1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
The disclosed embodiments relates to document/message content management and distribution to subscribers.
2. Introduction
In response to the increasing desire to become more environmentally conscious and cost effective, and along with the proliferation of portable electronic devices such as PDA's laptop and tablet computers, Netbooks, and eReader devices, more and more documents are being published digitally and are used in their digital form on the above mentioned devices. This process eliminates the need to consume paper which in turn, reduces cost and waste of environmental resources.
However, while digital publishing technology has matured and portable devices now have sufficient battery life and displays that have resolutions necessary to view electronic documents acceptably, the mechanism of delivering documents easily to enterprise-wide user groups has not yet been developed in a manner that is sufficiently reliable and user friendly to automatically and seamlessly manage content on large numbers of devices. While there are conventional systems that provide content delivery to some extent, none are easy to use or sufficiently reliable from either the administrators or the user's perspective. For example, such systems may require users to receive e-mails advising them of new content and require them to log onto specific web sites and manually download documents or save attachments on their devices. These systems typically require significant user interaction and do not manage the document storage on their devices.
A method for managing the document/message content for distribution to subscribers is disclosed. The method may include configuring one or more subscriber profiles with subscriber's personal and remote device information, storing the one or more subscriber profiles in a subscriber database, receiving one or more document/messages from one or more document/message sources, determining which of the one or more subscribers are to receive each of the received one or more document/messages, storing an indicator for each of the received document/messages in a download pending file in each subscriber profile for each subscriber that has been determined to receive the one or more document/messages, receiving a sync request from a remote device, retrieving the subscriber's profile corresponding to the remote device, downloading any documents/messages from the subscriber's download pending file, uploading any documents/messages from the subscriber's remote device that have been identified for uploading, determining which of the one or more subscribers are to receive each of the uploaded one or more document/messages, storing an indicator for each of the uploaded document/messages in the download pending file in each subscriber profile for each subscriber that has been determined to receive the one or more uploaded document/messages, and downloading the uploaded documents/messages to each subscriber's device that has been determined to receive the one or more uploaded document/messages upon receiving a sync request from each subscriber.
In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the disclosure can be obtained, a more particular description of the disclosure briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the disclosure and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the disclosure will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
Additional features and advantages of the disclosed embodiments will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the disclosed embodiments. The features and advantages of the disclosed embodiments may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present disclosed embodiments will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the disclosed embodiments as set forth herein.
Various embodiments of the disclosed embodiments are discussed in detail below. While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understood that this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled in the relevant art will recognize that other components and configurations may be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the disclosed embodiments.
The disclosed embodiments comprise a variety of embodiments, such as a method and apparatus and other embodiments that relate to the basic concepts of the disclosed embodiments. Note that while this disclosure discusses aircraft and airline uses for the disclosed embodiments, the disclosed embodiments by no means are limited to that technology area and may be applied to a wide variety of environments and uses.
The disclosed content management system may be intended for a specific type of user community that may use their device and documents in a very structured and specific way. The users may have no need or desire to actively participate in publishing or managing documents on their devices.
In this manner, the disclosed embodiments may permit role and device specific content delivery to be a simple, managed activity and provide users of electronic devices with current up-to-date content on their device. The disclosed embodiments may concern a Web-based server/client Integrated software system/application and communications capabilities that provide for simplified and hierarchal described user role specific management, delivery, and verification of digital documents to a plurality of portable and/or fixed computing devices including desktop and laptop and other portable computers, to electronic paper (epaper) based document reader devices and other communications enabled display capable devices such as PDA's, UMPC's (ultra mobile PC) and Netbooks.
The disclosed embodiments may comprise a system of integrated software components and necessary physical or wireless communications media necessary to manage content of electronic devices. A simple to use content management system described in the disclosed embodiments may ensure timely and accurate delivery of electronic documents, files and information to all appropriate electronic devices that have subscriptions or have been designated to require specific documents, files or other data items to reside on their inherent data storage mechanisms for quick and reliable access.
As one example, the content management system and method may be useful in an environment were numerous electronic reading (eReader) devices have been assigned or deployed to a specific user community, such as to aircraft flight crews, and users could be defined as pilots, co-pilots, flight engineers and loadmasters all for a specific type of airframe (e.g., 737-300). The devices the crew may be intended for structured content viewing for things like operations manuals and other airframe and operational information specific documents.
When the device is used, there may be a menu of documents that allows the user to select and view any of the specific manuals on the device. So if a new manual was published by the flight crew headquarters or administrators, the content may be distributed to all devices that require the specific document. The document administrator may also select that the document is only required to be sent to pilots of 737-300 and other users in that community would not require downloading of that specific document or have access or ever be aware of these specific documents, for example.
