Author: claimsbot

1. A non-transitory program storage device, readable by a programmable control device and comprising instructions stored thereon to cause the programmable control device to:
receive non-linear encoded input data, wherein the received non-linear encoded input data has a first quantized bit-depth;
determine a first transfer function; and
transform the received non-linear encoded input data into linear output data having a second quantized bit-depth according to the first transfer function,
wherein the first transfer function comprises a piecewise linear function, the piecewise linear function defined by a first linear segment followed, after a first input value, by an offset curve,
wherein the first linear segment is continuous with the offset curve at the first input value, and
wherein the slopes of the first linear segment and the offset curve at the first input value are the same.
2. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the offset curve comprises a power function.
3. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the offset curve comprises a polynomial function.
4. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to cause the programmable control device to apply a stochastic dither to the non-linear encoded input data before the instructions to transform the received non-linear encoded input data are performed.
5. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the first linear segment has a first slope value, and wherein the first slope value is limited, at least in part, by the difference between the second quantized bit-depth and the first quantized bit-depth.
6. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on an area under an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function.
7. The non-transitory program storage device of claim 1, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on minimizing an error between an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function and the first transfer function.
8. A system, comprising:
a memory having, stored therein, computer program code; and
a programmable control device operatively coupled to the memory and comprising instructions stored thereon to cause the programmable control device to:
receive non-linear encoded input data, wherein the received non-linear encoded input data has a first quantized bit-depth;
determine a first transfer function; and
transform the received non-linear encoded input data into linear output data having a second quantized bit-depth according to the first transfer function,
wherein the first transfer function comprises a piecewise linear function, the piecewise linear function defined by a first linear segment followed, after a first input value, by an offset curve,
wherein the first linear segment is continuous with the offset curve at the first input value, and
wherein the slopes of the first linear segment and the offset curve at the first input value are the same.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein the offset curve comprises a power function.
10. The system of claim 8, wherein the offset curve comprises a polynomial function.
11. The system of claim 8, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to cause the programmable control device to apply a stochastic dither to the non-linear encoded input data before the instructions to transform the received non-linear encoded input data are performed.
12. The system of claim 8, wherein the first linear segment has a first slope value, and wherein the first slope value is limited, at least in part, by the difference between the second quantized bit-depth and the first quantized bit-depth.
13. The system of claim 8, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on an area under an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function.
14. The system of claim 8, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on minimizing an error between an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function and the first transfer function.
15. A method, comprising:
receiving non-linear encoded input data, wherein the received non-linear encoded input data has a first quantized bit-depth;
determining a first transfer function; and
transforming the received non-linear encoded input data into linear output data having a second quantized bit-depth according to the first transfer function,
wherein the first transfer function comprises a piecewise linear function, the piecewise linear function defined by a first linear segment followed, after a first input value, by an offset curve,
wherein the first linear segment is continuous with the offset curve at the first input value, and
wherein the slopes of the first linear segment and the offset curve at the first input value are the same.
16. The method of claim 15, wherein the offset curve comprises a power function or a polynomial function.
17. The method of claim 15, further comprising applying a stochastic dither to the non-linear encoded input data before the act of transforming the received non-linear encoded input data is performed.
18. The method of claim 15, wherein the first linear segment has a first slope value, and wherein the first slope value is limited, at least in part, by the difference between the second quantized bit-depth and the first quantized bit-depth.
19. The method of claim 15, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on an area under an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function.
20. The method of claim 15, wherein the first transfer function is determined based, at least in part, on minimizing an error between an ideal power function curve defined over the same range of input values as the first transfer function and the first transfer function.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1.-51. (canceled)
52. A method for performing vector operations in parallel in one step, the method comprising the steps of:
providing a vector register file including a plurality of vector registers;
storing a first input vector in said vector register file;
storing a control vector in said vector register file, wherein said control vector is selected as a source operand of said vector operations;
selecting a condition flag from a plurality of condition flags for each vector element position in accordance with a condition select field from a vector instruction, said plurality of condition flags are derived from results of executing a prior instruction sequence;
mapping the elements of said first input vector to the elements of a first output vector, in accordance with a first field of respective element of said control vector; and
storing elements of said first output vector on an element-by-element basis conditionally, if mask bit of respective element of said control vector is interpreted as false and in accordance with respective said selected condition flag,
wherein said vector operations are performed in parallel in one instruction.
53. The method of claim 52, wherein one of said plurality of condition flags for each respective vector element position is defined as always true.
54. (canceled)
55. (canceled)
56. The method of claim 52, wherein each of said first input vector, said second input vector, said first output vector, said second output vector, and said control vector each have N vector elements.
57. The method of claim 56, wherein the number of said N vector elements is selected from the group consisting of {8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256}.
