Document stream operating system

Abstract

A document stream operating system and method is disclosed in which: (1) documents are stored in one or more chronologically ordered streams; (2) the location and nature of file storage is transparent to the user; (3) information is organized as needed instead of at the time the document is created; (4) sophisticated logic is provided for summarizing a large group of related documents at the time a user wants a concise overview; and (5) archiving is automatic. The documents can include text, pictures, animations, software programs or any other type of data.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A computer program for organizing one or more data units, comprising: 
 means for receiving one or more of the data units, each data unit associated with one or more chronological indicators; and    means for linking each of the data units according to the chronological indicators to generate one or more streams of data units.    
     
     
         2 . The computer program of  claim 1 , wherein the chronological indicators comprise past, present, and future times.  
     
     
         3 . The computer program of  claim 1 , further comprising means for displaying the streams, wherein respective indicia representing the data units are displayed.  
     
     
         4 . The computer program of  claim 1 , wherein each data unit includes textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data.  
     
     
         5 . The computer program of  claim 1 , wherein the means for displaying the streams further comprises means for displaying selected segments of the streams corresponding to selected intervals of time.  
     
     
         6 . The computer program of  claim 1 , wherein the means for receiving further comprises means for receiving data units from the Word Wide Web.  
     
     
         7 . The computer program of  claim 1 , wherein. said means for receiving further comprises means for receiving data units from a client computer.  
     
     
         8 . A method of organizing one or more data units, comprising the steps of: 
 receiving one or more data units, each data unit associated with one or more chronological indicators; and    linking each of the data units according to the chronological indicators to generate one or more streams of data units.    
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the chronological indicators comprise past, present, and future times.  
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising the step of displaying the streams, wherein respective indicia represent each data unit.  
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein each data units includes textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein step of displaying the streams further comprises: 
 a) receiving from a user one or more values indicative of one or more selected segments of the streams corresponding to one or more selected intervals of time, and    b) displaying the segments of the streams corresponding to the selected intervals of time.    
     
     
         13 . A system for organizing electronic documents comprising: 
 a main stream comprising a plurality of documents, each having a timestamp;    a plurality of document representations, each associated with one document in the plurality of documents and comprising information about the document including its timestamp; and    means for displaying one or more of the document representations in a chronological order based on their respective timestamps.    
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the document representations are displayed in a gallery of recently-used documents.  
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the document representations are displayed in a calendar month display.  
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein each document comprises any type of data.  
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 16 , wherein the document is an application.  
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein at least one document further comprises a user selected annotation.  
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising means for changing a document to read-only.  
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising: 
 a first substream that identifies a first set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream; and    a second substream that identifies a second set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    wherein the first set and the second set intersect but are not identical and one is not a subset of the other.    
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising: 
 a first substream that identifies a first set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    a second substream that identifies a second set of documents; and    a combined stream comprising a plurality of documents in the first substream and the second substream.    
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising: 
 means for determining whether each document in the plurality documents is a past document, a present document or a future document; and    wherein the plurality of document representations further comprises information regarding whether its associated document is past, present or future.    
     
     
         23 . The system of  claim 22 , wherein documents determined to be past documents are archived, but their associated document representations are not archived.  
     
     
         24 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising 
 at least one browse card indicating a summary of contents of one of the plurality of documents; and    means for selecting one of the document representations, said means capable of displaying the browse card for the document corresponding to the selected document representation.    
     
     
         25 . The system of  claim 24 , wherein the browse card further comprises a reduced-size image representing the contents of the document.  
     
     
         26 . The system of  claim 25 , further comprising 
 means for archiving documents having a timestamp older than a specified age;    wherein one or more of the document representation and browse card corresponding to an archived document can be accessed by the means for displaying and means for selecting, respectively.    
     
     
         27 . The system of  claim 13 , further comprising 
 at least one substream that identifies one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream.    
     
     
         28 . The system of  claim 27 , wherein the substream comprises a query identifying one or more of the plurality of documents.  
     
     
         29 . The system of  claim 27 , further comprising 
 a calling card that comprises a query identifying one or more of the plurality of documents, wherein the calling card is one of the plurality of documents in the main stream.    
     
     
         30 . The system of  claim 27 , further comprising: 
 a stream envelope that references the at least one substream and provides a copy of the documents identified by the at least one substream.    
     
     
         31 . The system of  claim 27 , wherein the means for displaying displays only the document representations associated with the documents identified by the at least one substream.  
     
     
         32 . The system of  claim 27 , further comprising means for creating the substream.  
     
     
         33 . The system of  claim 32 , further comprising means for summarizing the data contained in a selected substream.  
     
     
         34 . The system of  claim 32 , further comprising 
 a voice recognition system that recognizes voice commands wherein the means for creating a substream is capable of responding to voice commands recognized by the voice recognition system.    
     
     
         35 . The system of  claim 27 , further comprising: 
 means for creating a summary document comprising a summary of information contained in the documents identified by the substream.    
     
