AD-HOC web content player

• US 9,417,758 B2
• Filed: 11/20/2007
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Daniel E. Tsai
• Original Assignee: Daniel E. Tsai
• Inventors: Tsai, Daniel E.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHUANG, JUNG-MU T
• Application Number:
  US11/942,876
• Publication Number:
  US 20080141132A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,192 Days
• Field of Search: 715/714, 715/716
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions

Abstract

A system for dynamically playing information using conventional feeds and ad-hoc feeds to produce “playable” content includes a device that executes a player engine, the player engine collecting, combining and sequencing items to play based on selection criteria and device context, of text, image, video content by parsing selective tags, patterns, text, identifiers and resource types of interest on resources such as web pages to produce playable content, storing the playable contents results from parsing in a queue of playable feed items, selecting items from the queue to produce an ad-hoc feed and playing the ad-hoc feed.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a display; and

a memory executing a computer program for dynamic playback of playable content, by a player application that has at least one of a stop control, a play control and a pause control, the computer program comprises instructions to cause the processor to;

launch the player application;

receive by the player application information content from user selected resources;

determine formats of the information content from the user selected resources;

determine which of the user selected resources are not in a specified mark-up language format;

convert information content from the user selected resources that are not in the specified mark-up language format into the specified mark-up language format;

parse and decode the converted information content into code functions and data elements to provide a dataset;

load the dataset and the code functions into a player window to convert the dataset into produced visual playable content items;

store by the player application the produced visual playable content items in a queue of visual playable content items;

receive by the player application an assertion of at least one of the stop control, the play control and the pause control to play a user selection of the queued visual playable content items; and

visually render in a player window user selected ones of the queued visual playable content items in a sequence for a period of time, with the sequence being regularly repeated, and with the period of time of the sequence, the selection of the queued visual playable content items, and a repetition rate of the sequence being based on user defined parameters.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein single or simultaneous, asynchronous players run on the system, each player having a play engine that determines the sequence to render the queued visual playable content items.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the queued visual playable content items are played without a user interaction.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the received information content is from resources that include one or more of feeds including syndication feeds, podcast feeds and web folders of images, text, and video data, and with at least some of the syndication feeds, podcast feeds and web folders of images, text, and video data.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising instructions to:

provide a set of interaction content producing tools to produce the visual playable content items, with the tools including at least one that executes the instructions to determine, convert, parse and decode to produce the visual playable content items, and at least one that collects the received information content into one playable set of visual playable content items.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the tool that produces visual playable content items converts content in non-markup language formats to XML format.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the instructions to convert, convert the information content into an XML mark-up language and the instructions to parse the converted content apply XLST style sheet parsing rules to convert the converted information content into the visual playable content items.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the player application is integrated into a browser and loads feeds during browsing and the system is one of a desktop computer system, cell phone, personal digital assistant device, and/or a mobile device.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the player is a site-tool playing products on an e-commerce site.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the player application further comprises:

a promo box that provides quick links to each of the visual playable content items, where a quick link in the promo box when selected causes the player application to load.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein sponsored messages, links, and advertisement are shown in the promo box to generate revenue and providing additional content.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the user controls a type of information sent to the promo box, by at least one of topic, location, time, audience, and activity.

13. A computer implemented method executed on a device that includes a processor to execute a player application, the method comprises:

receiving by the player application information content from one or more user selected resources;

determining by the player application formats of the information content from the one or more user selected resources;

determining by the player application which of the one or more user selected resources are not in a specified mark-up language format;

converting by the player application content from the one or more user selected resources that are not in the specified mark-up language format into the specified mark-up language format;

parsing and decoding by the player application the converted information content into code functions and data elements to provide a dataset;

loading by the player application the dataset and the code functions into a player window to convert the dataset into produced visual playable content items;

storing by the player application the produced visual playable content items in a queue of visual playable content items; and

rendering by the player application user selected ones of the visual playable content items in a player window produced by the player application to cause the selected ones of the visual playable content items to be displayed in the player window in a sequence for a period of time and regularly repeated, with the sequence and with the period of time of the sequence, the selection of the queued visual playable content items, and a repetition rate of the sequence being based on user defined parameters.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the one or more resources includes feeds, and the method further comprises:

converting by the player application the information content from the feeds to produce ad-hoc collections of the visual playable content items by;

collecting visual playable contend produced from the transformed information content and received, non-transformed information content; and

storing the collected visual playable content items in a computer storage as an ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items.

