Abstract: A digital pen that has an ink writing tip includes a laser on a pen body that directs light toward paper across which the writing tip is stroked. A CMOS camera or CCD is also mounted on the pen body for detecting reflections of the laser light, referred to as “speckles”. A processor in the pen body determines relative pen motion based on the speckles. A contact sensor such as an FSR on the pen body senses when the tip is pressed against the paper, with positions being recorded on a flash memory in the pen body when the contact sensor indicates that the pen is against the paper. The memory can be later engaged with a handwriting recognition device to correlate the positions to alpha-numeric characters. Ordinary paper can be used, but, if desired, special bar-coded paper can also be used, so that the recorded positions can be tagged with a page number, form field, and absolute position on the page.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product for automatically determining in a computationally efficient manner which objects in a collection best match specified target attribute criteria. The preferred embodiment of the invention enables interruption of such an automated determination at any time and provides a measure of how closely the results achieved up to the interruption point match the criteria. An alternate embodiment combines sequential and random data access to minimize the overall computational cost of the determination.

Abstract: A computer program product is provided that uses data examples as a basis for understanding and refining declarative schema mappings. The system of the present invention identifies a set of intuitive operators for manipulating examples including establishing value correspondences, data linking, data trimming, data walking, and data chasing. These operators allow a user to follow and refine an example by walking through a data source. In addition, these operators can identify a large class of schema mappings and distinguish effectively between alternative schema mappings. With these operators, a user is able to quickly and intuitively build and refine complex data transformation queries that map one data source into another while continuously verifying that the mapping is accurate and appropriate.

Abstract: A digital pen that has an ink writing tip includes a laser on a pen body that directs light toward paper across which the writing tip is stroked. A CMOS camera or CCD is also mounted on the pen body for detecting reflections of the laser light, referred to as “speckles”. A processor in the pen body determines relative pen motion based on the speckles. A contact sensor such as an FSR on the pen body senses when the tip is pressed against the paper, with positions being recorded on a flash memory in the pen body when the contact sensor indicates that the pen is against the paper. The memory can be later engaged with a handwriting recognition device to correlate the positions to alpha-numeric characters. Ordinary paper can be used, but, if desired, special bar-coded paper can also be used, so that the recorded positions can be tagged with a page number, form field, and absolute position on the page.

Abstract: An encryption key matrix has rows grouped into segments, with a set of one segment per column establishing a slot. Slots are assigned to device manufacturers, with the keys of the slots then being assigned to decryption devices made by the respective manufacturer. In generating the slots, the number “q” of segments in a column is first defined such that a predetermined maximum number of devices can be revoked devices (in that all the keys held by the device are revoked) while ensuring that a good device remains a functional device with a probability of at least (1−Q), wherein Q is a predefined device confidence. Once the number “q” of segments has been defined, the slots themselves are defined in a provably non-discriminatory fashion using an error-correcting code such as a Reed-Solomon code.

Abstract: A method and a system are presented for generating differentially compressed output from binary sources. Given two versions of the same file as input streams, a compact encoding of one of the input streams is generated, by representing it as a set of changes with respect to the other input stream. Algorithms for differencing files requiring time linear in the size of the input and a constant amount of space for execution are presented. In addition, advanced techniques for improving existing differencing algorithms are developed and applied to previous methods. These techniques allow algorithms to increase their efficiency without a loss of compression and to accept arbitrarily large inputs without sacrificing correctness or degrading the compression data rate. The differential compression methods provide a computationally efficient compression technique for applications that generate versioned data.

Abstract: A method and a system are presented for generating differentially compressed output from binary sources. Given two versions of the same file as input streams, a compact encoding of one of the input streams is generated, by representing it as a set of changes with respect to the other input stream. Algorithms for differencing files requiring time linear in the size of the input and a constant amount of space for execution are presented. In addition, advanced techniques for improving existing differencing algorithms are developed and applied to previous methods. These techniques allow algorithms to increase their efficiency without a loss of compression and to accept arbitrarily large inputs without sacrificing correctness or degrading the compression data rate. The differential compression methods provide a computationally efficient compression technique for applications that generate versioned data.

Abstract: A data processing system provides the correct weighted combinational function for any unweighted combinational rules applied to a database. The system receives weights to be applied to data attributes, checks for ordering conditions and if necessary re-orders the weights, and produces the correct, unique combinational function that incorporates the user weights into the base combinational rules that otherwise would be applied to retrieve desired data from the database. Thus, the invention provides unprecedented flexibility in determining the proper computation of combined scoring functions.