Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080212941 | Recording media content on different devices - A system for recording media content on different recording devices includes a metadata insertion device configured to annotate advertisement content with metadata, where the advertisement content references a media content, and where the metadata is configured to enable recording of the media content on the different recording devices. The system also includes a program finder server configured to determine the next broadcast of the media content available to the different recording devices and a recording server configured to access information pertaining to the different recording devices and configured to schedule a recording of the media content on one or more of the recording devices based upon data and protocols required by the one or more recording devices. | 09-04-2008 |
20080240010 | INTELLIGENT ORCHESTRATION OF CROSS-MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS - A method and architecture for managing a communication campaign direct toward a plurality of media consumption devices associated with a common user ( | 10-02-2008 |
20080244660 | VIRTUAL SET-TOP BOX TUNER IN CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM - A method for scheduling the reception of content in a content receiver, for example, in an STB/DVR, includes scheduling ( | 10-02-2008 |
20080320041 | ADDING VIRTUAL FEATURES VIA REAL WORLD ACCESSORIES - A method, apparatus, and electronic device for enhancing virtual features in devices are disclosed. A connection interface may pair the mobile telecommunications apparatus with a first accessory. A processor may execute a software program and add a virtual feature associated with the first accessory when the first accessory is present. | 12-25-2008 |
20090172745 | Method and Apparatus Regarding Receipt of Audio-Visual Content Information and Use of Such Information to Automatically Infer a Relative Popularity of That Content - A network element ( | 07-02-2009 |
20090241155 | Method and Apparatus to Facilitate Automatically Forming an Aggregation of Multiple Different Renderable Content Items - A network element ( | 09-24-2009 |
20090287714 | Method and Apparatus for Community-Based Comparison Shopping Based on Social Bookmarking - A method and apparatus for sharing product information amongst users of a computer network using productmarks. A productmark for a product is created by a user of the network and includes a product identifier, an annotation containing user comments, a username that identifies the creator of the productmark, and a categorization tag that identifies the user's level of interest in purchasing the product. Productmarks are stored in a database that may be queried using a product identifier, a username, a categorization tag or any combination of these to retrieve productmarks. A user network device provides access to the database and includes modules for creating and uploading productmarks to the database a module for querying and downloading productmarks from the database. A peer-to-peer communication session may be formed relating to a particular product and/or geographical location. | 11-19-2009 |
20090288120 | System and Method for Creating Media Bookmarks from Secondary Device - There is disclosed a mobile device, and a method thereof, for creating media bookmarks. The mobile device comprises a user interface, a timing circuit, a processor, and a wireless transceiver. The user interface detects first and second user inputs associated with a media clip, in which the first user input precedes the second user input. The timing circuit provides a time stamp at a given time. The processor determines an end time associated with the media clip corresponding to a time stamp when the first user input is detected, and a start time associated with a media clip based on the second user input. The processor also identifies a broadcast channel associated with the media clip. The wireless transceiver transmits clip information based on the start and end times to a remote server via a wireless communication link. | 11-19-2009 |
20100115596 | Method and System for Creating and Sharing Bookmarks of Media Content - A method for facilitating a bookmark server to create a bookmark from content associated with a content source is disclosed. The method comprises a remote device selecting a portion of the content associated with the content source, based on an input received via a user interface. The remote device then generates metadata associated with the selected portion of the content. The metadata includes information pertaining to the content source and the content. The remote device communicates with the bookmark server, which can access the content associated with the content source. The remote device sends the metadata to the bookmark server along with a request message to the bookmark server to create the bookmark based on the metadata. | 05-06-2010 |
20100121763 | Method and apparatus to facilitate using a virtual-world interaction to facilitate a real-world transaction - One presents ( | 05-13-2010 |
20100153142 | GROUP DECISION MAKING FOR TICKET PURCHASES - Disclosed is a group decision-making process. One user (the “control”) is selected to propose a possibility (e.g., a group seating arrangement) to other members of the group. The other members access on-line information to review the proposal and then send their feedback to the control. The proposal is altered as necessary based on the feedback and on any exigencies (e.g., one of the seats in the proposal becomes unavailable to the group). When consensus is reached within the group, the control launches an interaction with the vendor to implement the consensus decision. In this way, every group member has the opportunity to affect the decision based on whatever information, constraints, or preferences seem relevant to that group member. Also, the proposal is always kept up-to-date so that the final decision is not based on “stale” information. | 06-17-2010 |
