Patent Application
20090144378
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of network communication transmissions, and particularly to the field of network communication transmissions within networks that support internet protocol television services.
2. Description of Background
Internet protocol television (IPTV) is a digital television delivery service wherein the digital television signal is delivered to residential users via a computer network infrastructure using the Internet Protocol. Typically, IPTV services are bundled with additional Internet services such as Internet web access and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP). A requirement for a user to playback IPTV operations is that a user has a set top box connected to their television for the reception of a digital signal. Used in conjunction with an IP-based platform, a set top box allows for a user to access an IPTV service and any additional services that are integrated within the IPTV service.
IPTV service platforms allow for an increase in the interactive services that can be provided to residential user. As such, a user can have access to a wide variety of content that is available via the IPTV service or the Internet. For example, a user may utilize a set top box to view IPTV content or access their personal electronic messaging accounts via an Internet web browser. However, while viewing IPTV content a user may desire to be notified in real-time of any messages that they may have received.
Therefore, there exists a need for a solution that would allow an IPTV user to be notified of and access personal electronic messages that have been forwarded to the IPTV user while the user views IPTV content.
The limitations of the prior art are overcome and additional advantages are provided through the provision of a method for the delivery and display of an email text message to an IPTV enabled display device. The method comprises retrieving an email message and at least one image attachment from an email account, and saving the email message and at least one image attachment. The method further comprises analyzing the retrieved email message to determine if an IPTV account is associated with data that is comprised within the email message, and transmitting a notification to the IPTV account in the event that the email data that is comprised within the email message is determined to be associated with the IPTV account.
Other systems, methods, and/or computer program products according to embodiments will be or become apparent to one with skill in the an upon review of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, and/or computer program products be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
The subject matter that is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
One or more exemplary embodiments of the invention are described below in detail. The disclosed embodiments are intended to be illustrative only since numerous modifications and variations therein will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. In reference to the drawings, like numbers will indicate like parts continuously throughout the views.
Exemplary embodiments include systems and methods for receiving within an IPTV environment an email message—in addition to any image (e.g., JPEG, BMP, TIFF, etc.) or audio/video container file attachments (e.g., IFF, AVI, MOV, etc.,) to the message—from a remote communication device (e.g., a cell phone, networked PDA or portable computer, etc.), for interaction and display within the IPTV environment. Aspects of the present invention comprise the architecture of an IPTV gateway, wherein the IPTV gateway is responsible for retrieving email messages that have been sent to an IPTV subscriber and providing notification of the reception of the email message to the IPTV subscriber at a display device. A notification can be in the form a “pop-up” display window displayed at a display device or any other conventional message notification scheme. Further, the IPTV gateway presents a history of the notifications to the IPTV subscriber.
Within aspects of embodiments of the present invention the IPTV gateway interfaces with a POP3 infrastructure in order to retrieve email messages that have been directed to an IPTV subscriber. Additionally, the gateway interlaces with a Preference server, wherein the Preference server is responsible for handling the preferences for an IPTV system as dictated by the desires of an IPTV subscriber. Further, the IPTV gateway is responsible for retrieving an IPTV subscriber's preferences for each IPTV set top box (STB) that is associated with the IPTV subscriber.
For each STB that is configured to retrieve email message information, the IPTV gateway interacts with an IPTV infrastructure to accomplish the actual transmittal of the email message to the requesting STB. Further, all email notifications that are generated within the system can be saved to a log at the IPTV gateway. As a further feature, IPTV subscribers can view a listing of the received email message log on their display device via an application that runs on the STB that is in communication with the display device.
Turning to the drawings in greater detail, it will be seen that
The back-end processing system USA of the IPTV gateway 105 is interfaced with a media encoder server 150 and a Preference server 145. Within exemplary embodiments, the Preference server 145 is configured to handle the IPTV system preferences that have been selected by an IPTV subscriber. The back-end processing system 115A of the IPTV gateway 105 is also interfaced with a POP3 infrastructure—an email server 140. In operation, the email server 140 can be further networked with a PSTN network and a SS7 network (not shown), such that email messages that are received from remote communication devices initially are received at the SS7 network and thereafter routed to the email server 140.
The back-end processing system 115A of the IPTV gateway 105 is further interfaced with an IPTV processing infrastructure 125. The IPTV processing infrastructure 125 can comprise an operation support system (OSS) user interface component 126, a business support system component 127, and a terminal server 128. The IPTV processing infrastructure 125 is in further communication with a STB 130, wherein the STB 130 delivers received data to a display device 135.
As seen in
Initially, an IPTV subscriber is provisioned a primary email account. The email account can be associated with the telephone number of the IPTV subscriber's primary household telephone number (e.g., the local part of the subscriber's email address can comprise the primary household telephone number). Within exemplary embodiments, the primary email account is configured to auto-forward all received email messages to a secondary email account that is serviced by the email server 140. After being forwarded to the secondary email account, the email message can be configured to be deleted from the sending primary email account.
