Patent Application
20090210493
A portion of the disclosure of this document may contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice shall apply to this document: Copyright© 2008 Microsoft Corp.
The presently disclosed subject matter relates to the field of computing, and more particularly, to fields such as media content, although this is merely an exemplary and non-limiting field.
Game console users of online gaming systems may want to communicate with other users in their gaming community. Such communication may entail telling other users about new games coming out, special outstanding offers, or interesting available content, such as blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, and so on. However, presently game console users have no easy way of accomplishing this task. A game online system that allows only for text communication, for example, does not solve the need for rich communication among a community of game console users.
Various aspects are disclosed herein for communicating and displaying of hyperlinks in a computing community. Hyperlinks can be communicated by being embedded in messages, such that users of a closed computing community can send and receive such hyperlinks. These hyperlinks can link to hyperlinked content that can be stored on a central computing device responsible for administering the community.
In one aspect of the presently disclosed subject matter, any content that is associated with hyperlinks, whether that content is in the form of blogs, RSS feeds, and so on, can be made publicly available while any associated hyperlinks will be visible only to a subset of computing devices, namely, the community computing devices (but not to any general computing devices accessing the content). This task may be accomplished by using predetermined and/or proprietary schema properly understood only by the community computing devices.
It should be noted that this Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
The foregoing Summary, as well as the following Detailed Description, is better understood when read in conjunction with the appended drawings. In order to illustrate the present disclosure, various aspects of the disclosure are illustrated. However, the disclosure is not limited to the specific aspects shown. The following figures are included:
In one aspect of the presently disclosed subject matter,
“Content” herein is used to denote any code and/or data that can be sent among the community of users 165, 170, 175 shown in
The above discussed content notifications 190 may be embodied as various types of messages that have in them embedded hyperlinks.
However, any hyperlinks that are part of such content or associated with such content can be visible 405 only to consoles 166, 171 and personal computers 326 running closed computing environments 445. A closed system can be limited to either devices of a specified type or to devices running specialized software; for example, contemplated herein are at least gaming consoles, cellular phones, personal digital assistants, personal computers with a specialized software, and so on.. Thus, personal computers running traditional browsers 416 will not be able to see such hyperlinks 410 even though they may be able to see the rest of the content 425 (such as text, pictures, and so on). One way in which the limited visibility of hyperlinks is made possible is through a predetermined and/or proprietary schema that closed systems can interpret in the intended manner. In other words, hyperlinks can be visible only to the aforementioned devices 166, 171, 326 because these devices can read a schema that exposes these hyperlinks (whereas a traditional browser may be able to read the rest of the content, and yet not see the hyperlinks). The schema may be implemented in various markup languages, such as XML.
It should be noted that RSS feeds can be supplied by servers dedicated to the closed system devices (publishing using the aforementioned schema), or they may include generally published RSS feeds that include the aforementioned schema. Moreover, a plurality of RSS feeds from different and disparate sources may be consumed by the devices shown in
In another aspect of the presently disclosed subject matter,
The subcontent 515 and the hyperlink 510 can reside on the service computing device 180 as hosted content 505 that is accessible to other computing devices, such a general purpose computing device 530. Such hosted content 505 may be part of a content package 535, and such content package 535 may include together with the hyperlinked content 520 the overall discussed content 425. Of course, such content 425 may include other code and/or data, and the discussion herein of content is merely exemplary and non-limiting.
If the general purpose computing device 530 access the content package 535, it may also have access to the subcontent 515, but any hyperlinks 510 that appear on the console computing device 525 will not appear on the general purpose computing device 530 (as is shown with the dashed line of hyperlinks 510 on the general purpose computing device 530). Of course, the notion of limited visibility of content to a subset of computing devices is not limited to hyperlinks, but may include any of the other disclosed types of content.
In another aspect of the presently disclosed subject matter,
Similarly to sending messages with embedded hyperlinks, such messages can also be received by the console computing device 525, be they received from other computing devices 560 or some administrative service 615. In the latter scenario, a central content broker or some associated partner can send messages to selected consoles, such as the shown console 525, letting them know of interesting content. Along with the received message, an accompanying hyperlink may be provided.
