System and method for construction, storage, and transport of presentation-independent multi-media content

• US 7,028,252 B1
• Filed: 03/22/2001
• Issued: 04/11/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle Cable, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Chase, James, Fassett, Robert Todd, Elvins, T. Todd, Baru, Chaitanya, Nebel, Ernesto
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/814,623
• Time in Patent Office: 1,846 Days
• Field of Search: 715/500.1, 707/501, 707/513, 345/302, 345/115, 358/403
• US Class Current: 715/273
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

Extensible, multi-presentation content is created in human/machine readable form, where each data object may contain numerous data elements that comprise alternate representations of a single piece of information, such as audio, text transcription of the audio, short-form summary of the text, and metadata concerning the story. Advantageously, each data element is presentation-independent, meaning that it does not require a particular type of presentation, such as HTML, WML, etc. Each content instance thus provides raw data, leaving the end-user free to access the data as desired. Specifications such as data type definitions (DTDS) may be used to prescribe that each story include the constituent data elements, e.g., text, audio, short-form text, metadata, etc. The DTDs define a dialect of extensible Markup Language (XML). Further, different DTDs prescribe the format of each data element. A developer may also define further DTDs defining additional data elements, sub-elements, sub-sub-elements, and the like.

Claims

1. A method for managing data, comprising operations of:

providing a multiple-view format for representing information content, comprising;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

receiving one or more items of information, and preparing an instance of the format comprising a computer-readable representation of the information.

2. The method of claim 1, the predetermined media types including multiple of the following:

text, short-form text, audio, video, image, tagged text, mixed, file.

3. The method of claim 1, the preparing operation being performed by a computer, the operations further comprising a transmitting the instance to another computer.

4. The method of claim 1, the operations further comprising storing the instance in nonvolatile storage.

5. The method of claim 1, the operation of providing the multiple-view format comprising providing an application of eXtensible Markup Language.

6. The method of claim 1, the media types including at least text and audio, the first guideline prescribing that within an instance any text element provides a transcription of any audio element.

7. The method of claim 1, the operation of providing the multiple-view format comprising

providing a specification and one or more Data Type Definitions (DTDs).

8. The method of claim 1, where the first guideline prescribes that data elements of one or more media types may comprise pointers to storage locations containing machine-readable files.

9. A method of exchanging data between parties, comprising:

first and second parties agreeing upon use of a multiple-view format for representing

information content, the format comprising;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

in the first and second parties exchanging data comprising one or more instances of the format.

10. A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a machine-readable data object observing a multiple-view format for representing information content, the format comprising:

a first guideline that instances of said format include multiple data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form.

11. The medium of claim 10, the media types including at least text and audio, the first guideline prescribing that within an instance a text element provides a transcription of the audio element.

12. The medium of claim 10, where the first guideline prescribes that data elements of one or more media types may comprise pointers to storage locations containing machine-readable files.

13. A machine-readable data object product prepared by a process comprising:

providing a multiple-view format for representing information content, comprising;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

receiving one or more items of information, and preparing an instance of the format comprising a computer-readable representation of the information.

14. The product of claim 13, the predetermined media types including multiple of the following:

text, short-form text, audio, video, image, tagged text, mixed, file.

15. The product of claim 13, preparing operation being performed by a computer, the process of preparing the product further including operations comprising transmitting the instance to another computer.

16. The product of claim 13, the process of preparing the product further comprising storing the instance in nonvolatile storage.

17. The product of claim 13, the process of preparing the product being performed such that the operation of providing the multiple-view format provides an application of eXtensible Markup Language.

18. The product of claim 13, the media types including at least text and audio the first guideline prescribing that within an instance any text element provides a transcription of any audio element.

19. The product of claim 13, the operation of providing the multiple-view format comprising providing a specification and one or more Data Type Definitions (DTDs).

20. The product of claim 13, where the first guideline prescribes that data elements of one or more media types may comprise pointers to storage locations containing machine-readable files.

