normalization services 6 is as shown in 2 IB.
  • FIG. 22 A step by step discussion of one of the benefits of embodiments like the example described above is illustrated by FIG. 22.
  • a user drags and drops content of one type, in this case an Outlook email message 1, onto a second disparate type of content, in this case web page 2, the drag and drop operation will be detected by the system user interface 3.
  • the system will initiate transactional activity to capture and normalize the email content 5 if it has not previously been referenced within the system.
  • the system will then initiate transactional activity to capture and normalize the web page content 6 if it has not previously been referenced within the system.
  • the content enrichment process 7 might be able to make use of the normalized content references.
  • a relationship 8 is created between the two nodes of content.
  • content might be enriched by being able to create relationships between nodes of disparate content using a data structure, such as a Relationship Table shown below.
  • an enrichment system 4 facilitates the execution of transactions to create relationships, comments, ratings, as well as support for any other type of custom enrichment transaction and the data which might support it, against the normalized content 3 secured by the capture system 2 creating relationships to the database entities which represent the normalized content 9 which serve to augment or enhance the raw content captured within the system.
  • Forming relationships 5 between nodes of normalized content allows enriched content inquiries 10 to reveal cross references 11 which may reveal valuable rich context when users re- encounter this content after forming the relationships.
  • Additional insight can be revealed by following the overall activity of users 12 who may have shown interest in common content.
  • Users can explicitly enrich content by creating spontaneous content such as comments 6 which can be contextually related to one or more nodes of normalized content 3. Comments can be treated much like any other content once they are created and can be cross-referenced with enriched content inquiries as previously discussed. Additional insight can be gathered by following the overall activity of users 12 who may have contributed commentary. Rating 7 content positively or negatively is a shorthand notation for making a comment about some normalized content 3 and is one more way provided by the system to enrich disparate content.
  • This embodiment of the system has been defined with well defined programmatic interfaces which allow its database to be logically joined with other custom content or custom transactional activity 8 which might define further content enrichment.
  • the embodiment shown uses a relationship database to store references to the disparate content captured and normalized by the system.
  • the field structure of the Content Reference Table could follow the form shown below. It should be noted that the database design may be optimized to use additional tables to represent certain data types, so this should not be considered to be the only database design contemplated.
  • comments can be considered as a type of content which is maintained internally within the system database in a Comment Table. Comments are treated in the same way as any other type of content since each comment, in this embodiment, will also be referenced with a row within the Content Reference Table.
  • the system provides normalized access to the content of the comment with a standard uniform resource identifier (URI) implementation which allows the comment to be displayed like other web content within a web browser.
  • URI uniform resource identifier
  • Content ratings as a lightweight way for users to express their approval or disapproval or suitability or unsuitability in relationship to any normalized content.
  • users are only permitted to rate a node of content only one time. This restriction is enforceable since all transactional activity is recorded in the Activity Audit Table and attributed to specific users acting on specific nodes of content. Once content is rated by one user, ratings by other users on the same content will accumulate within the same Rating Table record assigned to that content. In embodiments, net and percentage rating metrics can also be calculated and stored.
  • the system will initiate transactional activity to capture and normalize (using the capture systems described earlier) 4 the email content 5 if it has not previously been referenced within the system.
  • the system will then initiate transactional activity to capture and normalize the web page content 6 if it has not previously been referenced within the system.
  • this embodiment of the content enrichment process will be able to make use of the normalized content references as content enrichment processes 7 are executed.
  • a relationship 8 is created between the two nodes of content. [00308] Referring to FIG.
  • the programmatic interfaces provide generalized methods for any type of user interface or program agent to accomplish the same task.
  • the logic executed by the system user interface 4 would first ensure that the both nodes of content implied by the drag and drop operation were captured and normalized by the system.
  • the browser add-in 5 would invoke methods 5 of the capture and normalization processes 7 through the appropriate system programmatic service interfaces 6 ensuring that both content references are reflected in the Content References 8 database table as illustrated below. All appropriate capture and normalization transactional activity would be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables. For example, if the Outlook email message with the subject "The Agenda for our meeting" was the subject of the drag and drop operation described above, the resultant database row might look like the table below.
  • the process logic of the user interface would then invoke a create relationship method 10 within the content enrichment relationship process 11 which would result in the creation of a row within the content relationship 12 database table as illustrated below.
  • the content enrichment relationship process 11 logic would ensure that the relationship transactional activity would be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables.
