Defining actions for data streams via icons

• US 9,449,308 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2010
• Issued: 09/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Schiff, Rachel, Mao, Zhihong, Zaragoza, Richard Ignacio
• Primary Examiner(s): RIEGLER, PATRICK F
• Application Number:
  US12/967,078
• Publication Number:
  US 20120151381A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,107 Days
• Field of Search: 715/752, 715/763, 715/977, 715/262, 715/271, 715/249
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/7243 with interactive means for internal management of messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72436 for text messaging, e.g. short messaging services [SMS] or e-mails

Abstract

Embodiments provide visual programming constructs including icons representing conditions and actions for processing incoming data streams. A user selects icons corresponding to at least one of the conditions and at least one of the actions to define a rule. The selected condition relates to at least one element possibly present in the incoming data stream. Without compilation of the rule, at least one incoming data stream is analyzed based on the condition to detect a presence of the element within the incoming data stream. The action is performed based on the analysis. In some embodiments, formatting of the incoming data streams is altered according to the conditions and actions to personalize the incoming data stream.

Claims

1. A system for conditional visual formatting of incoming data streams on a mobile computing device, said system comprising:

a memory area associated with the mobile computing device of a user, said memory area storing at least one user-defined rule, the at least one user-defined rule being defined by the user of the mobile computing device, the at least one user-defined rule including at least a condition and a corresponding action, wherein the condition relates to at least one element in the incoming data streams, the incoming data streams being received by the mobile computing device of the user; and

a processor programmed to;

display, to the user of the mobile computing device, icons representing one or more available conditions and one or more actions corresponding thereto;

receive, from the user on the mobile computing device, a selection of at least one data stream from the incoming data streams and a selection of at least one of the icons representing at least one of the available conditions and at least one of the corresponding actions;

create, based on the selection of the at least one data stream by the user of the mobile computing device, a rule including the selected condition and the selected action, wherein the created rule is stored in the memory area as a user-defined rule and included in the at least one user-defined rule;

scan the selected at least one data stream from the incoming data streams based on the condition in the user-defined rule to detect said at least one element in the selected at least one data stream;

on detecting that said at least one element is present in the selected at least one data stream, perform an alteration of the selected at least one data stream based on the action in the user-defined rule;

on detecting that said at least one element is not present in the incoming data stream, perform a different alteration of the selected at least one data stream; and

display, to the user, the altered selected at least one data stream; and

provide, upon request from the user, the user-defined rule to at least one other computing device, the at least one other computing device being associated with a second user, wherein said at least one other computing device applies the user-defined rule to visually format the incoming data streams to said at least one other computing device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the available conditions relates to one or more of the following in the incoming data streams:

presence of a word, a user associated with the incoming data streams, a property of the user associated with the incoming data streams, a time associated with the incoming data streams, a type of operating system executing on the mobile computing device, and a model of the mobile computing device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to transmit the user-defined rule to at least a third user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to scan the selected at least one data stream and wherein the selected at least one data stream is received by an application program executing on a computing device other than the mobile computing device and said at least one other computing device.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein said application program comprises an interactive content reader accessible by the mobile computing device via a network.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for providing a visual programming language enabling the user to define conditions and corresponding actions for processing the incoming data streams.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for processing the incoming data streams to perform actions in real-time based on conditions detected in the incoming data streams.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein performing said alteration of the selected at least one data stream based on the action in the user-defined rule comprises checking whether parental control is enabled and blocking said at least one element in the selected at least one data stream based on the user-defined rule if the parental control is enabled.

9. A method comprising:

providing a plurality of icons to a user of a user computing device, each of said icons corresponding to one or more visual programming constructs, said constructs forming conditions and actions, the conditions and the actions being included in user-defined rules, the user-defined rules being created by the user of the user computing device;

receiving a selection of one or more data streams from a plurality of incoming data streams and a selection from the provided plurality of icons from the user computing device, said selection of the provided icons corresponding to at least one of the conditions and to at least one of the actions, wherein said at least one of the conditions relates to at least one element in the selected one or more data streams, the plurality of incoming data streams being received by the user computing device;

without compilation of the received selection, analyzing the selected one or more data streams based on said at least one of the conditions to detect a presence of the at least one element within the selected one or more data streams; and

on detecting that the at least one element is present in the selected one or more data streams, performing a first alteration of the selected one or more data streams based on said at least one of the actions; and

on detecting that the at least one element is not present in the incoming data stream, performing a second alteration of the selected one or more data streams.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein performing said first alteration comprises checking whether parental control is enabled and blocking one or more elements in the selected one or more data streams based on the user-defined rules if the parental control is enabled.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising performing a third alteration of the selected one or more data streams after analyzing the selected one or more data streams for a predetermined period of time without detecting the presence of the at least one element in the selected one or more data streams.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein performing said first alteration one of the actions comprises one or more of the following:

displaying an animation, playing a sound, changing a font color of text in the selected one or more data streams, and changing a background color of a user interface of the user computing device.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one of the conditions is associated with a type of the user computing device, and wherein said analyzing and said performing said first alteration operate based on the received selection only when the user computing device is of the associated type.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the associated type of the user computing device comprises one of the following:

a laptop, a mobile computing device, a gaming console, and a television.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the user-defined rules are provided to at least a second user.

16. One or more computer storage media storing computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a user interface component that when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to display a plurality of icons to a user of a user computing device, each of said icons corresponding to one or more visual programming constructs, said constructs forming conditions and actions, the conditions and the actions being included in user-defined rules, the user-defined rules being defined by the user of the user computing device, wherein said user interface component further receives from the user a selection of one or more data streams from a plurality of incoming data streams and a selection from the displayed plurality of icons, said selection from the displayed plurality of icons representing at least one of the conditions and at least one of the actions, wherein said at least one of the conditions relates to at least one element in the selected one or more data streams of the plurality of incoming data streams;

a communications interface component that when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to receive, by the user computing device, the plurality of incoming data streams; and

a content reader component that when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to analyze, based on the at least one of the conditions and without compilation of the selection received by the user interface component, the selected one or more data streams of the plurality of incoming data streams received by the communications interface component to detect a presence of the at least one element within the selected one or more data streams of the plurality of incoming data streams, said content reader component further performing a first alteration of the selected one or more data streams upon detecting that the at least one element is present in the selected one or more data streams, and said content reader component performing a second alteration of the selected one or more data streams upon detecting that the at least one element is not present in the data stream.

17. The computer storage media of claim 16, wherein the first alteration comprises altering a visual format of the at least one element based on the at least one of the actions, and wherein the user interface component displays to the user the altered visual format of the element in the selected one or more data streams.

18. The computer storage media of claim 16, further comprising a memory component that when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to store said at least one of the conditions and said at least one of the actions from the selection received by the user interface component as a rule in a memory area, and wherein the communications interface component transmits the stored rule to another user.

19. The computer storage media of claim 16, wherein the user interface component, the communications interface component, and the content reader component are packaged as a downloadable application.

20. The computer storage media of claim 16, wherein performing the first alteration of the data stream comprises checking whether parental control is enabled and blocking one or more elements in the plurality of incoming data streams based on the user-defined rules if the parental control is enabled.