Present television display devices that are communicatively connectable to other devices via a communication network to provide media content are referred to as smart TVs. The smart TVs typically have media account associations that are tied to a particular user. For example, a home may have a smart TV, and the media accounts associated with the smart TV are typically associated with one member of the household. There may be difficulties in having these present smart TVs play content associated with users that do not have accounts associated with the smart TV in a particular home. For example, a visitor to a home with a smart TV may experience difficulty in playing back media content on a smart TV that is not theirs, and thus does not have any of the visitor's account information. That is, because the visitor's account is not on the smart TV, the smart TV would not have access or knowledge of content owned or available to the visitor. Although the visitor could manually add their account information to the smart TV to access the desired content, such an operation is undesirable because of the length of time to provision the visitor's account on the smart TV, entering credentials on a smart TV that is owned and used by people other than the guest, as well as being inconvenient for the visitor, who would have to remove at least the account information when finished.
Accordingly, embodiments of the disclosed subject matter provide systems and method of sharing media content with an electronic device, where content can be provided to a display device, such as a smart TV, by another who does not have account information stored on the display device. In particular, the embodiments of the disclosed subject matter enable the individual to seamlessly provide content, across all of the individual's sources, to the display device. The embodiments of the disclosed subject matter further provide dynamic installation of any applications or software to view the media content provided by the individual, as well as provisioning accounts to view the content.
According to an embodiment of the disclosed subject matter, a method is provided that includes determining a change in presence when an electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of a display device, transmitting a notification to the electronic device within the predetermined proximity, the notification requesting input from the electronic device to accept or decline sharing media content data with the display device, and transmitting the media content data to the display device when the acceptance input is received.
According to an embodiment of the disclosed subject matter, a system is provided that includes an electronic device to provide media content data, a display device, and a server to determine a change in presence when the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device according to data transmitted from the electronic device to the server, and to transmit media content to the display device according to the media content data provided by the electronic device when an input is received to share the media content data and when a selection of a media content item of the media content data is received.
According to an embodiment of the disclosed subject matter, a system is provided that includes an electronic device to provide media content data, a display device to determine a change in presence when the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device according to data communication between the display device and the electronic device, and a server to transmit media content to the display device according to the media content data provided by the electronic device when an input is received to share the media content data and when a selection of a media content item of the media content data is received.
According to an embodiment of the disclosed subject matter, means for sharing media content between devices is provided that include determining a change in presence when an electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of a display device, transmitting a notification to the electronic device within the predetermined proximity, the notification requesting input from the electronic device to accept or decline sharing media content data with the display device, and transmitting the media content data to the display device when the acceptance input is received.
Additional features, advantages, and embodiments of the disclosed subject matter may be set forth or apparent from consideration of the following detailed description, drawings, and claims. Moreover, it is to be understood that both the foregoing summary and the following detailed description are illustrative and are intended to provide further explanation without limiting the scope of the claims.
The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosed subject matter, are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings also illustrate embodiments of the disclosed subject matter and together with the detailed description serve to explain the principles of embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. No attempt is made to show structural details in more detail than may be necessary for a fundamental understanding of the disclosed subject matter and various ways in which it may be practiced.
Embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter include systems and methods of sharing content between an electronic device (e.g., a mobile computing device, such as a smart phone, tablet computer, laptop, or wearable computing device) and a display device (e.g., a smart TV). The shared content may be shared media content data, where the media content data can include at least one of video media content, audio media content, game media content, game data, application content, application data, image media content, subscription data, account data, media purchase data, authorization data, user profile data, electronic device data, and digital right management (DRM) keys to decrypt the selected media content data.
The systems and methods include determining a change in presence when the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device. A notification can be transmitted to the electronic device when it is within the predetermined proximity, where the notification requests input from the electronic device to accept or decline sharing media content data with the display device. The media content data can be transmitted to the display device when the acceptance input is received. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the determining the change in presence can include exchanging data between the display device and the electronic device so that the display device can identify the electronic device when the electronic device is within the predetermined proximity to the display device. In other embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the determining the change in presence can include exchanging data between the electronic device and a server, so as to provide at least location information of the electronic device to the server. The display device can receive updated presence data from the server for the electronic device according to the data exchanged between the display device and the server so that the display device can identify the electronic device as being within the predetermined proximity to the display device.
Embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter may be implemented in and used with a variety of component and network architectures.
