Patent Application
20180217964
The present invention relates to energy efficiency, and more particularly to power saving methods associated with web browsing.
The battery capacity of mobile devices such as tablet computers and smart phones is extremely important to the consumer's satisfaction with the device. A single charge of a battery needs to last 6-8 hours, or more, in order for the consumer to use the device while on the go. Each manufacturer of these devices has poured significant resources into implementing techniques to reduce the power consumption of the device in order to extend the life of the battery during operation. Separate power management chips may be used to power gate certain components of the device. In addition, software solutions have been implemented to reduce the power consumption of the device, such as by reducing the number of active threads in a low-power mode or reducing the brightness of a display.
Mobile devices are used today in a variety of ways, but one of the typical applications being used on these devices is a web browsing application. These applications request markup language documents from a server, parse the markup language document, and then render the elements included in the markup language document to a window displayed by the mobile device. Power is consumed by downloading large files, such as image and video files, over a wireless connection using a radio transceiver; rendering text, images, or video data to produce pixel data for display; and updating the display using the pixel data. Users of the mobile devices may browse the Internet using the web browsing applications for hours during the day, which may drain the battery of the device at an alarming rate and potentially render the device inoperable before they can get to a location to charge the device. Thus, there is a need for addressing this issue and/or other issues associated with the prior art.
A mobile device, computer readable medium, and method are provided for web browsing that reduces a power consumption of the mobile device. The method includes the steps of receiving a markup language document that includes a plurality of elements; assigning each element in the plurality of elements a priority value based on a set of rules; and selectively loading rendered content corresponding to the plurality of elements into a window of an application executed by the mobile device according to the priority value assigned to each element in the plurality of elements. The set of rules includes at least two rules configured to assign two or more priority values to at least two subsets of elements in the plurality of elements. Selective loading may refer to loading elements of a web page in a different order compared to a default order of a rendering engine of the web browser.
In a first embodiment, the set of rules includes at least one rule that assigns the priority value to a particular element based on a classification of the particular element. The classification may be an element type identified by tags in the markup language document, an attribute value, and/or content within the element.
In a second embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first embodiment), the set of rules includes at least one rule that assigns the priority value to a particular element based on whether the particular element is identified as advertising content. Advertising content may be identified in a number of ways and may include, but is not limited to, elements in a markup language document such as text, images, and hyperlinks as well as video content that includes sequences of frames identified as commercials.
In a third embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first and/or second embodiments), the set of rules is selected based on a uniform resource locator (URL) corresponding to the markup language document. The URL may be utilized to fetch the set of rules from a server that provides a rules service.
In a fourth embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first, second, and/or third embodiments), selectively loading rendered content corresponding to the plurality of elements into the window of the application includes the steps of: determining an order of elements based on the priority value assigned to each element in the plurality of elements; and displaying, in the order of elements, rendered content corresponding to each element in the plurality of elements. The display of a next element in the order of elements is delayed for a predetermined delay time after displaying a previous element in the order of elements.
In a fifth embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first, second, third, and/or fourth embodiments), the elements associated with priority values in a first range of priority values are loaded into the window while operating the mobile device in a normal mode and elements associated with priority values in a second range of priority values are loaded into the window while operating the mobile device in a low-power mode.
In a sixth embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first, second, third, fourth, and/or fifth embodiments), operating the mobile device in the low-power mode comprises at least one of reducing a supply voltage or a frequency of a processor in the mobile device using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), reducing a resolution of the rendered content corresponding to the element, reducing a brightness level of the display device, throttling one or more threads associated with low priority elements within the markup language document, or masking low priority elements within the window of the application.
In a seventh embodiment (which may or may not be combined with the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and/or sixth embodiments), one or more elements in the plurality of elements is associated with a graphical user interface element displayed in the window of the application that enables a user to manually load the rendered content associated with corresponding elements into the window of the application.
To this end, in some optional embodiments, one or more of the foregoing features of the aforementioned apparatus, system, and/or method may afford a more efficient way to browse the web that, in turn, may enable the power consumption of a mobile device to be reduced while being utilized for web browsing. It should be noted that the aforementioned potential advantages are set forth for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as limiting in any manner.
Much effort has been expended designing techniques to reduce power consumption of electronic devices. Mobile devices particularly benefit from these efforts as reducing power consumption extends battery life, thereby enabling these devices to be used for longer amounts of time before requiring re-charging of the battery. Solutions for reducing power consumption may focus at least some of their attention on reducing the power consumption of a display device. The main energy consumers associated with a display device are the backlight, an active matrix of liquid crystals, and the processors tasked with generating pixel data for display on the device. For example, some LED backlight televisions have been designed with an array of LEDs positioned behind the array of liquid crystal elements so that the brightness of the backlight can be dimmed in areas of the screen associated with darker colors. Local area dimming can significantly reduce the power consumed by the display device. Other solutions for reducing power consumption may focus on reducing the power consumption of a processor or processors in the mobile device. Contemporary processors are designed with power-saving features that enable at least some of the processor components to be put in a low-power mode or shut off completely such as by power-gating various cores of a multi-core processor.
