Television system having internet web browsing capability

• US 20080046945A1
• Filed: 07/27/2006
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America Incorporated (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hanley, Mark G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,590,998 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/112
• 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 21/4524 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; systems specially adapted for using geographical information in broadcast systems H04H60/70; protocols in which the network application is adapted for the location of the user terminal in communication control or processing H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4821 using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A television system for providing standard television programming and Internet browsing includes a television set for viewing digital and/or analog programming and includes a memory storage device and an integral embedded web browser for displaying data received from an Internet portal. The data is in the form of URLs and web pages that are synchronized with selected TV programming and/or advertising. A remote control selectively displays URLs and/or their associated web pages stored in memory by the Internet portal. In one aspect of the invention, TV programming can be displayed simultaneously on the screen with related web pages and URLs.

Claims

1. A system for providing Internet data to a TV viewer comprising:

(a) a TV set for viewing digital and/or analog programming and including a memory storage device and a web browser for displaying data received from an Internet service provider in the form of URLs and web pages synchronized with selected TV programs; and

(b) an internet data portal for receiving web data and for mapping said web data to selected TV programs, said data portal providing said web data to said TV set at predetermined time slots during the broadcast of said selected TV programs;

(c) a remote control for selectively displaying said URLs and/or web pages simultaneously with the receipt of said selected TV programs.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said URLs and/or web pages are displayed simultaneously with said selected TV programs.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said data is related to sponsors'"'"' advertising which is broadcast in conjunction with said selected TV programs.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said TV set includes a memory device accessible by said web browser and said Internet data is periodically loaded into said memory device in synchronization with the timing of advertisements displayed in conjunction with said TV programs.

5. The system of claim 4 further including a control for said memory device to selectively save Internet data stored in said memory device.

6. A TV system for viewing TV programming and for displaying Internet data comprising:

(a) a TV monitor for displaying TV programs and Internet data;

(b) a TV tuner coupled to said monitor for receiving analog and/or digital TV programming;

(c) a web browser coupled to said TV monitor including a memory storage device for receiving Internet data, wherein receipt of said Internet data into said memory storage is synchronized with at least selected ones of said TV programs so as to be loaded into said memory storage device at pre-selected time intervals; and

(d) a remote control device for selectively displaying said TV programs, said Internet data or both on said TV monitor.

7. The TV system of claim 6 further including an internet data portal for mapping selected Internet data in the form of URLs to selected TV programs at predetermined times and for transmitting said data to said web browser and memory storage device.

8. The TV system of claim 7 wherein said remote control provides user data to an Internet data portal upon selection of a URL displayed on said TV monitor.

9. A TV system for providing Internet data to a TV viewer in conjunction with the viewing of TV programming comprising:

(a) a TV set for receiving TV programs from a TV programming portal, said TV set including an embedded web browser and memory cache;

(b) an Internet data portal coupled to said TV set, said Internet data portal providing Internet content mapped to at least one of said TV programs and synchronously loaded into said memory cache during the broadcast of a predetermined one of said TV programs; and

(c) a control device for selectively displaying a broadcast TV program, Internet data mapped to said TV program, or both.

10. The TV system of claim 9 wherein said Internet data includes URLs related to advertising content associated with said TV programs.

11. The TV system of claim 9 wherein said URLs are loaded into said memory cache by said Internet data portal during the broadcast of said advertising content.

12. The TV system of claim 11 wherein said control device includes a function for selectively stopping the loading of said Internet content into said memory cache.

13. The TV system of claim 11 wherein said URLs are loaded into said memory cache at predetermined times and for preselected time intervals corresponding to the display of related advertising.

14. An interface for providing Internet data to a TV viewer comprising:

(a) displaying on a first portion of said TV programming selected by said viewer;

(b) displaying on a second portion of said TV displaying advertising;

(c) wherein said advertising is provided from an internet data portal that is associated with the currently selected said TV programming.