Patent Application
20090113301
The present disclosure relates generally to distribution of multimedia content over interactive networks, and particularly, to a mechanism for augmenting a network browser application to produce enhanced browser pages with related multimedia content.
As means of communication improve, users of communication devices have an increased ability to consume and disseminate information, and to interact over the network through the sharing of information. This disclosure relates generally to improved means of interacting over the network by sharing media objects among interconnected users.
Modem communication networks are typically hierarchical transmission networks with multiple layers of transmission protocols. A transmission network is a system that allows two or more transceivers to exchange data, whereas a transmission protocol is a sequence of standard interactive steps that facilitate the exchange. Typically, the lowest level protocols are more concretely tied to the interaction of physical circuitry, whereas higher levels of protocols are more abstract to facilitate higher level processing at an algorithmic level. For example, in the vernacular “the web,” also known as “the Internet,” has become shorthand for a multi-layer computer communications system, which combines higher level protocols for access, mid-level protocols, such as a means of locating resources available on the network through a system of uniform resource locaters (URLs), and low-level hardware protocols which control the exchange of large, uneven blocks of data by breaking them into smaller, standardized packets. Users seek improved means to gather, transfer, and share multimedia information with other users, without the burden of managing lower-level protocols or learning new programming languages.
The network user perceives information conveyed through various forms of media objects, including text, icons, voice, audio recordings, pictures, or videos. Descriptions of one or more forms of media objects may be combined in a data object, which the consumer accesses over the network. The data object may contain additional “metadata” information which is not typically observed by the consumer, but may instead define parameters useful in conveying information to the consumer, such as user identifiers, data locaters, date types, or data interpretation resources, as described below. Metadata may combine one or more specialized categories of metadata, such as a “meta identifier”, a “meta keyword”, and so on.
Users communicating over a network typically use a physical device, such as a telephone, a text messenger, a cell phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a networked music/video player, a personal computer, or a public terminal, to interconnect with other users on the network. The shared information may be conveyed through various forms of media, including text, voice and audio recordings, pictures, animations and movie videos. Network users are able to perform social functions which are analogous to their real world counter-parts, such as to send and receive mail, to chat interactively, or to publish original works or compositions of other works, all in electronic forms over the network. A network user utilizes a number of application programs to create or consume content on the network. Example application programs typically include an “e-mail client,” a “chat client,” a “media object player,” and a “browser”.
A browser is an application program that is generally intended to display “web pages.” A web page is typically a two-dimensional image appearing as an individual page of information including one or more types of contained media. Multimedia content on the network appears in a virtual book format, which typically is displayed as an individually framed “web page” along with means for navigating to other related web pages. A web page is typically a two-dimensional image appearing as an individual page of information including one or more types of associated media objects. A web page may also be associated with consumer perceived audio output. Data for web pages is often described in a format known as a Document Object Model (DOM).
The multimedia content may be directly perceived on the web page or may be indirectly accessible. Content on the page may be directly perceived by including displayed images, videos, or a media object player rendered within the image of the page. Examples of indirect access include access to an audio recording through background music, access through an auxiliary page or pop-up window, access through an auxiliary program such as Microsoft's Windows Media Player®, or access provided through a link to another page. Many web pages incorporate one or more “hot links.” The hot link enables a consumer to access another web page or another application by pointing to and clicking on the hot link using a computer input pointing device such as a mouse. Consumers typically have the ability to reject the web page or additional media offering(s) through controls in the browser user interface, such as by clicking on a “close box” using the mouse to remove or “close” a displayed window image.
A network user may also become a composer to create new web pages. The DOM for a web page is typically stored in a data file using a common programming language, such as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). The composer may compose the web page directly by creating a description in the common programming language, or may compose the web page indirectly using an application program to combine text descriptions and other media into a page description in HTML or another suitable language. A composer may further combine one or more web pages to create a “website.” A website may be self-contained, in that it consists solely of web pages created for that site and a means for navigating among the contained web pages. More commonly, a website contains a combination of composer-generated content as well as links to other content or applications on the web. Typically, the composer may review a new web page or website composition on his computer using his browser the composer may also disseminate the new web page or website to other users on the network by publishing his page description(s) on a “web server”, where a web server is a server connected to the communications network that will provide published web pages in response to requests from authorized users on the network.