Other techniques can be employed to reduce the power consumed by a mobile device. Some examples of these techniques are dynamic frequency and voltage scaling (DFVS) for one or more processors of the mobile device, reducing resolution of rendered pixel data, throttling processing capacity dedicated to various operations, and so forth. However, these techniques typically have an adverse effect on the operation of the device. For example, the frequency of the clock of a processor may need to be reduced in order to reduce the operating voltage of the processor. A user may notice significant delays when performing certain operations under these conditions. As another example, reducing the brightness of the display device or the resolution of the images presented on the display device can have an adverse effect on image quality when compared to normal operation. A consumer may not accept this reduction in performance in order to extend the battery life of the device. However, the consumer may be able to tolerate the reduction in performance at certain times, such as when the battery is nearly drained.
One technique for extending the battery life of a mobile device can be achieved by selectively loading content viewed in a web browser. Selectively loading content may refer to downloading, rendering, and displaying elements of a markup language document in a configurable, prioritized order in which content is loaded in a different order from the default order of a rendering engine of the web browser, or even prevented from being loaded at all. Content providers typically design websites to have a certain look or style. A website may feature a navigation bar at the top of each markup language document that enables a user to navigate through the different pages of the website. The navigation bar may include images and menu choices that are common to multiple pages of the website. Each page may include different content, such as a section of text and/or images. Each page may also include embedded videos, advertising content, social media elements, and the like. Typically, a user that views a particular page of the website is really interested in a small portion of the elements included within the markup language document. For example, a new site may have a main page that includes the titles for a number of articles, possibly associated with an image from the article. When a user clicks on a particular title for an article, the web browsing application fetches a markup language document for that article. The markup language document may include text for the article, images or video related to the article, links to other articles that the user may be interested in, advertising content such as banner ads or embedded video, the navigation bar, and a footer that includes contact information, privacy policy, copyright notices, etc. Typically, the user is mostly focused on the text of the article, but may also be interested in the accompanying images. The user may not be as interested in the advertising content, the footer information, or the navigation bar, or other various content that may be included in the markup language document. Given that the markup language document is a text formatted file, the web browsing application must first parse the markup language document and then request separately any other content referenced within the markup language document (e.g., image files or video files). If this information is not of interest to the user, then the power expended by the mobile device to request, process, and display such data is wasted energy. Therefore, in various embodiments, a power-saving technique is to delay the loading of undesirable content unless explicitly requested by the user or for a predetermined amount of time. While this mode of operation can change the user experience of a website, the implementation of this technique may enable sufficient user control such that the user can tailor their desired user experience.
The display device 180 may be a liquid crystal display (LCD), organic light emitting diode (OLED), active matrix OLED (AMOLED), or the like. In one embodiment, the display device 180 implements touch functionality such as by including capacitive touch sensing technology integrated into a layer of the display device 180. In some embodiments, such as LCD displays, the display device 180 may also include a backlight and backlight controller. The backlight may be one or more LEDs configured to generate a diffuse white light that is transmitted through a layer of liquid crystal elements. The backlight controller may be implemented as logic within an IC for controlling the operation of the LEDs. The backlight may be adjusted via the backlight controller to control a brightness of the display device 180.
In one embodiment, the SoC 110 includes at least one CPU 120, at least one GPU 130, a system bus 102, a memory management unit (MMU) 140, and a memory interface 104. The CPU 120 is a general purpose processor having one or more cores. In one embodiment, the CPU 120 is a RISC (reduced instruction set computer) processor core such as an ARM® Coretex processor. The GPU 130 is a parallel processing unit including of one or more cores configured to process graphics or other data in a parallelizable manner. The GPU 130 may be implemented with a SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) architecture. In one embodiment, the GPU 130 includes one or more ARM® Mali GPU cores.
The memory 160 is coupled to the memory interface 104 such that instructions and data can be loaded into on-chip memory within the CPU 120 and/or GPU 130. The MMU 140 manages memory access requests generated by one or more components of the SoC 110. The MMU 140 may also translate virtual addresses associated with the memory access requests into physical addresses associated with locations in the memory 160.
The mobile device 100 is also coupled to a radio frequency transceiver 150, a non-volatile storage device 170, and a power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 190. The radio frequency transceiver 150 may include at least one antenna and logic for encoding or decoding signals transmitted from or received by the mobile device 100. For example, the mobile device 100 may include a radio for transmitting cellular signals on one or more cellular frequency bands. Alternatively, the RF transceiver 150 may be configured to transmit signals over Wi-Fi (e.g., within the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands). The non-volatile storage device 170 may be a hard disk drive (HDD), solid state drive (SSD), flash memory such as an EEPROM or Compact Flash (CF) Card, and the like. The non-volatile storage device 170 may store the operating system, applications, and/or data that can be loaded into the memory 160 during normal operation.
