Display level content blocker

• US 9,980,004 B1
• Filed: 06/30/2017
• Issued: 05/22/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ericson, Braden Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Pierorazio, Michael B
• Application Number:
  US15/638,731
• Time in Patent Office: 326 Days
• Field of Search: 725 25
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4318 by altering the content in the rendering process, e.g. blanking, blurring or masking an image region image enhancement or restoration in general G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4542 Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306

Abstract

According to an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure, operations related to display level content blocking may include obtaining pixel data of a screen image intended for presentation on a display. The operations may further include, prior to presenting the screen image on the display: identifying particular content in the screen image based on the pixel data; identifying, in the pixel data, content-pixel data that is a portion of the pixel data that corresponds to the identified particular content; and modifying the content-pixel data to obscure presentation of the particular content. In addition, the operations may include causing presentation of the screen image on the display based on the modified content-pixel data such that presentation of the particular content is obscured in the presentation of the screen image.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

obtaining pixel data of a screen image intended for presentation on a display of an electronic device;

prior to presenting the screen image on the display;

identifying particular content in the screen image based on the pixel data;

identifying, in the pixel data, content-pixel data that is a portion of the pixel data that corresponds to the identified particular content; and

modifying the content-pixel data to obscure presentation of the particular content; and

causing presentation of the screen image on the display based on the modified content-pixel data such that presentation of the particular content is obscured in the presentation of the screen image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the content-pixel data is such that the presentation of the particular content is obscured according to one or more obscurations selected from a group of obscurations consisting of:

presenting the particular content as being out of focus, presenting the particular content as being pixelated, replacing presentation of the particular content with a blank space, and replacing presentation of the particular content with one or more images.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the particular content includes, identifying, from the pixel data, one or more characteristics selected from a group of characteristics consisting of:

a uniform resource locator (URL) depicted in the screen image, a word depicted in the screen image, a location of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a color of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a font of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, an image depicted in the screen image, and a positional relationship between two or more elements depicted in the screen image.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein identifying the particular content includes providing the one or more characteristics as input to a classifier configured to generate, as output, a classification whether the screen image includes the particular content based on the one or more characteristics, the classifier being generated using machine learning based on a plurality of reference content examples.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising generating the classifier.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the content-pixel data to highlight a depiction of an exit element of the particular content in which the exit element is an interactive element that, in response to being selected, causes the particular content to be removed from the screen image.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning the modified content-pixel data to an unmodified state in response to a user indication to discontinue blocking the particular content.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying, in response to a cursor position being located over the obscured particular content, the modified content-pixel data to unobscure at least a portion of the particular content.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the particular content includes one or more types of content selected from a group of content types consisting of:

an advertisement, nudity, sexual content, violent content, gore, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and profanity.

10. A system, comprising:

a display;

one or more computer-readable storage media including instructions stored thereon; and

one or more processors communicatively coupled to the one or more computer-readable storage media and configured to, in response to execution of the instructions, cause the system to perform operations comprising;

obtaining pixel data of a screen image intended for presentation on the display;

prior to presenting the screen image on the display;

providing the pixel data as input to a classifier configured to generate, as output, a classification whether the screen image includes particular content based on one or more characteristics of the screen image indicated in the pixel data, the classifier being generated using machine learning based on a plurality of reference content examples;

identifying the particular content in the screen image based on the classification;

identifying, in the pixel data, content-pixel data that is a portion of the pixel data that corresponds to the identified particular content; and

modifying the content-pixel data to obscure presentation of the particular content; and

causing presentation of the screen image on the display based on the modified content-pixel data such that presentation of the particular content is obscured in the presentation of the screen image.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein modifying the content-pixel data is such that the presentation of the particular content is obscured according to one or more obscurations selected from a group of obscurations consisting of:

presenting the particular content as being out of focus, presenting the particular content as being pixelated, replacing presentation of the particular content with a blank space, and replacing presentation of the particular content with one or more images.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more characteristics are selected from a group of characteristics consisting of:

a uniform resource locator (URL) depicted in the screen image, a word depicted in the screen image, a location of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a color of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a font of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, an image depicted in the screen image, and a positional relationship between two or more elements depicted in the screen image.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein providing the pixel data to the classifier includes providing the one or more characteristics as input to the classifier.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise modifying the content-pixel data to highlight a depiction of an exit element of the particular content in which the exit element is an interactive element that, in response to being selected, causes the particular content to be removed from the screen image.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise returning the modified content-pixel data to an unmodified state in response to a user indication to discontinue blocking the particular content.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise modifying, in response to a cursor position being located over the obscured particular content, the modified content-pixel data to unobscure at least a portion of the particular content.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media including instructions stored thereon, that in response to execution by one or more processors, cause performance of operations comprising:

obtaining pixel data of a screen image intended for presentation on a display of an electronic device;

prior to presenting the screen image on the display;

identifying particular content in the screen image based on the pixel data, the particular content including one or more types of content selected from a group of content types consisting of;

an advertisement, nudity, sexual content, violent content, gore, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and profanity;

identifying, in the pixel data, content-pixel data that is a portion of the pixel data that corresponds to the identified particular content; and

modifying the content-pixel data to obscure presentation of the particular content; and

causing presentation of the screen image on the display based on the modified content-pixel data such that presentation of the particular content is obscured in the presentation of the screen image.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein modifying the content-pixel data is such that the presentation of the particular content is obscured according to one or more obscurations selected from a group of obscurations consisting of:

presenting the particular content as being out of focus, presenting the particular content as being pixelated, replacing presentation of the particular content with a blank space, and replacing presentation of the particular content with one or more images.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein identifying the particular content includes, identifying, from the pixel data, one or more characteristics selected from a group of characteristics consisting of:

a uniform resource locator (URL) depicted in the screen image, a word depicted in the screen image, a location of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a color of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, a font of each of one or more elements depicted in the screen image, an image depicted in the screen image, and a positional relationship between two or more elements depicted in the screen image.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise returning the modified content-pixel data to an unmodified state in response to a user indication to discontinue blocking the particular content.