At predetermined time intervals, the back-end processing system 115A periodically polls the email server 140 to ascertain if the email server has received any new email messages. In operation the back-end processing system 115A of the IPTV gateway 105 comprises a POP3 reader thread, wherein the POP3 reader thread is configured to periodically read a POP3 mailbox that has been configured to receive IPTV email messages. In the event that new email messages have been received at the email server 140, the back-end processing system 115A retrieves the new email messages from the email server 140. For each retrieved email message, the back-end processing system 115A may save the text of the email message, and if attached, the first image file attachment to an email log at the database memory device 120. Within exemplary embodiments, a primary operation of the IPTV gateway 105 is to transmit a notification to an IPTV subscriber's STB 130 that an email message has been sent to them. The IPTV gateway 105 stores the received email message information, thus allowing the IPTV subscriber to retrieve the email message information at a later time period with the use of the message center application 106.
For each retrieved email message, the back-end processing system 115A threads off an email thread to process the email message. Initially, the local part of the information that is contained within the “TO:” header of the email message is retrieved. In accordance with exemplary embodiments, the retrieved destination information is subsequently utilized to query the provisioning data to determine if an IPTV subscriber account ID is associated with the provisioning data. Next, the email thread looks for the text portion of the email message and determines if a first image attachment is present.
Thereafter, the email thread may save the text of the email message (and the image attachment if present) to the email log 120. The image attachments may also be copied to the message center application 106 of the front-end processing system 110A. Thereafter, the gateway 102 sends a notification to the subscriber's IPTV account indicating that the sender has sent an email message to the IPTV subscriber. The notification may further indicate that the IPTV subscriber must open the message center application 106 in order to access and view the email message and any images or audio/video attachments that may be present.
The front-end processing system's message center application 106 is used to store and make available information regarding the email log. When executed the message center application 106 can present an IPTV subscriber with a list of email message logs. For example, the message center application 106 displays the type of log, date/time that the log was recorded, and the party that generated the log.
In accordance with exemplary embodiments, using a remote control device that is configured to operate in conjunction with the IPTV STB 130, a user can highlight a particular email message log using the remote control device. Upon selecting an email message, the user is presented at the display device 135 with a display window showing the text of the email message. In the event that an image file is attached to the email message, a small version of the first image that was attached to the email message may be displayed to the user. As part of a user interlace, the user is also presented with the option of viewing an enlarged version of the image attachment in a succeeding display window.
Within exemplary embodiments, the message center 106 of the front-end processing system 110A is configured to respectively maintain Java Server Pages (JSPs), HTML, and client side JavaScript components. The back-end processing system 115A can be used to maintain email message data as well as the components that enable access to the email message data via the email message log 120. The message center application 106 operations are initiated and accomplished as follows. A subscriber initiates the message center application 106 from the STB 130 via a connection to the terminal server 128. A message center application 106 URL on the terminal server 128 points to a particular HTML address at the front-end processing system 110A of the IPTV gateway 105. The IPTV terminal server 128 is configured to send the account number of the IPTV subscriber as a parameter to the request. When the terminal server 128 tries to load a first HTML page that has been received from the message center application 106, JavaScript command check to make sure the “account” parameter is present. If the “account” parameter is not present, an error page instructing the user to contact IPTV support can be displayed to the user instead of the email message logs.
In the event that the account parameter is available, the JavaScript function makes a query to a JSP on the front-end processing system 110A passing the account argument. The JSP then makes an EJB call to the back-end processing system 115A via the message center EJBs 114 communicating with the message center application 106. In the event that the call to the message center EJB 114 fails, then an error message may be returned instructing the subscriber to try again later. In the event that the message center EJB 114 does not fail, then an XML document is returned via the message center EJB 114, the XML document being passed back to the JavaScript function of the message center application 106, in accordance with exemplary embodiments. Lastly, the JavaScript completes the building of the webpage for display at the display device 135 by reading the XML document and formatting the HTML as necessary.
A methodology for generating a notification for an incoming email message is detailed in
Next, at step 425 the STB ID for each STB 130 that is associated with the IPTV subscriber's IPTV account is retrieved from the IPTV processing infrastructure 125 and returned to the back-end processing system 115A. At step 430, the display preferences for each STB 130 are retrieved from the Preference server 145 and delivered to the front-end processing system 115A. Thereafter, at step 435, a new message notification is transmitted for each STB 130 from the front-end processing system 110A to the IPTV processing infrastructure 125. At step 440, each respective notification is transmitted to a STB 130. Lastly, at step 445, the new message notification is displayed with the first attached image at the respective display device 135 that is in communication with the STB 130.
At step 605, the email log listing is displayed to a user at a display device 135. The user selects an email message that she wants to view from the listing using a remote control device at step 610. Upon selecting an email message, at step 615, the selected email message is retrieved from the database 120 by the back-end processing system 115A and the attached image files are retrieved from the front-end processing system 110A (step 620). The message and the image files are delivered to the display device 135 wherein the message and attached images can be selected for display at a user interface (steps 625, 630).
As described above, the exemplary embodiments can be in the form of computer-implemented processes and apparatuses for practicing those processes. The exemplary embodiments can also be in the form of computer program code containing instructions embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD ROMs, hard drives, or any other computer-readable storage medium, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the exemplary embodiments. The exemplary embodiments can also be 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, 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, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into an executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the exemplary embodiments. When implemented on a general-purpose microprocessor, the computer program code segments configure the microprocessor to create specific logic circuits.
While the invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the invention without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiments disclosed for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the claims. Moreover, the use of the terms first, second, etc. do not denote any order or importance, but rather the terms first, second, etc., are used to distinguish one element from another. Furthermore, the use of the terms a, an, etc., do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item.