The PMIC 190 is configured to perform power management operations of the mobile device 100. In one embodiment, the PMIC 190 converts the DC power supply from a battery 195 to a supply voltage provided to the SoC 110. The PMIC 190 may also be configured to implement dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) by adjusting a level of the supply voltage provided to the SoC 110 and/or a frequency of the clock domain utilized by the SoC 110. The PMIC 190 may also be configured to manage charging of the battery 195 when the mobile device is plugged into an external power source. In some embodiments, the PMIC 190 is integrated into the SoC 110 rather than being included as a separate IC within the mobile device 100.
It will be appreciated that the mobile device 100 shown in
In one embodiment, the operating system 210 divides a virtual address space into a kernel space and a user space. The kernel space is a range of virtual addresses that are allocated to the operating system kernel and related processes, and the user space is a range of virtual addresses that are allocated to normal processes. In other words, certain programs, such as the operating system kernel and certified device drivers, may be executed in the kernel space while other applications are executed in the user space. Processes executing in user space may not be allowed to access memory in the kernel space, which prevents these processes from crashing the system and accessing hardware resources directly. However, certain processes running in kernel space may implement an application programming interface (API) that can be called from processes running in user space, such that certain low-level functions can be accessed by processes running in user space in a safe manner.
An application 240 is stored in the memory 160 and may be executed by the CPU 120 within the software environment 200. In one embodiment, the application 240 is a web browser. A plug-in 230 may be provided that adds certain functionality within the application 240. In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 is a program that enables the selective loading of rendered content corresponding to elements of a markup language document to change a user experience of the application 240. The plug-in 230 may be stored in the non-volatile storage 170 of the mobile device 100 and loaded into the memory 160 when a user opts to run the application 240. The plug-in 230 is configured to parse a markup language document requested by the application 240, assign each element in the markup language document a priority value based on a set of rules, and selectively load rendered content corresponding to the elements into a window of the application 240 based on the priority value assigned to each element.
In yet another embodiment, the plug-in 230 is configured to detect advertising content included in a markup language document. Advertising content may take the form of text, images, embedded videos, and hyperlinks that redirect a user to a commercial website. The plug-in may be configured to operate the mobile device 100 in a low-power mode when advertising content is loaded into a window of the application 240. The low-power mode may include reducing a supply voltage or a frequency of a processor in the mobile device 100 using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), reducing a resolution of the rendered content corresponding to an advertising element, reducing a brightness level of the display device, throttling one or more threads associated with advertising elements, or masking (i.e., hiding) advertising elements within the window of the application. The low-power mode may be implemented by the plug-in 230 by making one or more calls to an API of a device driver for the PMIC 190, the display device 180, or by making system calls to the operating system.
In another embodiment, the plug-in 230 is configured to detect when video content is loaded into a window of the application 240. When the video content is detected, the plug-in 230 may determine if the video content is associated with any advertising content. Advertising content may include one or more frames of video contained within the video content, or played prior to or directly after the video content. For example, a commercial may refer to a 30-second clip embedded within the video content that includes images related to a product or service that may not be associated with the main subject matter included in the video content. The advertising content may then be defined as the one or more commercials (e.g., sequences of frames) contained in the video content. The advertising content may also include elements not directly contained within the video content. For example, advertising content may refer to text, sponsored links, images, embedded video, and/or other elements displayed alongside the video content within the window of the application 240.
If the plug-in 230 determines that the video content is associated with advertising content, then the plug-in 230 may cause the mobile device 100 to be operated in a different mode of operation during playback of the video content. In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 may utilize an application programming interface (API) 220 that enables the plug-in 230 to change the operating mode of the mobile device 100 between a low-power mode and a normal mode. In one embodiment, the API 220 is implemented within the context of a driver for the PMIC 190. The API 220 may include a set of functions that can be called by the plug-in 230 operating in the user space. The functions may cause the operating system 210 to transmit signals to the PMIC 190 that cause the PMIC 190 to adjust the voltage supplied to the SoC 110 and/or adjust a frequency of the clock domains for the SoC 110. The driver may be executed in a kernel space such that the API 220 provides a bridge between the plug-in 230 operating in the user space and the PMIC 190, which is controlled by the driver. In another embodiment, the API 220 is implemented within the context of a driver for the display device 180. The API 220 may include a set of functions for adjusting the brightness of a backlight of the display device 180. The plug-in 230 can control the brightness of the backlight by calling a corresponding function of the API 220. In yet another embodiment, the API 220 is implemented within the context of a driver for the GPU 130. The API 220 may enable the plug-in 230 to specify a resolution of images rendered to the display device 180. For example, the API 220 may include a function that lets the plug-in 230 configure a resolution of a frame buffer that is specified as a render target for pixel data generated from the video content. Thus, the video content may be rendered at a particular resolution as specified by the plug-in 230. It will be appreciated that, in some embodiments, more than one API may be implemented within the context of multiple drivers associated with the operating system 210 in order to enable different functionality to be utilized by the plug-in 230 executing in the user space. In other embodiments, the operating system kernel itself may implement an API, through defined system calls, that enable different functionality to be utilized by the plug-in 230 executing in the user space.
