Patents by Inventor Alexander Lloyd
Alexander Lloyd has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Publication number: 20200394024Abstract: A computer program predictor is described which has a processor configured to access a program attribute predictor; and a memory storing a search component configured to search a space of possible programs, to find a program which, given an input data instance and an output data instance, will compute the output data instance from the input data instance, the search being guided by attributes predicted by the attribute predictor given the input data instance and the output data instance.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 28, 2020Publication date: December 17, 2020Inventors: Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Sebastian NOWOZIN, Marc Manuel Johannes BROCKSCHMIDT, Daniel Stefan TARLOW, Matej BALOG
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Publication number: 20200301729Abstract: In a distributed system where a client's call to commit a transaction occurs outside the transaction's lock-hold interval, computation of timestamp information for the transaction is moved to a client library, while ensuring that no conflicting reads or writes are performed between a time of the computation and acquiring all locks for the transaction. The transaction is committed in phases, with each phase being initiated by the client library. Timestamp information is added to the locks to ensure that timestamps are generated during lock-hold intervals. An increased number of network messages is thereby overlapped with a commit wait period in which a write in a distributed database is delayed in time to ensure concurrency in the database.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 8, 2020Publication date: September 24, 2020Inventors: Brian Frank Cooper, Alexander Lloyd, Sebastian Kanthak, Andrew Fikes, Christopher Taylor
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Patent number: 10783133Abstract: The subject matter described herein provides techniques to ensure that queries of a distributed database observe a consistent read of the database without locking or logging. In this regard, next-write timestamps uniquely identify a set of write transactions whose updates can be observed by reads. By publishing the next-write timestamps from within an extendable time lease and tracking a “safe timestamp,” the database queries can be executed without logging read operations or blocking future write transactions, and clients issuing the queries at the “safe timestamp” observe a consistent view of the database as it exists on or before that timestamp. Aspects of this disclosure also provide for extensions, done cheaply and without the need for logging, to the range of timestamps at which read transactions can be executed.Type: GrantFiled: June 23, 2017Date of Patent: September 22, 2020Assignee: Google LLCInventors: Wilson Cheng-Yi Hsieh, Eric Hugh Veach, Michael James Boyer Epstein, Alexander Lloyd
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Patent number: 10782939Abstract: A computer program predictor is described which has a processor configured to access a program attribute predictor; and a memory storing a search component configured to search a space of possible programs, to find a program which, given an input data instance and an output data instance, will compute the output data instance from the input data instance, the search being guided by attributes predicted by the attribute predictor given the input data instance and the output data instance.Type: GrantFiled: August 7, 2017Date of Patent: September 22, 2020Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Alexander Lloyd Gaunt, Sebastian Nowozin, Marc Manuel Johannes Brockschmidt, Daniel Stefan Tarlow, Matej Balog
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Patent number: 10775837Abstract: The present technology proposes techniques for generating globally coherent timestamps. This technology may allow distributed systems to causally order transactions without incurring various types of communication delays inherent in explicit synchronization. By globally deploying a number of time masters that are based on various types of time references, the time masters may serve as primary time references. Through an interactive interface, the techniques may track, calculate and record data relative to each time master thus providing the distributed systems with causal timestamps.Type: GrantFiled: January 23, 2018Date of Patent: September 15, 2020Assignee: Google LLCInventors: Peter Hochschild, Alexander Lloyd, Wilson Cheng-Yi Hsieh, Robert Edman Felderman, Michael James Boyer Epstein
