Device affiliation process from second display

• US 9,979,761 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2015
• Issued: 05/22/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Wong, Ling Jun, Agnihotri, Davender, Xiong, True
• Primary Examiner(s): ABU ROUMI, MAHRAN Y
• Application Number:
  US14/597,565
• Publication Number:
  US 20150295966A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,223 Days
• Field of Search: 709219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for using a second display with a network-enabled television. In one implementation, this feature allows the user to conveniently affiliate their IPTV devices with various service providers and manage such affiliations directly from a second display device instead of going to a separate affiliation website. The second display could be a smart phone that can often be found beside the user, a laptop or tablet PC, a desktop PC, or the like.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, containing instructions for causing a computing environment to perform a method of displaying service affiliations associated with a user account on a second display, the method comprising steps of:

establishing a session between a second display and a server, the session associated with a user account; and

displaying a list of service affiliations on the second display corresponding to respective service providers, the service affiliations associated with the user account, the service affiliations allowing a provision of multiple items of content to devices, and wherein the second display is configured to at least partially control content playback on a content playback device, wherein the at least partial control includes a capability to send a command from the second display to the content playback device to play a selected content item;

wherein the instructions are further configured to transmit a signal from the second display to the server indicating that a service affiliation is to be added and associated with the user account, and subsequently causing the transmission of a signal to a service provider associated with the service affiliation to create the service affiliation, the causing the transmission including associating a service token and an affiliation token with the user account; and

wherein the instructions are further configured to transmit a signal from the second display to the server causing a service affiliation to be removed from association with the user account, the causing including removing a service token and affiliation token from association with the user account,

wherein a user is enabled to manage their device administrative configurations directly from a second display, such that a difficulty of implementing a mobile version of a service registration site is overcome.

2. The medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises displaying a list of one or more content playback devices on the second display, and receiving a signal indicating a selection of a selected content playback device from the list.

3. The medium of claim 2, further comprising displaying a revised list of service affiliations, the revised list corresponding to only service providers for which an affiliation is associated with the selected content playback device.

4. The medium of claim 1, wherein the content playback device is authenticated with a respective service provider.

5. The medium of claim 4, wherein the content playback device is authenticated with the respective service provider using an authentication credential.

6. The medium of claim 4, wherein the second display is configured to appear to the respective service provider as the authenticated content playback device by communicating through a proxy server to the respective service provider.

7. The medium of claim 1, wherein the displaying further includes displaying potential service affiliations, wherein the potential service affiliations are those for which the content playback device or user account may become but are not yet affiliated.

8. The medium of claim 1, wherein the second display is configured to search or browse content available from the respective service providers.

9. The medium of claim 1, wherein the second display is configured to control recording of content available from the respective service providers.

10. The medium of claim 1, wherein the second display is configured to play content available from a respective service provider on the second display by arranging presentation of an authentication credential of the content playback device to the service provider through a proxy server.

11. The medium of claim 2, wherein the displaying a list of one or more content playback devices to be displayed on the second display includes:

retrieving information about content playback devices from the user account, discovering content playback devices on a local network, discovering content playback devices from a wireless broadcast communication, or discovering content playback devices from an infrared remote control signal.

12. The medium of claim 1, wherein the displaying further comprises displaying the service affiliations based on at least one technical specification associated with the content playback device.

13. The medium of claim 1, wherein the content playback device is an IPTV, a digital video recorder, a Blu-ray®

player, a Blu-ray®

recorder, a DVD player, a DVD recorder, an internet appliance, or an audio system.

14. The medium of claim 1, further comprising inheriting a configuration from another content playback device, the configuration including at least one set of one or more service affiliations.

15. The medium of claim 1, wherein the second display is a tablet computer, a smart phone, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, an internet appliance, or a computing device with internet access.

16. The medium of claim 1, wherein the user account is associated with a management server.

17. The medium of claim 1, wherein the user account is associated with a service provider.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, containing instructions for causing a management server computing environment to perform a method of causing the display of service affiliations associated with a user account on a second display, comprising:

establishing a session between a server and a second display upon request of the second display, the session associated with a user account; and

transmitting or causing to be transmitted to the second display a list of service affiliations corresponding to respective service providers, the service affiliations associated with the user account, wherein at least one service affiliation is associated with a content playback device, the service affiliations allowing a provision of multiple items of content to devices including the content playback device, wherein the second display is configured to at least partially control content playback on the content playback device, wherein the at least partial control includes a capability to send a command from the second display to the content playback device to play a selected content item;

wherein the instructions are further configured to receive a signal from the second display indicating that a service affiliation is to be added and associated with the user account, and

causing the transmission of a signal to a service provider associated with the service affiliation to create the service affiliation, the causing the transmission including associating a service token and an affiliation token with the user account; and

wherein the instructions are further configured to receive a signal from the second display indicating that a service affiliation is to be removed from association with the user account, the removing including removing a service token and affiliation token from association with the user account,

wherein a user is enabled to manage their device administrative configurations directly from a second display, such that a difficulty of implementing a mobile version of a service registration site is overcome.