In one aspect of the present disclosure, the hyperlink 510 can be displayed as the normal interface component of the console computing device 525. Thus, while in one implementation it may be a traditional hyperlink, in another it may appear on a menu as a selection field or button that is visually integrated into the console 525 display menu. Put in other words, what the present disclosure contemplates is giving users the ability to import and export not only hyperlinked functionality from other users, but also the look and feel associated with such functionality (be it radial buttons, selection fields, pictures, and so on).
Another way in which users can access the hyperlinked content 520 is not by passively receiving messages, but by actively searching for such content by examining the gamer tags 620 of other users. By way of example, a gamer tag (not shown) may be associated with a user of the console computing device 525. The user of the closed computing device 560 can search any blogs, podcasts, or just about any publications by the user of the console 525 via that user's gamer tag, and then follow hyperlinked content via the aforementioned hyperlinks. Of course, gamer tags are only one exemplary way in which users can access hyperlinked content, other may include user groups, friend's lists, and so on.
Finally
At block 715, a hyperlink can be created as part of the content package, where a hyperlinked content can be accessible via the hyperlink by a community of computing devices. Moreover, the hyperlink can be visible to a limited group of computing devices in the community of computing devices. Once this is set up, at block 720, a first message can be sent from a first computing device of the community of computing devices to another at least one computing device of the community of computing devices, where the first message can have an embedded hyperlink. It is contemplated herein that messages may also not only be sent, but also received, and not just from other computing devices in the community of devices, but also administrative or centralized computing devices.
On the server-side, a computer readable medium can be used to store thereon computer executable instructions for at least allowing a plurality of users to send hyperlinks to a community of gaming computing device users and for allowing administrators to send and display hyperlinks to the community of gaming computing device users. It should be noted however, that such computer readable media can be used both on the server-side as well as the client-side (as is also true for the above processes), thus the following and preceding discussion is merely exemplary and thus non-limiting. At block 725, at least one instruction can be used that receives content from a closed computing device from a set of computing devices, including other closed computing devices and general purpose computing devices, wherein the content is a hosted content on a service computing device. Then, at block 730, at least one instruction can store the hosted content on the service computing device, where the service computing device is configured to interact with the set of computing devices as a server computing device or a peer computing device.
Next, at block 735, at least one instruction can publish the hosted content to the set of computing devices according to a predetermined schema, resulting in any hyperlinks associated with the hosted content to be visible only to the closed computing devices and being invisible to the general purpose computing devices. Following this, at block 740, at least one instruction can receive and forward a message with an embedded hyperlink out of the aforementioned hyperlinks to at least one closed computing device, thereby allowing for the sharing of such hyperlinks.
The aspects discussed with respect to
The above discussed computing devices 166, 171, 321, 326, whether native or remote, can be embodied as gaming consoles, music players, PCs, and other such devices having different, similar, or the same platforms. Contemplated herein are also hand-held devices, laptops, cell phones, and so on. Referring to
A graphics processing unit (GPU) 108 and a video encoder/video codec (coder/decoder) 114 can form a video processing pipeline for high speed and high resolution graphics processing. Data can be carried from the graphics processing unit 108 to the video encoder/video codec 114 via a bus. The video processing pipeline can output data to an A/V (audio/video) port 140 for transmission to a television or other display. A memory controller 110 can be connected to the GPU 108 and CPU 101 to facilitate processor access to various types of memory 112, such as, but not limited to, a RAM (Random Access Memory).
The multimedia console 100 can include an I/O controller 120, a system management controller 122, an audio processing unit 123, a network interface controller 124, a first USB host controller 126, a second USB controller 128 and a front panel I/O subassembly 130 that can be preferably implemented on a module 118. The USB controllers 126 and 128 can serve as hosts for peripheral controllers 142(1)-142(2), a wireless adapter 148, and an external memory unit 146 (e.g., flash memory, external CD/DVD ROM drive, removable media, etc.). Thus, hyperlinks may be created and sent using these controllers 142(1)-142(2) or any other suitable input means. Moreover, the network interface 124 and/or wireless adapter 148 can provide access to a network (e.g., the Internet, home network, etc.) and may be any of a wide variety of various wired or wireless interface components including an Ethernet card, a modem, a Bluetooth module, a cable modem, and the like.
