APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR GAMING

• US 20110111854A1
• Filed: 11/10/2009
• Published: 05/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Chang, E-Lee, Roberts, Linda, Barrett Schultz, Natasha, Sung, Ja-Young, King, Robert Arthur
• Granted Patent: US 9,415,303 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/39
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/338 using television networks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/53 involving additional visual information provided to the game scene, e.g. by overlay to simulate a head-up display [HUD] or displaying a laser sight in a shooting game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/63 by the player, e.g. authoring using a level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/822 Strategy games; Role-playing games A63F13/825, A63F13/828 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/572 Communication between players during game play of non game information, e.g. e-mail, chat, file transfer, streaming of audio and streaming of video
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2221 being a cable television head-end CATV in broadcast systems H04H20/78
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2225 Local VOD servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• 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 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 : Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 : for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 : for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 : Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6408 : Unicasting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 : IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a system having a controller to collect one or more user-generated remarks from each of a plurality of computing devices where the one or more user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content in the form of a gaming session presented at the plurality of computing devices and present the one or more user-generated remarks as an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to at least a set among the plurality of computing devices. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising steps to:

present an overlay combined with a presentation of media content at each of a plurality of computing devices to illustrate a collection of one or more user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the presented media content;

collect one or more user-generated comments from each of the plurality of computing devices; and

wherein the presented media content is a gaming session.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more user-generated comments collected from the plurality of computing devices are from an audience of the gaming session.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing devices comprise at least one of a computer, a portable communication device, and a gaming console.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a gaming console records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on an interactive TV (iTV) or and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the method selectively drills down in the play sequence to analyze a player'"'"'s play sequence and settings.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the gaming session is a virtual world setting and the one or more user-generated comments are comments on the virtual worlds set up by others.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the method can identify at least a set among the plurality of computing devices generating one or more user-generated comments upon which the user-generated comments can be shared.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the method transmits to the other computing devices in the set at least one identification associated with the identified at least one computing device.

9. The method of claim 7, comprising a step to receive from the other computing device a request to establish the gaming session with the identified at least one computing device.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising the step to receive from another computing device a request to view and comment upon the gaming session.

11. A system, comprising a controller to:

collect one or more user-generated remarks from each of a plurality of computing devices, wherein the one or more user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content in the form of a gaming session presented at the plurality of computing devices; and

present the one or more user-generated remarks as an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to at least a set among the plurality of computing devices.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the computing device is one of a computer, a portable communication device, and a gaming console.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more user-generated comments collected from the plurality of computing devices are from an audience of the gaming session.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the system operates with a gaming console that records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on an interactive TV (iTV) or and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) network.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the system operates with a computing device that records a play sequence in the gaming session for subsequent presentation on an interactive TV (iTV) or and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) network.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the system selectively drills down in the play sequence to analyze a player'"'"'s play sequence and settings.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the gaming session is a virtual world setting and the one or more user-generated comments are comments on the virtual worlds set up by others.

18. A computer-readable storage medium in a computing device, comprising computer instructions to:

selectively set preferences and play a gaming session on an Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) network where the IPTV network collects one or more user-generated remarks from each of a plurality of computing devices and wherein the one or more user-generated remarks are temporally associated with media content in the form of the gaming session presented at the plurality of computing devices; and

record a play sequence in the gaming session and the one or more user-generated remarks that are temporally associated with the play sequence.

19. The storage medium of claim 18, comprising computer instruction to present the one or more user-generated remarks as an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to at least a set among the plurality of computing devices.

20. The storage medium of claim 18, comprising computer instructions to present one or more user-generated remarks as an overlay combined with the gaming session as a presentation to at least a set among the plurality of computing devices as the gaming session is being played or as a rebroadcast of a pre-recorded gaming session.