20100220747 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SYNCHRONIZING NODES - During each node's awake period, each node multicasts the relative time or slot of their next awake period (beaconing interval) to all neighboring nodes. This enables each node to intelligently and independently schedule the time slot of its next transmission based on the beaconing intervals of the nodes it has heard from. During each active (awake) interval, a node builds statistics of the future transmission/receive times of its neighbors and uses them to determine its next transmission time. In one proposed implementation, at the end of an active interval, a node picks the time slot with the highest counter for its next transmission. In another proposed implementation, at the end of an active interval, a node picks one of the slots with a weighted probability; the weight of each slot is proportional with the value of the counter associated with the slot | 09-02-2010 |
20120116869 | COORDINATING ADVERTISING AMONG USER DEVICES - Disclosed are methods for coordinating advertising among at least two devices currently being used by the same user. A server receives information about what advertising is sent to a first user device. Based on that information, the server creates a “context directive” that specifies how to appropriately direct advertising to a second user device. The context directive is sent to a device that manages an advertising campaign for the second device. The context directive can be based on advertising policy rules set by campaign managers for the first and second user devices. The policy rules may be based on demographic information associated with the user of the second device. In some embodiments, a server collects information on advertisements sent to the various user devices, correlates that information, and produces a report. Advertising managers use this report to gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns across devices. | 05-10-2012 |
20120304234 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSFERRING CONTENT - A method and apparatus for downloading content within a video-on-demand system is provided herein. During operation a Video Home Office (VHO) will cache a subset of the Video Service Office (VSO) content. When a user requests content that is not stored on the VHO, the VHO will request that content from another VHO or the VSO. In order to reduce the additional network load imposed during item forwarding while attempting to balance the total load on all the links interconnecting the VSO and VHOs, recorded traffic history metrics are used to predict their future or current traffic. A VHO or VSO is chosen for fetching the content that will result in the lowest predicted traffic on the interconnecting links. | 11-29-2012 |
20130031581 | PREPARING AN ALERT IN A MULTI-CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS ENVIRONMENT - The pervasive visibility of television and other screens is leveraged to present pop-up alerts to users. These alerts can be made to appear on any channel at any time, but they are formatted in a way that suits the differing policies of the various channel providers. When an alert is received, an “alert mediator” determines which channel is currently being played on a first user device. The alert mediator reviews alert-rendering rules for that particular channel and prepares the alert according to those rendering rules. The alert is then presented either to that first user device or to a second user device. A rule can provide for “skinning” the alert so that the alert fits in with the “look and feel” of the channel. When a user device displays more than one channel at the same time, the alert mediator chooses which channel's rules to apply in displaying the alert. | 01-31-2013 |
20130132987 | OFFERING TASKS TO USERS BASED ON THEIR COMPETENCE AND ON THEIR CURRENT ACTIVITY - The pervasive visibility of television and other screens is leveraged to present task offers to users. A task broker gives the user an incentive if he accepts and successfully performs the task. To be effective, the task broker first collects profile information about the user. Some of the profile information is used to determine what tasks are appropriate for a given user based, for example, on that user's competencies. Other profile information characterizes the user's current level of activity and, based on that, his “interruptibility.” Tasks and incentives can be chosen based on user-profile information including, for example, demographics and the user's previous interactions with the task broker. Information about the user's successful completion of a task can be used to update the user's profile, and future task offers are based on this updated profile information. | 05-23-2013 |
20130132998 | SENDING A MESSAGE WITHIN A TELEVISION-CONTENT DELIVER ENVIRONMENT - Subscribers to a television-delivery service can send and receive messages within a television-viewing environment. A subscriber can create a message, attach content from the television environment, and send the message to a friend, all without leaving the television environment. A television producer controls its rights to the content by allowing subscribers to select and send some content while preventing other content from being incorporated in a message. Rights can be checked at the sender site, at the recipient site, and in between by a message-transport service. In some situations, the recipient may not have sufficient rights to view the entire message. Specifically, the recipient's subscription level may not allow access to some of the message content that was pulled from the sender's television-delivery service. In this case, the recipient may take corrective action or may view the message with the restricted content replaced with alternative content. | 05-23-2013 |
20130144709 | COGNITIVE-IMPACT MODELING FOR USERS HAVING DIVIDED ATTENTION - Systems and methods are provided for modeling the cognitive impact of content displayed on a first device on a user engaged with a second device. An exemplary method involves obtaining activity by the user associated with the second device when content is displayed on the first device, determining an impact metric for the content, and correlating the impact metric with the user activity for the user. In another embodiment, an exemplary content-management system includes a campaign-management system to provide content displayed on a first device and an impact-modeling system to capture user activity on a second device when the content is displayed on the first device, determine an impact metric for the content, and correlate the impact metric to the user activity for the user. | 06-06-2013 |
