411 results about "Image sharing" patented technology

A system and method for providing a peer-to-peer photo-sharing environment. The system includes: manual and automatic photo annotation at the client; periodic client-server synchronization; an index of client photos on a central server or a photo database that is resident on the central server, which is updated by the client-server synchronization function; end-user search functionality to search the centralized index or photo database; and transmission of the relevant photos to the client via an on-line image cache. In one embodiment, one client's new photos are automatically displayed on another client's computer (e.g., via screen saver or another mechanism).

Web applications such as email, photo-sharing website, or web widgets work only when the offsite server is available to provide content in real-time. The present invention provides a generic web standards based method of encapsulating the offline web application along with its runtime environment so that web applications can run even when connection to the server is not available. In addition the present invention combines methods for creating, provision, and running multiple offline web applications on a desktop computer or a mobile device such as cellular telephone or personal digital assistant. In addition the present invention also provides the ability to synchronize user data so that multiple devices can be provisioned for offline use with the same set of personalized user information.

Methods and systems are provided for sharing images over a network. A first user selects an image for sharing and designates an image recipient. Metadata for the first image is transmitted from the first user's terminal to the image recipient's terminal. At least partly in response to receiving the metadata, the image recipient's terminal transmits a request for the first image at a first resolution to the first user's terminal. In response to the request, the first user's terminal transmits the first image at the requested first resolution to the image recipient's terminal.

A system and method for providing a peer-to-peer photo-sharing environment. The system includes: manual and automatic photo annotation at the client; periodic client-server synchronization; an index of client photos on a central server or a photo database that is resident on the central server, which is updated by the client-server synchronization function; end-user search functionality to search the centralized index or photo database; and transmission of the relevant photos to the client via an on-line image cache. In one embodiment, one client's new photos are automatically displayed on another client's computer (e.g., via screen saver or another mechanism).

A sidebar can be used to display images stored on a local computer and / or retrived from the Internet. In one embodiment, a slidesheet of a photo application module of a sidebar provides a sidebar user with a search field, so that the user can search an Internet photo sharing website for photos to display in their sidebar. If the user likes the results of the search, the user can select a subscription button to add the photos to their list of photos displayed in the sidebar.

A method and system for providing a network-based photosharing service is disclosed. The photosharing service includes a central photosharing site having a server, and a plurality of peer nodes each containing digital images. The method and system include associating metadata with each image that is to be shared. The images are shared by uploading the metadata associated with each image from the peer nodes to the peer server, while maintaining storage of the images on the respective peer nodes. In response to the peer server receiving search criteria based on the metadata submitted from a first one of the peer nodes, the peer server returns a list of image locators for images matching the search criteria to the first peer node. The method and system further include dynamically generating on the first peer node an image album that contains at least a portion of the matching images.

Embodiments of the present invention provide users in a social network with a screen saver constructed by media shared by their contacts and groups in a social network. The present invention provides a shared photo album that displays images from a user's own photo collection, and that of their social network automatically. For a user, the social network service queries its database to retrieve a list of photo sources. The sources of images may be online photo sharing services, other computers with photos on their local hard drives, and public peer-to-peer storage services. The images may be displayed to the user and optionally may be accompanied with information, such as the owner of the photo or descriptive phrases or comments about the photo. The social network service may be configured to continuously or periodically request photos to update the screen saver.

A system and related methods permit a group of two or more users to initiate a realtime message session online, and invite participants to transmit and share digital images and other media to a common viewer tool seen by all. The messaging session may be conducted via a message server which mediates the exchange of typed, spoken or other messages back and forth amongst participants. One or more users may assume control of the commonly displayed images, for instance in a slideshow or other viewer tool. Users can discuss the displayed images or other media in realtime. The participants may each view, save, store, print or otherwise use or manipulate the copy of the image or images as presented to them. Session control of the set of displayed images may be passed from one user to another on a voluntary basis, using for example a control token or other mechanism. In embodiments shared control may be used. Out-of-order rendering and other optimizations may enhance the response time to participating viewers.

An embodiment of the invention discloses a photo sharing method and device. The photo sharing method includes performing clustering according to shooting time of photos in a photo base to obtain at least one photo cluster; based on information (such as shooting places) of photos in the photo clusters, determining a to-be-shared photo cluster from each photo cluster; sharing the to-be-shared photos with users corresponding to people in the to-be-shared photos. In this way, the photos to be shared with friends are automatically recognized from the photo base, without manual one-by-one selection from the photo base; the photos are automatically sent to the friends in the photos, and manual one-by-one selection of the friends from a friend list is omitted. The photo sharing method and device is easy to operate and high in efficiency.

