Visual display of categorical information through visual factors such as scale and location

• US 6,608,633 B1
• Filed: 10/30/1998
• Issued: 08/19/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Corporation Of America (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Corporation Of America (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Sciammarella, Eduardo A., Servan-Schreiber, Franklin
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cao (Kevin)
• Application Number:
  US09/183,008
• Time in Patent Office: 1,754 Days
• Field of Search: 345/326, 345/327, 345/328, 345/335, 345/337, 345/1, 345/700, 345/716, 345/723, 345/744, 345/764, 348/10, 348/12, 348/553, 348/563, 348/564, 348/569, 348/570, 348/906, 725/46, 725/13, 725/14, 725/15, 725/16, 725/17, 725/18, 725/20, 725/21
• US Class Current: 715/700
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/445 for displaying additional information H04N5/50 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/44504 Circuit details of the additional information generator, e.g. details of the character or graphics signal generator, overlay mixing circuits

Abstract

A method and structure for the display of categorical information on a display screen utilizes visual factors such as scale and location to express the degree of importance of a particular category over other categories of categorical information with respect to a selected measurement value. Categorical information is displayed primarily based on the selected measurement value of volume of programming or frequency of use at any given time.

Claims

1. A method for visually displaying the relative importance of categorical programming information on a display screen, said method comprising:

receiving a selection of a measuring value; and

displaying titles of a plurality of programming categories on a display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selection of the measuring value is received from a user interface in communication with a computer program that sets the measuring value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selection of the measuring value is received from a computer program that sets the measuring value.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are presented in an interface box within the display screen.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the interface box is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with the computer program.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen by a computer program that determines the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the selected measuring value.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed within an interface box on the display screen that is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with a computer program that determines the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value and displays the titles of the plurality of programming categories within the interface box.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a programming category of the plurality of programming categories; and

displaying titles of the plurality of programming subcategories on the display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming subcategories are presented in an interface box within the display screen.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the interface box is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with the computer program.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming subcategories are presented on the display screen by a computer program that determines the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming subcategories are displayed within an interface box on the display screen that is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with a computer program that determines the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value and displays the titles of the plurality of programming subcategories within the interface box.

14. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

displaying content for the plurality of programming subcategories on the display screen in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

displaying content for the plurality of programming categories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.

16. A semantic category display system, comprising:

a display screen; and

a computer system, having a computer program, that is operatively coupled to the display screen, wherein titles of a plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by a measuring value and as determined by the computer program, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the measuring value is set through a user interface displayed on the display screen that is in communication with the computer program.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the measuring value is set by the computer program.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are presented in an interface box within the display screen.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the interface box is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with the computer program.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the computer program operates to update the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the measuring value.

22. The system of claim 16, wherein content for the plurality of programming categories is displayed in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.

23. A storage media containing a computer program for visually displaying the relative importance of categorical programming information on a display screen, comprising:

instructions for setting a measuring value; and

instructions for displaying titles of a plurality of programming categories on a display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

24. The media of claim 23, further comprising:

instructions for updating the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the measuring value.

25. The media of claim 23, further comprising:

instructions for receiving a selection of a programming category of the plurality of programming categories; and

instructions for displaying titles of the plurality of programming subcategories on the display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value.

26. The media of claim 25 further comprising:

instructions for displaying content for the plurality of programming subcategories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories.

27. The media of claim 23 further comprising:

instructions for displaying content for the plurality of programming categories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.

28. A method for visually displaying the relative importance of categorical programming information on a display screen of an audio/visual (AV) system, said method comprising:

receiving a selection of a measuring value from a remote controller of the AV system in communication with a computer program that sets the measuring value; and

displaying titles of a plurality of programming categories on the display screen of the AV system in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value and determined by the computer program, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are presented to the viewer in an interface box of the display screen of the AV system.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the interface box is a graphical user interface (GUI) by which the viewer of the display screen is in communication with the computer program via the remote controller.

31. The method of claim 28, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen by a computer that determines the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value.

32. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

updating the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the selected measuring value.

33. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a programming category of the plurality of programming categories from the remote controller of the AV system; and

displaying titles of the plurality of programming subcategories on the display screen of the AV system in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value and determined by the computer program.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming subcategories are presented in an interface box within the display screen.

35. The method of claim 33 further comprising:

displaying content for the plurality of programming subcategories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories.

36. The method of claim 28 further comprising:

displaying content for the plurality of programming categories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.

37. A storage media containing a computer program for visually displaying the relative importance of categorical programming information on a display screen of an audio/visual (AV) system, comprising:

instructions for receiving a selection of a measuring value from a remote controller of the AV system in communication with a computer program that sets the measuring value; and

instructions for displaying titles of a plurality of programming categories on the display screen of the AV system in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by the measuring value and determined by the computer program, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

38. The media of claim 37, further comprising:

instructions for updating the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the selected measuring value.

39. The media of claim 37, further comprising:

instructions for receiving a selection of a programming category of the plurality of programming categories from the remote controller of the AV system; and

instructions for displaying titles of the plurality of programming subcategories on the display screen of the AV system in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories of the plurality of programming subcategories as measured by the measuring value and determined by the computer program.

40. The media of claim 37 further comprising:

instructions for displaying content for the plurality of programming categories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.

41. The media of claim 37 further comprising:

instructions for displaying content for the plurality of programming subcategories in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming subcategories.

42. A audio/visual (AV) semantic category display system, comprising:

a display screen;

an antenna for receiving one or more channel to be displayed on the display screen;

an integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) having a computer program that is operatively coupled to the display screen and the antenna; and

a remote control device operatively coupled to the computer program of the IRD to communicate to the computer program how titles of a plurality of programming categories are to be displayed on the display screen in a manner that visually indicates to a viewer of the display screen through one or more visual factors the relative importance of each of the programming categories of the plurality of programming categories as measured by a measuring value, said one or more visual factors being size and location.

43. The system of claim 42, wherein the remote control device communicates the measuring value to the computer program.

44. The system of claim 42, wherein the titles of the plurality of programming categories are presented in an interface box within the display screen.

45. The system of claim 42, wherein the computer program operates to update the one or more visual factors through which the titles of the plurality of programming categories are displayed on the display screen in response to a change in the measuring value.

46. The system of claim 42, wherein content for the plurality of programming categories is displayed in a manner that visually indicates the relative importance of each of the programming categories.