652results about "Multimedia data retrieval" patented technology

A method of generating an object oriented interactive multimedia file, including encoding data comprising at least one of video, text, audio, music and/or graphics elements as a video packet stream, text packet stream, audio packet stream, music packet stream and/or graphics packet stream respectively, combining the packet streams into a single self-contained object, said object containing its own control information, placing a plurality of the objects in a data stream, and grouping one or more of the data streams in a single contiguous self-contained scene, the scene including format definition as the initial packet in a sequence of packets. An encoder for executing the method is provided together with a player or decoder for parsing and decoding the file, which can be wirelessly streamed to a portable computer device, such as a mobile phone or a PDA. The object controls provide rendering and interactive controls for objects allowing users to control dynamic media composition, such as dictating the shape and content of interleaved video objects, and control the objects received.

Described herein are systems and methods for providing media playback in a networked environment. In one embodiment, a networked media playback device is configured to provide a web server for delivering data indicative of a browser-renderable control interface for the networked media playback device, or for a related networked media playback system. In overview, the user of a networked device, such as a wireless web enabled device, is able to render the control interface in a web browser, and in this manner control playback of digital media via the networked media playback device or networked media playback system.

Systems and methods of generating and modifying a playlist using contextual information are disclosed. For example, a user may provide an input seed such as a song name or artist name. The input seed is compared to database items and a playlist is generated as a result. In some examples, the contextual information is used to enhance the comparison and to select better content objects for a user's playlist. Meanwhile, in some examples the content objects in the playlist may be arranged in an enhanced order using ranking and/or contextual information.

Methods, systems, and media for content ranking using real-time data are provided. In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention, a method, implemented on a processor, for ranking content is provided. The method can include, among other things: receiving real-time information from a plurality of sources; supplementing the received real-time information with historical information and user influence information; analyzing the supplemented real-time information from the plurality of sources to determine real-time trend information; receiving a plurality of content snippets from a content provider; detecting similarities between each of the plurality of content snippets and the determined real-time trend information; ranking the plurality of content snippets based on the detected similarities; and displaying the ranked plurality of content snippets.

In embodiments, the present invention provides method and system for determining if an existing pass log may be reused. The method may include associating an existing pass log with an encoding profile. The method may further include computing with a processor a signature for the encoding profile and for a target encoding profile. The method may include comparing with the processor at least a portion of the two signatures and based on a result of the comparing, storing in a processor accessible memory at least one of an indication that the pass log file may be used in conjunction with the target encoding profile and an indication that the pass log file cannot be used in conjunction with the target encoding profile.

A method and an apparatus suggests programs for viewing by a subscriber. Terminals installed at a subscriber's home and at central locations, such as bookstores, video rental stores and libraries, provide responsive or intelligent search functions to suggest programs for viewing according to a subscriber's viewing preferences. Responsive searching includes posing questions to and receiving answers from the subscribers. Intelligent searching includes gathering historical data, such as the subscriber's history of programs watched. The programs include videotapes, videodiscs, television programs and electronic books. Subscribers indicate their selection and order the programs using a menu system. An automated billing system tracks the programs ordered.

A mobile device, system, and method are directed towards enabling an integrated display of live views. The integrated live views are generated by employing social networking information, including moods of a person, avatars, status of a member's activities including whether they are in an IM session, or the like. Integrated live views may include a live contact list, a group view, a friend view, an activity oriented view, a list of content, or the like, based on the mobile user's social networking information. By providing the mobile user with integrated live views of their social network, the mobile user may be able communicate with other members within the mobile social networking context, to obtain, and respond to invites from a social network member, provide opportunities for activities to other members, to grow their social network, and to consume content that is displayed relative to their social network.

A system for structuring usage history for audiovisual materials.

A system in accordance with the present invention may include one or more processors, memory from which the processor may fetch instructions according to a clock operating at a frequency, a display device, and one or more programs stored in the memory, with instructions to create a structured file for storing data related to the media presentation, access the data related to the media presentation from the presentation application, organize the data related to the media presentation according to an event, and export the organized data related to the media presentation to the structured file. These instructions may also be executed as steps of a method and may be fetched during the execution of one or more programs stored in a computer-readable storage medium.

The present disclosure provides a natural language query system and method for processing and analyzing multimodally-originated queries, including voice and proximity-based queries. The natural language query system includes a Web-enabled device including a speech input module for receiving a voice-based query in natural language form from a user and a location/proximity module for receiving location/proximity information from a location/proximity device. The query system also includes a speech conversion module for converting the voice-based query in natural language form to text in natural language form and a natural language processing module for converting the text in natural language form to text in searchable form. The query system further includes a semantic engine module for converting the text in searchable form to a formal database query and a database-look-up module for using the formal database query to obtain a result related to the voice-based query in natural language form from a database.

