SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CASTING A GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE DISPLAY OF A MOBILE DEVICE TO A DISPLAY SCREEN ASSOCIATED WITH A SET-TOP-BOX DEVICE

• US 20110074794A1
• Filed: 09/29/2009
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Gharachorloo, Nader, Sharma, Manishi, Felt, Michelle, Relyea, Donald H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,706,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/520
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4122 additional display device, e.g. video projector digital output for controlling a plurality of local displays G06F3/1423
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42209 for displaying non-command information, e.g. electronic program guide [EPG], e-mail, messages or a second television channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72

Abstract

Exemplary multi-screen casting systems and methods are disclosed. For example, systems and methods for casting a graphical user interface display of a mobile device to a display screen associated with a set-top-box device are disclosed. An exemplary method includes a multi-screen casting system establishing a multi-screen display relationship between a mobile device and a set-top-box device, identifying data associated with a graphical user interface display of the mobile device, and transmitting the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device for display by a display device associated with the set-top-box device. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

establishing, by a multi-screen casting system, a multi-screen display relationship between a mobile device and a set-top-box device;

identifying, by the multi-screen casting system, data associated with a graphical user interface display of the mobile device; and

transmitting, by the multi-screen casting system, the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device for display by a display device associated with the set-top-box device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying, by the mobile device, the graphical user interface display on a display screen of the mobile device; and

displaying, by the display device associated with the set-top-box device, an image-format-based representation of the graphical user interface display of the mobile device on a display screen of the display device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising converting, by the multi-screen casting system, the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to image-format data before the transmitting of the identified data to the set-top-box device.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the converting comprises converting the identified data from Hypertext Mark-up Language code to a set of one or more image files.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying and the transmitting are selectively performed only when a multi-screen display mode is enabled.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting, by the multi-screen casting system, user input indicating a request to register the mobile device and the set-top-box device to participate in multi-screen display casting;

authenticating, by the multi-screen casting system, a user credential to register the mobile device and the set-top-box device to participate in the multi-screen display casting; and

performing the establishing of the multi-screen display relationship between the mobile device and the set-top-box device in response to the request by generating and storing registration data representative of the multi-screen display relationship in a data storage facility.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

detecting a request to access the data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device; and

determining that the request is associated with a browser module running on the mobile device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

detecting user input received with the mobile device;

updating the graphical user interface display of the mobile device based on the user input; and

identifying the data as associated with the updating of the graphical user interface display of the mobile device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device from a proxy server configured to communicate with the mobile device by way of a wireless data network to a subscriber television network server configured to communicate with the set-top-box device by way of a subscriber television network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the transmitting further comprises forwarding, by the subscriber television network server, the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device by way of an Internet Protocol backchannel of the subscriber television network.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device by way of a local Wi-Fi network.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device by way of a local peer-to-peer wireless network.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface display comprises a browser interface display generated by a browser module running on the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 1, tangibly embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one computer-readable medium.

15. A method comprising:

receiving, by a proxy server, a request for data content from a mobile device, the request specifying that the data content be provided to the mobile device and to a set-top-box device registered to participate with the mobile device in multi-screen display casting;

retrieving, by the proxy server, the data content from a data content source;

optimizing, by the proxy server, a first set of the data content for display on a display screen of the mobile device;

transmitting, by the proxy server, the optimized first set of the data content to the mobile device for display on the display screen of the mobile device;

optimizing, by the proxy server, a second set of the data content for display on a display screen of a display device associated with the set-top-box device; and

transmitting, by the proxy server, the optimized second set of the data content to the set-top-box device for display on the display screen of the display device associated with the set-top-box device.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the data content comprises Hypertext Markup Language (“

HTML”

) code;

the optimized first set of data content comprises the HTML code optimized for the mobile device; and

the optimized second set of data content comprises image-format data representative of one or more graphics generated based on the HTML code.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the optimizing of the second set of the data content comprises:

interpreting the HTML code; and

generating the image-format data representative of the one or more graphics based on the interpreting of the HTML code.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the transmitting of the optimized second set of the data content to the set-top-box device comprises transmitting, by the proxy server, the optimized second set of the data content to the set-top-box device by way of a subscriber television network server configured to communicate with the set-top-box device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the transmitting the second set of the data content to the set-top-box device further comprises forwarding, by the subscriber television network server, the second set of the data content to the set-top-box device by way of an Internet Protocol backchannel of a subscriber television network.

20. A system comprising:

a registration facility that establishes a multi-screen display relationship between a mobile device and a set-top-box device; and

a multi-screen casting facility communicatively coupled to the registration facility and that

identifies data associated with a graphical user interface display of the mobile device,

determines that a multi-screen casting mode is enabled, and

initiates transmission of the identified data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to the set-top-box device for display by a display device associated with the set-top-box device.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein:

the mobile device displays the graphical user interface display on a display screen of the mobile device; and

the display device associated with the set-top-box device displays an image-format-based representation of the graphical user interface display of the mobile device on a display screen of the display device.

22. The system of claim 20, further comprising a data conversion facility that converts the data associated with the graphical user interface display of the mobile device to image-format data before the multi-screen casting facility initiates the transmission of the data to the set-top-box device.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein the mobile device and the set-top-box device are communicatively coupled by at least one of a local peer-to-peer wireless connection, a local wireless network, and a server subsystem.

24. The system of claim 20, wherein the mobile device and the set-top-box device are communicatively coupled by a server subsystem comprising:

a subscriber television network server configured to communicate with the set-top-box device by way of an Internet Protocol backchannel of a subscriber television network; and

a proxy server configured to

communicate with the mobile device by way of a wireless data network, and

communicate with the subscriber television network server to form a communication bridge between the wireless data network and the subscriber television network.