In one embodiment, the API 220 enables the plug-in 230 to switch the mobile device 100 into a low-power mode. The low-power mode may include any steps to save power by, for example, a combination of DVFS, reduction in brightness of the display device, and reduction in resolution of rendered images for display. The plug-in 230 may switch the mobile device 100 into the low-power mode when advertising content is displayed during playback of the video content.
It will be appreciated that, in some embodiments, the application 240 and plug-in 230 may be implemented as a single application. For example, the functionality of the plug-in 230 may be implemented within a stand-alone web browser. In such embodiments, the plug-in 230 is not a separate extension of a base application such as a web-browser.
A mobile device 100 includes a display device 180 that executes a web browser application 240. The web browser application 240 is configured to retrieve a markup language document by sending a request to a server for a document specified by a particular uniform resource locator (URL). The application 240 is configured to receive the markup language document from the server and parse the markup language document such that each element in the markup language document can be rendered to a window shown on the display device 180. The rendered content may include, but is not limited to a header, a navigation bar, text, image content, video content, and hyperlinks. As shown in
In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 is configured to distinguish between normal image content 310 and advertising image content 320. The plug-in 230 may assign priority values to different elements in the markup language document in order to designate a loading order of the elements. The plug-in 230 may assign the image content 320 a lower priority than the image content 310 such that the image content 310 is loaded prior to the image content 320. In one embodiment, a lower priority corresponds to a higher priority value and a higher priority corresponds to a lower priority value. For example, the highest priority may be associated with a priority value of 1 and the lowest priority may be associated with a priority value of 9, providing priority values in the range of [1, 9]. As will be discussed in more detail below, the plug-in 230 may utilize a set of rules to assign a priority value to each element in the markup language document. The set of rules may include at least one rule that assigns a priority value to a particular element based on a classification of the particular element. The classification may be based on the element type (i.e., which HTML tag is used to define the element) or attributes assigned to the element (e.g., such as a class or id attribute value assigned to the element). The set of rules may also include at least one rule that assigns a priority value to a particular element based on whether the particular element is identified as advertising content. Thus, based on the set of rules, image content 310 may be assigned a different priority value than image content 320.
In one embodiment, elements associated with priority values in a first range of priority values are loaded into a window of the application 240 while operating the mobile device 100 in a normal mode and elements associated with priority values in a second range of priority values are loaded into the window of the application 240 while operating the mobile device 100 in a low-power mode. For example, a threshold value may be set to 5 such that elements having a priority value less than (or equal to) the threshold value are loaded into the window while operating the mobile device 100 in a normal mode, and elements having a priority value greater than (or equal to) the threshold value are loaded into the window while operating the mobile device 100 in a low-power mode. In the case of image content 320, having a low priority and a priority value of 9, the image content 320 may be rendered at a lower resolution than image content 310, image content 310 having a higher priority and a priority value of 3. The low-power mode can also consist of throttling threads associated with elements of lower priority (i.e., high priority values) and masking lower priority elements within the window of the application 240.
As shown in
It will be appreciated that the operating mode of the mobile device 100 may be changed from normal mode to low-power mode based on the priority assigned to different elements of a markup language document and a time and order at which rendered content corresponding to those elements is generated and loaded into a window of the application 240. Such operation may reduce power consumption of the mobile device 100 by various means when undesirable content is processed, rendered, and loaded into a window of the application. In addition, by controlling the order of loading of the elements based on the priority assigned each element, loading of such unwanted elements may be avoided entirely if the user cancels the operation by navigating to another markup language document before the time at which those elements would be loaded into the window of the application 240.
In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 is configured to intercept all markup language documents received from a server as part of a request transmitted to the server from the application 240. The plug-in 230 receives the markup language document 400 and parses the markup language document in order to determine which types of elements are included in the markup language document 400. For example, according to the HTML5 standard, each element in the markup language document 400 is identified by at least one tag. A tag is a sequence of characters that indicates the type of element included in the markup language document 400. Tags are identified as being enclosed in a pair of angle brackets (i.e., ‘<’ and ‘>’) and are of the form <element [attributes]>. Some elements may include an opening tag at the beginning of the element and a corresponding closing tag at the end of the element. A closing tag is of the form </element>. Consequently, each ‘<’ symbol in the markup language document 400 indicates the beginning of an opening tag or a closing tag of an element in the markup language document 400.
It will be appreciated that elements are nested within the markup language document 400. For example, the HTML5 standard defines a Document Object Model (DOM) that specifies a hierarchy of elements within an HTML document. A root element, the HTML element (<html>) contains all the elements of the HTML document. Inside the HTML element, other elements such as the header element (<head>), the body element (<body>), the footer element (<foot>), the division element (<div>), the paragraph element (<p>), and many others will be nested within the root HTML element.
The plug-in 230 is configured to parse the markup language document and assign a priority value to each element in the markup language document according to a set of rules. In one embodiment, the set of rules correlates each type or classification of element in the markup language document with a particular priority value. For example, text/script elements 401 may be assigned a priority value of 1. These elements may include, but are not limited to, the paragraph element <p>, the heading elements (e.g., <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc.), the quotation and citation elements (e.g., <q>, <blockquote>, <address>, etc.), and the like. In general, all text/script elements 401 may be assigned a default priority value of 1. This top level priority is assigned to elements that will be loaded into a window of the application prior to other elements of lower priority. Consequently, only elements of lower priority will be subject to a selective loading scheme that delays the presentation of those elements.
