Multi-source content generation

• US 10,164,979 B2
• Filed: 02/18/2016
• Issued: 12/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Barraclough, Keith, Irvine, David, Logan, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Goodchild, William J.
• Application Number:
  US15/047,542
• Publication Number:
  US 20160182515A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,041 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/62 Protecting access to data via a platform, e.g. using keys or access control rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0258 Registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/20 for washing or drying articles, e.g. clothes, motor cars
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0892 by using authentication-authorization-accounting [AAA] servers or protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

As may be implemented in accordance with one or more embodiments, specific electronic magazines are generated based on user interests as follows. Respective sets of media content data, associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, are accessed and formatted into a common computer data format type. The formatted sets of media content data are broken into subsets and stored. Remote access to the respective subsets of media content data is provided to a user at a remote interface circuit based on authorization data specifying disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access. This user access is tracked and a specific electronic magazine is generated for the user by combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the user'"'"'s authorization data.

Claims

1. A method for generating a specific electronic magazine based on user interests, the method comprising:

operating access circuitry for accessing respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and formatting the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

electronically processing the formatted sets of media content data, by operation of a computer circuit, by breaking each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, associating each subset of media content data with at least one of a plurality of categories, and storing the subsets of media content data;

by operation of the computer circuit, providing remote access to the respective subsets of media content data to a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

tracking access, also by operation of the computer circuit, to the subsets by the plurality of users and including tracking respective categories associated with subsets of data accessed by a particular user; and

generating from further operation of the computer circuit a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user, and wherein the generating includes identifying ones of the subsets that are associated with the tracked respective categories, and combining at least two of the identified ones of the subsets to form the specific electronic magazine.

2. The method of claim 1, further including grouping the plurality of users into a plurality of groups, each particular user being grouped into at least one of the plurality of groups, wherein combining disparate ones of the subsets includes combining the subsets based on tracked access to subsets by other users in one of the plurality of groups in which the particular user is grouped.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein associating each subset of media content data with at least one of a plurality of categories includes, for each subset, assigning one of the plurality of categories to the subset based upon attributes of the media content data in the subset.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the specific electronic magazine issue for the one of the plurality of users includes generating the specific electronic magazine issue for a remote interface circuit via which the user accesses the specific electronic magazine.

5. The method of claim 1,

further including identifying new ones of the subsets, for each user, based on the tracking, media content authorization data for the user and characteristics of a remote user interface circuit via which media content access by the user is provided;

and

wherein generating the specific electronic magazine includes combining disparate ones of the identified subsets to create a specific electronic magazine for each user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of providing remote access to the respective subsets and generating the specific electronic magazine, includes restructuring the subsets into an electronic magazine format having articles, with respective ones of the articles having different ones of the subsets.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein breaking the formatted sets of media content data into subsets includes restructuring the accessed sets of media content data, in the common computer data format, into renditions having an article-oriented structure with device-indeterminate ID linking data that links respective portions of each rendition to corresponding portions of the accessed sets of media content data, and wherein tracking the access includes using the device-indeterminate ID linking data to link the tracked access to articles in the specific electronic magazine back to the articles in the sets of media content data provided by the disparate publishers.

8. A method for generating a specific electronic magazine based on user interests, the method comprising:

operating access circuitry for accessing respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and formatting the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

electronically processing the formatted sets of media content data, by operation of a computer circuit, by breaking each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and storing the subsets of media content data;

by operation of the computer circuit, providing remote access to the respective subsets of media content data to a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

tracking access, also by operation of the computer circuit, to the subsets by the plurality of users; and

generating from further operation of the computer circuit a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user, wherein each set of the media content data provided by the disparate publishers is associated with an electronic magazine issue having a publication date, and wherein generating the specific electronic magazine issue includes combining different ones of the subsets of media content data having different publication dates.

9. A method for generating a specific electronic magazine based on user interests, the method comprising:

operating access circuitry for accessing respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and formatting the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

electronically processing the formatted sets of media content data, by operation of a computer circuit, by breaking each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and storing the subsets of media content data;

by operation of the computer circuit, providing remote access to the respective subsets of media content data to a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

tracking access, also by operation of the computer circuit, to the subsets by the plurality of users;

generating from further operation of the computer circuit a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user; and

accessing each of the remote interface circuits and tracking access to other media content via the remote interface circuits, wherein generating the specific electronic magazine includes combining the disparate ones of the subsets of media content based on the tracked access to the subsets and the tracked access to other media content as identified via the access to the remote interface circuits.

