Apparatus and method for monitoring and control on a network

• US 10,306,325 B2
• Filed: 10/18/2016
• Issued: 05/28/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roberts, Linda Ann, Chang, E-Lee, Sung, Ja-Young, Schultz, Natasha Barrett, King, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Nunez, Jordany
• Application Number:
  US15/296,719
• Publication Number:
  US 20170041674A1
• Time in Patent Office: 952 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/338 using television networks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/53 involving additional visual information provided to the game scene, e.g. by overlay to simulate a head-up display [HUD] or displaying a laser sight in a shooting game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/63 by the player, e.g. authoring using a level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/822 Strategy games; Role-playing games A63F13/825, A63F13/828 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/572 Communication between players during game play of non game information, e.g. e-mail, chat, file transfer, streaming of audio and streaming of video
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2221 being a cable television head-end CATV in broadcast systems H04H20/78
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2225 Local VOD servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 : Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 : for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 : for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 : Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6408 : Unicasting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 : IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a system having a controller to present an overlay that is combined with a presentation of media content, collect one or more user-generated remarks from each of a plurality of computing devices where the one or more user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content presented at the plurality of computing devices according to the overlay, monitor one or more user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices, and selectively filter the one or more user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

providing, by a processing system including a processor, an overlay to a plurality of computing devices for presentation with media content at each of the plurality of computing devices, wherein a first group of computing devices of the plurality of computing devices simultaneously present the media content and the overlay together, wherein a second group of computing devices of the plurality of computing devices at different times from each of the second group of computing devices present the media content and the overlay together, wherein the overlay is configured for illustrating a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the media content;

monitoring, by the processing system, for the user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices;

selectively filtering, by the processing system, the user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices based on a commentator rating of a commentator submitting a corresponding comment of the user-generated comments with rating information, each comment submitted by the commentator during presentation of the media content accordingly having the commentator rating associated therewith, the commentator rating comprising one of a plurality of categories based on motion picture ratings association criteria, the categories including R and PG,

wherein the commentator rating is initially established by a designation by the commentator,

wherein the commentator rating is adjusted based on a collective rating generated from group rating information provided by a group of user inputs,

wherein the group rating information is representative of an appropriateness of comments for a group of users of a social network that correspond to the first computing devices of the plurality of computing devices, the appropriateness based at least in part on an affiliating characteristic of the group of users independent of the commentator,

wherein the selectively filtering via the group rating information for the user-generated comments from the first group of computing devices of the plurality of computing devices is limited to the first group of computing devices of the plurality of computing devices and not the second group of computing devices of the plurality of computing devices;

managing, by the processing system, the social network to include or exclude members of the social network, according to control settings established by the members of the social network for their associated computing devices; and

monitoring, by the processing system, a set of user registrations at a particular computing device,

wherein the commentator rating includes an indication of educational benefit for a viewer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the affiliating characteristic comprises an age category of the group of users.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a portion of the group of user inputs is associated with multiple users of a single device of the plurality of computing devices.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising adding or deleting, by the processing system, members from the group of users of the social network based on the user-generated comments.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively filtering, by the processing system, the user-generated comments based on the set of user registrations at the particular computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively filtering, by the processing system, the user-generated comments based on the set of user registrations actively participating on the overlay.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively filtering, by the processing system, the presentation of media content based on the set of user registrations at the particular computing device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the presentation of media content is audio only or video only.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the processor operates from one of the plurality of computing devices, and wherein the monitoring and the selectively filtering are performed by the processor.

10. A device, comprising:

a processing system including a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations comprising;

presenting an overlay that is combined with a presentation of media content;

collecting user-generated remarks from a plurality of computing devices, wherein the user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content presented at the plurality of computing devices according to the overlay;

monitoring for user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices;

selectively filtering the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices based on a commentator rating of a commentator submitting a corresponding comment of the user-generated comments with rating information, each comment submitted by the commentator during presentation of the media content accordingly having the commentator rating associated therewith, the commentator rating comprising one of a plurality of categories based on motion picture ratings association criteria, the categories including R and PG,

wherein the commentator rating is initially established by a designation by the commentator,

wherein the commentator rating is adjusted based on a collective rating generated from group rating information provided by a group of user inputs, and

wherein the group rating information is representative of an appropriateness of comments for a group of users of a social network that correspond to the plurality of computing devices, the appropriateness based at least in part on an affiliating characteristic of the group of users independent of the commentator and comprising an age category of the group of users,

wherein a first subset of the plurality of computing devices synchronize the presentation of the media content with each other and actively participate in generating comments for the overlay, wherein a second subset of the plurality of computing devices present the media content asynchronously, and wherein the selectively filtering of the user generated comments from the first subset is limited to the first subset; and

managing the social network to include or exclude members of the social network, according to control settings established by the members of the social network for their associated computing devices,

wherein the processing system limits access to the media content and the user-generated comments based on a permission list, wherein the permission list identifies first users that must be accessing the media content in order for second users to access the media content,

wherein the processing system collects the user-generated comments at least in part by converting recorded comments into text, and

wherein the processing system monitors a set of users registered at a particular computing device or monitors a set of users actively participating on the overlay.

11. The device of claim 10, wherein the processing system selectively filters the user-generated comments based on a registration of a particular set of users registered at the particular computing device.

12. The device of claim 10, wherein a portion of the user generated comments is received via an internet protocol multimedia subsystem network.

13. The device of claim 10, wherein the processing system monitors a set of users registered at a particular computing device and selectively filters the presentation of media content based on a registration of the set of users registered at the particular computing device.

14. The device of claim 13, wherein a portion of the user generated comments is received via an internet protocol multimedia subsystem network.

15. The device of claim 10, wherein the computing device is a portable communication device.

16. The device of claim 15, wherein the processing system collects the user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices by:

receiving a link to the user-generated comments sent by a corresponding computing device of the plurality of computing devices without receiving the corresponding comment; and

accessing the corresponding comment utilizing the link.

17. The device of claim 10, wherein the system operates over an interactive television network.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions which, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising:

collecting user-generated comments temporally associated with a presentation of media content via an overlay;

transmitting to a system the user-generated comments, wherein the transmitting causes the system to collect the user-generated comments from the processor along with other user-generated comments from other computing devices;

wherein the transmitting causes the system to selectively filter the user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices based on a commentator rating of a commentator, each comment submitted by the commentator during the presentation accordingly having the commentator rating associated therewith, the commentator rating comprising one of a plurality of categories based on motion picture ratings association criteria, the categories including R and PG,

wherein the commentator rating is initially established based on a designation by the commentator,

wherein the commentator rating is adjusted based on a collective rating generated from rating information provided by a group of users,

wherein the rating information is representative of an appropriateness of comments for the group of users that are associated with a social network, the appropriateness based at least in part on an affiliating characteristic of the group of users independent of the commentator and comprising an age category of the group of users, and

wherein a first subset of the plurality of computing devices synchronize the presentation of the media content with each other and actively participate in generating comments for the overlay, wherein a second subset of the plurality of computing devices present the media content asynchronously, and wherein the user-generated comments that are selectively filtered from the first subset is limited to the first subset;

managing the social network to include or exclude members of the social network, according to control settings established by the members of the social network for their associated computing devices;

limiting access to the media content and the user-generated comments based on a permission list, wherein the permission list identifies first users that must be accessing the media content in order for second users to access the media content;

monitoring for the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices; and

selectively filtering the user-generated comments in accordance with a parental control setting.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise monitoring a set of user registrations at a particular computing device.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the processing system collects the user-generated comments at least in part by converting recorded comments into text.