SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF CONTEXTUAL USER INTERFACES FOR DISPLAY OF MEDIA ITEMS

• US 20110145275A1
• Filed: 06/21/2010
• Published: 06/16/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Moment USA Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Moment USA Incorporated
• Inventors: STEWART, WILLIAM S.
• Application Number:
  US12/819,831
• Publication Number:
  US 20110145275A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/447 Temporal browsing, e.g. timeline
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/489 using time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Some aspects relate to systems and methods of tagging to enhance contextualization of media items and ease of use. Tag data structures provide an extensible platform to allow description of a concept from multiple points of view and in multiple contexts, such as locations, activities, and people. Individual application instances using these data structures can each maintain a private store of media items, and can be synchronized with a server. Each application owner can select portions of the private store to share. The server also can maintain canonical hierarchies of tags, such as hierarchies of activities and of places. These canonical hierarchies can be provided to application instances, where private modifications/additions can be made. Owners can offer to share private modifications, which can be accepted or rejected. Displays of media item selections and of clouds of related tags can be formed based on the contextual and relational information contained in the tags and in the canonical hierarchies.

Claims

1. A tangible computer readable medium, storing data and computer executable instructions, comprising:

a plurality of tag data structures, each tag data structure capable of identifying one or more parent tag data structures and one or more child tag data structures, and storing one or more text elements;

a plurality of media items and data associating each of the media items with one or more of the tag data structures;

computer executable code for programming a processor produce an output comprising a selection of the media items, and an arrangement of the selection of media items, a selection of locations and a selection of activities, wherein the selection of the media items, the arrangement of the media items, the selection of locations and the selection of activities is based on content of tag data structures associated with a media item selected for focus.

2. The tangible computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein a respective radial distance between the media item selected for focus and others of the selection of media items is determined to represent a degree of closeness derived based on parent and child tag data structures of tag data structures associated with the media item selected for focus

3. The tangible computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein a color differentiation among the selection of media items is determined to represent respective degrees of closeness between the selection of media items and the media item selected for focus.

4. A system, comprising:

a plurality of local application instances; and

a server, and

wherein each local application instance maintains a respective local repository of items and metadata for the items, each local application operable to accept input indicating which items of the local repository are to be made available at the server, each of the items associated with a respective trust level, and

wherein the server is operable to use metadata associated with the items made available at the server to determine whether any of those items relate to a common concept,

for items relating to a common concept, identifying recipients based on interest in the common concept and selecting items to be made available to each recipient based on a trust level between a source of each item and the recipient, and

sending, to the local application instance associated with each recipient, the items selected for that recipient.

5. A method, comprising:

accessing a local store of images, at a first device, and identifying one or more images associated with a concept in the local store of images;

accessing, at the first device, a remote store of images, controlled from a second device, and identifying one or more images associated with the concept in the remote store of images;

sequencing the images into an order, based on times when the images were taken; and

displaying on a display, a sequence of images, selected from the plurality of images to represent evolution of characteristics of the concept over a period of time spanned by the times the images of the sequence were taken.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

accepting a new image, determining that it is associated with the concept, determining a time when the image was taken;

determining a relative ordering of the new image in the plurality of images; and

making the new image available for use in sequences of images.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the concept identifies a person, and the sequence of images represents evolution of a visual appearance of the person over the period of time spanned by images of the sequence.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the concept identifies a place, and the sequence of images represents evolution of a visual appearance of the place over the period of time spanned by images of the sequence.

9. A method, comprising:

depicting, on a display, an origin, representative of a most-trusted trust level, and a plurality of concentric rings, with larger radius rings representing increasing less-secure trust levels;

depicting an arrangement of icons, each icon representing an entity, each icon disposed at a distance from the origin representing a respective trust level presently assigned to the entity represented by that icon, and associated with an indication of a type of information to be made available to that entity; and

accepting input through an interface allowing movement of the depicted icons to change the trust level assigned to an entity whose icon was moved.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the icons visually depict one or more of a person, and a group of people.

11. A method, comprising:

establishing a graph descriptive of a social network, the graph comprising a plurality of entities, each related to one or more other entities in the graph and having a plurality of tag entries corresponding to each related entity;

correlating items of content to entities of the social network graph;

displaying items of content relating to one or more entities of the social network graph; and

displaying a selection from the tag entries with the displayed items of content, the selection based on a relationship of a viewer of the items of content to the items of content.

12. A method, comprising:

displaying an image on a display;

accessing metadata about the image; and

selecting portions of the metadata for display with the image, the selecting based on selecting metadata appropriate for a perspective of a viewer of the image, and displaying the selected portions of the metadata on the display.