A browser may also support one or more plug-ins. A plug-in operates within the context of an existing web browser. The plug-in is operative to functionally replace, augment, or modify the functionality of the browser, to enable one or more program steps to be performed in the browser environment. Plug-ins may also represent an alternative way for a consumer to access a stand-alone software application. For example, Yahoo! Instant Messenger© is available as a stand-alone client application program that allows two or more networked users to chat interactively over the network. The Instant Messenger client application is also available as a plug-in to run in a browser window.
A browser may also include a toolbar application menu, such as Yahoo! Toolbar ©. The toolbar application menu typically displays one or more application icons near the top of the browser window. To access a toolbar application, a browser user typically uses the pointing device to point to the application icon. On a personal computer with a two-button mouse, the left button is engaged to start the toolbar application, whereas the right button is often engaged to adjust toolbar application preferences.
The toolbar application interface is typically displayed in or near the currently displayed window page, in a pop-up window, in a side-bar window or “drawer,” or in a tabbed window. A sidebar window or “drawer” is a rectangular screen area typically attached to the side or bottom of a browser window display. Some sidebar windows have interface controls to hide, show, or resize the side-window, opening or closing it like a drawer. The sidebar window typically displays a user interface for a sidebar application program.
A tabbed window is typically a rectangular screen area suggestive of a stack of manila folders. Each current page has a labeled tab, and only the page on top of the stack is visible. The user may navigate among the current pages by clicking on one of the tabs, to make it appear as though the corresponding window had been moved to the top of the stack.
As mentioned previously, a consumer may use an auxiliary program to perceive media objects, such as the Windows Media Player®, available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., the RealPlayer® from RealNetworks, Inc. of Seattle, Wash., or the QuickTime® player from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Each of these players is able to process a variety of data file formats describing media objects. Example data file formats include JPEG, TIFF, or PIC format data files for photographs, WAV, MP3, or AIFF format data files for audio recordings, and AVI, MPEG, or H.264 format data files for video recordings. The consumer typically locates and accesses a media object described in a suitable format for his or her auxiliary program. If the media object is not directly available in a suitable format, the consumer may convert the media object file formate to a suitable format using conversion software, such as Harmony Technology® from RealNetworks, Inc.
When the media object is a recording, the typical media object player has a user control interface akin to that of a tape recorder, with user controls to play, pause, fast forward,
Browser users typically spend a lot of time to navigate the network to search for and access digital media objects. There is a need to provide more convenient means of locate, access, and render digital media object related to the personal interests of users.
A real-time multimedia enhancer for network browser applications is described. Browser users access the services of a software provider to download a plug-in enhancement application optionally displayed as a browser toolbar application. The browser application allows the user to locate and render a web page of personal interest. The enhancement application provides an enhancement mechanism to identify one or more media objects related to the web page in a playlist, and invokes a media object player application to render the one or more media objects in the playlist. When all of the media objects in the playlist are complete, the enhancement application may automatically generate one or more additional playlists.
The following embodiments and aspects thereof are described and illustrated in conjunction with systems, apparatuses and methods meant to be exemplary and illustrative, not limiting in scope. In various embodiments, one or more of the above-described problems have been reduced or eliminated.
The following description sets forth numerous details to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, algorithms for processing data and symbolic representations of algorithmic operations are the means used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm, as used herein, is a sequence of operations leading to a desired result, said operations requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of a sequence of electrical signals representing binary numbers to be stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated.
The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise one or more general-purpose computers selectively activated by one or more computer programs to achieve the required results. Such a computer program may be stored in any suitable computer-readable storage medium. A computer-readable storage medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form that is usable by a machine, such as a general-purpose computer.
The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems may be used in accordance with the teachings herein, and it may prove expedient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the algorithm operations. The required structure for a variety of these systems may appear from the description below. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the invention as described herein.
Server and client systems described herein can be implemented by a variety of computer systems and architectures.
The invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data, structures, and so forth, which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in local and/or remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
With reference to
An operating system manages the operation of computer system 100, including the input and output of data to and from applications (not shown). The operating system provides an interface between the applications being executed on the system and the components of the system. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the operating system is a Windows® 95/98/NT/XP/Vista/Mobile operating system, available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. However, the present invention may be used with other suitable operating systems, such as an OS-X® operating system, available from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif, a UNIX® operating system, or a LINUX operating system.
The computer system 100 may include a variety of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer system 100 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media. For example, computer-readable media may include volatile and nonvolatile computer storage media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact-disk ROM (CD-ROM), digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic tape cassettes, magnetic tape, hard magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, floppy disk storage devices, magnetic diskettes, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer system 100.