The bus 21 allows data communication between the central processor 24 and one or more memory components, which may include RAM, ROM, and other memory, as previously noted. Typically RAM is the main memory into which an operating system and application programs are loaded. A ROM or flash memory component can contain, among other code, the Basic Input-Output system (BIOS) which controls basic hardware operation such as the interaction with peripheral components. Applications resident with the computing device 20 are generally stored on and accessed via a computer readable medium, such as a hard disk drive (e.g., fixed storage 23), an optical drive, floppy disk, or other storage medium.
The fixed storage 23 may be integral with the computer 20 or may be separate and accessed through other interfaces. The network interface 29 may provide a direct connection to a remote server via a wired or wireless connection. The network interface 29 may provide such connection using any suitable technique and protocol as will be readily understood by one of skill in the art, including digital cellular telephone, WiFi, Bluetooth®, near-field, and the like. For example, the network interface 29 may allow the computer to communicate with other computers via one or more local, wide-area, or other communication networks, as described in further detail below.
Many other devices or components (not shown) may be connected in a similar manner (e.g., digital cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes, home media servers, personal media players, gaming consoles, and so on). Conversely, all of the components shown in
The user interface 13, database 15, and/or processing units 14 may be part of an integral system, or may include multiple computer systems communicating via a private network, the Internet, or any other suitable network. One or more processing units 14 may be, for example, part of a distributed system such as a cloud-based computing system, search engine, content delivery system, or the like, which may also include or communicate with a database 15 and/or user interface 13. The content delivery system can include a video content delivery system, an audio content delivery system, a game content delivery system, an image content delivery system, and the like. In some arrangements, an analysis system 5 may provide back-end processing, such as where stored or acquired data is pre-processed by the analysis system 5 before delivery to the processing unit 14, database 15, and/or user interface 13. For example, a machine learning system 5 may provide various prediction models, data analysis, or the like to one or more other systems 13, 14, 15.
In situations in which the systems, such as those illustrated in
In exemplary embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, in operation 110, a change in presence may be determined when an electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of a display device, where the predetermined proximity is determined according to, for example, a short for service set identifier (SSID). SSIDs are generally a unique identifier attached to a header of packets sent over, for example, a wireless local-area network (WLAN) that acts as a password when a device (e.g., a mobile device) attempts to connect to a basic service set (BSS). The SSID differentiates one network from another, so that access points and devices attempting to connect to a specific network (e.g., a WLAN) must use the same SSID. The SSID allows devices to connect to a desired network when multiple independent networks operate in the same physical area. In operation 110, the electronic device and the display device can be determined to be within a predetermined proximity with one another if they are part of the same network (e.g., a WLAN) according to the SSID.
In example embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the display device can determine when an electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device when the SSID of the display device and the electronic device are the same. In other example embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, a server can determine when the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device, when the server determines that the SSID of the display device and the electronic device are the same.
In exemplary embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, in operation 110, a change in presence may be determined when an electronic device and the display device are determined to be in the same near-me area network (NAN). Generally, NAN is a logical communication network that is directed to communication among devices (e.g., wireless devices) in close proximity. Unlike local area networks (LANs), in which the devices are in the same network segment and share the same broadcast domain, the devices in a NAN can belong to different network infrastructures. For example, even though the electronic device and the display device are geographically close, the communication path between them might, in fact, traverse a long distance, going from a LAN, through the Internet, and to another LAN. That is, in NAN, there may be two-way communications among the electronic device and the display device that are within a certain proximity to each other, but the NAN is not generally concerned with the exact locations.
In example embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the display device can determine when an electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device according to whether the display device and the electronic device are part of the same NAN. In other example embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, a server can determine when the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity of the display device, when the server determines that the display device and the electronic device are in the same NAN.
In exemplary embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, in operation 110, a change in presence may be determined when an electronic device and the display device determine how close they are from one another in a peer-to-peer manner, by exchanging, for example, network characteristics observed in real time. For example, the proximity of the electronic device to the display can be determined in a network by detecting and/or receiving wireless signals with the display device, such as any network characteristics (e.g., network information) and/or communication link characteristics (e.g., communication link information) from the electronic device. The network characteristics may include, for example, signal strength, noise level, and MAC address. The network and/or communication link characteristics of the display device and the electronic device can be compared. When the network and/or communication characteristics are within a predetermined relationship (e.g., the signal strength is greater than or equal to a predetermined level, the MAC address is a pre-approved MAC address, etc.), the display device can determine that the electronic device is within a predetermined proximity.
