Method and System for Supporting a User-Specified and Customized Interface for a Broadband Gateway

• US 20110302497A1
• Filed: 12/30/2010
• Published: 12/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Garrett, David, Karaoguz, Jeyhan, Chen, Xuemin, Diab, Wael William, Lundgren, David, Prodan, Rich
• Application Number:
  US12/981,986
• Publication Number:
  US 20110302497A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05F 1/66 Regulating electric power
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1453 Methods or systems for payment or settlement of the charges for data transmission involving significant interaction with the data transmission network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2838 Distribution of signals within a home automation network, e.g. involving splitting/multiplexing signals to/from different paths adaptations of television systems for transmission by electric cable for domestic distribution H04N7/106; hybrid transport H04L12/6418; home network arrangements specially adapted for distribution of digital video signals H04N7/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6402 Hybrid switching fabrics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/32 Specific management aspects for broadband networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/302 Route determination based on requested QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2491 Mapping quality of service [QoS] requirements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 : QOS or priority aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 : for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0281 : Proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 : for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 : for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/205 : involving negotiation or determination of the one or more network security mechanisms to be used, e.g. by negotiation between the client and the server or between peers or by selection according to the capabilities of the entities involved negotiation of communication capabilities H04L69/24
• 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 65/1023 : Media gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/103 : in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1033 : Signalling gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1036 : at the edge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 : Support for services or applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 : Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 : for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 : Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1078 : Resource delivery mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 : Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 : specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 : Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 : Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/258 : Client or end-user data management, e.g. managing client capabilities, user preferences or demographics, processing of multiple end-users preferences to derive collaborative data arrangements for services using the result on the distributing side of broadcast systems H04H60/66; profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4353 : involving decryption of additional data arrangements using cryptography for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/23
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 : Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/454 : Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/462 : Content or additional data management, e.g. creating a master electronic program guide from data received from the Internet and a Head-end, controlling the complexity of a video stream by scaling the resolution or bit-rate based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 : for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 : End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6106 : specially adapted to the downstream path of the transmission network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 : using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6371 : directed to network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6373 : for rate control , e.g. request to the server to modify its transmission rate flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6543 : for forcing some client operations, e.g. recording remote booting in general G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8549 : Creating video summaries, e.g. movie trailer retrieval in video databases by using presentations in form of a video summary G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/445 : for displaying additional information H04N5/50 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/086 : using security domains
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/265 : taking into account the quality of service QoS
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/00 : Reducing energy consumption in communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/20 : Information technology specific aspects, e.g. CAD, simulation, modelling, system security

Abstract

A method and system are provided in which a user interface application may be received by a broadband gateway and may be configured to generate a user interface for display in a display device. The user interface may be generated based on programming information and/or associated metadata received through one or more network access service providers. Each of the network access service providers may be handled by the broadband gateway through a corresponding physical layer access. More than one user interface application may be received by the broadband gateway. In such instances, the broadband gateway may enable the selection of one of the available user interface applications to generate the user interface. For each user interface application, the associated user interface that is generated may have a particular layout, visual characteristics, set of functions, and/or theme that is different from that of the other user interfaces.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

in a broadband gateway that enables communication with a plurality of devices, wherein the broadband gateway is operable to handle a plurality of physical layer connections to a plurality of corresponding network access service providers;

receiving a user interface application based on user input;

configuring the received user interface application; and

generating a user interface for display via a display device utilizing the configured user interface application, the user interface being generated based on programming information received through one or more of the plurality of corresponding network access service providers.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising configuring the received user interface application based on configuration information received in response to the user input.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is generated based on metadata associated with the received programming information, the metadata being received through one or more of the plurality of corresponding network access service providers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is generated based on content stored in one or both of the broadband gateway and a device communicatively coupled to the broadband gateway through a local network.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is generated based on historical user preference information stored in the broadband gateway.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the user interface application is a first user interface application and the user interface is a first user interface; and

said broadband gateway enables;

receiving a second user interface application different from the first user interface application based on a separate user input;

configuring the received second user interface application;

selecting one of the configured first user interface application and the configured second user interface application; and

when the configured second user interface application is selected, generating a second user interface different from the first user interface for display via the display device utilizing the configured second user interface application, the second user interface being generated based on the received programming information.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising configuring the received second user interface application based on configuration information received in response to the separate user input.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein a layout associated with the first user interface is different from a layout associated with the second user interface.

9. The method of claim 6, comprising:

configuring the received first user interface application to enable a first set of functions;

configuring the received second user interface application to enable a second set of functions different from the first set of functions; and

each of the first set of functions and the second set of functions comprises one or more of information organization functions, information creation functions, information storage functions, information deletion functions, information management functions, and on-demand access functions.

10. The method of claim 6, comprising:

configuring the received first user interface application based on a first theme;

configuring the received second user interface application based on a second theme different from the first theme; and

each of the first theme and the second theme is one of a sports theme, a movie theme, a news theme, a children'"'"'s television theme, a soap operas theme, a talk shows theme, a drama theme, a reality television theme, and a detective theme.

11. A system, comprising:

a broadband gateway that enables communication with a plurality of devices, wherein the broadband gateway is operable to handle a plurality of physical layer connections to a plurality of corresponding network access service providers, the broadband gateway comprising one or more processors and/or circuits being operable to;

receive programming information through one or more of the corresponding plurality of network access service providers;

receive a user interface application based on user input;

configure the received user interface application; and

generate a user interface for display via a display device utilizing the configured user interface application, the user interface being generated based on the received programming information.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors and/or circuits are operable to configure the received user interface application based on configuration information received in response to the user input.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the user interface is generated based on metadata associated with the received programming information, the metadata being received through one or more of the plurality of corresponding network access service providers.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the user interface is generated based on content stored in one or both of the broadband gateway and a device communicatively coupled to the broadband gateway through a local network.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the user interface is generated based on historical user preference information stored in the broadband gateway.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein:

the user interface application is a first user interface application and the user interface is a first user interface; and

the one or more processors and/or circuits are operable to;

receive a second user interface application different from the first user interface application based on a separate user input;

configure the received second user interface application;

select one of the configured first user interface application and the configured second user interface application; and

when the configured second user interface application is selected, generate a second user interface different from the first user interface for display via the display device utilizing the configured second user interface application, the second user interface being generated based on the received programming information.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the one or more processors and/or circuits are operable to configure the received second user interface application based on configuration information received in response to the separate user input.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein a layout associated with the first user interface is different from a layout associated with the second user interface.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the one or more processors and/or circuits are operable to:

configure the received first user interface application to enable a first set of functions;

configure the received second user interface application to enable a second set of functions different from the first set of functions; and

each of the first set of functions and the second set of functions comprises one or more of information organization functions, information creation functions, information storage functions, information deletion functions, information management functions, and on-demand access functions.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the one or more processors and/or circuits are operable to:

configure the received first user interface application based on a first theme;

configure the received second user interface application based on a second theme different from the first theme; and

each of the first theme and the second theme is one of a sports theme, a movie theme, a news theme, a children'"'"'s television theme, a soap operas theme, a talk shows theme, a drama theme, a reality television theme, and a detective theme.