Communication media may also embody computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. For instance, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared, cellular networks, and other wireless media.
The system memory 108 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 106 and random access memory (RAM) 105. A basic input/output system 107 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer system 100, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 106 and other non-volatile storage, such as Hash memory. Additionally, system memory 108 may contain some or all of the operating system 109, the application programs 112, other executable code 110 and program data 111. Memory 108 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by CPU 102. Optionally, a CPU may contain a cache memory unit 101 for temporary local storage of instructions, data, or computer addresses.
The computer system 100 may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,
The storage devices and their associated computer storage media, discussed above and illustrated in
A user may enter commands and information into the computer system 100 through the network interface 115 or through an input device 127 such as a keyboard, a pointing device commonly referred to as a mouse, a trackball, a touch pad tablet, a controller, an electronic digitizer, a microphone, an audio input interface, or a video input interface. Other input devices may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, and so forth. These and other input devices are often connected to CPU 102 through an input interface 118 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A display 126 or other type of video device may also be connected to the system bus 122 via an interface, such as a graphics controller 116 and a video interface 117. In addition, an output device 128, such as headphones, speakers, or a printer, may be connected to the system bus 122 through an output interface 119 or the like.
The computer system 100 may operate in a networked environment using a network 123 to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 125. The remote computer 125 may be a terminal, a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer system 100. The network 123 depicted in
Collectively, these elements are intended to represent a broad category of computer systems, including but not limited to general purpose computer systems based on one or more members of the family of CPUs manufactured by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., the family of CPUs manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., or the family of ARM CPUs, originally designed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd., as well as any other suitable processor. Of course, other implementations are possible. For example, the server functionalities described herein may be implemented by a plurality of server sub-systems communicating over a backplane.
Various components of computer system 100 may be rearranged, deleted, or augmented. For example, system bus 122 may be implemented as a plurality of buses interconnecting various subsystems of the computer system. Furthermore, computer system 100 may contain additional signal busses or interconnections between existing components, such as by adding a direct memory access unit (not shown) to allow one or more components to more efficiently access system memory 108.
As shown, CACHE1 and CPU1 are packed together as “processor module” 102 with processor CPU1 referred to as the “processor core.” Alternatively, cache memories 101, 103, contained in 102, 104 may be separate components on the system bus. Furthermore, certain embodiments of the present invention may not require nor include all of the above components. For example, some embodiments may include a smaller number of CPUs, a smaller number of network ports, a smaller number of storage devices, or a smaller number of input-output interfaces. Furthermore, computer system 100 may include additional components, such as one or more additional central processing units, such as 104, storage devices, memories, or interfaces. In addition, one or more components of computer system 100 may be combined into a specialized system-on-a-chip (SOC) to further system integration. In some computer system environments where component count is critical, the entire computer system may be integrated in one or more very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit(s).
As discussed below, in one implementation, operations of one or more of the physical server or client systems described herein is implemented as a series of software routines executed by computer system 100. Each of the software routines comprises a plurality or series of machine instructions to be executed by one or more components in the computer system, such as CPU 102. Initially, the series of instructions may be stored on a storage device, such as bulk storage 113. However, the series of instructions may be stored in an EEPROM, a flash device, or a DVD. Furthermore, the series of instructions need not be stored locally, and could be received from a remote computer 125 or a server on a network, via network interface 115.
Computer system 100 is contained within the network site 220, where one or more computer systems, such as computer system 100, are connected to a local area network and router 221. The router 221 manages local computer communication traffic in network site 220 and interconnects with network cloud 123. Router 221 also functions to translate one or more local area network addresses in network site 220 to provide one or more unique corresponding wide area network addresses in order to facilitate communication between computer systems in network site 220 and other computer systems on the wide area network.
Content aggregation sites are represented by content site A 200 and content site B 230 in
Content site B 230 is a network addressable system that allows users to access content supplied by one of more content suppliers (not shown). Content site B 230 comprises one or more physical server systems 231, 232 containing or connected to one or more bulk storage systems (not shown), and a local area network and router 233. The one or more physical servers 231, 232 allow the service provider (not shown) to store media objects and users to download media objects.