When a user presses the “sync” button on his or her device, the device may connect to a content server, automatically identify the device and download any waiting documents without any additional user interaction except to report the status of the process to the user on his or her device display. When the transaction is completed, the administration application may archive the document and the transaction details for future reporting purposes. In the above example, the user pilot may be assured that by the simple invocation of the “sync” feature, the device is updated appropriately and that the documents are current and updated.
The content management system may also work in both directions. Should a pilot have entered data on his device, such as a note or a signature on a document, when the “sync” feature is selected, any documents selected for delivery to the content management system may be placed in his device “outbox” (waiting for delivery) and may be uploaded to the content management system and be distributed according to administrator rules previously set up on the system. These rules may contain instructions such as to e-mail the document to a specific address or simply to notify the administrator and archive the document for future retrieval, for example.
The new system may be implemented and described as at least three components. The components may include a server-based application, an administration application, and a user device application, that may work together to provide a seamless, automated system.
The Administrator application may allow document administrators to easily and quickly:
The client device application may provide the capabilities to:
The content management system and data archive system may be the central component that maintains system wide databases and access for administrators and users and may be the overarching management component of the system. The content management system and data archive system may ensure that:
Wireless land/wired hub 120 may be connected to one or more remote devices 130. The content management system 140 may be connected to one or more document/message sources 150 which may then be connected to one or more document/message source databases 160. Although the connections in
Communications network 110 may represent any communications network used to communicate with other entities, including the Internet, an intranet, a radio network, a wireless network, etc. Wireless land/wired hub 120 may represent any land, hub, router, switch, server, computer, or any other device that may serve as an intermediate communication routing device between the communications network 110 and the remote devices 130.
The content management system 140 may be any server, computer, processing device, personal digital assistant PDA), or other similar device capable of storing and managing media publications and other documents and products. The one or more remote devices 130 may represent any device that is capable of receiving and displaying (or playing) documents and messages, such as an e-paper device, an e-reader device, a PDA, wireless telephone phone, computer, server, processing device, display, or MP3 player.
The content management system 140 may be able to receive emails from sources that have been authorized (e.g., via a database or approved source list). The content management system 140 may accept emails and check the source and destination. For example, the content management system 140 may be configured to allow emails from “@ARINC.COM” and archive and store the attachments so that they could be delivered to the subscriber/user. Thus, if a subscriber is authorized to email content, the subscriber may be able to send a document to an email address like B737-300@arinccontentmanager.net and the attachment may be stored and put in a queue or file for any user or user group, such as 737-300, for example, and later be delivered to the intended subscribers.
A list of documents in which subscribers may be interested may be created on the content management system 140. The list that may be delivered to subscribers and once it is received, a subscriber may indicate (via check boxes, etc.) that he or she has an interest in subscribing to selected documents and would receive them in the future when new content was available. Note that when the subscriber selects the content for future delivery, the form he or she generates may be delivered back to the content management system 140 on next sync. A person may be able to un-subscribing to a list, as well.
The content management system 140 may also be configured to flag or indicate that a document requires confirmation from the subscriber when he or she has read it. This process may be performed by returning an electronic acknowledgement which could in fact be a digital signature, for example. The returned acknowledgement may be archived and stored, as appropriate.
The one or more document/message sources 150 may represent any document/message source, including any commercial or private source that may wish to distribute documents/messages to one or more subscribers. The one or more document/message source databases 160 may serve to store messages, video, audio, and up-to-date media publications, including books, magazines, newspapers, etc. for the document/message source 150 to upload to the content management system 140. In one possible embodiment, the document/message source content may be aviation-related, for example. However, the document/message content for the disclosed embodiments is not limited to a particular area and may be any possible documents/messages known to one of skill in the art.
Processor 220 may include at least one conventional processor or microprocessor that interprets and executes instructions. Memory 230 may be a random access memory or another type of dynamic storage device that stores information and instructions for execution by processor 220. Memory 230 may also store temporary variables or other intermediate information used during execution of instructions by processor 220. ROM 240 may include a conventional ROM device or another type of static storage device that stores static information and instructions for processor 220. Memory 230 may also represent any storage device that may include any type of media, such as, for example, magnetic or optical recording media and its corresponding drive.
Input devices 260 may include one or more conventional mechanisms that permit a user to input information to the content management system 140, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, a voice recognition device, etc. Output devices 270 may include one or more conventional mechanisms that output information to the user, including a display, a printer, one or more speakers, or a medium, such as a memory, or a magnetic or optical disk and a corresponding disk drive.
Communication interface 280 may include any transceiver-like mechanism that enables the content management system 140 to communicate via a network. For example, communication interface 280 may include a modem, or an Ethernet interface for communicating via a local area network (LAN). Alternatively, communication interface 280 may include other mechanisms for communicating with other devices and/or systems via wired, wireless or optical connections. In some implementations of the content management system 140, communication interface 280 may not be included in the exemplary content management system 140 when the content management process is implemented completely within the content management system 140.