  • the method signature in this embodiment follows the form shown in FIG. 35B.
  • the resulting Relationship Table may look like the table below.
  • the content enrichment commenting process 7 is an extension of the content enrichment relationship process discussed previously.
  • the major difference is that one of the nodes of content which forms the relationship, the Comment 3, is original content created by the user.
  • the system user interfaces provide icons, menu choices, and other cues that the user can comment on any of the disparate content they might encounter. In this example, dragging and dropping a Web Page 1 link from its source to a Comment 2 icon within the system user interface would trigger the process.
  • the system will initiate the transactional activity necessary to capture and normalize (using the prerequisite invention) the source content 1 as well as the original user comment 3 if they have not previously been referenced within the system.
  • this embodiment of the content enrichment process will be able to make use of the normalized content references.
  • a relationship 8 is created between the source content 1 and the newly entered comment 3.
  • a web browser application 1 exposed a web page link 2 and a system supplied user interface, in one embodiment implemented as a browser add-in 4, exposed a context menu which allowed a comment 3 to be entered relative to the exposed content link 2, the following processes would be triggered.
  • the logic executed by the system user interface 4 would first ensure that the target node of content 2 implied by the commenting operation was captured and normalized by the system.
  • the process logic would invoke methods 5 of the capture and normalization process 7 through the appropriate system programmatic service interfaces 6 ensuring that the content reference is reflected in the Content References 8 database table as illustrated below. Appropriate capture and normalization transactional activity would be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables.
  • the user interface logic 4 submits the user comment 3 by calling methods 10 within the content enrichment commenting process 11 through the system programmatic interface 6.
  • This method will have the effect of creating a comment within the system Comment Database Table 12 while also normalizing the comment within the Content Reference Database Table 8 so that a relationship between the comment 3 and the target content 2 reflected in the system Content Relationships Database Table 13. All appropriate comment storage, normalization, and relationship transactional activity would also be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables.
  • Comment Table impact a user might enter a comment, as reflected below, within the context of the target content described above.
  • the resulting Relationship Table may look like the table below.
  • one embodiment of the enrichment systems includes a content enrichment rating process 5 utilizing content rating storage 6 elements to bind positive or negative user impressions about normalized content 4.
  • the system user interfaces provide icons, menu choices, and other cues that the user can positively or negatively rate 2 any of the disparate content they might encounter.
  • dragging and dropping a web page 1 link from its source to a rating 2 icon within the system user interface would trigger the process.
  • the system will initiate the transactional activity necessary to capture and normalize (using the prerequisite invention) the source content 1 so that the process can associate and reflect the ratings impressions 6 of various users.
  • a web browser application 1 exposed a web page link 2 and a system supplied user interface, in one embodiment implemented as a browser add-in 4, exposed a context menu which allowed a rating 3 to be expressed relative to the exposed content link 2, the following processes would be triggered.
  • the logic executed by the system user interface 4 would first ensure that the target node of content 2 implied by the commenting operation was captured and normalized by the system.
  • the process logic would invoke methods 5 of the content capture and normalization process 7 through the appropriate system programmatic service interfaces 6 ensuring that the content reference is reflected in the Content References 8 database table as illustrated below. All appropriate capture and normalization transactional activity would be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables.
  • the user interface logic 4 submits the user rating 3 by calling methods 10 within the content enrichment rating process 11 through the system programmatic interface 6.
  • This method will have the effect of creating a rating record, if it does not already exist, within the system Rating Database Table 12. Depending on the user's impression, for example positive or negative, the appropriate fields within will be incremented.
  • This rating record 12, when it is initially created, will be directly associated with the target content 2 reflected in the system Content References Database Table 8. All appropriate rating transactional activity would also be reflected in the Activity Audit 9 database tables.
  • An example of the programmatic service interface 6 is the method signature for rating some normalized content, in this embodiment, follows the form in FIG. 39B.
  • the resulting Rating Table may look like the table below. Note that the Content
  • inquiry user interfaces 2 are provided and, when the user submits content to these inquiry interfaces, the enriched context created by user transactional activity can be extracted in a variety of reports 10.
  • the inquiry interface 2 will first map the request of disparate raw content 1 to the captured and normalized content stored within the system content reference database table 4. Relationships 5 which include the submitted normalized content will be gathered and a subset of these relationships 5 might be in the form of comments 6 which are also normalized within the system.