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Patent number: 10768825Abstract: A data-storage system comprises a head receiver configured to variably receive up to a number M of write heads. The data-storage system also includes an installed number N of write heads arranged in the head receiver, a substrate receiver configured to receive one or more data-storage substrates, and a positioner machine configured to adjust a relative placement of each of the M write heads with respect to at least one of the one or more data-storage substrates.Type: GrantFiled: November 12, 2019Date of Patent: September 8, 2020Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron, Ioan Alexandru Stefanovici, Aaron William Ogus, Douglas Wayne Phillips, Richard John Black, Austin Nicholas Donnelly, Alexander Lloyd Gaunt, Andreas Georgiou, Ariel Gomez Diaz, Serguei Anatolievitch Legtchenko, Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard Nowozin, Benn Charles Thomsen, Hugh David Paul Williams, David Lara Saucedo, Patrick Neil Anderson, Andromachi Chatzieleftheriou, John Christopher Dainty, James Hilton Clegg, Raluca Andreea Diaconu, Rokas Drevinskas, Mengyang Yang
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Patent number: 10719239Abstract: A data-storage system comprises a head receiver configured to variably receive up to a number M of write heads. The data-storage system also includes an installed number N of write heads arranged in the head receiver, a substrate receiver configured to receive one or more data-storage substrates, and a positioner machine configured to adjust a relative placement of each of the M write heads with respect to at least one of the one or more data-storage substrates.Type: GrantFiled: May 16, 2018Date of Patent: July 21, 2020Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLCInventors: Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron, Ioan Alexandru Stefanovici, Aaron William Ogus, Douglas Wayne Phillips, Richard John Black, Austin Nicholas Donnelly, Alexander Lloyd Gaunt, Andreas Georgiou, Ariel Gomez Diaz, Serguei Anatolievitch Legtchenko, Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard Nowozin, Benn Charles Thomsen, Hugh David Paul Williams, David Lara Saucedo, Patrick Neil Anderson, Andromachi Chatzieleftheriou, John Christopher Dainty, James Hilton Clegg, Raluca Andreea Diaconu, Rokas Drevinskas, Mengyang Yang
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Patent number: 10691484Abstract: In a distributed system where a client's call to commit a transaction occurs outside the transaction's lock-hold interval, computation of timestamp information for the transaction is moved to a client library, while ensuring that no conflicting reads or writes are performed between a time of the computation and acquiring all locks for the transaction. The transaction is committed in phases, with each phase being initiated by the client library. Timestamp information is added to the locks to ensure that timestamps are generated during lock-hold intervals. An increased number of network messages is thereby overlapped with a commit wait period in which a write in a distributed database is delayed in time to ensure concurrency in the database.Type: GrantFiled: July 14, 2017Date of Patent: June 23, 2020Assignee: Google LLCInventors: Brian Frank Cooper, Alexander Lloyd, Sebastian Kanthak, Andrew Fikes, Christopher Taylor
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Publication number: 20200133927Abstract: The various embodiments described herein include methods, devices, and systems for reading and writing data from a database table. In one aspect, a method of reading and writing data from a database table, includes: (1) initiating a write transaction to write data to a first non-key column of a row of the database table, the database table having a plurality of rows, each row comprising a primary key and a plurality of non-key columns; (2) locking the first non-key column; and (3) in accordance with a determination that the second non-key column is not locked, initiating a read transaction to read data from the second non-key column, where initiation of the read transaction occurs prior to completion of the write transaction.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 30, 2019Publication date: April 30, 2020Inventors: Wilson Chang-Yi Hsieh, Alexander Lloyd, Eric Hugh Veach
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Publication number: 20200104102Abstract: An editing tool is described which has a memory storing a neural network having been trained to compute a change representation from pairs, each pair comprising a representation of a first version of a content item and a second version of the content item, and for each of the change representations, predict an updated content item from the change representation and the first version of the content item. The editing tool has a processor configured to receive an input content item and to compute an updated version of the input content item according to a change representation, using the neural network.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 27, 2018Publication date: April 2, 2020Inventors: Marc Manuel Johannes BROCKSCHMIDT, Miltiadis ALLAMANIS, Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Pengcheng YIN