Tagging techniques use user interface features such as face icons that can be manipulated by a variety of cursors to tag media items including but not limited to photos. Tagged items can be presented automatically in response to establishing network communications between two devices.

A stateful or stateless cookie operations server machine can provide real-time, actionable, user-specific tracking abilities in the collection of impressions and user interactions with a company's digital properties. The client-side code (e.g., in a web browser) may request an element configured with parameters and a hyperlink (e.g., URL) that causes parameters to be sent to a remote server. The remote server may process the parameters and perform various operations based on the parameters. Mathematical and/or other operations may be performed using the parameters. The remote server may retrieve a configuration corresponding to the request. The remote server may generate or transform content, based on the configuration. The remote server may transmit the transformed content.

Disclosed herein is a secure, media exchange network and a method of securely exchanging media between electronic devices across the network. In an embodiment according to the present invention, media may be securely and simultaneously exchanged between friends, family members, business associates, government entities, military entities, law enforcement entities, and 3rd party media providers over a closed and secure media exchange network. The media may include, for example, digital video, digital audio, digital images, digital data, or any other form of digital information. Security features may include security techniques, associated security hardware, and associated security software.

A media organizer and entertainment center includes an importer for importing individual media/data selections and automatically assigning each selection at least one associated category flag pursuant to predetermined or user defined criteria. The center also includes a storage device for storing compressed data corresponding to the plurality of individual media/data selections and the associated category flags and a retriever for retrieving selections from the storage device based upon user selection of one or more of the associated category flags, and a data decompresser that translates the compressed data into playable digital or audio media data. With the center, playable digital or audio media data can be advantageously transported, organized, played or recorded through or on a variety of products or devices.

Audio playback is used to enhance the control of Personal Digital Entertainment devices. Embodiments of the present invention provide audio message files associated with the activation of a control or provide other device status messaging Audio messages are also provided in file sets that are user selectable to give the user a choice of ‘themes’.

A system and method of information retrieval and triage for information analysis provides an for interactive multi-dimensional and linked visual representation of information content and properties. A query interface plans and obtains result sets. A dimension interface specifies dimensions with which to categorize the result sets. Links among results of a result set or results of different sets are automatically generated for linked selection viewing. Entities may be extracted and viewed and entity relations determined to establish further links and dimensions. Properties encoded in representations (e.g. icons) of the results in the multidimensional views maximizes display density. Multiple queries may be performed and compared. An integrated browser component responsive to the links is provided for viewing documents. Documents and other information from the result set may be used in an analysis component providing a space for visual linking, to arrange the information in the space while maintaining links automatically.

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for creating, exporting, viewing and testing, and importing custom applications in a multi-tenant database environment. These mechanisms and methods can enable embodiments to provide a vehicle for sharing applications across organizational boundaries. The ability to share applications across organizational boundaries can enable tenants in a multi-tenant database system, for example, to easily and efficiently import and export, and thus share, applications with other tenants in the multi-tenant environment.

Improved techniques for using usage data are disclosed. The usage data can pertain to a user of an electronic device. The usage data can be monitored and recorded on the electronic device. The improved techniques are particularly useful when the electronic device is a mobile electronic device. In one embodiment, the usage data can be used to enhance searching of digital assets, such as digital media assets, resident at a local or remote repository. In another embodiment, the usage data can be used to determine content to be resident locally on the electronic device. In still another embodiment, the usage data can be used to present (e.g., display) information on the electronic device.

A system for managing media files having different format characteristics includes a transcoder, a content store, and a plurality of clients. The content store is capable of storing a media file in a first format. The clients are each associated with one or more media file formats and capable of playing media files to users. The transcoder is capable of receiving a request identifying a media file from a first client and, in response to receiving the request, retrieving the media file from the content store in a first format. The transcoder is also operable of modifying the media file from the first format to a second format associated with the first client and, while modifying the media file from the first format to the second format, transmitting a modified portion of the media file to the first client.

A “similarity quantifier” automatically infers similarity between media objects which have no inherent measure of distance between them. For example, a human listener can easily determine that a song like Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel is more similar to Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. than it is to Highway to Hell by AC/DC. However, automatic determination of this similarity is typically a more difficult problem. This problem is addressed by using a combination of techniques for inferring similarities between media objects thereby facilitating media object filing, retrieval, classification, playlist construction, etc. Specifically, a combination of audio fingerprinting and repeat object detection is used for gathering statistics on broadcast media streams. These statistics include each media objects identity and positions within the media stream. Similarities between media objects are then inferred based on the observation that objects appearing closer together in an authored stream are more likely to be similar.