As shown in
In one embodiment, nested elements are assigned a minimum priority value assigned to their parent. For example, a header element <head> is typically used to denote that elements within the header element are part of a header in the markup language document 400. The header may include images, text, hyperlinks (e.g., <a>), block elements (e.g., <div>, <span>), table elements (e.g., <table>, <tr>, <th>), and so forth. Some of these elements may be associated with a rule that assigns these elements a priority value of 1. However, if the parent element of an element is associated with a rule that assigns the parent element a priority value higher than 1, then the elements contained within the parent element are assigned a minimum priority value equal to the priority value assigned to the parent element. Consequently, all elements within the header may be assigned a priority value of at least 2 if the header element is associated with a rule that assigns the header element a priority value of 2. Given the hierarchical nature of markup language documents, this scheme ensures that blocks of nested elements are assigned a minimum priority value equal to or greater than their parent element.
In another embodiment, elements of the same type may be assigned different priority values. In other words, elements associated with a particular tag, but different attributes may be assigned different priorities. Global attributes such as class or id may be used to differentiate elements with different priorities. For example, division elements may be associated with a rule that division elements are assigned a priority value of 1. However, division elements of a particular class may be assigned a different priority value. As a more specific example, a particular markup language document may include a division element of class “menu” (i.e., <div class=“menu”>). One rule in the set of rules may assign all division elements a default priority value of 1, but any division elements of the menu class may be assigned a priority value of 2.
In some embodiments, the rules may include more complex rules than simply assigning priority values based on the element type or attribute. In one embodiment, the rules may assign priority values to certain elements based on the hierarchical structure of the elements. For example, a priority value of 1 may be assigned to any image elements nested in a division element (<div>) but a priority value of 2 may be assigned to any image elements nested in a table element (<table>). In another embodiment, the rules may assign priority values based on the content of the element. For example, image elements may be assigned different priority values based on the size of the image. Smaller images (e.g., images less than 100 pixels by 100 pixels) may be assigned a priority value of 1 whereas larger images (e.g., images greater than or equal to 100 pixels by 100 pixels) may be assigned a priority value of 2. In this case, smaller images will be fetched from a server, rendered, and loaded before larger images. In another case, a rule may examine any URL included as an attribute to an element. For example, an advertisement element may be defined as a script element that has a source attribute (src) set to a specific value that specifies a known advertisement javascript code. Alternatively, an advertisement element may be defined as a script element that includes specific segments of source javascipt code between the opening tag and closing tag of the script element. For example, the plug-in 230 may parse the text between any corresponding pair of opening tag and closing tag for a script element to look for the following code: “adsbyadcompany=window.adsbyadcompany”, which would indicate that the script element represents advertising content. It will be appreciated that some advertising content may be identified as other types of elements, such as an image element nested in a hyperlink element that links to a known advertising redirect URL.
In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 parses the markup language document 400 and assigns a priority value to each element in the markup language document 400 based on a set of rules 420. Then, the lazy-loading engine 410 is configured to generate a modified markup language document 430 based on the priority values assigned to the plurality of elements in the markup language document 400. In order to implement selective loading of the elements, the lazy-loading engine 410 may generate a modified markup language document 430 that is a copy of the markup language document 400 with any element having a priority value greater than or equal to a particular threshold value having been omitted from the modified markup language document 430. The modified markup language document 430 is transmitted to the application 240 and the modified markup language document 430 is processed by the application 240 to generate rendered content (i.e., image data for display) displayed in a window of the application 240. The lazy-loading engine 410 may then increase the threshold value and generate a new modified markup language document 430 that is a copy of the markup language document 400 with any element having a priority value greater than or equal to the increased threshold value having been omitted from the new modified markup language document 430. The new modified markup language document 430 is then transmitted to the application 240 after a predetermined delay time, and the new modified markup language document 430 is processed by the application 240 to generate rendered content displayed in the window of the application 240. In other words, the modified markup language document 430 displayed in the window is updated after the predetermined delay time. This process is repeated a number of times, increasing the threshold value each time, until the new modified markup language document 430 is the same as the markup language document 400 because the threshold value is greater than the priority value assigned to every element in the markup language document 400.
It will be appreciated that simply transmitting a new modified markup language document 430 to the application 240 repeatedly may cause the entire document to be re-rendered a number of times, which may waste energy and be distracting to a user. Thus, in one embodiment, the plug-in 230 is configured to simply update the elements displayed in the window of the application 240 using the document object model (DOM) to change the content of a container element in order to add the newly visible elements (i.e., any elements associated with a priority value equal to the threshold value). Thus, new rendered content may simply be displayed in the window of the application 240 rather than rendering the entire contents of the modified markup language document 430 multiple times.
