초록 ▼

The invention disclosed herein enables a collection of computers and associated communications infrastructure to offer a new communications process which allows information providers to broadcast information to a population of information consumers. The information may be targeted to those consumers

The invention disclosed herein enables a collection of computers and associated communications infrastructure to offer a new communications process which allows information providers to broadcast information to a population of information consumers. The information may be targeted to those consumers who have a precisely formulated need for the information. This targeting may be based on information which is inaccessible to other communications protocols. The targeting also includes a time element. Information can be brought to the attention of the consumer precisely when it has become applicable, which may occur immediately upon receipt of the message, but may also occur long after the message arrives. The communications process may operate without intruding on consumers who do not exhibit the precisely-specified need for the information, and it may operate without compromising the security or privacy of the consumers who participate.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is clamed is:] [1.]1. An inspector for inspecting any of the properties of a computer, said computer's configuration, contents of said computer's storage devices, said computer's peripherals, said computer's environment, or remote affiliated computers, said inspector comprising:an inspector l

[ What is clamed is:] [1.]1. An inspector for inspecting any of the properties of a computer, said computer's configuration, contents of said computer's storage devices, said computer's peripherals, said computer's environment, or remote affiliated computers, said inspector comprising:an inspector library containing executable code which is invoked as part of a continual relevance evaluation process;one or more inspector methods for performing any of mathematico-logical calculations, executing computational algorithms, returning the results of system calls, accessing the contents of storage devices, and querying devices or remote computers to inspect any of the properties of a computer, said computer's configuration, contents of said computer's storage devices, said computer's peripherals, said computer's environment, or remote affiliated computers;an inspector dispatcher associated with an advice client computer for continually performing relevance determination, wherein said relevance determination is driven by a database of relevance clauses which can be continually evaluated;wherein properties which can be learned are an arbitrary combination of elementary properties that are determined according to basic calculations to inspect any of the properties of a computer, said computer's configuration, contents of said computer's storage devices, said computer's peripherals, said computer's environment, or remote affiliated computers;wherein said inspector library contains executable code which is invoked by said inspector dispatcher as part of said relevance determination process; andsaid inspector library further comprising any of:a declaration of a Phrase to be used in a relevance language;an association of said Phrase to a specific method;a declaration of a new data type to be used in an evaluation process;a declaration of a calling prototype of said specific method, including a number and required data types of arguments to be supplied to said specific method;a declaration of a result data type of said specific method;an implementation of said specific method in executable form;a declaration of special hooks associating code to be called on events, said events including any of inspector dispatcher initialization, inspector dispatcher termination, beginning of inspector dispatcher main evaluation loop, and ending of inspector dispatcher main evaluation loop;a declaration of special hooks associated with creation and maintenance of special caches associated with said specific method; andan implementation of special event methods and cache methods in executable form.