Universal parallel television remote control
First Claim
1. A control unit that is portable, the control unit comprising:
- a user interface;
a communication interface that is operable to communicatively couple to at least one of a plurality of servers through the Internet; and
processing circuitry that is operable to, at least;
determine an amount of change in geographic location of the control unit;
determine to configure the control unit based, at least in part, on a comparison between the determined amount of change in geographic locationand a threshold amount of change in geographic location;
and in response to determining to configure the control unit;
retrieve, from the at least one of the plurality of servers via the communication interface, a configuration corresponding to an identifier that identifies a media equipment to be controlled by the control unit; and
configure the control unit, using the retrieved configuration, to control the media equipment;
wherein the user interface of the configured control unit is operable to control the media equipment.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A portable control unit that interacts with a variety of types of media equipment. The control unit searches for media equipment (including media players) located within an area and retrieves user interaction information corresponding to discovered media players. The control unit can be instructed to control any of the discovered media players. The control unit uses the retrieved user interaction information to adapt. The control unit may periodically, or when relocated, look for new media players in its neighborhood. The control unit interacts with multiple multimedia sources that supply video and/or audio to the media players. The control unit may have a screen on which it displays a video in addition to controlling selection and presentation of a video and/or an audio in any one of the discovered media players. The control unit maintains an updateable media guide that provides a list of multimedia elements available for viewing and/or listening.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A control unit that is portable, the control unit comprising:
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a user interface; a communication interface that is operable to communicatively couple to at least one of a plurality of servers through the Internet; and processing circuitry that is operable to, at least; determine an amount of change in geographic location of the control unit; determine to configure the control unit based, at least in part, on a comparison between the determined amount of change in geographic location and a threshold amount of change in geographic location; and in response to determining to configure the control unit; retrieve, from the at least one of the plurality of servers via the communication interface, a configuration corresponding to an identifier that identifies a media equipment to be controlled by the control unit; and configure the control unit, using the retrieved configuration, to control the media equipment; wherein the user interface of the configured control unit is operable to control the media equipment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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5. A control unit comprising:
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a user interface; a communication interface; and processing circuitry that is operable to, at least; retrieve a plurality of identifiers via the communication interface by, at least in part, searching for media equipment coupled to a local area network, the plurality of identifiers corresponding to a plurality of respective different media equipments; retrieve a plurality of respective configurations corresponding to the plurality of identifiers; and store the plurality of respective configurations in a memory, at least one of the plurality of configurations to be used to control corresponding media equipment from the plurality of different media equipments, wherein the processing circuitry is operable to search for media equipment situated in proximity to the control unit at regular intervals of time; wherein the regular intervals of time are user-defined.
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Specification