58. The method of claim 56, wherein the number of said N vector elements is an integer value between 2 and 256, and each vector element is a fixed-point integer or a floating-point number.
59. An apparatus for performing vector operations in parallel in accordance with a control vector register and condition flags, the apparatus comprising:
a vector register file including a plurality of vector registers with a plurality of read data ports and at least one write data port, wherein some of said plurality of vector registers are accessed in parallel and at the same time, said control vector register is part of said vector register file;
a vector condition flag register for storing a plurality of condition flags for each vector element position, each element of said plurality of condition flags defining a true or false condition value, and a condition select logic that selects one of a plurality of condition flags for each vector element position in accordance with a condition select field from a vector instruction;
a first select logic coupled to said vector register file for mapping elements of a first vector register in accordance with said control vector register; and
an enable logic coupled to output of said first select logic for controlling storing elements of an output vector register in said vector register file on an element-by-element basis in accordance with a user-defined mask bit for each vector element position of said control vector register and output of said condition select logic for each vector element position,
wherein said vector operations are performed in parallel by one instruction.
60. The apparatus of claim 59, wherein one of said plurality of condition flags for each vector element position of said vector condition flag register is hard wired to always true.
61. (canceled)
62. (canceled)
63. The apparatus of claim 59, wherein each element of a vector register is a floating-point number or a fixed-point integer.
64. The apparatus of claim 59, wherein all vector registers have N vector elements, N being an integer value between 2 and 256.
65. A method for performing vector operations in parallel in one step, the method comprising:
storing a first input vector;
storing a control vector;
selecting a condition flag from a plurality of condition flags for each vector element position, said plurality of condition flags are derived from results of executing a prior instruction sequence;
mapping the elements of said first input vector to the elements of a first output vector, in accordance with a first field of respective element of said control vector; and
storing elements of said first output vector on an element-by-element basis conditionally in accordance with mask bit of respective element of said control vector is interpreted as false and in accordance with respective said selected condition flag, wherein one of said plurality of condition flags for each respective vector element position is defined as always true.

1. A system, comprising:
a first computer server hosting a plurality of web pages of a website;
a data storage server configured to store a plurality of modifications to the website;
a proxy server in communication with the data storage server, the proxy server being configured to:
receive, via a communications network, a request from a user for a first web page of the website,
retrieve a content of the first web page from the first computer server,
retrieve a modification for the first web page of the website from the data storage server,
apply the modification to the content of the first web page to create a modified content of the first web page, and
transmit the modified content of the first web page to the user; and

a domain name system (DNS) server storing a DNS record associating a domain name of the website with an Internet protocol (IP) address of the proxy server.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the modification includes a change to at least one of a title hyper-text markup language (HTML) tag, and a headline HTML tag of the first web page.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the modification to the first web page is encoded as Javascript.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the proxy server is further configured to include in the modified content of the first web page a user interface for modifying the first web page.
5. The system of claim 4, wherein the proxy server is configured to, before including in the modified content of the first web page the user interface for modifying the first web page, determine whether the user has sufficient authority to modify the first web page of the website.
6. The system of claim 5, wherein the proxy server is configured to determine whether the user has sufficient authority by analyzing an authentication token received from the user.
7. The system of claim 5, wherein the proxy server is configured to determine whether the user has sufficient authority by analyzing an Internet protocol address from which the request originated.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the proxy server is configure to cache a copy of the content of the first web page.
9. A proxy server, comprising:
a processor, the processor being configured to:
receive, via a communications network, a request from a user for a first web page of a website,
identify a first computer server hosting content for the website,
retrieve a content of the first web page from the first computer server,
retrieve a modification for the first web page of the website from a data storage server,
apply the modification to the content of the first web page to create a modified content of the first web page, and
transmit the modified content of the first web page to the user.
10. The proxy server of claim 9, wherein the modification includes a change to at least one of a title hyper-text markup language (HTML) tag, and a headline HTML tag of the first web page.
11. The proxy server of claim 9, wherein the modification to the first web page is encoded as Javascript.
12. The proxy server of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to include in the modified content of the first web page a user interface for modifying the first web page.
13. The proxy server of claim 12, wherein the processor is configured to, before including in the modified content of the first web page the user interface for modifying the first web page, determine whether the user has sufficient authority to modify the first web page of the website.
14. The proxy server of claim 13, wherein the processor is configured to determine whether the user has sufficient authority by analyzing an authentication token received from the user.
15. The proxy server of claim 13, wherein the proxy server is configured to determine whether the user has sufficient authority by analyzing an Internet protocol address from which the request originated.
16. The proxy server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configure to cache a copy of the content of the first web page.
17. A method, comprising:
receiving, via a communications network, a request from a user for a first web page of a website,
identifying a first computer server hosting content for the website,
retrieving a content of the first web page from the first computer server,
retrieving a modification for the first web page of the website from a data storage server,
applying the modification to the content of the first web page to create a modified content of the first web page, and
transmitting the modified content of the first web page to the user.