System memory 143 can be provided to store application data that is loaded during the boot process. A media drive 144 can be provided and can comprise a DVD/CD drive, hard drive, or other removable media drive, etc. The media drive 144 can be internal or external to the multimedia console 100. Application data can be accessed via the media drive 144 for execution, playback, etc. by the multimedia console 100. The media drive 144 can be connected to the I/O controller 120 via a bus, such as a Serial ATA bus or other high speed connection (e.g., IEEE 1394).
The system management controller 122 can provide a variety of service functions to assure the availability of the multimedia console 100. The audio processing unit 123 and an audio codec 132 can form a corresponding audio processing pipeline with high fidelity, 3D, surround, and stereo audio processing according to aspects of the presently disclosed subject matter above. Audio data can be carried between the audio processing unit 123 and the audio codec 126 via a communication link. The audio processing pipeline can output data to the A/V port 140 for reproduction by an external audio player or device having audio capabilities.
The front panel I/O subassembly 130 can support the functionality of the power button 150 and the eject button 152, as well as any LEDs (light emitting diodes) or other indicators exposed on the outer surface of the multimedia console 100. A system power supply module 136 can provide power to the components of the multimedia console 100. A fan 138 can cool the circuitry within the multimedia console 100.
The CPU 101, GPU 108, memory controller 110, and various other components within the multimedia console 100 can be interconnected via one or more buses, including serial and parallel buses, a memory bus, a peripheral bus, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.
When the multimedia console 100 is powered on or rebooted, application data can be loaded from the system memory 143 into memory 112 and/or caches 102, 104 and executed on the CPU 101. Such application data can include some of the online derived data. The application may also present a graphical user interface that provides a consistent user experience when navigating to different media types available on the multimedia console 100. In operation, applications and/or other media contained within the media drive 144 can be launched or played from the media drive 144 to provide additional functionalities to the multimedia console 100.
The multimedia console 100 may be operated as a standalone system by simply connecting the system to a television or other display. In this standalone mode, the multimedia console 100 may allow one or more users to interact with the system, watch movies, listen to music, and the like. However, with the integration of broadband connectivity made available through the network interface 124 or the wireless adapter 148, the multimedia console 100 may further be operated as a participant in a larger network community of computing devices, such as devices 166, 171, 176, 205, 326, 416 and so on. As such a participant, it may interact with computing devices, whether PCs or servers, and receive information that may be eventually stored.
Next,
Finally, it should also be noted that the various techniques described herein may be implemented in connection with hardware or software or, where appropriate, with a combination of both. Thus, the methods and apparatus of the presently disclosed subject matter, or certain aspects or portions thereof, can take the form of program code (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible storage media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives, or any other machine-readable storage medium, where, when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the subject matter.
In the case of program code execution on programmable computers, the computing device may generally include a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. One or more programs that may utilize the creation and/or implementation of domain-specific programming models aspects of the present invention, e.g., through the use of a data processing application programming interface (API) or the like, are preferably implemented in a high level procedural or object oriented programming language to communicate with a computer system. However, the program(s) can be implemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. In any case, the language may be a compiled or interpreted language, and combined.
Finally, while the present disclosure has been described in connection with a plurality of exemplary aspects, as illustrated in the various figures and discussed above, it is understood that other similar aspects may be used or modifications and additions may be made to the described aspects for performing the same function of the present disclosure without deviating therefrom. For example, in various aspects of the disclosure, methods, systems, and computer readable media were described configured for hyperlinking and communicating content in a community of computing devices. However, other equivalent mechanisms to these described aspects are also contemplated by the teachings herein. Therefore, the present disclosure should not be limited to any single aspect, but rather construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the appended claims.
