DYNAMICALLY MEDIATING MULTIMEDIA CONTENT AND DEVICES

• US 20080214104A1
• Filed: 04/18/2008
• Published: 09/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Goldthwaite, Flora P., Baumert, David W., Cluts, Jonathan, Hendrickson, Gregory L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,255,785 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/3.06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42202 environmental sensors, e.g. for detecting temperature, luminosity, pressure, earthquakes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44227 Monitoring of local network, e.g. connection or bandwidth variations; Detecting new devices in the local network configuring of peripheral devices in general G06F9/4411; monitoring connectivity in data switched networks H04L43/0811
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4516 involving client characteristics, e.g. Set-Top-Box type, software version or amount of memory available

Abstract

A mediator having at least a ranking component, a listening component, and a control component, selectively controls a group of devices from a plurality of network devices in a network environment to reproduce multimedia content. The mediator correlates the multimedia content with the plurality of network devices. The listening component collects data about the network environment to enhance a user'"'"'s experience with the multimedia content. The mediator utilizes the network environment data and the correlation of the multimedia content and the plurality of network devices to automatically select the group devices from the plurality of network devices that maximize a user'"'"'s viewing or listening pleasure when reproducing the multimedia content on the group of devices.

Claims

1. A method for mining relationships between multimedia content and a plurality of devices, the method comprising:

receiving multimedia content information;

receiving device information; and

correlating the multimedia content information and the device information to determine best-fit devices to reproduce the multimedia content, wherein device relationships are generated based on the correlation of the multimedia content information and the device information.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the device relationships include parent child relationships between the plurality of devices.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of devices include wireless devices.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the best fit devices are a group of devices of the plurality of devices capable of reproducing the content.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the relationships specify which device controls reproduction.

6. A computer system having a processor, a memory, and an operating environment, the computer system operable to execute the method recited in claim 1.

7. A communication network having a plurality of communication devices capable of transferring content wirelessly, the communication network comprising:

a first communication device to receive streaming content;

a second communication device to receive content different from the content streaming to the first communication device; and

a mediator to determine whether the streaming content should take precedence over the content different from the content streaming on the first communication device.

8. The communication network of claim 7, further comprising:

a third communication device that is connected to a non-intelligent device.

9. The communication network of claim 7, wherein the content different from the content streaming to the first communication device is a notification stream.

10. The communication network of claim 7, wherein the first communication device receives content from the Internet.

11. The communication network of claim 8, further comprising:

a fourth communication device that dynamically generates a user interface.

12. The communication network of claim 7, wherein the mediator is distributed across the first and second communication devices.