18. The method of claim 17, including:
determining whether the user has sufficient authority to modify the first web page of the website; and
when the user has sufficient authority to modify the first web page, including in the modified content of the first web page a user interface for modifying the first web page.
19. The method of claim 18, including analyzing an authentication token received from the user.
20. The method of claim 18, including analyzing an Internet protocol address from which the request originated.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. An encoded-data converting apparatus for use with image data comprising:
a) encoded-data input means for inputting first encoded data encoded with a first encoding;
b) header extracting means for extracting first header information from the first encoded data;
c) header generating means for generating second header information for a second encoding from the first header information;
d) conversion setting means for setting-up variable-length-code conversion based on both a predetermined parameter for use in the second encoding and an encoding parameter used in the first encoding;
e) frame-data extracting means for extracting encoded data in one frame from the first encoded data;
f) variable-length-code converting means for converting a variable length code in the encoded data in accordance with the variable-length-code conversion set-up by said conversion setting means;
g) DC-component converting means for decoding DC components in the encoded data in the frame into quantized values and using the quantized values to perform predictive encoding based on the second encoding; and
h) encoded-data output means for shaping the second header information and outputs of said variable-length-code converting means, and said DC-component converting means into data, and outputting the data as data encoded by the second encoding.
2. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:
variable-length-code decoding means for decoding variable length codes in the encoded data in the frame which is extracted by said frame data extracting means;
storage means for storing a decoded result obtained by the decoding of the variable length codes;
motion compensating means for retrieving motion vectors by referring to the decoded result stored in said storage means and calculating prediction errors of the decoded result based on the retrieved motion vectors; and
prediction error encoding means for encoding the prediction errors,
wherein said encoded-data output means shapes the outputs into the data, including the output of said prediction error encoding means, and outputs the data as data encoded by the second encoding.
3. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said motion compensating means determines which encoding is performed from between intra-encoding and inter-encoding.
4. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said motion compensating means and said prediction error encoding means do not operate when intra-encoding is performed, but operate when inter-encoding is performed.
5. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said prediction error encoding means performs AC predictive encoding when the intra-encoding is performed.
6. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said DC component converting means operates when intra-encoding is performed.
7. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the header information includes image-description information and encoding-parameter information.
8. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said conversion setting means sets a variable-length-code conversion table.
9. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, in the first encoding, only intra-encoding is used, and in the second encoding, adaptive use of intra-encoding and inter-encoding is performed.
10. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the first encoding is JPEG encoding.
11. An encoded-data converting apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the second encoding is MPEG-4 encoding.
12. An encoded-data converting method comprising:
an input step for inputting first encoded data generated by using first encoding to encode image data;
a header extracting step for extracting header information included in the first encoded data;
a header generating step for generating header information based on second encoding from the header information included in the first encoded data;
a conversion setting step for setting-up variable-length-code conversion based on a predetermined parameter for use in the second encoding and an encoding parameter used in the first encoding;
a frame-data extracting step for extracting encoded data in one frame from the first encoded data;
a variable-length-code converting step for converting a variable length code in the encoded data in the frame in accordance with the variable-length-code conversion set-up by said conversion setting step;
a DC-component converting step for decoding DC components in the encoded data in the frame into quantized values and using the quantized values to perform predictive encoding based on the second encoding; and
an encoded-data output step for shaping the outputs of said header generating step, said variable-length-code converting step, and said DC-component converting step into data, and outputting the data as data encoded by the second encoding.
13. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 12, further comprising:
a variable-length-code decoding step for decoding variable length codes in the encoded data in the frame which is extracted by said frame data extracting step;
a motion compensating step for retrieving motion vectors by referring to a decoded result obtained in said variable-length-code decoding step and calculating prediction errors of the decoded result based on the retrieved motion vectors; and
a prediction error encoding step for encoding the prediction errors,
wherein, in said encoded-data output step, the output of said prediction error encoding step is shaped into data, and the data is output as data encoded by the second encoding.
14. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 13, wherein said motion compensating step determines which encoding is performed from between intra-encoding and inter-encoding.
15. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 14, wherein said motion compensating step and said prediction error encoding step are not executed when intra-encoding is performed, but are executed when inter-encoding is performed.
16. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 13, wherein, in said prediction error encoding step, AC predictive encoding is performed when the intra-encoding is performed.
17. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 13, wherein said DC component converting step is executed when intra-encoding is performed.
18. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 12, wherein the header information includes image-description information and encoding-parameter information.
19. An encoded-data converting method according to claim 12, wherein, in said conversion setting step, a variable-length-code conversion table is set.
20. A recording medium containing a program for causing a computer to execute each of steps constituting an encoded-data converting method according to claim 12.