In another embodiment, the lazy-loading engine 410 modifies the markup language document 400 to generate a new modified markup language document 430 by inserting new elements into the markup language document. For example, the modified markup language document 430 may include new division elements added to the markup language document 400 as well as corresponding javascript code. In one embodiment, each element associated with a different priority than that element's parent element may be included in a container division element that includes a class attribute set to a particular class name that indicates the priority level of the child element. The modified markup language document 430 may then include appended javascript code that sets each element above the top priority as hidden. The javascript code may also include a javascript timing event that triggers a new function to increment a threshold value and then show any elements having a class name that match the priority level equal to the new threshold value. The timing event can be reset a number of times to trigger new elements to be shown with each increment of the threshold value. The timing event may be triggered after a predetermined delay time has elapsed since the previous timing event. In this technique, the lazy-loading engine 410 only generates one modified markup language document 430 and the operation of selective loading of rendered content is simply controlled by the native interpretation ofjavascript code by the application 240.
As shown in
The first portion 502 of the window 500 contains elements that are related to the subject matter of the website, and likely of interest to a user, but that may not be of high priority to the user. Instead, a user that requested the markup language document 400 may be primarily interested in the article included in the third portion 506 of the window 500. When the markup language document 400 is loaded into the window 500, the user may immediately scroll down to read the article contained in the third portion 506 of the window 500. Consequently, loading the content in the second portion 504 of the window 500 and the fourth portion 508 of the window 500, content that is apparently advertising content/unwanted content, may delay the user from consuming the content that the user desires. Therefore, it would be beneficial to load the content of the third portion 506 of the window 500 prior to loading the content from the other portions of the window 500.
As shown in
In one embodiment, selectively loading rendered content corresponding to the plurality of elements is performed manually. More specifically, the modified markup language document 430 is loaded into the window 500 as shown in
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As shown in
In one embodiment, one set of rules may be defined that controls the visibility of every markup language document processed by the plug-in 230. The single set of rules may be configured by each user in order to tailor the operation of the plug-in 230 to their particular tastes in user experience. However, with such a vast array of different markup language documents available on the Internet, a single set of rules is bound to lead to disparate results. Consequently, in another embodiment, a centralized server node 604 maintains a database 620 that stores different sets of rules for different markup language documents. When a user enters a URL for a particular markup language document in the application 240, the plug-in 230 may request a set of rules corresponding to that URL from the server 604. The server 604 may query the database 620 for a set of rules that corresponds to that URL and transmit the set of rules to the plug-in 230 such that selective loading for that particular markup language document will follow a specific set of rules. It will be appreciated that, in some embodiments, the server 604 is a distributed system that is implemented redundantly across multiple servers 604 located in different data centers to ensure high availability and high reliability of the rules service provided by the servers 604. In such embodiments, the database 620 may also be implemented as a distributed database with redundant copies of each set of rules.
In many websites, different markup language documents may be implemented using substantially the same layout but substituting different content in some elements of the markup language document. For example, news websites may generate markup language documents for each article on the website that use substantially identical layouts with different text content for the article and different image and video content corresponding to the particular article included in each markup language document. The URLs for each of these markup language documents may start with an identical root portion of the URL and end with different sub-paths and/or file names. In other websites, markup language documents are generated dynamically using server side code. These documents may be generated based on the URL using content retrieved from one or more databases coupled to the server side code. Such dynamically generated markup language documents may be associated with a single set of rules corresponding to a root portion of the URL used to generate the markup language document. In other words, one set of rules may be utilized to assign priority values to similar markup language documents that share a common layout or design, where the similarity is identified based on a root portion of the URL.
The root portion of the URL refers to the domain name without a path or the domain name combined with a first portion of the path for the markup language document. For example, a website with a domain name of “www.genericwebsite.com” may include a number of markup language documents that define the different web pages included in the website. This domain name leads to a main index page (i.e., markup language document) for the website. However, the website itself may include different discussion forums. Each discussion forum is associated with a main page located at a particular path on the www.genericwebsite.com domain. For example, a news discussion forum is located at “www.genericwebsite.com/news”, which corresponds to a path of “/news[/index.html]” (the brackets are used to denote a default filename for a markup language document for a path that does not end in a filename). The main page of each discussion forum contains a list of user-generated discussion threads, each discussion thread may include a hyperlink to some other resource located on the internet along with a hyperlink to a comment chain related to that discussion thread. The comment chain is associated with a URL in the form of “www.genericwebsite.com/news/comments/ . . . ”, where the ellipsis represents a specific sub-path based on the particular discussion thread. The markup language document for each comment chain associated with the news discussion forum has a similar layout. Therefore, one set of rules may be stored that corresponds to any markup language document having a root portion of the URL matching “www.genericwebsite.com/news/comments/” such that any markup language document for a comment chain in the news discussion forum will be processed according to a uniform set of rules. However, other sets of rules may be defined for other discussion forums (e.g., /movies, or /jokes). Thus, popular websites may have custom rules defined for different paths of a single domain to tailor the priority assigned to different elements across different markup language documents of a single website.