10. A method for generating a specific electronic magazine based on user interests, the method comprising:

operating access circuitry for accessing respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and formatting the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

electronically processing the formatted sets of media content data, by operation of a computer circuit, by breaking each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and storing the subsets of media content data;

by operation of the computer circuit, providing remote access to the respective subsets of media content data to a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

tracking access, also by operation of the computer circuit, to the subsets by the plurality of users;

generating from further operation of the computer circuit a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user, and

generating metadata for each of the subsets, the metadata providing an association of the subset with an article-oriented electronic magazine structure and an electronic magazine issue.

11. The method of claim 10,

further including identifying new ones of the subsets which includes identifying a non-authorized subset of media content data for at least one electronic magazine for which the user does not have access, and providing access by one of the users to the specific electronic magazine and, in response to the user selecting the non-authorized subset, providing options to the user for purchasing access to the non-authorized subset, and

wherein generating the specific electronic magazine includes combining the non-authorized subset with other ones of the identified subsets to create a specific electronic magazine for each user.

12. A method for generating a specific electronic magazine based on user interests, the method comprising:

operating access circuitry for accessing respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and formatting the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

electronically processing the formatted sets of media content data, by operation of a computer circuit, by breaking each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and storing the subsets of media content data;

by operation of the computer circuit, providing remote access to the respective subsets of media content data to a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

tracking access, also by operation of the computer circuit, to the subsets by the plurality of users;

generating from further operation of the computer circuit a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user, wherein each set of media content corresponds to a collection of media articles for an electronic magazine in which the articles appear, and breaking each of the formatted sets includes breaking apart the media articles;

defining content boundaries within the articles; and

assigning metadata to the subsets based on the defined content boundaries.

13. An apparatus comprising:

a first circuit configured and arranged to access respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, and format the accessed sets into a common computer data format type;

a second circuit configured and arranged to break each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and store the subsets of media content data;

a third circuit configured and arranged with the second circuit to provide remote access to the respective subsets of media content data by a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

a fourth circuit configured and arranged to track access to the subsets by the plurality of users and to track access to the subsets by tracking respective categories associated with subsets of data accessed by a particular user; and

a fifth circuit configured and arranged to generate a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user and to identify ones of the subsets that are associated with the tracked respective categories, and combine at least two of the identified ones of the subsets to form the specific electronic magazine.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein

the second circuit is configured and arranged to store the subsets of media content data by associating each subset of media content data with at least one of a plurality of categories.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the fifth circuit is configured and arranged to combine the at least two of the identified ones of the subsets based on tracked access to subsets by other users in one of a plurality of groups in which the particular user is grouped.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the second circuit is configured and arranged to associate assign one of the plurality of categories to each subset based upon attributes of the media content data in the subset.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the fourth circuit is configured and arranged to accessing each of the remote interface circuits by communicating with an application running on each of the remote interface circuits, and controlling the application to obtain tracked access to other media content via the remote interface circuits.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, further including circuitry configured and arranged to generate metadata for each of the subsets, the metadata providing an association of the subset with an article-oriented electronic magazine structure and an electronic magazine issue.

19. An apparatus comprising:

first circuitry configured and arranged to access respective sets of media content data associated with disparate electronic magazines provided by disparate publishers, to format the accessed sets into a common computer data format type, and to break each of the formatted sets of media content data into subsets of the media content data, and store the subsets of media content data;

additional circuitry configured and arranged with the first circuitry to;

provide remote access to the respective subsets of media content data by a plurality of users at respective remote interface circuits based on, for each of the users, authorization data specifying ones of the disparate electronic magazines that the user is authorized to access;

track access to the subsets by the plurality of users; and

generate a specific electronic magazine for each of the plurality of users by, for each user, combining disparate ones of the subsets of media content data based on both the tracked access and the authorization data for the user;

wherein each set of media content corresponds to a collection of media articles for an electronic magazine in which the articles appear, and the second circuit is configured and arranged with the first circuit to break apart the media articles, define content boundaries within the articles, and assign metadata to the subsets based on the defined content boundaries.