Favorite GUI for TV

• US 8,151,215 B2
• Filed: 02/07/2008
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Baurmann, Travis Charles, Friedlander, Steven, Ho, Tracy, Nishikawa, Yuko, Salisbury, John, Tu, Edgar Allan, Yeh, Sabrina Tai-Chen
• Primary Examiner(s): Chow, Doon
• Assistant Examiner(s): VARGA, WILSON V
• Application Number:
  US12/027,358
• Publication Number:
  US 20090204929A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,517 Days
• Field of Search: 715/835, 715/201, 715/810, 715/836, 715/838, 715/860, 715/821, 715/824, 345/327, 348/E5.105
• US Class Current: 715/835
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42646 for reading from or writing on a non-volatile solid state storage medium, e.g. DVD, CD-ROM
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4438 Window management, e.g. event handling following interaction with the user interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games

Abstract

A favorites GUI for a TV includes a carousel-type display of icons representing user-defined favorites that is overlaid on the current background video of the TV, with the center-most icon being the “current” icon and being enlarged relative to the other icons. Live video appears in icons representing TV channels. Other icons can represent, e.g., favorite photo/music files, favorite games from a game console, favorite content from an ambient player, etc.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying instructions executable by a processor for:

permitting a user of a TV to select favorites;

causing icons associated with respective favorites to appear on a TV display in a content carousel in response to a user command;

causing the icons to revolve in the content carousel in response to a user command; and

causing the TV to present a substantially full screen display of content from a source associated with a focused icon within the content carousel in response to a user command, wherein live video from a video source currently serving as video input to the TV is presented on a favorites viewer screen of the content carousel responsive to a determination that the video source is a radiofrequency (RF) source or a composite source, and responsive to a determination that the video source is a high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) source, an icon of the HDMI source is presented on the display of the content carousel.

2. The medium of claim 1, wherein icons associated with TV channels include live three dimensional video feeds from the respective channels, the instructions including superimposing icons on a current video being displayed, the instructions including presenting icons in a single row of icons in the content carousel.

3. The medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions include presenting a history list of recently viewed items in response to a user-generated signal, the history list being juxtaposed with the icons in the content carousel.