Personalized multimedia services using a mobile service platform

• US 7,567,575 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2002
• Issued: 07/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wei, Bin, Jana, Rittwik, Jora, Serban, Chen, Yih-Farn Robin, Huang, Huale, John, Sam
• Primary Examiner(s): HO, DUC CHI
• Application Number:
  US10/136,540
• Publication Number:
  US 20030050062A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,645 Days
• Field of Search: 370/401, 370/338, 370/466
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/103 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/104 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1043 Gateway controllers, e.g. media gateway control protocol [MGCP] controllers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/72 Subscriber identity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor

Abstract

A method for providing multimedia data from at least one controllable multimedia source to a mobile device includes providing a request path from the mobile device to a mobile service platform, receiving a request from the mobile device, obtaining a device profile from the mobile device, authenticating the identity of a user of the mobile device, and determining a user profile in response to the user identity. The method further includes authorizing control and access to the at least one multimedia source, providing a control channel from the mobile service platform to at least one multimedia server, providing multimedia data delivery information to the at least one multimedia server, and providing multimedia data to the mobile device in response to the request via the at least one multimedia server.

Claims

1. A method for providing multimedia data from at least one controllable multimedia source to a mobile device comprising:

providing a request path from the mobile device to a mobile service platform;

receiving a request from the mobile device;

obtaining a device profile from the mobile device;

authenticating the identity of a user of the mobile device;

determining a user profile corresponding to the user identity;

authorizing control and access to the at least one multimedia source;

obtaining a mobile device transmission profile;

providing a control channel from the mobile service platform to at least one multimedia server;

providing multimedia data delivery information to the at least one multimedia server; and

providing multimedia data to the mobile device in response to the request via the at least one multimedia server.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising allocating a selected one of the at least one multimedia server in response to a predetermined multimedia server allocation stored in the user profile.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a user control path from the mobile device to the at least one controllable multimedia source via the at least one multimedia server for controlling the at least controllable multimedia source from the mobile device.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a user control path from the mobile device to the at least one controllable multimedia source via the mobile service platform for controlling the at least controllable multimedia source from the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising controlling the at least controllable multimedia source from the mobile device.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein controlling the at least controllable multimedia source comprises at least one of:

selecting a camera;

selecting a tuner channel;

controlling a video tape recorder (VCR); and

controlling a camera field of view.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein controlling the VCR comprises instructing the VCR to store at least one re-encoded clip in a personal folder.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein controlling the at least controllable multimedia source comprises sending a user request using at least one of:

an HTTP protocol; and

an instant messaging protocol;

a WAP protocol;

an SMS protocol;

an email protocol;

a user defined control signal transported on a TCP/IP protocol; and

a user defined control signal transported on a UDP/IP protocol.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising controlling an encoded bit rate of the multimedia server from the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising delivering the multimedia data to a second mobile device in response to the request.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining a mobile device transmission profile from a provisioning process.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the mobile device transmission profile comprises:

providing a default transmission profile;

storing the transmission profile in the user profile;

querying the user of the mobile device for obtaining at least one transmission profile parameter; and

updating the at least one transmission profile parameter from a cellular infrastructure.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmission profile comprises a modeled transmission profile.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmission profile comprises a measured channel transmission profile.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the measured transmission parameter includes at least one of:

an estimated available bandwidth quality of service measurement; and

a link delay measurement.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein providing multimedia data comprises:

providing a wireless delivery path to the mobile device;

transcoding the multimedia data in response to the transmission profile and the device profile; and

transmitting the transcoded multimedia data to the mobile device via a wireless delivery path.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising adaptively controlling at least one of a frame rate and a frame size in response to measuring a system transmission parameter.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

measuring the performance of the transmission of the transcoded multimedia data to the mobile device; and

provide the performance measurement as feedback to an adaptive transcoder.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the performance measurement feedback includes feedback from at least one of:

the mobile device; and

a wireless communications network.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the performance measurement feedback comprises wireless channel state information.

21. The method of claim 16 wherein transcoding the multimedia data uses at least one of:

an MPEG2 protocol;

an MPEG4 protocol; and

an h.263 protocol.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein the mobile device includes devices selected from the group consisting of SMS mobile phones, WAP mobile phones, PDA devices, Instant Messaging devices, e-mail devices, two way pagers, pocket PCs, handheld PCs, and smart phones.