INITIATING PLAYING OF DATA USING AN ALARM CLOCK

• US 20090175132A1
• Filed: 03/12/2009
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk IL Ltd. (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk IL Ltd. (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Lasser, Menahem, Pomerantz, Itzhak
• Granted Patent: US 7,715,278 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 368/10
• CPC Class Codes: G04G 13/028 combined with a radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/18 Arrangements characterised by circuits or components specially adapted for receiving
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/13 Arrangements for device control affected by the broadcast information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/27 Arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/65 for using the result on users' side

Abstract

An alarm clock device includes a monitor for monitoring a transmission of a selected station, a detector for detecting, in the transmission of the selected station, at least one milestone. A controller operating in response to detection of the milestone is provided to store, in a memory, data of the transmission after the milestone was detected, and to initiate playing of the data at a selected wakeup time. According to the present invention, the data is recorded in response to detecting a transmission of a selected station selected from a plurality of stations.

Claims

1. An alarm clock device comprising:

(a) a monitor for monitoring a transmission of a selected station, said selected station selected from a plurality of stations;

(b) a detector for detecting, in said transmission of said selected station, at least one milestone that includes a detectable event selected from the group consisting of a voice pattern, a pre-defined period of silence and a pre-defined sound;

(c) a memory; and

(d) a controller operative, in response to detection of said at least one milestone, to record, in said memory, data of said transmission in which said at least one milestone was detected, and to initiate playing of said data at a selected wakeup time.

2. The alarm clock device of claim 1, wherein at least one of said plurality of stations is a radio station.

3. The alarm clock device of claim 1, wherein said controller is also operative to initiate playing of real-time audio content.

4. The alarm clock device of claim 1, wherein said at least one milestone includes a time-dependent event.

5. The alarm clock device of claim 1, wherein said at least one milestone includes a recurring milestone in said transmission of said selected station.

6. The alarm clock device of claim 5, wherein said controller, having stored said data in response to a detection of a preceding said recurring milestone in said transmission of said selected station, is operative to replace, upon a detection of a new said recurring milestone, said data with new data.

7. The alarm clock device of claim 1, wherein said memory is operative to store at least 1 megabyte of said data.

8. The alarm clock device of claim 7, wherein said memory is operative to store at least 10 megabyte of said data.

9. The alarm clock device of claim 8, wherein said memory is operative to store at least 50 megabyte of said data.

10. A method for using an alarm clock, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) setting the alarm clock on a selected station, selected from a plurality of stations;

(b) defining, for said selected station, at least one milestone that includes a detectable event selected from the group consisting of a voice pattern, a pre-defined period of silence and a pre-defined sound;

(c) in response to detecting said at least one milestone in a transmission of said selected station, recording data of said transmission of said selected station; and

(d) initiating playing of said recorded data at a selected wakeup time.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said playing includes playing real-time data.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein said at least one milestone includes a time-dependant event.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein said plurality of stations include at least one radio station.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein said at least one milestone includes a recurring milestone in said transmission of said selected station.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said recording step includes the step of replacing said data, recorded in response to detecting a preceding said recurring milestone, with new data.