Remote Processing of Content

Abstract

Features of content may be identified using a server that is coupled with a client unit via a bandwidth-limited communications link. In one embodiment, the client unit forwards a subset of representations of the content, such as a lossy compressed version of an image, to the server. The server analyzes the image and forwards information regarding the features included in the content to the client unit. If the server determines that a sufficient number of representations are not available, the server requests the client unit to forward additional representations. An embodiment of the present invention reduces usage of the bandwidth used by the bandwidth-limited communications link by having the server request subsets of representations of the content rather than transmitting all representations for remote processing in a manner supporting a division of labor by the client unit and the server.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.