19. The medium of claim 18, further comprising transmitting to the second display a list of service affiliations for service providers for which the user account is not currently affiliated but for which the user account may become affiliated.

20. The medium of claim 18, further comprising transmitting to the second display a list of service affiliations for service providers for which the content playback device is not currently affiliated but for which the content playback device may become affiliated.

21. The medium of claim 18, further comprising generating the list of service affiliations based on at least one technical specification associated with the content playback device.

22. The medium of claim 18, further comprising generating the list of service affiliations based on at least one ruleset.

23. The medium of claim 22, wherein the ruleset is based on a geographic region of the content playback device.

24. The medium of claim 18, wherein the list of service affiliations is caused to be transmitted to the second display, and wherein the second display receives the list from a proxy server.

25. The medium of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises associating with the user account one of the displayed service affiliations for which the user account is not currently affiliated by causing a respective service provider to display a code on the content playback device, the code enterable by a user on a website associated with the service provider.

26. The medium of claim 25, wherein the method further comprises receiving a user token and an affiliation token from the service provider for association with the user account.

27. The medium of claim 26, further comprising receiving a signal indicating that a service affiliation is to be removed from association with the user account, and further comprising removing the user token and affiliation token from association with the user account.

28. The medium of claim 27, wherein the signal is received from the second display.

29. The medium of claim 27, wherein the signal is received from the service provider.

30. The medium of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises associating with the user account one of the displayed service affiliations, for which the user account is not currently affiliated, by causing a respective service provider to provide a user token and an affiliation token for association with the user account.

31. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, containing instructions for causing a computing environment to perform a method of displaying service affiliations associated with a user account on a second display, comprising:

establishing a session between a second display and a server, the session associated with a user account; and

displaying a list of service affiliations on the second display corresponding to respective service providers, a portion of the service affiliations associated with the user account, wherein at least one service affiliation is associated with a content playback device, the service affiliations associated with the user account and allowing a provision of multiple items of content to devices including the content playback device, and wherein the second display is configured to at least partially control content playback on the content playback device, wherein the at least partial control includes a capability to send a command from the second display to the content playback device to play a selected content item;

wherein a remainder of the displayed service affiliations correspond to service affiliations not associated with the user account, but associable with the user account upon indication by a user action entered on a user interface; and

wherein the instructions are further configured to transmit a signal from the second display to the server indicating that a service affiliation is to be added and associated with the user account, and

causing the transmission of a signal to a service provider associated with the service affiliation to create the service affiliation, the causing the transmission including associating a service token and an affiliation token with the user account; and

wherein the instructions are further configured to receive a signal indicating that a service affiliation is to be removed from association with the user account, the removing including removing a service token and affiliation token from association with the user account,

wherein a user is enabled to manage their device administrative configurations directly from a second display, such that a difficulty of implementing a mobile version of a service registration site is overcome.

32. The medium of claim 31, wherein the method further comprises associating one of the displayed service affiliations of the remainder with the user account, and wherein a browser of the second display is directed to a site associated with the service affiliation to be associated, the site allowing a user to enter authentication information for affiliation directly.

33. The medium of claim 31, wherein the method further comprises transmitting a signal to the server indicating that a service affiliation is to be added and associated with the user account, and causing the transmission of a signal to a service provider associated with the service affiliation to create the service affiliation.

34. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, containing instructions for causing a computing environment to perform a method of displaying service affiliations associated with a user account on a second display, comprising:

establishing a session between a second display and a server, the session associated with a user account; and

displaying a list of service affiliations on the second display corresponding to respective service providers, the service affiliations associated with the user account, the service affiliations allowing a provision of multiple items of content to content playback devices as controlled at least partially by the second display, wherein the at least partial control includes a capability to send a command from the second display to the content playback device to play a selected content item;

wherein the instructions are further configured to receive a signal from the second display at the server indicating that a service affiliation is to be added and associated with the user account, and

causing the transmission of a signal to a service provider associated with the service affiliation to create the service affiliation, the causing the transmission including associating a service token and an affiliation token with the user account; and

wherein the instructions are further configured to receive a signal from the second display at the server indicating that a service affiliation is to be removed from association with the user account, including removing a service token and affiliation token from association with the user account,

wherein a user is enabled to manage their device administrative configurations directly from a second display, such that a difficulty of implementing a mobile version of a service registration site is overcome.