Network application site B 210 is a network addressable system that allows users to access one or more executable code objects supplied by one or more service providers (not shown). Network application site B 210 comprises one or more physical server systems 211, 212, 213 containing or connected to one or more bulk storage systems, shown as network-attached storage device 214, and a local area network and router 215. Executable code objects may include code to be executed on a client device as well as code executed within a server system, such as server 212. An example of an executable code object is an informational web site where users request and receive identified web pages and other content over the network cloud 123. The executable code object may also be a posting forum, where users may submit or otherwise configure media objects to be perceived by other users. The executable code object may also be a social network application, such as a chat client or e-mail client, adapted to establish intermediated or peer-to-peer communication with other clients. The executable code object may also be a web-posting application, allowing users to configure and maintain personal web pages. One or more executable code objects may also combine to form a content distribution application that displays available media objects and transmits them to users. Examples of network application sites include Yahoo! Music Engine®, Apple iTunes®, and podcasting servers.
In media object aggregation or sharing systems, such as the Yahoo! Flickr® photo sharing site, media objects are typically contained in data objects which also contain metadata related to the media object. For example, a data object containing a media object may also contain one or more meta keywords or tags to identify related media objects. A photo sharer may upload a photo to a photo sharing site, and consider the photo related to a set of keywords, such as “artists,” “musicians,” “drummers,” and “teen-idols.” The photo sharer may further configure the media object by combining the media object with the set of related meta parameters in a data object.
In the context, of a computer network, a “virtual server” is physically one or more server systems connected to the network and support circuitry to execute application programs which process data. Data may be stored by means which facilitate efficient processing, such as by storing the data in a “database” consisting of a collection of data organized by relationships between the various forms of data contained therein. When a virtual server consists of more than one computer server system, the set of computer server systems is interconnected hierarchically to perform high-level functions as combined functions of several servers under central control.
Functionally, a virtual server executes a sequence of low-level CPU commands to complete instructions for processing data. A virtual server typically accepts instructions and executes commands for a multitude of “clients”. The instructions may include, but are not limited to, instructions to store or retrieve data, to modify, verify or erase data, or to reorganize data. A virtual server may also initiate instructions for other network-attached devices. For example, a virtual “music server” might maintain a database to locate a library of musical compositions. The music server might receive commands to store new songs or retrieve old ones from a number of clients. Further, the music server might send commands to other devices on the network, e.g., to disseminate the musical database among various subservient servers, such as a “jazz server,” a “hip-hop server,” a “classical server,” and so on, to register paying user requests in a “billing server” to verify the identity, preferences, and access privileges of a user in a “registration server” and so on. The music server may therefore also be a client of other servers. Practitioners of the art will recognize that virtual servers and clients are abstract interactive devices controlled by software instructions, whose interaction protocols may be flexibly defined. A “client” as used herein may include functionally to process information and programs, as well as to issue commands. Similarly, a virtual server as used herein may include functionally to initiate commands to users and other servers as well as to respond to instructions.
Similarly, a database should not be construed to be a single physical collection of data. As used herein, a database is an abstract collection of data which may be distributed over one or more physical locations. Said data may be stored physically within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical device(s), network attached device(s), or user devices(s). Similarly, an application program should not be construed to be a single physical collection of commands. As used herein, an application program is an abstract collection of CPU commands, which may be physically executed, in whole or in part, within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical devices(s), within network attached device(s), or within user device(s).
Server 302 implements a registration process which may include one or more of (1) determining whether the user is a new or a returning user, (2) authenticating the returning users, (3) storing a set of user attributes, (4) accessing a set of user attributes, (5) and enabling use of the enhancement service by providing one or more software codes.
In
For new users, the output of the service registration process is operative to provide a media enhancement mechanism for the user's preferred browser. The user may prefer to augment or modify the functionality of the existing browser application by accessing the plug-in using the existing browser pull-clown menus. Further, the user may install or modify an existing toolbar application to access the plug-in using the toolbar menu, as explained below.
The software codes are operative to facilitate the browser enhancement mechanism. The enhancement mechanism locates one or more media objects related to text or existing media objects on a web page. The software codes may further facilitate the browser-enhancement mechanism by starting a media object player application. Once installed on a client device, the user invokes the enhancement mechanism by clicking on the toolbar application icon or selecting a plug-in menu item. In step 407, registration server 302 retrieves, and in some instances, dynamically generates a set of appropriate toolbar modifiers and/or plug-in codes for the user, and transmits the codes to a user device 306 in step 408. For dynamically generated code, the server may dynamically add one or more user attributes, such as a user identifier, to the code. The user attributes may relate to one or more parameters pertinent to the operation of the enhancement mechanism. For example, the user attributes may include parameters that bias or control selection of photographic media objects over video/audio media objects. These parameters can be used to further bias the selection of media, as described below, to allow for composer or consumer personalization.
