User Interface for a System and Process for Providing Dynamic Communication Access and Information Awareness in an Interactive Peripheral Display

• US 20070129817A1
• Filed: 01/22/2007
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Anoop, Jancke, Gavin, Venolia, Gina, Cadiz, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 9,053,462 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/17
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

The system and method of the present invention provides a user interface for providing peripheral awareness of information to a user. The information to be provided is either determined automatically, or specified by the user. Once the information to be provided is determined or specified, it is automatically tracked or watched via at least one conventional communications interface. Current information is then automatically dynamically provided in an interactive peripheral display which minimizes any potential distraction to the user. Determining or specifying, tracking or watching, and providing the information is accomplished using at least one customizable dynamic encapsulated object, a “ticket,” that when paired with a “viewer,” provides peripheral awareness of information to the user. Further, in one embodiment, the tickets are sharable among users, and may be copied, cut, pasted, saved, transmitted, dragged and dropped from web pages, etc., like any other electronic file using conventional techniques.

Claims

1. A system for automatically providing dynamically updated information on a display device, comprising:

a user interface for specifying information of interest to be automatically tracked via instructions embedded within at least one graphically represented customizable ticket;

at least one container displayed on the display device, each container holding at least one of the graphically represented customizable tickets;

displaying each ticket as an individual thumbnail within one of the containers;

automatically tracking the information of interest via at least one communications access point in accordance with the instructions embedded within each graphically represented customizable ticket; and

dynamically providing the automatically tracked information of interest within each thumbnail.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein each customizable ticket comprises:

a definition of the information of interest;

a definition of how the information of interest is to be tracked; and

a definition of how the information of interest is to be displayed.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein each customizable ticket is automatically transferred to a user computing device via a communications interface.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein automatically transferring the customizable ticket to the user computing device comprises using the user interface for dragging an iconized representation of the customizable ticket from a remote web page and dropping the iconized representation of the customizable ticket into one of the containers on the display device.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one customizable ticket automatically reports ticket use statistics to a remote server.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein each container is movable via the user interface, and wherein any containers which come into contact are automatically snapped together to form a single container.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein at least two of the containers are nested together via the user interface to form at least one recursively nested group of containers.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the thumbnails are timed, and wherein the thumbnails are automatically displayed at predetermined times.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the displays of the automatically displayed thumbnails are automatically terminated at predetermined times.

10. A method for providing at least one user accessible dynamic object, said objects automatically providing dynamically updated information for display on a display device, comprising:

using a user interface to place at least one link to information into at least one container;

automatically creating the at least one user accessible dynamic object in response to placing the at least one link to information into the at least one container;

dynamically tracking the information in response to instructions included in the automatically created dynamic object; and

dynamically displaying the dynamically tracked information within the container on the display device.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein placing at least one link to information in the at least one container comprises dragging and dropping a graphical representation of the information into the container.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein placing at least one link to information in the at least one container comprises dragging and dropping a graphical representation of the information into the container from an Internet web page.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the dynamic object includes a visibility switch, and wherein the dynamically tracked information is only displayed within the container when the visibility switch is on.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the visibility switch is timed.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein an appearance of the dynamically displayed tracked information is automatically changed over time to indicate a relative age of the information.

16. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for providing a contact availability status for at least one entity, said computer executable instructions comprising:

accepting contact availability data representing at least one contact method for each entity from at least one electronic information source;

dynamically determining a real-time availability status of each entity for each contact method; and

graphically representing the real-time availability status of at least one entity via a display area rendered on at least one display device.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the step of graphically representing the real-time availability status of each entity is based on age of the availability status of each entity.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein graphically representing the real-time availability status of each entity comprises displaying the real-time availability of each entity in a plurality of thumbnails in the display area.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18 comprising further computer-executable code for executing the following steps:

determining a size of each thumbnail based on a size of the display area;

determining the size of at least one thumbnail as below a predetermined threshold size;

dividing the display area into a plurality of display areas based on determining the size of at least one thumbnail as below the predetermined threshold size.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16 comprising further computer executable code for determining past patterns of use of a display device, wherein the step of graphically representing the real-time availability status comprises displaying the availability status of the entity on the display device based on the determined past patterns of use of the display device.