ACTIVATING FUNCTIONS IN PROCESSING DEVICES USING START CODES EMBEDDED IN AUDIO

• US 20120203559A1
• Filed: 12/30/2011
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Arbitron Inc. (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: MCKENNA, WILLIAM John, STAVROPOULOS, JOHN, NEUHAUSER, ALAN, BOLLES, JASON, KELLY, JOHN, LYNCH, WENDELL
• Granted Patent: US 8,959,016 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/93 which locates resources of other pieces of information, e.g. URL [Uniform Resource Locator]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/90 characterised by the use of signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/58 of audio determination or detection of speech characteristics in general G10L25/00; speech recognition in general G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/65 for using the result on users' side

Abstract

Apparatus, system and method for performing an action such as accessing supplementary data and/or executing software on a device capable of receiving multimedia are disclosed. After multimedia is received, a monitoring code is detected and a signature is extracted in response thereto from an audio portion of the multimedia. The ancillary code includes a plurality of code symbols arranged in a plurality of layers in a predetermined time period, and the signature is extracted from features of the audio of the multimedia. Supplementary data is accessed and/or software is executed using the detected code and/or signature.

Claims

1. A method of performing an action in a computer-processing device using data reflecting receipt of and/or exposure to audio data, comprising:

receiving audio data to be monitored in the device, the audio data having a monitoring code indicating that the audio data is to be monitored;

detecting the monitoring code;

in response to detection of the monitoring code, producing signature data characterizing the audio data using at least a portion of the audio data containing the monitoring code; and

directing the performance of the action at least in part from the device based on at least one of the monitoring code and signature data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring code comprises a plurality of substantially single-frequency code components.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein forming the signature data further comprises one of (a) forming a signature data set reflecting time-domain variations of the received audio data in a plurality of frequency sub-bands of the received audio data, and (b) forming a signature data set reflecting frequency-domain variations in the received audio data.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises presenting one of video, audio, images, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) content, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a shortened URL, metadata, and text.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises activating software on the device.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises processing at least one of the monitoring code and signature data on the device.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises transmitting at least one of the monitoring code and signature data from the device for processing, and receiving data in the device that was produced as a result of the processing.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the device comprises one of a cell phone, smart phone, personal digital assistant, personal computer, portable computer, television, set-top box, and media box.

18. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises presenting one of video, audio, images, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) content, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a shortened URL, metadata, text and activating software on the device.

19. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises one processing at least one of the monitoring code and signature data on the device.

20. The method according to claim 1, wherein the action comprises transmitting at least one of the monitoring code and signature data from the device for processing, and receiving data in the device that was produced as a result of the processing.

9. A computer-processing device configured to perform an action using data reflecting receipt of and/or exposure to audio data, comprising:

an input device to receive audio data having a monitoring code indicating that the audio data is to be monitored;

a detector to detect the monitoring code; and

a processing apparatus to produce, in response to detection of the monitoring code, signature data characterizing the audio data using at least a portion of the audio data containing the monitoring code, wherein the processing apparatus is configured to direct the performance of the action at least in part from the device based on at least one of the monitoring code and signature data.

10. The computer-processing device of claim 9, wherein the monitoring code comprises a plurality of substantially single-frequency code components.

11. The computer-processing device of claim 10, wherein forming the signature data further comprises one of (a) forming a signature data set reflecting time-domain variations of the received audio data in a plurality of frequency sub-bands of the received audio data, and (b) forming a signature data set reflecting frequency-domain variations in the received audio data.

12. The computer-processing device according to claim 9, wherein the action comprises presenting one of video, audio, images, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) content, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a shortened URL, metadata, and text.

13. The computer-processing device according to claim 9, wherein the action comprises activating software on the device.

14. The computer-processing device according to claim 9, wherein the action comprises processing at least one of the monitoring code and signature data on the device.

15. The computer-processing device according to claim 9, further comprising an output device, wherein the action comprises transmitting at least one of the monitoring code and signature data from the device for processing using the output device, and receiving data in the device that was produced as a result of the processing.

16. The computer-processing device according to claim 9, wherein the device comprises one of a cell phone, smart phone, personal digital assistant, personal computer, portable computer, television, set-top box, and media box.

17. A method of performing an action in a computer-processing device using data reflecting receipt of and/or exposure to audio data, comprising:

detecting monitoring code from received audio data, said monitoring code indicating that the audio data is to be monitored;

producing signature data in response to detection of the monitoring code, said signature data characterizing the audio data using at least a portion of the audio data containing the monitoring code; and

performing the action in the device based on at least one of the monitoring code and signature data.