20130145399 | PERSONAL TELEVISION CHANNEL - A “personal television channel” is created for a user by a television head-end server. The personal channel has its own playlist that can include, in addition to service offerings from a television-delivery service, content stored locally by the user, media sent to the user from third parties (e.g., an electronic magazine publisher), and messages from other users. The user selects the personal channel just as he would select any other television channel. He then sees a playlist for the personal channel (which may be integrated into a general electronic program guide (“EPG”) supplied by the television provider). The user selects and plays content from the playlist just as he would interact with a traditional EPG. The user can specify local content to be included in his personal channel. He can also send content to another user to be included in the playlist of the recipient's personal channel. | 06-06-2013 |
20130159876 | SUPPORTING MULTIPLE ATTENTION-BASED, USER-INTERACTION MODES - The present invention monitors a user's activities to determine how much attention he is paying to one or more devices. Based on the information gathered about the user's current “attention profile,” a “user-interaction parameter” is set that reflects where the user's attention is focused and, ideally, how much of his attention is given to each device. Then, based on the user-interaction parameter, the user interface of at least one of the user's devices is configured to optimize the user's interactions, given the amount of attention he is currently giving to this user interface. If the user is giving the majority of his attention to the television, for example, then the user interface of a companion device can be configured to emphasize the types of interactions available to a user who is not actively watching the companion device. | 06-20-2013 |
20130160036 | SUPPORTING MULTIPLE ATTENTION-BASED, USER-INTERACTION MODES - The present invention monitors a user's activities to determine how much attention he is paying to one or more devices. Based on the information gathered about the user's current “attention profile,” a “user-interaction parameter” is set that reflects where the user's attention is focused and, ideally, how much of his attention is given to each device. Then, based on the user-interaction parameter, the user interface of at least one of the user's devices is configured to optimize the user's interactions, given the amount of attention he is currently giving to this user interface. If the user is giving the majority of his attention to the television, for example, then the user interface of a companion device can be configured to emphasize the types of interactions available to a user who is not actively watching the companion device. | 06-20-2013 |
20130194310 | AUTOMATICALLY ADAPTATION OF APPLICATION DATA RESPONSIVE TO AN OPERATING CONDITION OF A PORTABLE COMPUTING DEVICE - A method and apparatus for displaying data associated with a first application and data associated with a second application on a portable computing are disclosed. Data from physical and virtual sensors is captured and used to determine a context vector. The context vector may provide information about portable computing device usage. Application modes associated with the context vector by the first application and by the second application are identified in addition to a container mode associated with the context vector by a display container. In one embodiment, the display container is a virtual display space used to identify and describe data for display on a display device. A display configuration is determined form the application modes associated with the context vector and the container mode associated with the context vector and used to display data on a display device. | 08-01-2013 |
20130243392 | SENTIMENT MAPPING IN A MEDIA CONTENT ITEM - A media content item is evaluated for its “sentiment states.” That is, segments of the content item are determined to be, for example, “happy,” “exciting,” “sad,” “funny,” and the like. A “sentiment map” is created that delimits segments of the content item and contains the sentiment-state keywords associated with the segments. Some maps include an amplitude for each assigned sentiment keyword and a confidence value for the segment delimitation and for each keyword. As an exemplary use of the sentiment map, an advertisement broker matches the sentiments of his advertisement offerings with segments of a content item in order to place appropriate advertisements at times when they would be most favorably received. In another example, a recommender system recommends to a user a content item whose sentiment map compares favorably to that of a content item already enjoyed by the user. | 09-19-2013 |
20130246168 | SENTIMENT MAPPING IN A MEDIA CONTENT ITEM - A media content item is evaluated for its “sentiment states.” That is, segments of the content item are determined to be, for example, “happy,” “exciting,” “sad,” “funny,” and the like. A “sentiment map” is created that delimits segments of the content item and contains the sentiment-state keywords associated with the segments. Some maps include an amplitude for each assigned sentiment keyword and a confidence value for the segment delimitation and for each keyword. As an exemplary use of the sentiment map, an advertisement broker matches the sentiments of his advertisement offerings with segments of a content item in order to place appropriate advertisements at times when they would be most favorably received. In another example, a recommender system recommends to a user a content item whose sentiment map compares favorably to that of a content item already enjoyed by the user. | 09-19-2013 |
20130246447 | SENTIMENT MAPPING IN A MEDIA CONTENT ITEM - A media content item is evaluated for its “sentiment states.” That is, segments of the content item are determined to be, for example, “happy,” “exciting,” “sad,” “funny,” and the like. A “sentiment map” is created that delimits segments of the content item and contains the sentiment-state keywords associated with the segments. Some maps include an amplitude for each assigned sentiment keyword and a confidence value for the segment delimitation and for each keyword. As an exemplary use of the sentiment map, an advertisement broker matches the sentiments of his advertisement offerings with segments of a content item in order to place appropriate advertisements at times when they would be most favorably received. In another example, a recommender system recommends to a user a content item whose sentiment map compares favorably to that of a content item already enjoyed by the user. | 09-19-2013 |
