Patent Application
20130036354
The present invention relates to a music interface that allows a user to enter a series of letters with a search procedure providing search results of possible interest based on a number of predetermined music specific criteria.
The traditional jukebox interface forces a user to enter different search criteria to allow the device to provide a number of choices and present to the user a series of display screens to narrow the search results. This search approach of forcing a user to enter a number of restrictions and choices allows the interface to function with a reduced hard drive space and within CPU power capabilities that can be carried out by the device in a suitable time. Typically the search results are carried out by the device without the benefit of real time communication with outside data sources.
Users are familiar with typical search engines where a series of key words are entered that allow a user to effectively search a database. Google© and Yahoo© search-type capabilities are extremely well known, however this type of search capability has not been extended to game devices and jukeboxes that allow the selection and play of music in a public place.
The present invention provides an effective interface for a user to easily carry out searches and select music to be played in an effective manner.
A music selection system of the present invention is particularly suited for playing of music in a public establishment and includes a music selection search function. The system comprises a computing arrangement with a communication function for accessing at least one remotely located computer server using a public communication network where the at least one computer server includes a plurality of databases specific to musical selections for play and transmission to the computing arrangement. The music selection search function provides a search screen for entry of keyed letters and any entered keyed letters are provided to the at least one remotely located computer server. The at least one remotely located computer server uses the plurality of databases and the provided keyed letters to provide the computing arrangement with possible music selections that match the keyed letters in combination with known criteria associated with the music selection system. The computer arrangement includes a display screen for presenting a limited number of possible matches and any possible match can be selected for play.
According to an aspect of the invention, the music selection system includes the function to automatically update the search results with additional entered information on a continuous basis.
In an aspect of the invention, the presented possible matches provide choices to further narrow the search criteria and if selected, providing the choice to the at least one server and subsequently provide further choices as required until a musical record is selected for play.
Preferred embodiments of the invention are shown in the drawings, wherein:
A music interface is used by JVL Corporation in the game terminal and music interface sold under the ENCORE trademark. This terminal allows players to play games and/or order music.
In the earlier system, a game terminal for a public establishment is shown that additionally allows a user to select music for play in the establishment. The game terminal allows contact with a remote server having a large digital library of music to be selected for play. This server preferably streams the music to the terminal or to a further device at the particular location for play in the establishment.
One such server that is capable of streaming music is MEDIA NET DIGITAL.
The search engine used in the present music interface preferably uses a touch screen input to select music from the options of “Music”, “Games” and “Tournaments”, followed by touching the search icon 112. The display screen of
The particular order of Eric Clapton songs and the particular Eric Clapton song 124 displayed to the left side of the screen are only based on certain criteria that have been maintained in the database and as part of the search logic. At the present point, the user has merely entered the word “Clapton” and touched the selection “Eric Clapton” and the search then produces the results as shown in
In
The user at any time can also execute the Search tab 144 and return to enter additional key words into the string. A new series of search results are produced with the additional information as soon as the first letter of the next key word is entered.
The search logic preferably used in the present system is shown in
The logic for producing relevance scores is shown in
The system also includes a number of internal data sources indicated as 31, 32, 33 and 34. Those data sources are used to extract additional relevancy information. Productivity data 31 is defined as total number of songs published by the artist. It emphasizes well established artists and is also useful to increase relevancy of new releases by such artists. The set of JVL playlists 32 represents the body of music that has been selected by an expert as the most appropriate for target audience of coin operated game and music machines. Every song and artist that is included on those playlists is given additional relevancy score. Discretionary data 33 allow music editor to fine tune the system to balance performance of various artists. The usage data 34 provides popularity statistics for songs ordered on JVL network.
All of the relevancy components thus calculated are put into a Music_Index_Global table 35. Additional process combines all of those components using weights set by music editor into one global relevancy score. That relevancy score is copied into a set of tables optimized for execution of specific queries described on
The present system shows 9 possible search results, however the number of results can be increased or decreased according to the terminal's capabilities or the preference of the operator.
The search logic for the present system can include phonetic equivalent databases, and this helps to address problems associated with misspelling and alternate pronunciations of words. This interface assumes certain aspects of the search string being entered by the user and this is possible in that each of the queries is executed against several databases. This information is combined with other information such as the location or the actual user and thus the system can take into account preferences of the user and/or location and/or time for example.
Details of one implementation of this system in combination with additional features are shown in appendix A that follows.
The search is interactive, as soon as the first letter is entered the request should be processed by the server. Each request preferably executes 3 queries (against artists, songs and albums) and returns up to 9 results sorted by combined Relevancy score. The queries that handle albums and artists use word based matching, meaning that the sequence of letters entered by the users will be compared with the beginning of every word in the appropriate record in the database. For example the artist The Notorious B.I.G. can be found by entering “Notorious”. Song titles are found by direct match of the string entered by the users to the beginning of the song title. Each result could be an artist or an album or a song, which is indicated by an appropriate icon on the interface.
An additional query is used in situations where the full name of the song is too common and top 9 results are not sufficient to help the user find what they are looking for. For example, search for “Rain” would return 764 songs and even if they are sorted by popularity the chances are the song player is looking for will not make it into 9 entries presented on the interface. The additional query allows players to further refine their search by adding artist name to the search—in free format, Google style. In our example, after seeing that “Rain” is not sufficient the player can enter the name of the artist after the name of the song, i.e. Rain Prince.
