Personalized audio system and method

• US 8,060,635 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2007
• Issued: 11/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Music Choice
• Original Assignee: Music Choice
• Inventors: Rosenberg, Jeremy, Yurman, Ronald
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang; Jungwon
• Application Number:
  US11/928,904
• Publication Number:
  US 20080140717A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,477 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/225, 709/241, 709/231, 709/219, 700/94, 705/26, 705/1, 705/14.54, 715/765, 704/270, 386/52, 846/09, 725/61, 725/67, 1/1
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/60 of audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/61 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/637 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialization, adaptation or distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/639 using playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/64 Browsing; Visualisation therefor generation of a list or set of audio data G06F16/638
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/686 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title or artist information, time, location or usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/105 User profile, i.e. data about the user, e.g. for user settings or user preferences
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/131 Library retrieval, i.e. searching a database or selecting a specific musical piece, segment, pattern, rule or parameter set
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/27 Arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/46 for recognising users' preferences
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/47 for recognising genres
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/65 for using the result on users' side
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 : using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 : Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 : for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 : User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 : Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 : Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A personalized audio system and method that overcomes many of the broadcast-type disadvantages associated with conventional radio stations.

Claims

1. A system for providing personalized content, comprising:

a user interface for displaying one or more station names and for receiving input from a user of the system; and

a processing unit, wherein the processing unit is configured to;

receive via the user interface input from the user indicating that the user desires to listen to a selected station, the selected station having a profile created or modified by a user of the system;

select a recording based on the profile of the selected station after receiving said input that indicates that the user desires to listen to a selected station;

determine whether the selected recording is locally stored after selecting the recording;

retrieve the recording from a local storage device and play the recording for the user in response to determining that the recording is locally stored; and

retrieve the recording from a server in response to determining that the recording is not locally stored and play the recording for the user after retrieving the recording from the server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is further configured to (a) select a second recording that is locally stored and (b) play the second recording in response to determining that the first recording is not locally stored.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to select a recording by selecting a recording from a playlist.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the user is not able to view the contents of the playlist.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the playlist is encrypted.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the recording is a sound recording.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is further configured to display information about and/or related to the sound recording while playing the recording for the user.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is further configured to enable the user to indicate that the user would like to purchase a copy of the recording while playing the recording for the user.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the processing unit is configured to enable the user to indicate that the user would like to purchase a copy of the recording by displaying on a display a selectable element, wherein the selectable element includes information indicating to the user that the user should select the selectable element if the user desires to purchase a copy of the recording.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising storing the recording in the local storage unit if the recording is retrieved from the server.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the profile identifies one or more genres and/or styles of music.

12. A method for playing recordings for a user of a player device, the method comprising:

(a) displaying on a display of the player device a list of stations, each station being associated with content preference information related to a content preference of the user;

(b) receiving input from the user indicating that the user desires to listen to a selected one of the listed stations;

(c) selecting a recording based on the content preference information associated with the selected station after receiving said input, wherein the selecting step is performed by a software application, not by the user;

(d) after selecting the recording, retrieving the recording from a server remote from the player device if the recording is not included in a collection of recordings stored in a storage unit of the player device, otherwise retrieving the recording from the storage unit of the player device;

(e) playing the recording for the user after retrieving the recording from the server; and

(f) repeating steps (c)-(e) one or more times, wherein

for each recording played in step (e), no information about the artist(s) who created the recording is provide to the user until (1) such time as the recording is played for the user or (2) a point in time immediately prior to the playing of the sound recording.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of selecting a recording based on the preference information comprises selecting a recording from a playlist stored in the player device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the user is not able to view the contents of the playlist.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the playlist is encrypted.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the recording is a sound recording.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising displaying information about and/or related to the sound recording while performing the step of playing the recording for the user.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising enabling the user to indicate that the user would like to purchase a copy of the recording while performing the step of playing the recording for the user.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising adding the recording to the collection after retrieving the recording from the server.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein the content preference information comprises artist information identifying an artist and/or song information identifying a particular song.

21. In an environment comprising a data storage system storing computer software, a method comprising:

retrieving the computer software from the data storage system; and

transmitting the computer software to a client device located remotely from the data storage system, wherein the computer software comprises;

a first set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to display a list of user selectable stations, each user selectable station being associated with content preference information related to a content preference of a user of the client device, wherein said content preference information contains artist information identifying an artist and/or song information identifying a particular song;

a second set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to select a recording based on content preference information associated with a user selected station;

a third set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to (a) determine whether the selected recording is stored locally and (b) retrieve the recording from a server remote from the client device if it is determined that the recording is not stored locally;

a fourth set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to play the selected recording for the user after retrieving the recording from the server; and

a fifth set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to re-execute the second, third and fourth set of instructions one or more times, wherein

the computer software is configured to control the processing system such that, for each said recording played, no information about the artist(s) who created the recording is provide to the user until (1) such time as the recording is played for the user or (2) a point in time immediately prior to the playing of the sound recording.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the second set of instructions comprises instructions that when executed by the processing system causes the processing system to select a recording based on the preference information by selecting a recording from a playlist stored in the client device.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the user is not able to view the contents of the playlist.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the playlist is encrypted.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the recording is a sound recording.

26. The method of claim 21, further comprising a sixth set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to display information about and/or related to the recording while performing the step of playing the recording for the user.

27. The method of claim 21, further comprising a sixth set of instructions that when executed by a processing system causes the processing system to enable the user to indicate that the user would like to purchase a copy of the recording while the recording is being played.