PROVIDING THIRD PARTY CONTENT TO MEDIA DEVICES

• US 20080049782A1
• Filed: 04/06/2007
• Published: 02/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ZING Systems, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Ross, Mark, Bucher, Timothy, Nichols, Timothy
• Granted Patent: US 7,822,874 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365

Abstract

A method and system for interfacing between a portable media device and one or more media content providers. The method may be practiced, for example, in a system including the portable media device that receives content from one or more media content providers. The method can include identifying a first data format employed by the portable media device and a second data format employed by a selected media content provider. A data stream is received from the selected media content provider. The data received from the selected media content provider can be modified to be compatible with the first data format. Alternately or additionally, the data stream can be filtered to eliminate content that is unnecessary for the portable media device. The method further includes communicating the formatted data to the portable media device.

Claims

1. In a system including a portable media device that receives content from one or more media content providers, a method for interfacing between the portable media device and the one or more media content providers, the method comprising:

identifying a first data format employed by a portable media device;

identifying a second data format employed by a selected media content provider;

receiving data from the selected media content provider, the data conforming to the second data format;

modifying the data received from the selected media content provider to be compatible with the first data format; and

communicating the modified data to the portable media device.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving second data from the portable media device, the second data conforming to the first data format;

modifying the second data from the portable media device to be compatible with the second data format; and

transmitting the modified second data to the selected media content provider.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the data received from the selected media content provider includes Internet Protocol based data.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein modifying the data received from the selected media content provider further comprises filtering out particular data that are not needed by the portable media device.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein filtering out particular data that are not needed by the portable media device further comprises eliminating user interface layout information that is not needed by the portable media device.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the modified data are transmitted to the portable media device via a wireless network, wherein the wireless network is one or more of an 802.11 network, a terrestrial network, a cellular network, and a satellite network.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein identifying a second data format employed by the selected media content provider further comprises:

receiving from the portable media device an instruction identifying the selected media content provider; and

identifying the second data format employed by the selected media content provider.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving data from the selected media content provider includes receiving data from a global positioning system.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

identifying data formats of a plurality of unique portable media devices and unique media content providers; and

defining a modification algorithm for each identified data format.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein identification of the first data format employed by the portable media device is accomplished through the use of a mapping table accessible to an interface service.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein modifying the data received from the selected media content provider to be compatible with the first data format further comprises:

converting the data received from the selected media content provider into a generic data format; and

converting the generic data format into the first data format.

12. In a service capable of communicating with one or more portable media devices and one or more media content providers, a method for interfacing between the one or more portable media devices and the one or more media content providers, the method comprising:

identifying one of the one or more media content providers with which a portable media device will communicate;

receiving a first data stream from the identified media content provider;

filtering the first data stream to eliminate content that is unnecessary for the portable media device; and

communicating the filtered data stream to the portable media device.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a second data stream from the portable media device;

formatting the second data stream to create a third data stream that is customized for the selected media content provider; and

communicating the third data stream to the selected media content provider.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein filtering the first data stream is customizable for each of the media content providers and wherein formatting the second data stream is customizable for each of the media content providers.

15. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

identifying a first data format employed by the portable media device, wherein the second data stream conforms to the first data format;

identifying a second data format employed by the identified media content provider; and

wherein formatting the second data stream to create a third data stream comprises modifying the second data stream such that the third data stream is compatible with the second data format.

16. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein filtering the first data stream to eliminate content that is unnecessary for the portable media device further comprises transforming a first format of the first data stream to a second format compatible with the portable media device.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein:

the first data stream received from the identified media content provider comprises an HTML data stream; and

filtering the first data stream includes filtering the HTML data stream to eliminate data that are not needed by the portable media device.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein transforming a first format of the first data stream to a second format compatible with the portable media device comprises converting the HTML data stream into an XML data stream.

19. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein:

the first data stream received from the identified media content provider comprises an XML data stream; and

filtering the first data stream includes filtering the XML data stream to eliminate data that are not needed by the portable media device.

20. The method as recited in claim 19, wherein transforming a first format of the first data stream to a second format compatible with the portable media device comprises converting the XML data stream into a data stream having a proprietary data format.

21. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein filtering the first data stream includes eliminating user interface layout information that is not needed by the portable media device.

22. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

identifying a first data format employed by the portable media device;

identifying a second data format employed by the identified media content provider, wherein the first data stream conforms to the second data format; and

modifying the first data stream received from the identified media content provider to be compatible with the first data format.

23. A service for communicating data between one or more portable media devices and one or more media content providers, comprising:

one or more transceivers for transferring data between the service and the one or more portable media devices and between the service and the one or more media content providers;

one or more memory modules for storing data received from the one or more portable media devices and the one or more media content providers; and

a processor configured to format the data received from the one or more portable media devices to be compatible with a data format employed by the one or more media content providers, and for formatting the data received from the one or more media content providers to be compatible with a data format employed by the one or more portable media devices.