It will be appreciated that many websites are designed like the website described above, where the path is provided as an input to server side code for generating dynamic webpages based on a backend database. Typically, the structure of the path will determine the structural layout of the markup language document such that similar URLs will result in similar markup language documents generated by a common server side code. This uniformity can be exploited by tailoring the set of rules to load webpages in a custom order that is different from the default order determined by the application 240 when parsing a markup language document.
By changing the order that elements are loaded and displayed in the window 500 of an application 240, the plug-in 230 may reduce the power consumption of the mobile device 100. For example, a user may load a particular markup language document 400 by clicking on a hyperlink in a web browser. The plug-in 230 may delay the loading of certain elements in the markup language document 400 by a predetermined delay time. If the user views some high priority elements and decides that the markup language document does not have the information the user wanted to view, then the user may navigate to another markup language document before some elements have been loaded into the window 500. In some cases, data will not have been retrieved from a server by the time a user navigates to another markup language document. Network bandwidth is reduced, saving power by not using the radio to send and receive data, data for images or video is not stored in the memory, the processor is not tasked with decoding encrypted image data such as JPEG format image files or MPEG format video files, the display is not refreshed with bright images in large portions of the screen, and so forth. Significant power savings may be realized just by selectively loading content in a custom order, and delaying the loading of certain content by a predetermined time or by user input in order to prevent unnecessary power consumption associated with the processing of unwanted content.
At step 704, each element in the plurality of elements is assigned a priority value based on a set of rules. The set of rules includes at least two rules configured to assign two or more priority values to at least two subsets of elements in the plurality of elements In one embodiment, the plug-in 230 parses the markup language document 400 and generates a modified markup language document 430 based on the set of rules. Each element in the markup language document is assigned a priority value and various elements orjavascript code may be added to the modified markup language document 430.
At step 706, rendered content corresponding to the plurality of elements is selectively loaded into a window 500 of an application 240 executed by the mobile device 100 according to the priority values assigned to each element in the plurality of elements. In one embodiment, the modified markup language document 430 is transmitted to the application 240 and loaded per the implementation of a rendering engine of the application 240. Modifications in the elements of the modified markup language document 430 may change the order and time that certain elements are loaded by the application 240 compared to the order and time that corresponding elements in markup language document 400 would be loaded by the application 240. In another embodiment, the plug-in 230 transmits multiple markup language documents to the application 240 at different times in order to load different elements of the markup language document 400 in a particular order.
At step 754, rendered content corresponding to each element in the plurality of elements is displayed in the order of elements. In one embodiment, the threshold value is set to the lowest priority value (e.g., 1). Rendered content for all high priority elements (i.e., elements having a priority value equal to 1) in the modified markup language document is generated and displayed in the window 500 of the application 240. The threshold value may be incremented (e.g., by the expiration of a timing event), which changes the visibility of elements that have a priority value less than or equal to the new threshold value. Rendered content for these elements is then generated, by the application 240, and displayed in the window 500 of the application 240. By incrementing the threshold value and displaying rendered content for newly visible elements each time the threshold value is increased, the rendered content corresponding to each element in the plurality of elements is displayed in the order of elements as defined by an increasing order of priority values.
The system 800 also includes an input/output (I/O) interface 812 and a communication interface 806. User input may be received from the input devices 812, e.g., keyboard, mouse, touchpad, microphone, and the like. In one embodiment, the communication interface 806 may be coupled to a graphics processor (not shown) that includes a plurality of shader modules, a rasterization module, etc. Each of the foregoing modules may even be situated on a single semiconductor platform to form a graphics processing unit (GPU).
In the present description, a single semiconductor platform may refer to a sole unitary semiconductor-based integrated circuit or chip. It should be noted that the term single semiconductor platform may also refer to multi-chip modules with increased connectivity which simulate on-chip operation, and make substantial improvements over utilizing a conventional central processing unit (CPU) and bus implementation. Of course, the various modules may also be situated separately or in various combinations of semiconductor platforms per the desires of the user.
The system 800 may also include a secondary storage 810. The secondary storage 810 includes, for example, a hard disk drive and/or a removable storage drive, representing a floppy disk drive, a magnetic tape drive, a compact disk drive, digital versatile disk (DVD) drive, recording device, universal serial bus (USB) flash memory. The removable storage drive reads from and/or writes to a removable storage unit in a well-known manner.
Computer programs, or computer control logic algorithms, may be stored in the memory 804 and/or the secondary storage 810. Such computer programs, when executed, enable the system 800 to perform various functions. The memory 804, the storage 810, and/or any other storage are possible examples of computer-readable media.
In one embodiment, the architecture and/or functionality of the various previous figures may be implemented in the context of the processor 801, a graphics processor coupled to communication interface 806, an integrated circuit (not shown) that is capable of at least a portion of the capabilities of both the processor 801 and a graphics processor, a chipset (i.e., a group of integrated circuits designed to work and sold as a unit for performing related functions, etc.), and/or any other integrated circuit for that matter.
