DISTRIBUTED IN-VEHICLE RESOURCE DOWNLOADING AND STREAMING

1 . A system comprising:

a plurality of media-sharing devices, each in communication with one another over a local-area network of a vehicle and in communication with a server over a wide-area network; and

a media-sharing application, installed to each of the media-sharing devices, programmed to cause the media-sharing devices to identify one of the media-sharing devices as being a master media-sharing device, the master media-sharing device programmed to

identify, from the server, a content portion size of a resource to be downloaded, and

send download requests over the local-area network to cause each of the media-sharing devices to download a different content portion of the resource from the server over the wide-area network, each content portion being of the content portion size.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein to identify one of the media-sharing devices to be the master media-sharing device includes to determine the master media-sharing device as being the one of the media-sharing devices that is paired with a computing platform of the vehicle.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein one of the plurality of media-sharing devices is a computing platform of the vehicle.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein to identify one of the media-sharing devices to be the master media-sharing device includes to determine the master media-sharing device as being the computing platform of the vehicle.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the master media-sharing device is further programmed to:

create a media device list of the media-sharing devices; and

select the different content portion of the resource to be downloaded by each of the media-sharing devices on the media device list.

6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the master media-sharing device is further programmed to:

periodically broadcast requests querying for media-sharing devices; and

update the media device list to at least one of add a newly-responding media-sharing device to the media device list or remove a media-sharing device no longer responding to the requests from the media device list.

7 . A method comprising:

identifying a portion size of a resource based on a total size of the resource and a count of media-sharing devices communicating with one another over a local-area network of a vehicle and with a server over a wide-area network;

sending download requests over the local-area network causing the media-sharing devices to download portions of the resource over the wide-area network; and

assembling the resource from the portions.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

receiving a request for the resource; and

providing the resource, as assembled, responsive to the request.

9 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising requesting the portion size from the server.

10 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

creating a list of the media-sharing devices; and

assigning the portions of the resource to be downloaded by each of the media-sharing devices on the media device list.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

periodically broadcasting requests querying for media-sharing devices; and

updating a media device list to at least one of add a newly-responding media-sharing device to the media device list or remove a media-sharing device from the media device list that is no longer responding to the requests.

12 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

assigning a first portion of the resource to be downloaded by one of the media-sharing devices; and

assigning a second portion of the resource to be downloaded by the one of the media-sharing devices responsive to receiving a notification from the one of the media-sharing devices that the first portion of the resource is downloaded.

13 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising assigning the portions of the resource to be downloaded by each of the media-sharing devices on the media device list to spread data usage of the wide-area network across the media-sharing devices.

14 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising identifying one of the media-sharing devices to be a master media-sharing device sending the download requests by determining the master media-sharing device to be the one of the media-sharing devices that is paired with a computing platform of the vehicle.

15 . The method of claim 7 , wherein one of the media-sharing devices is a computing platform of the vehicle.

16 . The method of claim 15 , further comprising identifying one of the media-sharing devices to be a master media-sharing device by determining the master media-sharing device to be the computing platform of the vehicle.

17 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a processor of a media-sharing device, are configured to cause the media-sharing device to:

determine that the media-sharing device is a master media-sharing device;

create a list of the media-sharing devices communicating with the media-sharing device over a local-area network of a vehicle and with a server over a wide-area network;

receive a request for a resource to be downloaded from the server over the wide-area network; and

assign portions of the resource to be downloaded to each of the media-sharing devices on the list.

18 . The medium of claim 17 , further embodying instructions to cause the media-sharing device to determine either: that the media-sharing device is the master media-sharing device responsive to identifying the media-sharing device as being a computing platform of the vehicle, or that the media-sharing device is the master media-sharing device responsive to identifying the media-sharing devices as being paired with the computing platform of the vehicle.

19 . The medium of claim 17 , wherein the resource is an instance of media content hosted by the server.

20 . The medium of claim 17 , further embodying instructions to cause the media-sharing device to assemble the resource from the portions.