  • the submitted content has been rated by one or more users, its associated rating values 7 will also be gathered. Finally, it is also possible to identify all of the users who have acted upon the submitted content by querying the activity audit 8 which relates a comprehensive list of these users 9 as well as the time periods when transactional activity has taken place.
  • the database tables and relationships exploited, in this embodiment, to produce these reports have been fully described earlier in this document.
  • the system inquiry interfaces may, with permission, expose the users who have performed transactional activity on normalized content within the system.
  • the system also provides inquiry interfaces which can expose additional context and insight by allowing inquiries to center on the activity of a specific user.
  • the inquiry interface 2 will first map the requested user to an authenticated user within the user table 4 within the system database. Once the user has been identified, the activity audit 5 will reflect transactional activity initiated by that user which, in turn can be mapped to normalized content references 6 and any relationships 7, comments 8, or rating information 9 which might be associated with the content transacted by the user.
  • One all of the user centric information is correlated and extracted from the database, a variety of enriched user inquiry reports 10 can be reviewed on demand.
  • Example Embodiment of Information Sharing System and Methods [00330] As described earlier, the systems for capturing and normalizing disparate electronic information allows users to access disparate content in such a way as to eliminate the fundamental formatting and storage differences between the disparate content.
  • the described systems for enriching disparate electronic content allows users to bind this disparate content within the broader context in which has been created or otherwise accessed without concern for the impedance imposed by incompatible content formatting and storage architectures.
  • the described systems for sharing disparate information exploits the data model created by and enhanced by the other systems to allow prior experience, and the broader context it represents, to be flexibly reviewed by the contributors who originally gathered and organized the information, freely reviewed by other authorized users or groups of users, and to group, organized, and annotate sets of related information into more formal published works which can be distributed and used as the basis for new works through popular existing networks.
  • the sharing system embodiment described builds on, and uses components described earlier and shown in FIG. 11. Many of the enhanced features of the sharing system are provided by computer program products as described below.
  • FIG. 1 A functional overview of one embodiment of a sharing system is shown in FIG.
  • a generalized inquiry module 8 exploits the intricate database relationships maintained within the system database 1 by the capture, normalization and enrichment systems. All transactional activity is audited 2 and is performed on normalized content references 3 by authorized users 4. This multidimensional audit (2, 3, 4) lays the foundation for a rich web style exploration model which can further link to related content 5, comments 6 about this content and other peripheral metadata such as ratings 7.
  • a web exploration inquiry module 8 can present multiple starting points for database exploration including exploring individual transactions which might allow branch explorations into transactions of the same type, transactions centered on the same content, transactions performed by the same user, or transactions performed during a specific period of time.
  • the web exploration inquiry model in one embodiment, can be exposed by presenting a web page within a web browser or other application interface which exposes the target transaction, user, content, or time period as hyperlinks which enable exploration in the alternative dimensions of transaction type, content, content type, or time as illustrated in FIG. 55. Starting, for example, with a user would allow any of these explorations to commence. What content has the user transacted? When did they perform transactions?
  • the relational database design in this embodiment allow inquiries to be started within the dimensions of content, transaction type, user, or time period and followed through with total flexibility in any of the other dimensions as illustrated above.
  • FIG. 56 illustrates one embodiment of a structured, collaborative publishing model.
  • the same system database 1 can be exploited by a set of collaborating users (2, 7) who can use a flexible content layout canvas 6 to weave together existing database content 3, relationships to this content 4 and existing and original comments 4 into a collaborative discussion.
  • the collaborative team, or any authorized member of the team wishes to more widely publish 8 this ordered content aggregation 6, it can be transformed into a web standard content and distributed 9 directly to the web or through any number of popular publication outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.
  • Content assets 2 consist of the captured and normalized content references, relationships created between node of this content, and comments or other enrichments which may also be related to this content.
  • Security assets 3 consist of database resources which enumerate and manage authenticated systems users (e.g. users tables) as well as groups of users (e.g. group membership tables) who may wish to share content and the enrichments which may surround this content.
  • the private security community 5 describes those content assets assigned to an individual system user who may later decide to more broadly reveal the context and insights which they have gathered.
  • Limited security community 6 addresses the concept of a "Group" to create and maintain a security context where a trusting, collaborative collection of users defined within a group membership database table all have access to shared content assets and the context surrounding these assets.
