Abstract: Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for the dynamic creation and presentation of user-specified VOD content consisting of multiple VOD clips as a passive viewing experience. For one embodiment, a user selects a set of VOD clips from a list or other selection presentation and the selected VOD clips are presented back-to-back. For one embodiment of the invention, the user may reorder the presentation sequence of the selected VOD clips. Embodiments of the invention thereby allow a user to dynamically create and present a user-specific, passive viewing presentation.

Abstract: Enhanced television content is processed and displayed by the execution of computer-readable instructions formatted in a binary interchange format (BIF) of an enhanced television BIF (EBIF) application via user agent at a client by interpreting the computer-readable instructions directly and without additional compilation. A key identifier may be used by the EBIF application to identify a content programming engine to locate and retrieve programmable content to be displayed at the client.

Abstract: Enhanced television content is processed and displayed by the execution of computer-readable instructions formatted in a binary interchange format (BIF) of an enhanced television BIF (EBIF) application via user agent at a client by interpreting the computer-readable instructions directly and without additional compilation. A key identifier may be used by the EBIF application to identify a content programming engine to locate and retrieve programmable content to be displayed at the client.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for the dynamic creation and presentation of user-specified VOD content consisting of multiple VOD clips as a passive viewing experience. For one embodiment, a user selects a set of VOD clips from a list or other selection presentation and the selected VOD clips are presented back-to-back. For one embodiment of the invention, the user may reorder the presentation sequence of the selected VOD clips. Embodiments of the invention thereby allow a user to dynamically create and present a user-specific, passive viewing presentation.

Abstract: Methods and systems consistent with the present invention utilize a unique hardware address of a first network device to determine and locate an appropriate driver software for controlling the network device. Once the driver software has been located, it is installed on a network server, or other network device, capable of controlling the first network device. This method operates automatically, absent user intervention, each time a new device enters a network.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding characteristics for the retrieval of information. Depending on the characteristics, some methods for retrieving information may be preferred. If information is too large to utilize UDP, then TCP may be preferred. In addition, if information is not cacheable, then it is preferable to retrieve the information directly from the server instead of searching the cache first. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is utilized on the internet to specify the application protocol (e.g., http), the domain name (e.g., www.sun.com), and file location (e.g., /users/hcn/index.html). The suffix of a file indicator is utilized to identify how to process the data or information subsequent to retrieval. One or more embodiments of the invention provide for encoding characteristics of data to be transferred that indicates or hints at an optimal method to retrieve the data. For example, the URL may specify that TCP is the preferred transfer protocol, thereby avoiding an attempted transfer using UDP.

Abstract: Methods and systems consistent with the invention allocate memory of a memory array using a free list. The free list is a list of pointers to blocks of free memory located within the memory array. First, the system determines whether to sort the free list based on deallocation activity of the memory array. If so, the system sorts the free list according to the memory size of the blocks of free memory pointed to by the free list. The system then allocates memory of the memory array for the storage of data using the sorted free list.