ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM WITH BANDLESS CONTENT SELECTION
3 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
An entertainment system comprising a base unit with a transceiver for interacting, at times, with a control unit via a communications link, and a control unit for controlling the base unit, the control unit being dockable with the base unit to establish direct electrical connection between them, and including a transceiver for interacting with the control unit via said link when undocked. The control unit is a separate aspect of the invention or system. The base unit may contain a tuner, preferably with bandless tuning capability, and may be designed to receive into a universal docking arrangement a digitally controllable auxiliary audio source such as a portable MP3 player or other device. The base unit may further provide alarm clock functionality with numerous features including a “fail-safe'"'"' volume control system and fail-safe alarm time setting capability.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1-18. -18. (canceled)
- 19. A content selection interface for an entertainment system having apparatus for receiving signals broadcast on at least a first radio band and signals from at least one non-radio content source, said interface having a single content selector actuable by a user and means responsive to the content selector for selecting content from among the radio signals and non-radio content sources which presents to the user said radio signals and said non-radio content as successive positions in a sequence without the user having to manifest an explicit change of source selection from position to position.
- 20. A content selection interface for an entertainment system, having apparatus for receiving and decoding signals in a plurality of formats from a corresponding plurality of sources, at least one of the sources being a radio source and at least one of the sources being a non-radio source, said interface providing a user only a single content selection device for use in selecting among said signals for content, by presenting available content as successive adjacent positions without requiring explicit source selection, the interface including a counter for tracking operation of the selection device and a processor for generating signals in response to said tracking, the signals mapping the user'"'"'s manipulation of the selection device to a signal source and a specific content from within that source, a display connected and arranged to display content information from the signal sources, and a content selection interface supplying displayed content indicia to a tuner unit which selects and processes the displayed content and causes it to be output.
Specification