Highlighting Unread Messages

• US 20150264312A1
• Filed: 03/17/2014
• Published: 09/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Chastney, Daniel James, Cinar, Onur, Mokady, Ran
• Granted Patent: US 9,749,585 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/148 Interfacing a video terminal to a particular transmission medium, e.g. ISDN

Abstract

Various embodiments enable a video messaging experience which permits the exchange of short video messages in an asynchronous manner. The video messaging experience preserves the video intimacy and experience of synchronous-type video communications, while at the same time provides the convenience of SMS-type message exchange.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving at least one short video message associated with a video message conversation from at least one participant in the video message conversation;

generating a representation of the video message conversation based, at least in part, on the at least one short video message;

displaying the representation of the video message conversation; and

visually annotating the representation of the video message conversation based, at least in part, on at least one status associated with the video message conversation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one status is based, at least in part, on whether the at least one participant has contact information stored in an address book associated with a receiving user.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining the at least one status based, at least in part, on whether the video message conversation has unviewed content.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

responsive to determining the video message conversation has unviewed content, generating a thumbnail video image as the representation; and

responsive to determining that all video content associated with the video message conversation has been viewed, generating a still frame as the representation.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the generated thumbnail video image comprises one or more extracted frames of the at least one short video message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying further comprises:

determining a location to display the representation based, at least in part, on whether the video message conversation has unviewed content.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the video message conversation comprises three or more participants.

8. One or more computer readable storage media embodying computer readable instructions which, when executed, perform operations comprising:

creating multiple video message conversations associated with a particular participant;

generating a respective representation for each of the video message conversations, each respective representation being based, at least in part, on at least one respective status of the respective video message conversation;

displaying a summary view of the multiple video messages conversations which includes at least some of the respective representations; and

visually annotating each displayed representation based, at least in part, on one or more respective status associated with the respective video message conversation.

9. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the generating further comprises:

determining whether each respective video message conversation of the multiple video conversations has unviewed content;

responsive to determining the respective video message conversation has unviewed content, generating a thumbnail video image as the respective representation; and

responsive to determining that all video content associated with the respective video message conversation has been viewed, generating a still image as the respective representation.

10. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 9, wherein generating the thumbnail video image further comprises:

selecting a subset of one or more frames from at least one short video message associated with the respective video message conversation; and

storing the subset of one or more frames as the thumbnail video image.

11. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 9 further comprising:

automatically playing back at least one thumbnail video image when displaying the summary view.

12. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the creating further comprises:

creating at least one video message conversation responsive to receiving initiation data from a second participant in the video message conversation.

13. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 8, wherein visually annotating each respective representation further comprises superimposing one or more respective annotations over each respective representation.

14. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 8, wherein displaying at least some of the respective representations further comprises displaying the at least some respective representations in an order based, at least in part, on which content in the multiple video message conversations was most recently received.

15. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 9, wherein content associated with a video message conversation comprises at least one of:

a short video message;

or

a short video clip.

16. A computing device comprising:

one or more processors;

one or more computer-readable storage media embodying executable instructions which, responsive to execution by the one or more processors, perform operations comprising;

creating multiple video message conversations associated with a particular participant;

generating a respective representation of each video message conversation in the multiple video message conversations;

displaying at least some of the respective representations; and

annotating each displayed respective representation to convey at least one status associated with the respective video message conversation.

17. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the instructions further perform operations comprising:

generating a thumbnail video image as a respective representation, where the thumbnail video image is based on at least one short video message associated with the respective video message conversation.

18. The computing device of claim 17, wherein the at least one short video message has a status of being unviewed by the particular participant.

19. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the instructions further perform operations comprising sending and receiving short video messages to at least one other participant in each video message conversation in the multiple video message conversations.

20. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the instructions further perform operations comprising annotating each displayed respective representation by superimposing a respective text string on the respective representation, the respective string configured to convey the at least one status.