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Publication number: 20200081619Abstract: A data-storage system comprises a head receiver configured to variably receive up to a number M of write heads. The data-storage system also includes an installed number N of write heads arranged in the head receiver, a substrate receiver configured to receive one or more data-storage substrates, and a positioner machine configured to adjust a relative placement of each of the M write heads with respect to at least one of the one or more data-storage substrates.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 12, 2019Publication date: March 12, 2020Applicant: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Antony Ian Taylor ROWSTRON, Ioan Alexandru STEFANOVICI, Aaron William OGUS, Douglas Wayne PHILLIPS, Richard John BLACK, Austin Nicholas DONNELLY, Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Andreas GEORGIOU, Ariel GOMEZ DIAZ, Serguei Anatolievitch LEGTCHENKO, Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard NOWOZIN, Benn Charles THOMSEN, Hugh David Paul WILLIAMS, David LARA SAUCEDO, Patrick Neil ANDERSON, Andromachi CHATZIELEFTHERIOU, John Christopher DAINTY, James Hilton CLEGG, Raluca Andreea DIACONU, Rokas DREVINSKAS, Mengyang YANG
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Patent number: 10558625Abstract: The various embodiments described herein include methods, devices, and systems for reading and writing data from a database table. In one aspect, a method of reading and writing data from a database table, includes: (1) initiating a write transaction to write data to a first non-key column of a row of the database table, the database table having a plurality of rows, each row comprising a primary key and a plurality of non-key columns; (2) locking the first non-key column; and (3) in accordance with a determination that the second non-key column is not locked, initiating a read transaction to read data from the second non-key column, where initiation of the read transaction occurs prior to completion of the write transaction.Type: GrantFiled: July 31, 2017Date of Patent: February 11, 2020Assignee: Google LLCInventors: Wilson Chang-Yi Hsieh, Alexander Lloyd, Eric Hugh Veach
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Publication number: 20190354283Abstract: A data-storage system comprises a head receiver configured to variably receive up to a number M of write heads. The data-storage system also includes an installed number N of write heads arranged in the head receiver, a substrate receiver configured to receive one or more data-storage substrates, and a positioner machine configured to adjust a relative placement of each of the M write heads with respect to at least one of the one or more data-storage substrates.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 16, 2018Publication date: November 21, 2019Applicant: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Antony Ian Taylor ROWSTRON, Ioan Alexandru STEFANOVICI, Aaron William OGUS, Douglas Wayne PHILLIPS, Richard John BLACK, Austin Nicholas DONNELLY, Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Andreas GEORGIOU, Ariel GOMEZ DIAZ, Serguei Anatolievitch LEGTCHENKO, Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard NOWOZIN, Benn Charles THOMSEN, Hugh David Paul WILLIAMS, David LARA SAUCEDO, Patrick Neil ANDERSON, Andromachi CHATZIELEFTHERIOU, John Christopher DAINTY, James Hilton CLEGG, Raluca Andreea DIACONU, Rokas DREVINSKAS, Mengyang YANG
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Patent number: 10462218Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for efficiently sending large units of data in a network. A sender computing device splits the proposal into a plurality of fragments, and sends each of the plurality of fragments to a receiver computing device. The sender computing device receives an acknowledgement from the receiver computing device for each fragment received by the receiver computing device. If no acknowledgements for any fragments are received within a predetermined time period, it may be determined that an error occurred, in which case the sender may time out or take another action. The sender computing device further sends a message to the receiver computing device, wherein a payload of the message includes one or more references corresponding to the plurality of fragments sent.Type: GrantFiled: July 15, 2015Date of Patent: October 29, 2019Assignee: Google LLCInventors: Iulian Moraru, Brian Frank Cooper, Sebastian Kanthak, Alexander Lloyd, Mert Akdere
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Publication number: 20190266176Abstract: Paxos transactions are pipelined in a distributed database formed by a plurality of replica servers. A leader server is selected by consensus of the replicas, and receives a lock on leadership for an epoch. The leader gets Paxos log numbers for the current epoch, which are greater than the numbers allocated in previous epochs. The leader receives database write requests, and assigns a Paxos number to each request. The leader constructs a proposed transaction for each request, which includes the assigned Paxos number and incorporates the request. The leader transmits the proposed transactions to the replicas. Two or more write requests that access distinct objects in the database can proceed simultaneously. The leader commits a proposed transaction to the database after receiving a plurality of confirmations for the proposed transaction from the replicas. After all the Paxos numbers have been assigned, inter-epoch tasks are performed before beginning a subsequent epoch.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 7, 2019Publication date: August 29, 2019Inventors: Wilson Cheng-Yi Hsieh, Alexander Lloyd