After the software has been installed, the user may activate the registration process as a returning user. The registration process authenticates returning users by scanning input, in step 410, to an online login form, transmitted in step 409, to determine if the login ID resides in the user database 303 in step 411. The user may optionally be further identified by use of a password or other authentication method. If the scanned user input information does not correspond to a user database entry, an error message is transmitted in step 412, and the user may re-enter login information in steps 409, 410.
When a returning user has been properly identified, their enhancement software codes are updated in step 413, and the updated codes are transmitted to a user device 306 in step 408.
In
An initial image for the data file is rendered in a large rectangular page imaging area 516. The web page may have additional controls to scroll or otherwise navigate to a different visible area of the page. In
The browser interface in
An example sidebar application is shown as a displayed text window 521, as might be invoked by the user clicking on the “Reminders” label 513. An adjustable portion of the browser window is dedicated to the sidebar application. The user is able to change the portion of the browser window dedicated to the browser application using slider 519 to adjust drawer bar 520. When the user points to slider 519 and clicks, the user is able to drag the separation bar left/right to increase/decrease the sidebar application's portion of the browser window, as though the drawer slides behind the rest of the window.
In
In this example, the browser is playing a music video that is three minutes and 54 seconds long, as shown by duration indicator 611. Time-line display 610 shows the relative portion of the music video played so far. Time slider 609 redundantly indicates that so far, one minute and 47 seconds of the video has played. By pointing to, clicking on, and dragging the time slider, the user may skip ahead in the video dragging right or return to an earlier portion of the video dragging left. The combination of controls allows the user to efficiently manage and render albums of media objects. In one implementation, the playlist player is rendered in a separate pop-up window by the browser as shown. When the playlist player is rendered in a separate pop-up window, the player includes a close box 612 to allow the user to dismiss the player.
In an alternate implementation, the playlist player is installed as a sidebar application in the browser window. This is illustrated with an example sidebar application interlace included as shown in
When a consumer accesses the enhancement mechanism through the toolbar or a plug-in, script functions can interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the web page to perform one or more tasks. Scripts may also be used to make service requests to remote servers after an HTML page has loaded. These requests can obtain new information or data, as well as load or launch additional applications, e.g., media object players, content viewers, playlist players, application plug-ins, or software codes. Script code can merge with the DOM of the underlying page so that one or more additional media objects are displayed or otherwise rendered on the page. Alternatively, the script code may initiate one or more additional pages or other rendering for the additional media object(s). When embed code is inserted into an HTML document and subsequently accessed by a client application, the client application may retrieve and execute the script. The script, optionally using the parameter values in the embed code, may initiate service requests to one or more remote servers to retrieve and render one or more media objects that enhance the underlying content of the page. For example, the script, when executed, may cause the client application to query playlist server 801 and/or media server 807, described below, to retrieve one or more media objects, and then cause a client application to render the retrieved media object(s).
In addition, the script may access the DOM of the underlying HTML page to extract and process information. For example, as
Another way to detect underlying or theme information of a data object is to read the metadata in the data object in an automated way. In an alternative implementation, the script may extract one or more meta parameters that may be useful, for example, to select one or more media objects. For example, a photographic media object may include additional information about the photograph in one or more “meta tags” in the metadata. An example meta tag includes <meta name=“keywords” content=“photography, digital photography, camera phones, camera”>. A mechanism for automatically retrieving information in the data object is known as a page-scraping mechanism. The page-scraping mechanism retrieves text in metadata as well as user-composed text. Retrieved text is used to determine a page theme using technology for determining semantic meaning. Metadata as provided by the user or a media object supplier would be valuable to understand the theme of the data object. Using this information and the text content of the page, a semantic engine may select one or more relevant topics from a dictionary, and may select one or more relevant media objects to enhance the page.
In addition, the enhancement mechanisms disclosed may employ a categorization tool to characterize data object text or metadata. Categories can be associated with one or more keywords. For example, a meta tag containing “photography” and text describing the Grand Canyon may be characterized as a category of photographs that came from Arizona and may be associated with a keyword entitled “ArizonaPics,” As another example, a user sharing a media object representing a photograph of the performing artist Sheila E might associate the media object with a keyword entitled “Prince,” the name of another performing artist who often employs Sheila E.
