Abstract: A search engine that forms a compact representation of a plurality of user queries to efficiently find desired information in an information network. The search engine comprises a profile processor having logic to receive the queries from the users and a search module. The search module is coupled to the profile processor and has logic to receive the information content, to combine the user queries into a master query, and to match the master query with the information content to determine matching content. The search engine also includes logic to analyze the matching content to determine if any of the queries has been satisfied.

Abstract: A tactile notification device that can be embodied in, e.g., a wristwatch, communicates via wireless link with plural personal computing devices, including cellular telephones, pagers, and palm top computers, of the person wearing the notification device. When one of the personal computing devices alerts, e.g., when the telephone receives an incoming call, the pager receives a page, or the palm top computer receives an email, the personal computing device sends a signal to the notification device, which generates a discrete tactile signal against the person's skin. The notification device can generate different tactile signals, and each tactile signal can be correlated as desired by the user to one of the personal computing devices. In one embodiment, opposed pinch bars are provided on the skin-facing tactile surface of a wristwatch to gently pinch the skin and thereby establish a first tactile signal that can be correlated to, for example, an alert for an incoming phone call.

Abstract: A distributed collection of web-crawlers to gather information over a large portion of the cyberspace. These crawlers share the overall crawling through a cyberspace partition scheme. They also collaborate with each other through load balancing to maximally utilize the computing resources of each of the crawlers. The invention takes advantage of the hierarchical nature of the cyberspace namespace and uses the syntactic components of the URL structure as the main vehicle for dividing and assigning crawling workload to individual crawler. The partition scheme is completely distributed in which each crawler makes the partitioning decision based on its own crawling status and a globally replicated partition tree data structure.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficiently matching a large collection of user profiles against a large volume of data in a webcasting system. The invention generally includes in one embodiment four steps to parallelize the profiles. First, an initial profile set is partitioned into several subsets also referred to as sub-partitions using various heuristic methods. Second, each sub-partition is mapped onto one or more independent processing units. Each processing unit is not required to have equal processing performance. However, for best performance results, subset data should be mapped in one embodiment where the subset with a highest cost is mapped to a fastest processor, and the next highest cost subset mapped to the next fastest processor. Where appropriate, the invention evaluates the relative subset processing speed of each processor and adjusts future subset mapping based upon these evaluations.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficiently matching a large collection of user profiles against a large volume of data in a webcasting system. The method removes redundant patterns in user profiles and information content to improve matching performance based on a Boolean-based query language. Users can select desired information content by choosing a set of predicates to assert the properties for each cyberspace document desired. Boolean operators of AND, OR and NOT connect predicates together on the information items that will be pushed to them. The method includes dynamic cost/credit adjustment based profile indexing and matching.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for operating remote devices over wide area networks such as the Internet. The system includes client computers for interacting with users to accept commands and display results, a proxy server computer for performing intermediate processing of commands and results, and a device server computer coupled to the remote device that executes the commands and generates the results.