Abstract: A reliable streaming system increases reliability of live and on-demand streaming media events through a robust server architecture that allows fast failover and recovery in the event of network, hardware, or other failures. The system provides for failover of encoders, ingest servers, which receive encoded media data from encoders, and origin servers, which serve as the retrieval point of last resort for connecting clients. The system also provides a push proxy mechanism that allows one copy of data to feed redundant servers and pre-warm caches, saving on provisioned bandwidth. In addition, the system provides a distribution server role that allows content to be automatically syndicated to a region when needed. Thus, the reliable streaming system provides a streaming solution with no single point of failure and redundancy and fast failover built into the content network architecture.

Abstract: An adaptive streaming system is described herein that provides a stateless connection between the client and server for streaming media playback in which the data is formatted in a manner that allows the client to make decisions and react more quickly to changing network conditions. The client requests uniform chunks of media from the server that include a portion of the media. The adaptive streaming system requests portions of a media file or of a live streaming event in small-sized chunks each having a distinguished URL. This allows streaming media data to be cached by existing Internet cache infrastructure. Each chunk contains metadata information that describes the encoding of the chunk and media content for playback by the client. The server may provide chunks in multiple encodings so that the client can switch quickly to chunks of a different bit rate or playback speed.

Abstract: A flexible logging system is described herein that operates with a web server to provide activity logging in a way that is customizable to include a variety of data fields, can capture both client and server log information to a single location, and can provide data to an analysis engine directly to provide near real-time reporting. The system captures events within the web server as they occur and can provide reporting before the final response occurs. During request processing in the web server, server extension modules raise log events whenever an event occurs. The system matches the received data to a log definition and writes the data to any log that matches. Thus, the flexible logging system provides a rich, flexible, and fast platform for content providers and administrators to get a real-time view of the state of requests to their web servers.

Abstract: A smooth streaming system provides a stateless protocol between a client and server in which the server embeds incremental control information in media fragments. The server provides uniform media fragment responses to media fragment requests that are cacheable by existing Internet cache infrastructure. The smooth streaming system receives media data in fragments from one or more encoders, creates an index of each fragment, and stores the fragments. The server provides fragments to clients that contain metadata information describing the encodings available on the server and the encoding of the fragment. The server may also provide information within each fragment that allows the client to determine whether the client is requesting data too fast or too slow, so that the client can adapt its request rate to a cadence in tune with the rate at which the server is receiving encoder data.

Abstract: A media fragmenting system is described herein that allows requesting portions of a content item through information specified in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) used to retrieve the content item. Media fragments retrieved using the media fragmenting system are cacheable by existing Internet infrastructure and allow clients to retrieve portions of a content item without retrieving the entire content item. The media fragmenting system adds a content range segment to the URI to specify a portion of the content item. A server receiving the URI accesses the content item, identifies the requested portion, and returns the requested portion in a standard HTTP response to the client. Because no changes to the HTTP protocol are involved, intermediate servers, routers, and proxies, can all handle the request and response as well as cache the response without modification.

Abstract: A hair trimmer includes a handle having a housing including an actuation assembly rotatable relative to the housing, and a blade assembly including a reciprocating blade, a stationary blade and a blade assembly housing, the blade assembly constructed and arranged for being detachably engaged to the actuation assembly in a plane of rotation of the actuation assembly.