15. A computer program product tangibly embodied on a computer readable hardware storage device, the computer program product for playing content, by a player application that has at least one of a stop control, a play control and a pause control, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a device to:

launch the player application;

receive information content from one or more user selected resources;

determine formats of the information content from the one or more user selected resources;

determine which of the one or more user selected resources are not in a specified mark-up language format;

convert information content from the one or more user selected resources that are not in the specified mark-up language format into the specified mark-up language format;

parse and decode the converted information content into code functions and data elements to provide a dataset;

load the dataset and the code functions into a player window to convert the dataset into produced visual playable content items;

store the produced visual playable content items in a queue of visual playable content items in a computer storage;

receive an assertion of at least one of the stop control, the play control and the pause control to play a user selection of the queued visual playable content items;

retrieve the selection of visual playable content items, with selection being according to a user-specified criteria for playback of the selected visual playable content items; and

render the selection of visual playable content items in a player window produced by the launched player application, with the selection of visual playable content items displayed in a sequence for a period of time and to regularly repeat the sequence, and with the period of time of the sequence, the selection of the queued visual playable content items, and a repetition rate of the sequence being based on user defined parameters.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising instructions to:

provide a set of interaction content producing tools to produce the visual playable content items, with the tools including at least one that executes the instructions to determine, convert, parse and decode to produce the user selected visual playable content items, and at least one that collects received information content into one playable set of visual playable content items.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 further comprising instructions to cause the processor to:

produce visual playable content items by parsing tags, patterns, text, and identifiers from the one or more user selected resources.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising instructions to:

convert the information content from the one or more user selected resources to produce an ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items by instructions to;

collect visual playable content items produced from the converted information content and received, non-converted information content; and

store the collected visual playable content items in the computer storage as the ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the received information content is from the one or more user selected resources that include one or more of feeds including syndication feeds, podcast feeds and web folders of images, text, and video data.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the tool that produces visual playable content items converts content in non-markup language formats to XML format.

21. A system comprising:

a processor;

a display; and

a memory executing a computer program for dynamic playback of playable content, by a player application that has at least one of a stop control, a play control and a pause control, the computer program comprises instructions to cause the processor to;

receive by the player application information content from one or more user selected resources;

determine formats of the information content from the user selected resources;

determine which of the one or more user selected resources are not in a specified mark-up language format;

convert the information content from the one or more user selected resources that are not in the specified mark-up language format into the specified mark-up language format;

parse and decode the converted information content into code functions and data elements to provide a dataset;

load the dataset and the code functions into a player window to convert the dataset into produced visual playable content items;

store by the player application the produced visual playable content items in a queue of visual playable content items;

retrieved by the player application visual playable content items stored on the system in the queue of visual playable content items; and

render by the player application in a player window an ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items, the ad-hoc collection based at least in part on user preferences.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the ad hoc collection is rendered in a sequence and for a period of time at a repetition rate that are based on user defined parameters.

23. The system of claim 21, further comprising instructions to:

produce the ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items by instructions to;

collect visual playable content produced from the converted information content and received, non-converted information content; and

store the collected visual playable content items in computer storage as the ad-hoc collection of the visual playable content items.

24. The system of claim 21 further comprising instructions to:

provide a set of interaction content producing tools to produce the visual playable content items, with the tools including at least one that executes the instructions to determine, convert, parse and decode to produce the user selected visual playable content items, and at least one that collects the received information content into the ad-hoc collection of visual playable content items.