20140033248 | INCLUDING INSERTS IN MULTIMEDIA CONTENT - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for including an insert (e.g., an advertisement) in multimedia content. The method comprises receiving, by a receiving module, one or more indications, each indication being an indication that a consumer intends to consume, at some time in the future, the multimedia content. Using the indications, a value of a metric is then determined. The metric is dependent upon the number of received indications or one or more attributes of consumers whom the indications indicate intend to consume the multimedia content. An insert is then selected depending on the determined value for the metric. The selected insert is then included in the multimedia content. | 01-30-2014 |
20140051505 | SOFTWARE-APPLICATION INITIATION - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for triggering (i.e., initiating, launching, or running) a software application (e.g., an interactive game application) or other computer program or application on a user device (e.g., a computer, etc.) based on multimedia content being provided to (e.g., displayed on) a different user device (e.g., a different computer, a television, etc.). The methods may comprise displaying, using a first device, multimedia content. A multimedia-analysis process may then be performed to determine an attribute of the multimedia content being displayed. These attributes may be used to acquire (e.g., select or produce) a software application comprising one or more elements that relate to the multimedia content. The software application may then be launched (i.e., triggered, initiated, or run) on a second device, the second device being different from the first device. | 02-20-2014 |
20140074923 | SELECTIVE CONTENT DISCLOSURE IN AN AD-HOC NETWORK BASED ON SOCIAL COHESION - In a device that is a member of an ad-hoc group in a network, a method includes determining an encounter history of the device with other devices in the ad-hoc group and filtering content intended to be shared by the device with the ad-hoc group based on the encounter history. A device includes a network interface to communicate with other devices in an ad-hoc group of a network and a disclosure assessment agent to determine a disclosure factor for disclosure of content to the ad-hoc group based on an encounter history of the device with other devices in the ad-hoc group. The device further includes a disclosure filter agent to filter content intended to be shared with the ad-hoc group based on the disclosure factor. | 03-13-2014 |
20140143043 | MULTI-SCREEN ADVERTISEMENT CORRELATION BASED ON PURCHASES - An advertisement system includes an advertising manager that receives a content-event indicator, which indicates playback of an advertisement for viewing on a first display screen at a media-playback device or indicates playback of recorded content that includes advertisements. The advertising manager can determine an optimal time offset as a duration of time before or after playback of an advertisement to the start of an event that is associated with the advertisement for viewing on a second display screen at a mobile device. For recorded content, an optimization schedule is determined that replaces and time-shifts advertisements during playback of the recorded content. The advertising manager can also determine a fulfillment criterion for a product or service based on latency constraints to indicate a duration of time within which fulfillment of the product or service is expected when offered as a second advertisement corresponding to a first advertisement. | 05-22-2014 |
20140143803 | ATTENTION-BASED ADVERTISEMENT SCHEDULING IN TIME-SHIFTED CONTENT - An advertisement system includes an advertising manager that receives a content-event indicator, which indicates playback of an advertisement for viewing on a first display screen at a media-playback device or indicates playback of recorded content that includes advertisements. The advertising manager can determine an optimal time offset as a duration of time before or after playback of an advertisement to the start of an event that is associated with the advertisement for viewing on a second display screen at a mobile device. For recorded content, an optimization schedule is determined that replaces and time-shifts advertisements during playback of the recorded content. The advertising manager can also determine a fulfillment criterion for a product or service based on latency constraints to indicate a duration of time within which fulfillment of the product or service is expected when offered as a second advertisement corresponding to a first advertisement. | 05-22-2014 |
20150073921 | CREATING DERIVATIVE ADVERTISEMENTS - A method for creating derivative advertisements is provided. The method includes identifying a visual element based on an analysis of a primary advertisement asset such that the visual element is representative of a branding message provided within the primary advertisement. The method also includes identifying a call-to-action (CTA) data element based on the analysis and creating a derivative advertisement asset having the visual element and CTA data element. A system and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing software for executing the method are also provided. | 03-12-2015 |
20150073924 | SECOND SCREEN ADVERTISEMENT CORRELATION USING SCHEDULING INFORMATION FOR FIRST SCREEN ADVERTISEMENTS - A first screen schedule for the linear delivery of video content is received and analyzed. The first screen schedule may include slots in which first screen advertisements could be displayed. Particular embodiments can then determine the feasibility of providing second screen advertisements based on the first screen schedule. Then, second screen advertisements that advertisers wish to display in conjunction with first screen advertisements are determined When the linear delivery of the video content commences, particular embodiments monitor a messaging stream associated with the delivery of the video content. When an ad placement marker is encountered, an ad server may select a first screen advertisement. When the first screen advertisement is placed, the messaging stream identifies a first screen advertisement that is delivered. If the first screen advertisement has a corresponding second screen advertisement, particular embodiments output the second screen advertisement on a second screen environment. | 03-12-2015 |