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Publication number: 20190114307Abstract: Examples are disclosed that relate to reading stored data. The method comprises obtaining a representation of a measurement performed on a data-storage medium, the representation being based on a previously recorded pattern of data encoded in the data-storage medium in a layout that defines a plurality of data locations. The method further comprises inputting the representation into a data decoder comprising a trained machine-learning function, and obtaining from the data decoder, for each data location of the layout, a plurality of probability values, wherein each probability value is associated with a corresponding data value and represents the probability that the corresponding data value matches the actual data value in the previously recorded pattern of data at a same location in the layout.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 17, 2017Publication date: April 18, 2019Applicant: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Ioan Alexandru STEFANOVICI, Benn Charles THOMSEN, Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Antony Ian Taylor ROWSTRON, Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard NOWOZIN
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Publication number: 20190042210Abstract: A computer program predictor is described which has a processor configured to access a program attribute predictor; and a memory storing a search component configured to search a space of possible programs, to find a program which, given an input data instance and an output data instance, will compute the output data instance from the input data instance, the search being guided by attributes predicted by the attribute predictor given the input data instance and the output data instance.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 7, 2017Publication date: February 7, 2019Inventors: Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Sebastian NOWOZIN, Marc Manuel Johannes BROCKSCHMIDT, Daniel Stefan TARLOW, Matej BALOG
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Patent number: 10191960Abstract: Paxos transactions are pipelined in a distributed database formed by a plurality of replica servers. A leader server is selected by consensus of the replicas, and receives a lock on leadership for an epoch. The leader gets Paxos log numbers for the current epoch, which are greater than the numbers allocated in previous epochs. The leader receives database write requests, and assigns a Paxos number to each request. The leader constructs a proposed transaction for each request, which includes the assigned Paxos number and incorporates the request. The leader transmits the proposed transactions to the replicas. Two or more write requests that access distinct objects in the database can proceed simultaneously. The leader commits a proposed transaction to the database after receiving a plurality of confirmations for the proposed transaction from the replicas. After all the Paxos numbers have been assigned, inter-epoch tasks are performed before beginning a subsequent epoch.Type: GrantFiled: January 5, 2016Date of Patent: January 29, 2019Assignee: GOOGLE LLCInventors: Wilson Cheng-Yi Hsieh, Alexander Lloyd
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Publication number: 20180336458Abstract: A neural network training apparatus is described which has a network of worker nodes each having a memory storing a subgraph of a neural network to be trained. The apparatus has a control node connected to the network of worker nodes. The control node is configured to send training data instances into the network to trigger parallelized message passing operations which implement a training algorithm which trains the neural network. At least some of the message passing operations asynchronously update parameters of individual subgraphs of the neural network at the individual worker nodes.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 18, 2017Publication date: November 22, 2018Inventors: Ryota TOMIOKA, Matthew Alastair JOHNSON, Daniel Stefan TARLOW, Samuel Alexander WEBSTER, Dimitrios VYTINIOTIS, Alexander Lloyd GAUNT, Maik RIECHERT
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Publication number: 20180329739Abstract: In a distributed system where a client's call to commit a transaction occurs outside the transaction's lock-hold interval, computation of timestamp information for the transaction is moved to a client library, while ensuring that no conflicting reads or writes are performed between a time of the computation and acquiring all locks for the transaction. The transaction is committed in phases, with each phase being initiated by the client library. Timestamp information is added to the locks to ensure that timestamps are generated during lock-hold intervals. An increased number of network messages is thereby overlapped with a commit wait period in which a write in a distributed database is delayed in time to ensure concurrency in the database.Type: ApplicationFiled: July 14, 2017Publication date: November 15, 2018Inventors: Brian Frank Cooper, Alexander Lloyd, Sebastian Kanthak, Andrew Fikes, Christopher Taylor