  • Group members can also decide to more broadly reveal the context and insight they have gathered.
  • the public security community 7 describes those content assets and the context which surrounds them are not assigned to any specific user or group of users but are freely accessible to all system users. [00336] To illustrate one embodiment of database design which could support the security communities we will map some sample data according to a number of tables below. These tables, when used, are maintained in the systems memory as a database.
  • each user ID is a unique ID mapped to a user or a group of users.
  • each Group ID is mapped to individual User IDs.
  • Relationship ID 1 Content ID 1 related to Content ID 12
  • Relationship ID 8 Content ID 1 related to Content ID 2,
  • Relationship ID 7 Content ID 9 related to Content ID
  • Relationship ID 9 Content ID 10 related to Content ID
  • Group 6789 User ID 1234 and User 3436 members
  • Relationship ID 3 Content ID 4 related to Content ID 5
  • Relationship ID 11 Content ID 5 related to Content ID
  • FIG. 58 One embodiment of a user interface for passive sharing is shown in FIG. 58.
  • user A if user A has captured and normalized content within a private security context 1 and further enriched nodes of this content (3, 4) with comments and / or relationship to other content, user A may wish to share some subset of their insight with other.
  • shared security community 2 is defined, other users will have access to content within the public or limited confines of that security community. Note that within the illustrated view of content within the private security community 1, a subset of relationships and comments can be selected or displayed as denoted by state of the checkboxes or the visibility of comments.
  • raw content from disparate sources 5 can be freely used to further enrich content and the overall context of either the private or shared security community by any authenticated and security authorized user.
  • user A has related a web page 6 to content C 4 within the private security community 1.
  • user A has further enriched the shared security community by relating page A 7 and a document 8 to content C (4s) this time within the shared security community 2.
  • the system can also include a more structured collaborative sharing model which allows for more ordered presentation of related content.
  • web exploration inquiry models can allow users to branch and explore content and context in multiple dimensions.
  • the more structured collaborative sharing model provides a dedicated collaborative security context and shared insight canvas 2 where authors can guarantee that important content relationships and commentary will be exposed in a single, organized location.
  • users replicate private content (3, 4), content shared within other shared security contexts, or raw content from disparate sources 5 into the shared insight canvas which is wrapped within its own shared security context.
  • the collaborative group of users who have access to the security context and its embedded shared insight canvas can be managed directly from the "Access" control list near the bottom of the canvas or user interface in this embodiment.
  • the comments and content segments visible within the canvas can be edited and reordered as needed to best convey the contextual message desired by the collaborative team, or in some cases, an individual working alone within the security community.
  • the canvas contents ordered list field defined above is one embodiment which illustrates how content relationships, which are not typically presented with a predictable ordering, could be ordered according to user preference by placing the content ordering metadata within the canvas data object itself.
  • the shared insight canvas 1 facilitates the capture, organization, and communicating of related content and commentary.
  • the content gathered and organized within the canvas is suitable for both formal and informal communication of related topics.
  • the formal canvas can be divided into two panels.
  • the publishable shared insight panel 2 contains and organizes content which will be transformed into web page format if the collaborative team decides to formally publish their insights.
  • the private, offline shared insight panel 3 provides a space for the collaborative team to log private or informal commentary or supporting content which may not be suitable for ultimate publication.
  • This private insights panel 3 can also be utilized as a staging area for proposed content or commentary which can then be reviewed and promoted to the publishable panel 2 with user interface operations such as drag and drop.
  • the user access panel 4 is used to manage the dynamic addition, removal, and collaboration privilege settings for the dedicated collaborative security community associated with the shared insight canvas 1. Publishing control will be discussed in greater detail in an ensuing section. [00354] For completeness, the table below indicated how the shared insight canvas differentiates content and commentary which can be published from that which should be kept offline and secure to the collaborative team. For brevity, we have left the Content Reference and Relationship Tables out as they would closely parallel the shared insight canvas example previously illustrated.
  • the shared insight canvas 1 itself is suitable for the sharing of organized content and commentary within the controlled authenticated and authorized environment facilitated by this embodiment of the present invention.
  • the system can serve as an easy to use publishing tool which can produce standard, browser compatible, web page 2 renderings of the content and commentary accumulated and organized within the shared insight canvas.
  • FIG. 52 One embodiment of transforming shared insight into published web content is shown in FIG. 52.
  • the embodiment shown can use various standard techniques to transform the system database representation of the contents of the shared insight canvas 1.
