Patent Application
20070061326
The present invention relates to networks such as the World Wide Web (“Web”) for users at network display stations accessing data in the form of documents from database sources or sites maintained on the network, e.g. Web, and particularly to the linking of viewers of conventional television programming to predetermined network database sites.
The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies that have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or Web. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the Web or Internet, which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached “critical mass” and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of databases providing documents, media and computer programs through related distribution of Web documents, e.g. Web pages or electronic mail. Because of the ease with which documents are distributable via the Web, it has become a major source of data. Virtually all databases of public information throughout the world are accessible and able to be searched via the Web.
The ease with which great volumes of data may be searched from a computer attached to the Web and equipped with a Web browser has led to the development of widespread electronic commerce over the Web. At the present time, it is becoming very rare to find a business organization of any kind that does not transact some aspect of the business via the Web.
The consumer use of the Web or Internet for commerce, i.e. purchases of consumer products through the use of the users' personal computer connected to the Web via a Web browser has been increasing at a great pace. On the other hand, users of the Web in combination with the electronic entertainment business have been proceeding at a slower pace. Thus, both the electronic entertainment industry and the Web distribution industry are seeking new implementations by which the two giant industries may coact to commercial advantage. The present invention offers such an implementation.
Television is, of course, the mass electronic media. A small percentage of TV program viewers use their personal computers connected into the Web to supplement their TV viewing. When a topic arises on the TV presentation about which they would like more information, the users do a Web search on their ancillary personal computers to access such additional information. Thus, insofar as the hosts of the TV presentations are concerned, these ancillary searches are random and, although prompted by the content of the TV program, they provide no advertising or other commercial advantage to the hosts or sponsors of the TV presentations.
TV program hosts tried to take advantage of such ancillary viewer interest by making direct suggestions on their TV program of Web or like network sites that they recommend to the viewers for further information. While these ancillary Web sites maintained by the television presenters gave these presenters some additional viewer interest that would support additional advertising, and the like, and they had the limitation of user convenience. The viewer had to initiate a specific access request on his ancillary personal computer, and the Web sites, once accessed, were likely to offer very general information that might not be specific enough for the viewer's interest.
The present invention provides a system involving the use of a personal computer operating as a network display station ancillary to TV program display apparatus wherein the ancillary display station and the TV display apparatus are so tightly coupled that the network or Web site is content specific to the user's needs and interest, and effort required on the part of the user is minimal.
The present invention provides an implementation comprising means for displaying to the user a presentation having sequences of spoken text that are not predeterminable, combined with means for predetermining a set of sites in the network based upon anticipated interests of the user of the presentation, and means for predetermining a set of key text terms respectively corresponding to the set of sites, the selection of which terms will link the user to one of the set of sites. There are means for enabling the user to select the key text terms if the terms occur in the sequence of text, combined with means for linking the user to the site corresponding to the selected key text term. The invention may be most effectively used if the displayed text sequence represents the audio stream of a television presentation, e.g. TV show that is displayed on a TV set separate from the receiving display station and showing the closed captioned text.
For best results, there may be an implementation comprising highlighting the key text terms in the sequences of text and enabling the user to point to the highlighted terms. In addition, there may be displayed a preview of a linked network site document on the display station concurrently with the highlighting of the key text term corresponding to the link network site.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there may be displayed to the user a plurality of presentations, each having unpredeterminable sequences of text, followed by the combination of predetermining a plurality of sets of sites in the network based upon anticipated interest of the user in each of the presentations, predetermining a plurality of sets of key text terms respectively corresponding to the sets of sites, the selection of one of which terms will link the user to a corresponding one of the set of sites, and enabling the user to select the key text terms if the terms occur in the sequences of text to thereby link the user to the site corresponding to the selected term. Further, the user may be enabled to continue to display a document accessed during one of the plurality of presentations during another subsequent presentation.
It has been noted hereinabove that the present invention is most effective when the presentation being text streamed has an unpredetermined, e.g. live, broadcast text stream. However, in the embodiment involving multiple presentations, one of the presentations should have a predetermined text stream.
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Referring to
As will be hereinafter described in greater detail, the host of a live presentation, e.g. a news or sports presentation, cannot predetermine the exact sequence of text in the audio text stream but can anticipate most of the terms that are likely to be used. For example, if the presentation is a sporting event, such as a baseball game, he knows that most of the participating players are likely to be mentioned. Also, many types of statistics are likely to be mentioned, or many baseball teams are likely to be mentioned. Thus, the host makes all of these potential terms links so that when they appear in the data stream and are selected by the user, the user is linked to one of the predetermined Web sites that the host wishes to link for advertising and other commercial purposes. When the user selects such a term in the data stream on computer 52, under the control of Web browser 53 in computer 52, the appropriate Web site 60, 62, 64 or 65 is accessed via Web 50 through Web Access Server 51 and displayed on personal computer 52.
