SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND DEVICES FOR ASSOCIATING A CONTACT IDENTIFIER WITH A BROADCAST SOURCE

• US 20100075616A1
• Filed: 09/24/2008
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Haughay, Allen P. JR., Perry, Ryan
• Granted Patent: US 8,452,228 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/77
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/38 Arrangements for distribution where lower stations, e.g. receivers, interact with the broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/93 which locates resources of other pieces of information, e.g. URL [Uniform Resource Locator]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/18 Arrangements characterised by circuits or components specially adapted for receiving
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/27 specially adapted for broadcast systems covered by groups H04H20/53 - H04H20/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/27 Arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/91 Mobile communication networks for accessing the Internet H04H60/85
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/94 Telephonic networks for accessing the Internet H04H60/84
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72442 for playing music files
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/64 file transfer between terminals download of applications H04M1/72406; transfer of messages, e.g. SMS, e-mail or MMS H04M1/7243
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers

Abstract

A media device including a broadcast receiver that receives broadcast media from a plurality of broadcast sources where the broadcast receiver is tunable to a first broadcast source. The media device also includes a data store that stores a list of contact identifiers where each contact identifier is associated with a broadcast source. The media device includes a user interface that: i) provides a prompt to a user to enable the user to initiate contact with the first broadcast source, and ii) receives a user indication to initiate contact with the first broadcast source. The media device further includes a transceiver that initiates the contact with the first broadcast source by sending a communications session request via a communications network to the first broadcast source that includes a contact identifier associated with the first broadcast source.

Claims

1. A media device comprising:

a broadcast receiver for receiving broadcast media from a plurality of broadcast sources, the broadcast receiver being tunable to a first broadcast source,

a data store for storing a list of contact identifiers, each contact identifier being associated with one of the plurality of broadcast sources,

a user interface for;

i) providing a prompt to a user to enable the user to initiate contact with the first broadcast source, and ii) receiving a user indication to initiate contact with the first broadcast source, and

a transceiver for initiating the contact with the first broadcast source by sending a communications session request via a communications network to the first broadcast source including a contact identifier associated with the first broadcast source.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein at least one contact identifier is provided by the user to the data store via the user interface.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the broadcast receiver receives broadcast media data, the broadcast media data including at least one contact identifier.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the at least one contact identifier is provided via the received media data to the data store.

5. The device of claim 1 comprising a transceiver for:

i) sending a query to a media data server via a data network for at least one contact identifier associated with the first broadcast source, ii) retrieving the at least one contact identifier via the data network, and iii) providing the at least one contact identifier to the data store.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes at least one of a display, a keypad, a touch screen, clickwheel, touch pad, speaker, and microphone.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the broadcast source includes a radio station.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the contact identifier includes at least one of a telephone number, an IP address, a domain name, and a URL.

9. A method for initiating contact with a broadcast source from a media device comprising:

receiving broadcast media from a plurality of broadcast sources using a broadcast receiver, the broadcast receiver being tunable to a first broadcast source,

storing a list of contact identifiers, each contact identifier being associated with one of the plurality of broadcast sources,

providing a prompt to a user to enable the user to initiate contact with the first broadcast source,

receiving a user indication to initiate contact with the first broadcast source, and

initiating the contact with the first broadcast source by sending a communications session request to the first broadcast source including a contact identifier associated with the first broadcast source.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one contact identifier is provided by the user to the data store via the user interface.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the broadcast receiver receives broadcast media data, the broadcast media data including at least one contact identifier.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one contact identifier is provided via the received media data to a data store.

13. The method of claim 9 comprising:

i) sending a query to a media data server for at least one contact identifier associated with the first broadcast source,

ii) retrieving the at least one contact identifier via a data network, and

iii) providing the at least one contact identifier to the data store.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein providing a prompt and receiving a user indication are via a user interface, the user interface including at least one of a display, a keypad, a touch screen, clickwheel, touch pad, speaker, and microphone.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the broadcast source includes a radio station.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the contact identifier includes at least one of a telephone number, an IP address, a domain name, and a URL.

17. A media device comprising:

a broadcast receiver for receiving media from a broadcast source, and

a transceiver for;

i) requesting and receiving a contact identifier associated with the broadcast source via a communications network from a media server, and ii) sending a connection request including the contact identifier associated with the broadcast source to establish a communications connection with the broadcast source via the communications network.

18. The device of claim 17, wherein the communications network includes at least one of the PSTN, a wireless data network, a data network, and the Internet.

19. The device of claim 18, wherein the communications connection includes one of a circuit-switched and packet-switched connection.

20. A computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by a media device to cause the media device to perform a method for requesting a communications connection with a broadcast source, the method comprising:

receiving broadcast media from the broadcast source,

requesting and receiving a contact identifier associated with the broadcast source from a media server via a communications network, and

sending a connection request including the contact identifier associated with the broadcast source to establish a communications connection with the broadcast source via the communications network.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the communications network includes at least one of the PSTN, a wireless data network, a data network, and the Internet.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the communications connection includes one of a circuit-switched and packet-switched connection.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the broadcast source includes at least one of a radio station, television station, and satellite.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein the media includes a video, an image, audio, audio file, a song, music, multimedia, movie, and television data.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein the contact identifier includes at least one of a telephone number, an IP address, a domain name, and a URL

26. The method of claim 20, wherein the media server includes at least one of a clearinghouse server, a web server, and a broadcast source server.

27. A media device comprising:

a broadcast receiver for receiving media and media data from a broadcast source, the media data including a contact identifier associated with the broadcast source,

a data store for storing the contact identifier associated with the broadcast source,

a user interface for receiving a user indication to initiate contact with the broadcast source, and

a transceiver for sending a connection request, in response to the user indication, including the contact identifier associated with the broadcast source to establish a communications connection with the broadcast source via a communications network.

28. The device of claim 27, wherein the media data includes RDS data.

29. The device of claim 27, wherein the user interface provides a prompt to the user to initiate contact with the broadcast source.

30. The device of claim 29, wherein the prompt includes at least one of an icon, text, audio indication, visual indication, alert, and vibration.