Still yet, the architecture and/or functionality of the various previous figures may be implemented in the context of a general computer system, a circuit board system, a game console system dedicated for entertainment purposes, an application-specific system, and/or any other desired system. For example, the system 800 may take the form of a desktop computer, laptop computer, server, workstation, game consoles, embedded system, and/or any other type of logic. Still yet, the system 800 may take the form of various other devices including, but not limited to a personal digital assistant (PDA) device, a mobile phone device, a television, etc.
Further, while not shown, the system 800 may be coupled to a network (e.g., a telecommunications network, local area network (LAN), wireless network, wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, peer-to-peer network, cable network, or the like) for communication purposes.
It is noted that the techniques described herein, in an aspect, are embodied in executable instructions stored in a computer readable medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution machine, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based or processor-containing machine, apparatus, or device. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that for some embodiments, other types of computer readable media are included which may store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), and the like.
As used here, a “computer-readable medium” includes one or more of any suitable media for storing the executable instructions of a computer program such that the instruction execution machine, system, apparatus, or device may read (or fetch) the instructions from the computer readable medium and execute the instructions for carrying out the described methods. Suitable storage formats include one or more of an electronic, magnetic, optical, and electromagnetic format. A non-exhaustive list of conventional exemplary computer readable medium includes: a portable computer diskette; a RAM; a ROM; an erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM or flash memory); optical storage devices, including a portable compact disc (CD), a portable digital video disc (DVD), a high definition DVD (HD-DVD™), a BLU-RAY disc, and the like.
It should be understood that the arrangement of components illustrated in the Figures described are exemplary and that other arrangements are possible. It should also be understood that the various system components (and means) defined by the claims, described below, and illustrated in the various block diagrams represent logical components in some systems configured according to the subject matter disclosed herein.
For example, one or more of these system components (and means) may be realized, in whole or in part, by at least some of the components illustrated in the arrangements illustrated in the described Figures. In addition, while at least one of these components are implemented at least partially as an electronic hardware component, and therefore constitutes a machine, the other components may be implemented in software that when included in an execution environment constitutes a machine, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware.
More particularly, at least one component defined by the claims is implemented at least partially as an electronic hardware component, such as an instruction execution machine (e.g., a processor-based or processor-containing machine) and/or as specialized circuits or circuitry (e.g., discreet logic gates interconnected to perform a specialized function). Other components may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware. Moreover, some or all of these other components may be combined, some may be omitted altogether, and additional components may be added while still achieving the functionality described herein. Thus, the subject matter described herein may be embodied in many different variations, and all such variations are contemplated to be within the scope of what is claimed.
In the description above, the subject matter is described with reference to acts and symbolic representations of operations that are performed by one or more devices, unless indicated otherwise. As such, it will be understood that such acts and operations, which are at times referred to as being computer-executed, include the manipulation by the processor of data in a structured form. This manipulation transforms the data or maintains it at locations in the memory system of the computer, which reconfigures or otherwise alters the operation of the device in a manner well understood by those skilled in the art. The data is maintained at physical locations of the memory as data structures that have particular properties defined by the format of the data. However, while the subject matter is being described in the foregoing context, it is not meant to be limiting as those of skill in the art will appreciate that various acts and operations described hereinafter may also be implemented in hardware.
The computer-readable non-transitory media includes all types of computer-readable media, including magnetic storage media, optical storage media, and solid state storage media and specifically excludes signals. It should be understood that the software can be installed in and sold with the mobile device. Alternatively, the software can be obtained and loaded into the mobile device, including obtaining the software via a disc medium or from any manner of network or distribution system, including, for example, from a server owned by the software creator or from a server not owned but used by the software creator. The software can be stored on a server for distribution over the Internet, for example.
To facilitate an understanding of the subject matter described herein, many aspects are described in terms of sequences of actions. At least one of these aspects defined by the claims is performed by an electronic hardware component. For example, it will be recognized that the various actions may be performed by specialized circuits or circuitry, by program instructions being executed by one or more processors, or by a combination of both. The description herein of any sequence of actions is not intended to imply that the specific order described for performing that sequence must be followed. All methods described herein may be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.
The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in the context of describing the subject matter (particularly in the context of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both the singular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by context. Recitation of ranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as a shorthand method of referring individually to each separate value falling within the range, unless otherwise indicated herein, and each separate value is incorporated into the specification as if it were individually recited herein. Furthermore, the foregoing description is for the purpose of illustration only, and not for the purpose of limitation, as the scope of protection sought is defined by the claims as set forth hereinafter together with any equivalents thereof entitled to. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”) provided herein, is intended merely to better illustrate the subject matter and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the subject matter unless otherwise claimed. The use of the term “based on” and other like phrases indicating a condition for bringing about a result, both in the claims and in the written description, is not intended to foreclose any other conditions that bring about that result. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essential to the practice of the invention as claimed.
The embodiments described herein include the one or more modes known to the inventor for carrying out the claimed subject matter. It is to be appreciated that variations of those embodiments will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading the foregoing description. The inventor expects skilled artisans to employ such variations as appropriate, and the inventor intends for the claimed subject matter to be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein. Accordingly, this claimed subject matter includes all modifications and equivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended hereto as permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of the above-described elements in all possible variations thereof is encompassed unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.