While this illustration has described the invention with respect to the Web, the present invention may be implemented on any appropriate network for handling requests from a receiving network display station for information documents from other network sites. In the current example, computer 52 controlled by a conventional Web browser program 53 is typically connected to the Web 50 via standard Web wired connections 61 through Web access server 51 that may be provided by a commercial service provider. Reference may be made to the text, Mastering the Internet, G. H. Cady et al., published by Sybex Inc., Alameda, Calif., 1996, particularly pp. 136-147, for typical connections between receiving display stations to the Web 50 via access server 51 through connection 61.
Before going further into the details of specific embodiments, it will be helpful to understand from a more general perspective the various elements and methods that may be related to the present invention. Since an aspect of the present invention is directed to Web documents, such as Web pages, transmitted over networks, an understanding of networks and their operating principles would be helpful. We will not go into great detail in describing the networks to which the present invention is applicable. The Internet or Web is a global network of a heterogeneous mix of computer technologies and operating systems. Objects are linked to other objects in the hierarchy through a variety of network server computers. These network servers are the key to network distribution, such as the distribution of Web pages and related documentation. In this connection, the term “documents” is used to describe data transmitted over the Web or other networks and is intended to include Web pages with displayable text, graphics and other images.
Web documents are conventionally implemented in a markup language such as HTML, which is described in detail in the text entitled Just Java, Peter van der Linden, 2nd Ed., Sun Microsystems Inc, Mountain View Calif., 1997 particularly at Chapter 7, pp. 249-268, dealing with the handling of Web pages; and also in the aforementioned text Mastering the Internet, particularly at pp. 637-642, on HTML in the formation of Web pages.
In addition, aspects of this invention will involve Web browsers. A general and comprehensive description of browsers may be found in the above-mentioned Mastering the Internet text at pp. 291-313. More detailed browser descriptions may be found in the Internet: The Complete Reference, Millennium Edition text, Margaret Young, Osborne McGraw-Hill, Berkley Calif., 1999: Chapter 20, pp. 455-494, on the Microsoft Internet Explorer; and Chapter 21, pp. 495-512, covering Lynx, Opera and other browsers.
Referring to
Display adapter 36 includes a frame buffer 39 that is a storage device that holds a representation of each pixel on the display screen 38. Images may be stored in frame buffer 39 for display on monitor 38 through various components, such as a digital to analog converter (not shown) and the like. By using the aforementioned I/O devices, a user is capable of inputting information to the system through the keyboard 24 or mouse 26 and receiving output information from the system via display 38.
Now, with respect to
In an alternate embodiment in
The running of the process set up in
With the text streaming as described, a determination is continually made, step 93, as to whether a text term appears that is a stored key text term. If Yes, the term is highlighted, step 94. Then, step 95, a determination is made as to whether a preview is to be displayed along with the corresponding highlighted key text term. If Yes, the preview is displayed, step 96. If No, the preview is not displayed. Then, a determination is made, step 97, as to whether a user has selected a highlighted key text term. If Yes, the predetermined site Web document corresponding to the key text term is accessed and displayed, step 98. At this point, a further determination may be made, step 99, as to whether the user has selected a term from the displayed text stream that is not one of the predetermined terms. If No, the process is branched back to step 93 via branch “A”. If Yes, a word search is done on the nonpredetermined term using the databases found to be advantageous to the broadcaster or host, step 100, and the search results are displayed, step 101. Then, step 102, a determination is made as to whether the user has selected a Web site from the search. If Yes, and appropriate Web document is accessed from its site and displayed, step 103. Instead of a Web document, an audio file from the Web site may be rendered or a video clip rendered. If No, the process is branched back to step 93 via branch “A”.
Finally, a determination may be made at this point as to whether the session is ended, step 104. If Yes, the session is exited. If No, the process is branched back to step 93 via branch “A”.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a scroll capability may be provided wherein the text stream may be buffered with the capability of enabling the user to select a previously displayed text term from a previously displayed text stream.
As set forth above, the implementations of the present invention may include the presentation of a plurality of television programs in sequence in which each program in the sequence has its own set of predetermined set of sites of interest together with its own set of corresponding key text terms, which, when appearing in the text stream, link the user to the respective corresponding Web site. In such a multiple presentation arrangement, it is possible that the same term when appearing in text streams of different television program presentations could be treated as different key text terms corresponding to different predetermined Web sites. Also, in such multi-presentation arrangements, a user could be enabled to retain the display of a Web or other network document during a subsequent TV presentation even if the displayed Web document was brought up on the computer station display during an earlier TV program or presentation.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the selected language of the closed captioning of the TV program is transmitted to the user's computer display in a streaming text format such that any selectable key text term (hyperlink) is in the same language as the language of the text stream, and the predetermined Web sites should also be in the same language. The same principles would be applicable with respect to any searches done on the above described terms that are not predetermined key text terms. These databases should provide output in the language of the text stream.
In this specification when reference is made to a text data stream, it should be understood that the term text is intended to apply to any numerals or symbols that may be included in a closed captioned data stream.
One of the preferred implementations of the present invention is in application program 40, i.e. a browser program, made up of programming steps or instructions resident in RAM 14,
One skilled in the art should appreciate that the processes controlling the present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of computer readable media of a variety of forms.
Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.
