A review of Hewlett-Packard’s recently issued patents show a variety of technologies related to cloud computing, including one system that enables those purchasing cloud services to find the most cost-effective option suited to their needs. Another patent protects a method for establishing perceived eye contact among participants of a video conference. Also intriguing is a mechanism for clearing dust from an electronic display screen using ionized air.

The development of cloud computing platforms and services are at the center of a pair of patents spotted during our latest survey of HP’s recently protected technologies. A cost-efficient cloud platform with security features adequate for protecting intellectual property that may be stored on that cloud is disclosed by U.S. Patent No. 8935764, issued under the title Network System for Implementing a Cloud Platform. The network system for implementing a cloud platform within a network accessible by a multitude of client devices claimed here includes a processor that contains an application management module, a community management module and a user enrollment portal which work together to enable a client device to access a concrete application while utilizing mechanisms for policy management enforcement. The community and enrollment mechanisms of this system support the effective management and administration of a common application accessed by multiple client devices.

Business customers who are contemplating the purchase of cloud services that can process applications or workloads will get help in making a purchase decision thanks to the technology protected by U.S. Patent No. 8918510, which is titled Evaluation of Cloud Computing Services. The innovation is intended to identify instances when the purchase of a t-shirt computing model, which isn’t as effective for processing most workloads as time-sharing computing models, actually does provide greater efficiency for implementing cloud resources. The method for estimating cloud computing resource costs involves receiving, at a server, historical trace data of a processed workload similar to the workload to be processed, simulating the processing of the workload with both t-shirt and time-sharing models, estimating the resource cost of both and comparing the two to determine the more efficient model.

The use of information technology systems to support many kinds of collaborative work is another area of development that has attracted a lot of R&D investment from Hewlett-Packard. Improved methods of capturing knowledge where it exists within an entity so that it can be shared throughout a large enterprise when needed are at the center of U.S. Patent No. 8930400, issued under the title System and Method for Discovering Knowledge Communities. The processor-based system for discovering knowledge communities claimed by this patent is comprised of providing user access to a network of documents, gathering document access data regarding users who have accessed each document, gathering document authorship data regarding authors of documents and document review data, identifying relationships between users and documents and searching those relationships to discover related documents.

Collaboration through video conferencing tools is addressed by the technology claimed by U.S. Patent No. 8908008, titled Methods and Systems for Establishing Eye Contact and Accurate Gaze in Remote Collaboration. The patent protects a method of establishing perceived eye contact between two participants of a video conference by capturing images of a first participant, receiving a video stream of images of a second participant and shifting images of the second participant in accordance with a shift vector that places the images of the second participant in approximate alignment with the eyes of the first participant. Establishing this eye contact during video conferences aids communication between collaborators by enabling participants to better register eye contact cues.

The easier construction of interactive documents by individuals who do not have a highly technical background is the focus of U.S. Patent No. 8924842, which is titled Method and System to Build Interactive Documents. This patent claims a computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that are executed to provide an editing interface including a plurality of cells in a grid with labeled rows and columns as well as an address specifying an external data source which is stored in the document as metadata. The program also provides a binding tool which binds a widget within the interactive document and a view of the interactive document as it will appear during production mode. This simpler system for creating interactive documents is designed to support business professionals that need to create such documents without having knowledge of JavaScript or Visual Basic.

Our interests were also piqued by a novel system protected by HP which removes dust which has collected upon electronic devices without the use of liquid solutions that could cause damage to internal circuitry. U.S. Patent No. 8917488, issued under the title Dust Control for Electronic Devices, protects a system for controlling dust with respect to an electronic device through the use of an ion generator with a circuit that generates a high-voltage direct current (DC) potential, an ion emitter coupled to a first polarity of the DC potential and an ion receiver coupled to a second polarity of the DC potential; the ion generator and receiver are disposed proximate to the display screen of a device. The techniques implemented by this system are intended to move dust particles from the surface of an electronic device towards a collection point while also providing anti-microbial properties to the device surface.

Tags: cloud computing, Hewlett-Packard, HP, patent, patents

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