  • One possible technique is to extract the data from the canvas 1 in industry standard XML (extensible Markup Language) format and generate the web page 2 using an XSLT (extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) process.
  • ASP active server pages
  • substitutes or variations thereof could use the system inquiry services to gather the information from the canvas and programmatically transform the data into web page form using the inherent efficiencies and flexibility of environments such as ASP.
  • ASP active server pages
  • references to the web page, and thus the organized content and commentary within can be widely distributed through popular social networking and information distribution portals such as Facebook or Twitter.
  • This embodiment uses the public programmatic interfaces to both Facebook and Twitter to provide such references to the content generated within the system.
  • Another feature of the sharing system is its ability to both capture and normalize content from disparate sources and to expose the enriched context gathered by the system from within those same disparate content sources.
  • FIG. 53 One embodiment of the systems passive sharing abilities is shown in FIG. 53.
  • a web page is being viewed within a web browser application 5 it might expose content links 4 which may have been previously captured, normalized, and enriched within the system.
  • This embodiment implements "add-in” components 6 which integrate into common content sources such as web browsers 5.
  • these "add-in” components 6 can expose user interface functionality such as context menus which can allow users to perform actions such as rating the content 4 which they might encounter.
  • These system "add-in” components 6 can also expose inquiry commands in the context of content 4 embedded within the information source, in this case a web browser 5.
  • FIG. 12 one embodiment of the server program product to execute steps of the methods to share disparate information is shown in FIG. 12 where the components aligning with element C represent the sharing enhancements.
  • the sharing interface allows the system to receive transactions from users or other system components, and through the programmatic service interfaces, the program product performs the steps of sharing.
  • the program components can both add information into the system memory as well as access information through the database interface.
  • the software modules and interfaces are also able to communicate with each to provide system features.
  • FIG. 13 a functional diagram of an embodiment of a client program product is shown in FIG. 13 where the sharing components are generally aligned with callout C.
  • the present invention can be realized in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. Any kind of computer/server system(s), or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein, is suited.
  • a typical combination of hardware and software could be a general -purpose computer system with a computer program that, when loaded and executed, carries out the respective methods described herein.
  • a specific use computer containing specialized hardware and/or software for carrying out one or more of the functional tasks of the invention, could be utilized.
  • the present invention can also be embodied in a computer program product, which comprises all the respective features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein, and which— when loaded in a computer system- -is able to carry out these methods.
  • Computer program, software program, program, or software in the present context mean any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly or after either or both of: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation and (b) reproduction in a different material form.

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Abstract

La présente invention concerne des systèmes et procédés de capture d'informations destinés à identifier et normaliser des informations disparates telles qu'un contenu électronique. Des modes de réalisation des systèmes et procédés fournissent un format commun et un seul emplacement où les informations peuvent être référencées dans le but de fournir ultérieurement un accès ou de restaurer le contexte antérieur. A l'aide d'identifiants uniques de contenu et d'identifiants universels de ressource destinés à normaliser des ensembles d'information, des modes de réalisation consistent à capturer et stocker des informations ou contenus disparates, et à accéder à ces derniers, par l'intermédiaire de réseaux de données ou sur des dispositifs locaux basés sur des processeurs. Des modes de réalisation comportent également des systèmes et procédés pour enrichir et partager les informations disparates.
PCT/US2010/023518 2009-02-09 2010-02-08 Systèmes et procédés pour capturer des informations disparates Ceased WO2010091370A2 (fr)

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US11349893B1 (en) * 2021-02-26 2022-05-31 Dell Products, Lp System and method for normalizing shared content during a video conference sessions

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US20020184308A1 (en) * 1999-08-23 2002-12-05 Levy Martin J. Globalization and normalization features for processing business objects
US20030110250A1 (en) * 2001-11-26 2003-06-12 Schnitzer Jason K. Data Normalization
US7890938B2 (en) * 2003-02-26 2011-02-15 Novell, Inc. Heterogeneous normalization of data characteristics
US7162473B2 (en) * 2003-06-26 2007-01-09 Microsoft Corporation Method and system for usage analyzer that determines user accessed sources, indexes data subsets, and associated metadata, processing implicit queries based on potential interest to users

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US11349893B1 (en) * 2021-02-26 2022-05-31 Dell Products, Lp System and method for normalizing shared content during a video conference sessions

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