A system for requesting data from another includes means for automatically appending a request for certain information to an outgoing message. In one embodiment, an e-mail editor provides the sender-user with an option for causing the email to include a request for missing or desired contact information, such as a picture. The appended request may be in the form of an added e-mail header, e.g. “I need your picture.” On the receiving side of the email, the incoming messages may be parsed for such requests. Any requests that are found in incoming email may be remembered by the receiving system using a dedicated data structure or some indications (e.g. flags) in an existing data structure. When email is composed on the receiving system, the “remembered” request information may be used to facilitate responses to pending requests. In this manner, email correspondents may opportunistically use their email traffic to maintain updated information regarding each other.

A network server for sharing images with mobile electronic devices having one or more processors, and image sharing client application, and an image distribution application. The image sharing client application is to be executed on one or more of the processors to receive an update to an image being shared over a network with mobile electronic devices that each have their own current zoom level and their own currently visible area of the image. The image distribution application is to be executed on one or more of the processors to keep a record of the current zoom level and currently visible area for each of the plurality of mobile electronic devices and to selectively send image updates to the plurality of mobile electronic devices based on the current zoom level and currently viewable area of the mobile electronic devices.

Members of Internet community websites, such as for example, social networking sites, photo sharing sites, review site, and other community sites, regularly make updates to the websites. Therefore a member of those sites is constantly checking those sites for new updates. In one embodiment, an application module of a sidebar provides an indicator, such as, for example, a new item in the application module, to the sidebar user when an update is made to a community website by another member of the site.

A internet based method and apparatus is described from automatically processing a captured digital image taken by a smart device at a fixed-location, mobile or virtual event, and synchronizing the combination of that captured primary image with a secondary image, be it a picture frame, or a watermark to create a combined media image. If desired, the combined image may also contain an audio file. Once combined, the image may be stored for later viewing, and / or automatically returned to the user of the smart device or the PC of the user who captured the primary image, forwarded to an online print service website, posted to a photo sharing website, and / or forwarded to a distribution list. The automated post processing of said captured images is handled by a process engine hosted at an Application Provider's website, the process engine containing instructions for the media combining and metadata tagging of said images.

The aesthetic quality of a picture is automatically inferred using visual content as a machine learning problem using, for example, a peer-rated, on-line photo sharing Website as data source. Certain visual features of images are extracted based on the intuition that they can discriminate between aesthetically pleasing and displeasing images. A one-dimensional support vector machine is used to identify features that have noticeable correlation with the community-based aesthetics ratings. Automated classifiers are constructed using the support vector machines and classification trees, with a simple feature selection heuristic being applied to eliminate irrelevant features. Linear regression on polynomial terms of the features is also applied to infer numerical aesthetics ratings.

A method and system for allowing a user to define and use custom metadata is disclosed. The method and system include providing a network accessible server with a metadata library having plurality of metadata vocabularies. The server allows the user to create a custom metadata vocabulary by displaying a user interface on a client computer in which the user specifies a plurality of properties defining the custom metadata vocabulary. When the custom metadata vocabulary is defined, it is stored in the metadata library for subsequent access. The method and system further allow the user to search the metadata library to select at least one of the metadata vocabularies to apply to an electronic resource.

The present invention provides a method and system for creating a bidirectional link between first and second online albums in a peer-to-peer photo sharing network. Exemplary embodiments include receiving on a first peer, a user request to create a bidirectional link, wherein the request includes an identification of a first online album on the first peer and a URL of a second online album on a second peer; automatically sending to the second peer, a URL of the first online album and a request to create a link on the second online album to the first album; and automatically creating a link on the first online album to the second online album using the URL of the second online album. In a further embodiment, the link to the second online album is displayed with information regarding the second online album, including an online status of the peer hosting the linked online album.

The saving device for image sharing includes an image acquiring unit configured to acquire the images offered by a sharer of the images, a sharee information storing unit configured to store sharee information with respect to at least one sharee, a subject assessing unit configured to assess whether or not a person subject is included in the acquired images, an image associating unit configured to associate the images assessed as not including a person subject with the images assessed as including a person subject, based on the sharee information, and a shared image determining unit configured to determine the images to be shared with the sharee or sharees from among the associated images and the images assessed as including a person subject, based on the sharee information. The image sharing system and an image sharing method use such a device.

A server distributes a user edition application (layout operation application) in response to a layout operation request sent from a client system. The client system executes the user edition application and displays a screen page for fetching new image information, which is not stored in the server, from a photo sharing system, an image input device or an image file. When a user performs a layout operation using image information supplied from the server and new image information, the content of operation is notified the server. The server performs an image edition based on the notified operation and distributes the resultant edit image to the client system.