To support this functionality, that additional query is activated when the first letter of the second word is entered by the player. The query will interpret the second word of the entry field as the name of the artist and search for results which match first word with the name of the song (the same way it is done currently) and the second word with the name of the artist. Results of that further query will be added to the pool of the results returned by the first three queries and sorted by combined popularity score. The song query would continue to be executed with each character entered by the player so if the player was actually looking for the song where “Rain” is only a first word, this query will provide more meaningful results than the combined song/artist query. To handle situation when player enters multi-word song name and then artist name, the last word of the entry is considered as the name of the artist.
With experience, more queries will be introduced to return intelligent results regardless of the order or format of player's entry (i.e. if artist's name was entered first), deal with typos and misspellings.
A user is expected to continue to enter characters until they see what they are looking for in the list of results. At the same time we will give players ability to see all of the results in current search by adding button “Show all” to the interface. This may help players who are not sure of the name or spelling of the artist to find what they are looking for. Once this button is touched remaining results of the search are retrieved from the server and presented on the number of pages inserted into the binder. Retrieval of those results is divided into groups and uses server side cache.
Search state should be held for the duration of “user session”. User session starts when player deposits money into the machine or logs in. Once the money is spent and a specified period of inactivity passes, the session ends and search state should be cleared.
The following basic metrics may be used by the search engine to sort search results in a meaningful way:
All metrics will be updated on a daily basis, when data feed from MediaNet is imported into the database.
Several combined scores will be calculated based on those basic metrics. Each of the scores is suited for sorting of a specific component (song, album, artist) and there will be a separate formula for each of them. Exact coefficients for each of the metrics in the formula are determined by the music editor based on expert evaluation of search results:
Formulas for combined scores are selected in such a way that results of different kind can be sorted among themselves using their combined scores. I.e. the server executes multiple queries (against artist, album and song list plus combination thereof) and obtains up to 9 results from each query. Results are then joined together, sorted by the score value and top 9 results are sent to the client.
The new music User Interface includes a number of scrollable binders, representing playlists developed by the company. See
The number of company prepared playlists will be reduced to approximately 30, representing 16 standard genres by AMG classification and most popular themes. In addition to those static playlists, two dynamic playlists will be provided—Local top and New and Hot. Those dynamic playlists will be updated daily on the server (real-time update and ability to reset totals will be considered for Local top). All playlists are sorted alphabetically. We will consider giving player ability to change sorting order through the UI.
Some of the genres will have further breakdown by decade. For example Rock section will have “All time” with 100-200 entries and additional playlists of similar depth for each of the relevant decades. Those playlists, for example, can be visually separated by tabs in the binder. Player starts in “All time” tab by default and can scroll through this section and move into the next available decade tab, such as “50s” and touch tabs to move between the sections of the playlist.
The system makes a default selection of playlists for operator when the music is first installed on location based on geo-location of the operator and song popularity in the geographical vicinity of that location. The Operator will have the option to change that selection at any time.
When a song is selected by the player, additional tab “Suggestions” is inserted into the binder. The song touched by the player is displayed most prominently there and the rest of the tab is filled by suggestions generated by Gracenote engine. Those suggestions should take into account player's selection and location preferences using top 5 songs played on this location or other suitable method to deliver location tailored results. At the same time “Play” button is displayed on the interface giving player ability to order a song. If player clicks on one of the suggestions on the list, the new selection is moved to a prominent position and new list of suggestions is generated. Suggestion results are delivered to the UI in asynchronous fashion, so the interface remains responsive and fluid all the time. Player's preferences, based on previous history of that player and/or playlists created by the player can be taken into account. This feature requires player identification either via explicit login, a RFID tag or other identification approaches.
Search is represented as one of the binders for player selection. An additional shortcut on the interface can be provided. When Search binder is opened, players see their entry line in the left pane, virtual keyboard below the binder and results in the right pane. Result list can contain artist, albums and songs and is not scrollable. Player is expected to enter enough characters to see what they are looking for in the results pane.
Clicking on one of the results should lead to
In game mode, while using game selection menu players are shown the title of current song and name of the artist scrolling through the info bar. Touching this text or dedicated button should display “Playing now” pop-up screen, showing currently playing song and the list of 10 previously played ones. Additionally this screen could include artist suggestions, location favorites etc.
In game mode, while playing the game, players should see the name of the currently playing song, as well as some system generated suggestions in a discrete pop-up window at the top of the screen. When players touch this pop-up, the game is paused and full-size “Playing now” pop-up screen appears. Players have ability to opt out of this feature.
In demo mode, the game demos should be shown in a reduced format, leaving an L-shaped area to promote music. This area should display content similar to in-game pop-up window, but on a larger scale.
In music mode the title of current song and name of the artist scrolls through the info bar. Touching this bar opens another binder that contains list of 10 previously played songs, suggestions and similar content.
Although various preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described herein in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, that variations may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention or the scope of the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2680336 | Sep 2009 | CA | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CA10/01452 | 9/21/2010 | WO | 00 | 10/19/2012 |