In exemplary embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, in operation 110, a change in presence may be determined when an electronic device and the display device are determined to have a communication link signal strength between one another that is greater than or equal to a predetermined level.
In exemplary embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, in operation 110, a change in presence may be determined according to whether a state of proximity between the display device and the electronic device is expected to occur at a future time based at least in part on a current or past motion state of at least one of the devices (e.g., the electronic device), and/or a historic behavior of at least one of the devices (e.g., the electronic device), and/or an identification that the display device and the electronic device are in a common venue.
In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, according to the location of the electronic device, and the data stored thereon (e.g., contact information, social media interaction data, and the like), the server may determine that the electronic device is within a proximity to a display device that is associated with one of the contacts listed in the electronic device or with the social media interaction data. The server can send a request message to the electronic device to receive an input as to whether the electronic device will accept or decline the sharing of media content data with the display device in the predetermined proximity.
In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the server can, upon receiving the location of the electronic device, and the data stored thereon (e.g., contact information, social media interaction data, and the like), transmit a message to the display device that is within the proximity of the electronic device and is associated with one of the contacts listed in the electronic device or with the social media interaction data. Upon receipt of the message, the display device can transmit a message to the electronic device to receive an input as to whether the electronic device will accept or decline the sharing of media content data with the display device in the predetermined proximity.
In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, determining the change in presence in operation 110 can include determining a change in presence according to a near filed communication (NFC) between the electronic device and the display device. That is, a user can touch the electronic device to the display device or bring the electronic device within the predetermined proximity to initiate a near field communication between the electronic device and the display device. Via a data exchange using the near field communication, the display device can determine that the electronic device is within the presence of the display device.
In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, determining the change in presence in operation 110 can include determining a change in presence according to at least one of a Wi-Fi communication, a Bluetooth communication, and a short-range wireless communication protocol communication between the electronic device and the display device. That is, a user can touch the electronic device to the display device or bring the electronic device within the predetermined proximity to initiate the at least one of the Wi-Fi communication, the Bluetooth communication, and the short-range wireless communication protocol communication between the electronic device and the display device. According to the data exchange with the at least one of the Wi-Fi communication, the Bluetooth communication, and the short-range wireless communication protocol communication, the display device can determine that the electronic device is within the presence of the display device.
Referring again to
When the accept 310 item of the display 300 is selected in
When the electronic device shares media content data with the display device, a menu may be generated and displayed by the display device according to the shared media content data.
When a selection of a media item (e.g., a shared media item and/or a native media item as illustrated in
In an example where the media content data is a game content, saved game data and/or user profile data can be provided to the display device for gameplay to occur. Game files and/or data may be retrieved from a server communicatively connected to the display device for gameplay to occur on the display device.
In the game example described above, where media content data is provided to the display device from the electronic device and/or a server, the electronic device can operate as a game controller, so that the gameplay presented on the display device using the media content data from the electronic device and/or the server, and the electronic device can control gameplay via a communications link with the display device. That is, the electronic device may execute an application so as operate as a controller of the display device for the game play by receiving one or more inputs from a user of the electronic device.
In an example where the media content data is video content, the media content data of the video content can be provided (e.g., streamed) from the electronic device to the display device when an authorization and/or acceptance has been received (e.g., accept 310 has been selected in display 300 shown in
Referring again to
In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, a selection may be made with the electronic device to end the acceptance and/or permission to share the media content data with the display device.
Still referring to
For example, the electronic device may provide permission to continue to access the shared media content when the electronic device is outside of the proximity, so that others viewing the shared media content (e.g., that is being provided from a server) with the display device can continue to view the media content. In another example, the electronic device may provide permission for the display device to access the shared media content (e.g., that is being provided from a server) for a predetermined amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc.) when the device is moved outside the predetermined proximity from the display device. When the predetermined amount of time has elapsed, the display device's permission to access the shared media content data will end, and, as described above, the shared media content may be removed from the display device. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, a message may be provided on the display device (e.g., that is transmitted from the server) when the predetermined time has elapsed and/or the electronic device has been moved outside the predetermined proximity, which allows for the user of the display device to purchase the media content that has been shared from an authorized source, so that the user may continue to view the media on the display device.