21. A method for delivering multimedia information to requestors, comprising operations of:

assembling a universal database by gathering content instances each including one or more data elements in predefined topics, where data elements of a content instance provide alternative representations of the same item of information in different media types;

storing the data elements in a database, the database associating each item of information with all data elements representing that story item of information;

receiving connection requests from requesters via personal interfaces including at least one of the following;

telephone, web-enabled phone, Internet web browser;

responsive to each connection request, establishing a connection with the personal interface and during the connection performing operations comprising;

retrieving pre-stored preferences specific to the caller, said preferences including content preferences;

identifying content instances in the universal database that pertain to the identified requestor'"'"'s pre-stored content preferences and identifying data elements of the identified content instance having media types compatible with the requestor'"'"'s personal interface; and

rendering the identified information to the requestor'"'"'s personal interface in suitable format for playback to the requestor'"'"'s personal interface.

22. The method of claim 21, where the operation of assembling the universal database further comprises:

receiving information content provided in a multiple-view format that comprises a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form.

23. The method of claim 21, where the operation of storing the data elements in the database comprises:

organizing the data elements in a multiple-view format that comprises;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

storing the organized data elements in the database.

24. The method of claim 21, where the operation of rendering the identified information comprises:

organizing the data elements in a multiple-view format that comprises;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

selecting data elements of the organized data elements that are compatible with the requestor'"'"'s personal interface and rendering the selected data elements to the requestor'"'"'s personal interface.

25. A method of rendering personalized content to requesters, comprising operations of:

operating an Internet web server to receive user preferences specifying, for each user, one or more desired topics from a predefined list of topics and, within each topic, one or more desired topic-specific segments from predefined lists of topic-specific segments;

responsive to receiving an incoming request submitted by a user via personal interface, establishing a communication link with the user'"'"'s personal interface device and while the link is established, performing operations comprising;

retrieving the user'"'"'s preferences, selecting content having one or more media types from a preassembled multimedia database, said content being selected according to the user'"'"'s preferences and the media types being selected according to the capabilities of personal interface;

presenting the selected content to be user'"'"'s personal interface.

26. An apparatus for delivering information to requesters, comprising:

a digital data storage;

a communications server responsive to receiving requesters'"'"' connection requests from personal interfaces, to establish communication connections with the personal interfaces and transmit playback requests to a session server, the personal interfaces comprising at least one of the following;

telephone, web-enabled phone, Internet web browser;

a content processor coupled to the storage, and programmed to assemble a universal database by gathering content instances each including one or more data elements in predefined topics, where data elements of a content instance provide alternative representations of the same item of information in different media types;

a session server coupled to the storage and responsive to playback requests to perform the following operations during each connection;

retrieving pre-stored preferences specific to the caller, said preferences including content preferences;

identifying content instances in the universal database that pertain to the requestor'"'"'s pre-stored content preferences;

transmitting the identified information to the communications server;

the communications server being further programmed to identify data elements of the identified content instance having media types compatible with the requestor'"'"'s personal interface, and to render the identified information to the requestor'"'"'s personal interface in suitable format for playback to the requestor'"'"'s personal interface.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, where the content processor is programmed such that the operation of assembling the universal database further comprises:

receiving information content provided in a multiple-view format that comprises a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form.

28. The apparatus of claim 26, where the content processor is programmed such that the operation of assembling the universal database further comprises:

organizing the data elements in a multiple-view format that comprises;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represent the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

storing the organized data elements in the database.

29. The apparatus of claim 26, where the session server and communications server are programmed such that the operation of rendering the identified information comprises:

organizing the data elements in a multiple-view format that comprises;

a first guideline that instances of said format include one or more data elements, where each data element has one of multiple predetermined media types;

a second guideline that all data elements of an instance of the format represents the same content;

a third guideline that data elements of each instance of the format occur in presentation independent form;

selecting data elements of the organized data elements that are compatible with the requestor'"'"'s personal interface and rendering the selected data elements to the requester'"'"'s personal interface.