The document/message database 290 may serve to store messages, video, audio, and up-to-date media publications, including books, magazines, newspapers, etc. received from the document/message source 150 or another subscriber's remote device 130, for example. In one possible embodiment, the document/message content may be aviation-related, for example. However, the document/message content is not limited to a particular area and may be any possible documents/messages known to one of skill in the art.
The subscriber database 295 may contain subscriber profiles relating to each subscriber for the content management system 140. The subscriber profiles may contain subscriber information, such as subscriber identification information, subscriber remote device 130 identification information, and a download pending file that may include indicators (or links) to documents that are to be downloaded to the subscriber's remote device. Note that both or either of the document/message database 290 and the subscriber database 295 may be stored in the memory 230, for example.
The content management system 140 may perform such functions in response to processor 220 by executing sequences of instructions contained in a computer-readable medium, such as, for example, memory 230, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk. Such instructions may be read into memory 230 from another computer-readable medium, such as a storage device, or from a separate device via communication interface 280.
The content management environment 100 and the content management system 140 illustrated in
Embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by local and remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwired links, wireless links, or by a combination thereof through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
For illustrative purposes, the operation of the content management unit 250 and the content management process will be described below in relation to the block diagrams shown in
At step 3150, the content management unit 250 may store the one or more subscriber profiles with any received subscriber information in the subscriber database 295. At step 3200, the content management unit 250 may receive one or more documents/messages from one or more document/message sources. At step 3250, the content management unit 250 may determine which of the one or more subscribers are to receive each of the received one or more document/messages.
At step 3300, the content management unit 250 may store an indicator for each of the received document/messages in a download pending file in each subscriber profile for each subscriber that has been determined to receive the one or more document/messages. The indicator may be a document or file name in text, address, a document link, icon, or other known document or document location identifier. At step 3350, the content management unit 250 may receive a sync request from a remote device. Alternatively, the content management unit 250 may automatically download the documents/messages without receiving a sync request.
At step 3400, the content management unit 250 may retrieve the subscriber's profile corresponding to the remote device. At step 3450, the content management unit 250 may download any documents/messages from the subscriber's download pending file.
At step 3500, the content management unit 250 may upload any documents/messages from the subscriber's remote device 130 that have been identified for uploading. Alternatively, the remote device may automatically upload the documents/messages to the content management unit 250 when entered, on-demand, or at a predetermined time period, for example.
At step 3550, the content management unit 250 may determine which of the one or more subscribers are to receive each of the uploaded one or more document/messages. At step 3600, the content management unit 250 may store an indicator for each of the uploaded document/messages in the download pending file in each subscriber profile for each subscriber that has been determined to receive the one or more uploaded document/messages.
At step 3650, the content management unit 250 may download the uploaded documents/messages to each subscriber's device that has been determined to receive the one or more uploaded document/messages upon receiving a sync request from each subscriber. Alternatively, the content management unit 250 may automatically download the uploaded documents/messages without receiving a sync request. The process may then go to step 3700 and end.
Embodiments within the scope of the present disclosed embodiments may also include computer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures. When information is transferred or provided over a network or another communications connection (either hardwired, wireless, or combination thereof to a computer, the computer properly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of the computer-readable media.
Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions and data which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions. Computer-executable instructions also include program modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or network environments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of the program code means for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps.
Although the above description may contain specific details, they should not be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurations are part of the scope of the disclosed embodiments. For example, the principles of the disclosed embodiments may be applied to each individual user where each user may individually deploy such a system. This enables each user to utilize the benefits of the disclosed embodiments even if any one of the large number of possible applications do not need the functionality described herein. In other words, there may be multiple instances of the disclosed system each processing the content in various possible ways. It does not necessarily need to be one system used by all end users. Accordingly, the appended claims and their legal equivalents should only define the disclosed embodiments, rather than any specific examples given.
This non-provisional application claims priority from 1) U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/183,128, filed, Jun. 2, 2009, and 2) is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. Non-Provisional application Ser. Nos. 11/755,350, filed May 30, 2007 and 11/770,060, filed Jun. 28, 2007, both of which claim priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/896,484, filed Mar. 22, 2007. The content of application Nos. 61/183,128, 11/755,350, 11/770,060 and 60/896,484 from which priority is claimed are all incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61183128 | Jun 2009 | US | |
60896484 | Mar 2007 | US | |
60896484 | Mar 2007 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 11755350 | May 2007 | US |
Child | 12559782 | US | |
Parent | 11770060 | Jun 2007 | US |
Child | 11755350 | US |