In another example, when the shared media content data is game data, the display device can retrieve the executable file and/or other related files for gameplay from the server when the electronic device has granted permission to the display device to share the game data. When the electronic device moves outside the predetermined proximity, the gameplay may be stopped, and/or the display device may access the shared media content for a predetermined amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc.) when the device is moved outside the predetermined proximity from the display device. Once the permission to access the game data is no longer being provided to the display device, the game item in a menu of the display device may be identified as being present, but not accessible (e.g., the item may be greyed out or the like). The user of the display device may be provided with an option to purchase the game from an authorized source, such as a server. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, when the permission to access the game data is no longer being provided to the display device, the executable files and/or other game files may be retained by the display device, but the key to access and/or use the files that was provided by the electronic device may be discarded. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the executable game files and/or other game data may be deleted from the storage device coupled to the display device after a predetermined period of time (e.g., 24 hours, 1 week, 1 month, etc.).
In another example, when the shared media content data is an application, the display device can retrieve the executable file and/or other related files for the application from the server when the electronic device has granted permission to the display device to share the application and/or application data. When the electronic device moves outside the predetermined proximity, the application may be stopped, and/or the display device may access the shared media content (i.e., the application) for a predetermined amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc.) when the device is moved outside the predetermined proximity from the display device. Once the permission to access the application is no longer being provided to the display device, the application item in a menu of the display device may be identified as being present, but not accessible (e.g., the item may be greyed out or the like). The user of the display device may be provided with an option to purchase and/or download the application from an authorized source, such as a server. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, when the permission to access the application is no longer being provided to the display device, the executable files and/or other files associated with the application may be retained by the display device, but the key to access and/or use the files that was provided by the electronic device may be discarded. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the executable application files and/or other application data may be deleted from the storage device coupled to the display device after a predetermined period of time (e.g., 24 hours, 1 week, 1 month, etc.).
In another example, when the shared media content data is audio content, the display device can retrieve the audio content from the server (or the electronic device) when the electronic device has granted permission to the display device to share the application and/or application data. When the electronic device moves outside the predetermined proximity, the playback of audio content may be stopped, and/or the display device may access the shared media content (i.e., the audio content) for a predetermined amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc.) when the device is moved outside the predetermined proximity from the display device. Once the permission to access the application is no longer being provided to the display device, the audio content of the display device may be identified as being present, but not accessible (e.g., the item may be greyed out or the like). The user of the display device may be provided with an option to purchase and/or download at least a portion of the audio content (e.g., a song, an album, or purchase an access pass to the audio content) from an authorized source, such as a server. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, when the permission to access the application is no longer being provided to the display device, the audio content may be retained by the display device, but the key to access and/or use the files that was provided by the electronic device may be discarded. In embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter, the audio content may be deleted from the storage device coupled to the display device after a predetermined period of time (e.g., 24 hours, 1 week, 1 month, etc.).
Various embodiments of the presently disclosed subject matter may include or be embodied in the form of computer-implemented processes and apparatuses for practicing those processes. Embodiments also may be embodied in the form of a computer program product having computer program code containing instructions embodied in non-transitory and/or tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives, USB (universal serial bus) drives, or any other machine readable storage medium, such that when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. Embodiments also may be embodied in the form of computer program code, for example, whether stored in a storage medium, loaded into and/or executed by a computer, or transmitted over some transmission medium, such as over electrical wiring or cabling, through fiber optics, or via electromagnetic radiation, such that when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. When implemented on a general-purpose microprocessor, the computer program code segments configure the microprocessor to create specific logic circuits.
In some configurations, a set of computer-readable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium may be implemented by a general-purpose processor, which may transform the general-purpose processor or a device containing the general-purpose processor into a special-purpose device configured to implement or carry out the instructions. Embodiments may be implemented using hardware that may include a processor, such as a general purpose microprocessor and/or an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) that embodies all or part of the techniques according to embodiments of the disclosed subject matter in hardware and/or firmware. The processor may be coupled to memory, such as RAM, ROM, flash memory, a hard disk or any other device capable of storing electronic information. The memory may store instructions adapted to be executed by the processor to perform the techniques according to embodiments of the disclosed subject matter.
The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has been described with reference to specific embodiments. However, the illustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit embodiments of the disclosed subject matter to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principles of embodiments of the disclosed subject matter and their practical applications, to thereby enable others skilled in the art to utilize those embodiments as well as various embodiments with various modifications as may be suited to the particular use contemplated.