The foregoing aspects and other features of the present embodiments are explained in the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The communication system of
In the communication system of
The mobile terminals 100, 106 may be connected to a mobile telecommunications network 110 through radio frequency (RF) links 102, 108 via base stations 104, 109. The mobile telecommunications network 110 may be in compliance with any commercially available mobile telecommunications standard such as GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS, CDMA2000, FOMA and TD-SCDMA.
The mobile telecommunications network 110 may be operatively connected to a wide area network 120, which may be the internet or a part thereof. An internet server 122 has data storage 124 and is connected to the wide area network 120, as is an internet client computer 126. The server 122 may host a www/hap server capable of serving www/hap content to the mobile terminal 100.
For example, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 130 may be connected to the mobile telecommunications network 110 in a familiar manner. Various telephone terminals, including the stationary telephone 132, may be connected to the PSTN 130.
The mobile terminal 100 is also capable of communicating locally via a local link 101 to one or more local devices 103. The local link 101 may be any suitable type of link with a limited range, such as for example Bluetooth, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) link, a wireless Universal Serial Bus (WUSB) link, an IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) link, an RS-232 serial link, etc. The local devices 103 can, for example, be various sensors that can communicate measurement values to the mobile terminal 100 over the local link 101. The local devices 103 may be antennas and supporting equipment forming a WLAN implementing Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX, IEEE 802.16), WiFi (IEEE 802.11x) or other communication protocols. The WLAN may be connected to the internet. The mobile terminal 100 may thus have multi-radio capability for connecting wirelessly using mobile communications network 110, WLAN or both. Communication with the mobile telecommunications network 110 may also be implemented using WiFi, WiMax, or any other suitable protocols, and such communication may utilize unlicensed portions of the radio spectrum (e.g. unlicensed mobile access (UMA)). The above examples are not intended to be limiting, and any suitable type of link may be utilized.
In one embodiment, the apparatus 100 may be any suitable apparatus capable of presenting graphics or animations such as, for example, a mobile phone, a PDA, laptop or desktop computer an electronic music player (e.g. MP3 player and the like) and the like as will be described below. As can be seen in
Another embodiment 300 of an apparatus 100 is illustrated in more detail in
In another embodiment, the device 100, may be for example, a PDA style device 400 illustrated in
The embodiments described herein will be described with reference to the electronic music player 200 for exemplary purposes only and it should be understood that the embodiments could be applied equally to any suitable device incorporating a display, processor, memory and supporting software or hardware. It should also be noted that the features of the apparatus described herein may be combined together to form another apparatus for practicing the disclosed embodiments, such as, for example, a mobile phone with an MP3 player.
To enhance the user's emotional experience a device 100, such as the player 200, may be configured to utilize any suitable content such as, for example, preprocessed content and/or software generated content. Examples of preprocessed content include, but are not limited to, MPEG movies, FLASH clips, GIF images, JPEG images, MP3 music/sound files, etc. Examples of software generated content include, but are not limited to, content that is generated on the device without media files such as, fractal images (e.g. Mandelbrot images) where the content can be presented in simple mathematical formulas. In alternate embodiments, more sophisticated graphics can be generated using, for example, graphic languages such as Open GL and the like.
A user's emotional experience with, for example, the electronic music player 200 may be enhanced by, for example, having the user interface react to any suitable event of the device. The events may include, but are not limited to music currently playing on the device or to external events. The external events include, but are not limited to, data transfer between apparatus 100 such as file transfers, email, SMS or MMS messaging or telephone conversations. For example, when music is playing, the electronic music player may include suitable algorithms stored in a memory that cause the presentation any suitable animated or a still image, graphics, text etc. (hereinafter collectively referred to as “images”). For example, a vibrating guitar image 600 as shown in
The images presented to the user in response to an event may be user defined or the correlation between certain images and a type of event may be defined during manufacture of the player 200. The manufacturer defined images may be the default images for a certain type of event such as, for example, a genre of music which the user may change or customize (e.g. download new images from the internet, computer, another music player, mobile phone, camera, etc).
In another example of enhancing a user's emotional experience, one player 200 may be placed next to another player 200′ as shown in
The image from player 200 may interact with an image on player 200′. The interaction between the images may include merging of the images, animating the images so that the images appear to be cooperating with each other, etc. Where, for example music is playing on the players 200, 200′ the avatar from player 200 may dance with the avatar 810 or any other suitable animated or still image on player 200′.