According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus comprises an image extraction module, an image list display process module, and a playback module. The image extraction module extracts a plurality of representative images from a sequence of video content data, and outputs time stamp information which is indicative of a time point at which each of the plurality of extracted representative images appears in the video content data. The image list display process module displays, on a display area, a list of representative images appearing in a period from a start position to a predetermined display constraining position of the sequence of the video content data among the plurality of extracted representative images, and constrains the display of the representative images appearing after the display constraining position among the plurality of representative images. The playback module plays back the video content data in response to input of a playback request event.

The invention comprises music and information delivery systems and methods. One system comprises a voice activated sound system wherein a user speaks and the sound system recognizes the speech and searches an internet database like Rhapsody™ to obtain a list of matching audio files and display the list on a dashboard screen of a vehicle. The user is able to identify the audio file by voice activation and the system is configured to receive the audio file.

A method for creation of a semantic information management environment, said method comprised of steps of: providing said semantic information environment consisting of an architecture partitioned according to the classification of the use of natural language by information scale, dynamical properties, or semantic classifications; detection, classification, and storage of semantic and contextual information detected and stored by recording of observed contextual parameters associated with events in said semantic information management environment; said interactions including the use of information management or electronic communication applications embedded or linked to said architecture, or separate from said architecture; said observations including the use of natural language as parameters that have specific semantic properties; detection, classification and storage of use of natural language in said semantic information environment; representation of semantic processes containing said detected, classified, and stored contextual information and natural language use in said semantic information environment; said representations of semantic processes used to link and associate natural language use with objects, entities, facts, communication, information, and digital files in said semantic information environment; providing said users of said semantic information environment with information and knowledge management tools, reports, representations, and interfaces that utilize said semantic process representations.

A new system design of multimedia recognition, processing, and indexing utilizes several new researches and technologies in the field of multi-media processing. The system integrates mature technologies being used in video security surveillance, media post-production, digital video storage and management, military visual and tacking technologies. The system makes unique integration of these existing, new, and upcoming technologies that have not been used in this combined fashion before, therefore providing new usage and applications beyond the simple sum of the functions of each technology. These technologies as components in a system that is open standard, and therefore can improve itself by modifying and replacing the technology components. The design of the system targets primarily heavily produced media contents from news, entertainment, and education and training, but not limited to these contents. Other digital contents, from live broadcast, to web broadcast, to home video, web cam, etc. can certainly use many different components of the system, and to utilize the open standard platform for various usages.

The present invention provides systems and methods for, in some cases, supplementing a broadcast media service with an on-demand and personalized media service.

A tool for learning to relate annotations and transcript of a multimedia sequence to nodes in a formally or semi-formally represented ontology covering a broad range of possible multimedia documents. The device includes learning data preparation that involves certain special techniques for deriving data from the past mappings of annotations to nodes in an ontology, building inverted indices maintaining certain special statistics and a retriever that exploits these special statistics to rank the relevance of the nodes in an ontology for a given a set of new annotations.

Synchronizing content description data between devices on an ad hoc peer-to-peer network involves storing a plurality of data entries on a directory server. Each data entry describes one or more multimedia data objects accessible via the network. A synchronization object of the directory server is associated with the data entries. The synchronization object is capable of describing changes to the data entries. The data entries are downloaded from the directory server to a cache of a control point device via the network. The synchronization object of the directory server is changed in response to a change in at least one of the data entries of the directory server. The cache of the control point device is updated with the change in the at least one data entry based on the changing of the synchronization object of the directory server.

A server for satisfying user requests for programming information pertaining to digital media. The server includes a communication facility for communicating with a plurality of users over a network, a plurality of receivers for receiving digital media content and its related metadata, an interface for receiving a user request for programming information pertaining to the digital media, an authentication mechanism between the user, a user authorized device, and a user profile on the server, a processor for interpreting the user request for digital media, a creator for creating instructions and for defining a graphical interface, a display mechanism for displaying the graphical interface, and a module for receiving client device capabilities for adapting displaying format of electronic program guides.

This application relates to information analysis and more particularly to a system and method for interactive visual representation of information content and relationships using layouts and gestures. A visualization tool is provided which facilitates both ad-hoc and more formal analytical tasks as a flexible and expressive thinking environment. The tool provides a space focused on ‘Human Interaction with Information’ and enabling evidence marshalling. Capabilities of the tool include put-this-there cognition, automatic analysis templates, and gestures for the fluid expression of thought and scalability mechanisms to support large analysis tasks.

A method and system for merging metadata with digital images is disclosed, where the digital images are stored as image files having metadata fields associated therewith. The method and system include receiving data uploaded from a remote location, providing a web application to a client device over a network when requested, and transmitting the previously uploaded data to the web application. When an image requires input of metadata on the client device, the uploaded data is displayed on the client device for selection by the user. In response to the user's selection, the selected data is then used to automatically populate the metadata fields associated with the image file.