     
         36 . The system of  claim 35 , wherein the summary is based on the type of data in the documents identified by the substream.  
     
     
         37 . A system for organizing documents comprising: 
 a main stream comprising a plurality of documents, each having a timestamp;    a plurality of document representations, each associated with one document in the plurality of documents and comprising information about the document including its timestamp;    at least one substream that identifies one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    means for selecting a time in the past, present or future; and    means for displaying a portion of the plurality of document representations associated with the documents in one of the main stream and the at least one substream in a chronological order based on their respective timestamps;    wherein the first document representation displayed by the means for displaying is determined by the means for selecting.    
     
     
         38 . The system of  claim 37 , wherein each document comprises any type of data.  
     
     
         39 . The system of  claim 37 , wherein only document representations associated with present documents are displayed unless a time other than the present time is selected by the means for selecting.  
     
     
         40 . The system of  claim 37 , wherein past documents are archived.  
     
     
         41 . A method for organizing electronic documents comprising: 
 creating a main stream comprising a plurality of documents, each having a timestamp;    generating a plurality of document representations, each associated with one document in the plurality of documents and comprising information about the document including its timestamp; and    displaying one or more of the document representations in a chronological order based on their respective timestamps.    
     
     
         42 . The method of  claim 41 , wherein the step of displaying displays the document representations in a gallery of recently-used documents.  
     
     
         43 . The method of  claim 41 , wherein the step of displaying displays the document representations in a calendar month display.  
     
     
         44 . The method of  claim 41 , wherein each document comprises any type of data.  
     
     
         45 . The method of  claim 44 , wherein the document is an application.  
     
     
         46 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising associating a user selected annotation with one or more documents in the plurality of documents.  
     
     
         47 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising changing a document to read-only.  
     
     
         48 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising: 
 generating a first substream that identifies a first set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream; and    generating a second substream that identifies a second set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    wherein the first set and the second set intersect but are not identical and one is not a subset of the other.    
     
     
         49 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising: 
 generating a first substream that identifies a first set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    generating a second substream that identifies a second set of one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream; and    generating a combined stream comprising a plurality of documents in the first substream and the second substream.    
     
     
         50 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising: 
 determining whether each document in the plurality documents is a past document, a present document or a future document; and    wherein the plurality of document representations further comprises information regarding whether its associated document is past, present or future.    
     
     
         51 . The method of  claim 50 , further comprising archiving documents determined to be past documents, but not archiving their associated document representations.  
     
     
         52 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising: 
 generating a summary of contents of at least one of the plurality of documents on a browse card;    selecting one of the document representations; and    displaying the browse card for the document corresponding to the selected document representation.    
     
     
         53 . The method of  claim 52 , wherein the browse card includes a reduced-size image representing the contents of the document.  
     
     
         54 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising: 
 archiving documents having a timestamp older than a specified age;    wherein one or more of the document representation and browse card corresponding to an archived document are accessible.    
     
     
         55 . The method of  claim 41 , further comprising: 
 generating at least one substream that identifies one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream.    
     
     
         56 . The method of  claim 55 , wherein the substream is generated based on a query identifying one or more of the plurality of documents in the substream.  
     
     
         57 . The method of  claim 55 , further comprising 
 generating a calling card that comprises a query identifying one or more of the plurality of documents, wherein the calling card is one of the plurality of documents in the main stream.    
     
     
         58 . The method of  claim 55 , further comprising: 
 generating a stream envelope that references the at least one substream and provides a copy of the documents identified by the at least one substream.    
     
     
         59 . The method of  claim 55 , further comprising: 
 creating a summary document comprising a summary of information contained in the documents identified by the substream.    
     
     
         60 . The method of  claim 59 , wherein the summary is based on the type of data in the documents identified by the substream.  
     
     
         61 . The method of  claim 55 , wherein the step of displaying displays document representations associated with the documents identified by the at least one substream.  
     
     
         62 . The method of  claim 55 , further comprising summarizing the data contained in a selected sub stream.  
     
     
         63 . The method of  claim 55 , wherein at least on substream is generated based on voice commands recognized by a voice recognition system.  
     
     
         64 . A method for organizing documents comprising: 
 creating a main stream comprising a plurality of documents, each having a timestamp;    generating a plurality of document representations, each associated with one document in the plurality of documents and comprising information about the document including its timestamp;    generating at least one substream that identifies one or more of the plurality of documents in the main stream;    selecting a time in the past, present or future; and    displaying a portion of the plurality of document representations associated with the documents in one of the main stream and the at least one substream in a chronological order based on their respective timestamps;    wherein the first document representation displayed is determined by the selected time.    
     
     
         65 . The method of  claim 64 , wherein each document comprises any type of data.  
     
     
         66 . The method of  claim 64 , further comprising displaying only document representations associated with present documents unless a time other than the present time is selected.  
     
     
         67 . The system of  claim 64 , further comprising archiving past documents.