In addition, the enhancement mechanisms disclosed may employ mechanisms for consumer personalization. When a network information consumer accesses a data object using a browser, for example, script code may access consumer identifiers in a consumer “cookie” or some other consumer data file. The cookie or data file is a data object containing one or more meta parameters specific to the consumer. By accessing the consumer's meta parameters, an embed code may optionally include instructions to bias the selection of media to include consumer preferences and/or consumer access privileges in a service request.
Referring to
Enhancement server 801 maintains one or more databases to facilitate the location of media objects accessible on the network. Example databases include a database of user metadata 802, a database of media object metadata 803, a database of media object server metadata 804, a database of index keywords 805, and a database to bias the selection of media objects 806.
User database 802 contains a collection of records of user identity and optionally, corresponding descriptive user parameters, such as geographic location and subscription status. Media object database 503 is a collection of records of currently accessible media objects. Media server database 804 is a collection of records describing media object supplying servers. Keyword index database 805 is a collection of records of one or more characterizing tags or attributes that may be associated with a media object. Media ratings database 806 is a collection of records that rate a media object relative to one or more associated attributes, such as popularity among media object consumers.
In
In one embodiment of the invention, the user has an ability to influence the selection of additional media objects by indicating a number of user preferences. In one alternative, the user preferences are designated in a separate preference menu (not shown). In another alternative, the user is able to adjust selection preferences with each request for an additional media object. The preferences may be grouped into categories, such as preferred media object type (e.g. video, audio, pictures, and the like), preferred attributes of additional media objects (e.g. media objects related to the chat conversation by artist or group, by genre, by mood, and/or by era, and the like), and other miscellaneous attributes, such as restrictions to media objects which can be found on the network, which can be found on the user's device, objects which can only be viewed with a subscription fee, objects which may be viewed freely, or media objects related to previously found media, objects, and so on.
As stated above, the additional media objects are related to the web page or previously played media objects. The additional media objects may be selected by processing the web page as a whole, or by processing a subset of the web page. In one embodiment, the user may further indicate which portions of the web page should be considered relevant to the additional media object selection process. For example, the user may drag the user cursor through a portion of text using a pointing device, to indicate that these phrases should be considered most relevant to the selection of additional media objects. As indicated below, selection of relative relevancy may also be embodied in an automated selection process. An automated process might provide (a) media objects related only to the original page, or (b) the original page and all previously located media objects for that page, or, alternatively, (c) the original page and the most recently located media objects for that page.
As mentioned above, the enhancement mechanisms rely on background server processes to find and transmit additional media objects. The background processes rely on the interaction of a number of interacting processes described briefly as follows.
Referring to
In step 905, the application checks to see if there is a previously generated playlist for the web page. If so, the media objects and associated metadata for the previously generated playlist are added to the playlist selection data structure in step 906. By adding the previously listed media objects to an additional media object list request, the application ensures that the same media objects will not be listed again.
The additional media objects are requested in step 907 and transmitted to the enhancement server 801. The application receives the playlist and transfers it to the player. The player receives titles of media objects and their network locations. The list of media object titles is displayed in the media object player 601, as in example list 604. The first media object is requested from a media object server, such as 807. The data object is received and decompressed. The visual stream for the first media object (if any) is rendered in the media object player 601 in rectangular area 603, and the audio stream (if any) is perceived through an audio transducer, such as 810, connected to the user's computer.
A feature of the invention, in one implementation, is the ability to modify the generated playlist. As shown in
Another feature of the invention, in one implementation, is the ability to generate a continuous selection of additional media objects. In an example auto-generate mode, the user is able to set a player preference to generate a new playlist request whenever a current playlist is exhausted. As shown in
As those skilled in the art may appreciate, various controls of the toolbar application and playlist player may be resized, rearranged, recombined, or differently represented without departing from the true spirit of the invention. In one alternative, the play and pause controls of the playlist player, for example, are displayed as part of the toolbar. In other alternatives, pause/play controls for the playlist player and up/down controls for the selection in the playlist are combined with a textual rendering of the playlist in a pop-up window, or in a sidebar window as illustrated in
In this user interface of
The interface is illustrated as an example sidebar window 1101-1104. The playlist is displayed as a numbered text list of titles in a playlist display area 1101, as shown previously in text window 602. In another interface implementation, the sidebar interface of
The sidebar window interface of
The sidebar interface of
While a number of exemplary aspects and embodiments have been discussed above, those of skill in the art will recognize certain modifications, permutations, additions and sub-combinations thereof. It is therefore intended that the following appended claims and claims hereafter introduced are interpreted to include all such modifications, permutations, additions and sub-combinations as are within their true spirit and scope.