The images may move from one device to another device through, for example, one or more animated graphics files stored in a memory of the players 200, 200′. In alternate embodiments, the images may be stored in the memory of one player and transferred to the other player or players during the animation sequence. In other alternate embodiments, some of the image files for the animation may be stored on one player 200, while complimentary image files may be stored on the other player 200′. For example,
In another example, in an interactive application that is run on the device 100, any suitable attribute of the image such as, for example, appearance, size, age, motions, etc. may progress, change be created or deleted or otherwise be modified on the display of the device(s) in dependence on a user's progress in the interactive application. The interactive applications may include, but are not limited to, games, educational applications, etc. that apply to a single device or to multiple devices that are in communication with one another.
For example, in an educational application a dog may be presented to the user. As the user's knowledge increases the dog may grow from a puppy to an adult dog. In another example, one or more devices 100 may be configured to for a game of “hide and seek” so that when an individual is found, the seeker may send the found individual a notification that he/she has been found. For example, the seeker may send the found individual a “bullet” that appears to be moving into the display of the individuals device as a “bang” sound is being played. As a further example, if a person using device 200 has a collection of music but is missing some songs, that person may search a collection of music stored in device 200′ for the missing songs. As the search is in progress a “digging worker” may be displayed on the device 200 and or device 200′ to emotionalize the search process.
The enhancements to a user's emotional experience may be implemented in any suitable manner such as by, for example, software or hardware. In other alternate embodiments the enhancements may be implemented by a combination of software and hardware. The player 200 may include software algorithms that detect and gather information pertaining to the connections of content (e.g. music, videos, etc.) playing on the player 200 and/or regarding external events (e.g. proximity to other compatible players/devices). The connections may be any suitable links between or content associate with, for example, different device functions, user inputs, events of the device etc. The connections may be user defined or they may be created during manufacture of the device 100 (e.g. default connections that the user may change or modify). In alternate embodiments the connections may be defined in any suitable manner.
The player 200 may also include software algorithms that allow the user to control and customize the emotional features of the player 200. The player may be configured to utilize any suitable files such as, for example, script files for the user control and customization of the emotional features. In alternate embodiments, the user may control and customize the emotional features of the player in any suitable manner. The player may be configured to process the script files, gather information about connections and show emotional actions or features accordingly.
In one example, the connections may be points in an n-space vector model of a script file. The connections may be based on, for example, elements of certain categories that may pertain to device activities. The categories may include “who am I now (what's my role now)”, “when to play, “what to play”, “how to play”, “where to play”, etc. For example, “what to play” may relate to the different content (e.g. music, image files, video files, etc.) available to be played on the player 200. “How to play” may relate to rules that indicate which emotional sequences are played. For example, “how to play” may determine if “matchmaking” (e.g. comparing files on different devices) is needed to decide what information is to be transferred from device to device, whether a file is to be transferred before playing it, whether a reply to another device is needed after playing a file, etc. In alternate embodiments, any number and type of suitable categories and elements of categories may be utilized. Exemplary connections that form a script include:
The device 100 may include suitable algorithms to convert the connections into script files. In alternate embodiments, the script files may be created in any suitable manner. Any suitable files may be utilized in creating the scripts such as XML files. Examples of scripts in an XML file format may include:
The device 100 may parse the script files using an n-vector space as shown in
Referring to
The disclosed embodiments may also include software and computer programs incorporating the process steps and instructions described above that are executed in different computers.
Computer systems 1102 and 1104 may also include a microprocessor for executing stored programs. Computer 1102 may include a data storage device 1108 on its program storage device for the storage of information and data. The computer program or software incorporating the processes and method steps incorporating features of the present invention may be stored in one or more computers 1102 and 1104 on an otherwise conventional program storage device. In one embodiment, computers 1102 and 1104 may include a user interface 1110, and a display interface 1112 from which features of the present invention can be accessed. The user interface 1110 and the display interface 1112 can be adapted to allow the input of queries and commands to the system, as well as present the results of the commands and queries.
Aspects of the invention may provide a user with an enhanced emotional experience while using the device 100 and give the user a sense of satisfaction with the device. Customization of the emotional features of the device promotes a user to express the user's identity. In alternate embodiments, a device community may be set up by user's, device manufacturers, content providers or any combination thereof to provide support to a user of the device.
It should be understood that the foregoing description is only illustrative of the embodiments. Various alternatives and modifications can be devised by those skilled in the art without departing from the embodiments. Accordingly, the present embodiments are intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variances that fall within the scope of the appended claims.