The invention discloses an image hiding and authentication method based on secret sharing, and belongs to the technical field of secret image sharing. The image hiding and authentication method is characterized by comprising the steps that firstly, difference Huffman encoding is conducted on a secret image, every three generated bit sequences are set to be one group to be converted into decimal numbers which are used as coefficients of a sharing polynomial in the Shamir (k, n) threshold scheme, the k and the n are positive integers, the k is smaller than or equal to the n, and n shadow images are generated; secondly, n significant carrier images are selected, the generated shadow images are embedded into the carrier images in a matrix encoding mode, authentication bits generated by the hash function are also embedded into the carrier images, and n disguise images are formed and are in the charge of n different participants respectively. The disguise images generated through the image hiding and authentication method has higher visual quality, existence of secret information cannot be perceived by attackers easily, and the safety of the secret information is ensured. Meanwhile, before the secret information is recovered, the disguise images provided by each participant need to be authenticated, only the disguise images passing through authentication can participate in recovery of the secret information, and the safety of the secret information is further strengthened.

A system and method for image sharing is disclosed. The method of the present invention discloses: receiving a set of images and a transmit images command in response to the transmit images command; selecting a subset of the images in response to the transmit images command; formatting the subset of images in response to the transmit images command; and transmitting the formatted images to a recipient in response to the transmit images command. The system of the present invention discloses means for performing the method.

A photo sharing system includes a database including a user account, a mobile device for sending and receiving a digital image, wherein the digital image has a source identification associated with the user account, and a management server for receiving the digital image, analyzing the source identification associated with the digital image, and automatically storing the digital image on the database in response to the analysis of the source identification.

The saving device for image sharing saves images offered by a sharer of the images for image sharing and accessibly shares in an album form among at least one share. The device includes a sharee layout storing means configured to store first layout information of a sharee's album, a shared area determining means configured to determine a shared area to be shared in the sharee's album from a sharer's album, and a layout changing means configured to automatically change a layout of the shared area based on the first layout information of the at least one sharee. An image sharing system includes the device, and an image sharing method uses the device.

An automated metadata discovery, assignment, and submission system is disclosed. The system includes a photosharing service coupled to a network through a server, where the server stores metadata fields. The system also includes at least one client computer capable of communicating with the server over the network, where the client computer stores a plurality digital files and an automation application. When executed, the automation application establishes communication with the photosharing service and downloads the metadata fields. The content of a first file is then automatically analyzed and one or metadata values are assigned to the downloaded metadata fields based on the analysis. In addition, the automation application automatically discovers any pre-existing metadata values associated with the file and uses the metadata values to populate corresponding downloaded metadata fields. Both the pre-existing and automatically assigned metadata values are then displayed to the user for viewing and editing. The metadata values assigned to the file are recoded for use with a next image, and the file and the metadata values are uploaded to the photosharing service for storage.

A method and system for serving content from a peer server in a photosharing peer-to-peer network is disclosed, wherein the peer server stores a web album and at least one associated digital image. Aspects of the invention include prior to the peer server going off-line, the peer server initiates a synchronization with a proxy server and a guest content server in which the web page a web page descriptor defining the web album is copied from the peer server to the guest content server, and the image associated with the web album is copied from the peer server to the proxy server. In response to a request from a requesting computer to view content stored in the peer computer when the peer server is off-line, the request is fulfilled by forwarding the web page from the guest content server to the requesting computer, and forwarding the image associated with a web page from the proxy server to the requesting computer, thereby successfully serving content from the peer server even when the peer server is off-line.

The present invention contemplates a variety of improved methods and systems for image sharing within a collaborative work space. One embodiment provides sophisticated GUI as a backdrop supporting a collaborative work space where a plurality of participants can interact with and view a presentation of a set of images, optionally with an audio background. The plurality of participants each engages with a local device having a local instantiation of the collaborative work space. In one embodiment, the local instantiation of the collaborative work space is a display block, and the GUI provides display stacks which include image content. A participant selecting and dragging the image content into the display block initiates the presentation of the set of images, which may be a slide show displayed on all active display instantiations of the collaborative works space.

A digital camera, comprising an image sensor and an optical system for capturing an image of a scene and a wireless communication system. User interface elements are provided enabling a user to select a sharing destination for a captured digital image. A plurality of network pathways are identified for communication with the sharing destination using the wireless communication system. A priority is determined for each of the network pathways and the digital image is transmitted to the sharing destination using the highest priority network pathway.