System and method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content

Abstract

A system and a method use an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network. The application may use an HTML rendering engine to display a web page to a user of the mobile device, and the web page may have controls for accessing the internet media content. The application may receive a user interaction signal which may indicate that a user invoked one of the controls for accessing the internet media content. In response, the application may initiate transfer of the internet media content to the rendering device in the home network and / or may queue the internet media content for later playback using the rendering device.

Description

[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61 / 463,088 filed Feb. 11, 2011.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention generally relates to a system and method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network. More specifically, the application may use an HTML rendering engine to display a web page to a user of the mobile device, and the web page may have controls for accessing the internet media content. The application may initiate transfer of the internet media content to the rendering device in the home network and / or may queue the internet media content for later playback using the rendering device.[0003]The internet has a large and still growing number of content sites which offer access to digital media content, such as digital photographs, digital music files and / or streams, digital video files and / or streams, and / or the like. Such internet media content is...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]It is, therefore, an advantage of the present invention to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network.

[0014]Another advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network which use a standard HTML rendering engine to render a web page on the mobile device and provide controls in the rendered web page for accessing the internet media content.

[0015]And, another advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network which analyze web content to identify controls for accessing the internet media content.

[0016]A further advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network which modify web content to insert additional media controls into the web content and use a standard HTML rendering engine to render the modified web content.

[0017]Another advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network which provide script fragments for processing a standard representation of a web page.

[0018]Yet another advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and a method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network which enable the application to receive a user interaction signal from a standard HTML rendering engine and respond by instructing the rendering device to render the internet media content.

Problems solved by technology

However, web browsers on such electronic devices still lack the extensibility and flexibility of a typical PC browser.

For example, web browsers for mobile phones, smartphones and PDA's typically do not have a “plug-in” architecture and, therefore, do not support the ability to accept external plug-ins or toolbars for adding new functionality to the web browser.

For example, such extensibility may present security concerns for the mobile device web browser.

As another example, mobile devices often have limited screen size and user input facilities for which display of a toolbar or implementation of additional user interface functions for interaction with a plug-in may be impractical.

No. 2010 / 0332565 utilizes the plug-in architecture available on most PC web browsers; however, this plug-in architecture may be lacking on the web browsers available for other electronic devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones and PDA's.

However, current web browsers, such as the web browsers provided by iOS and the Android OS, do not have a plug-in architecture to enable the mobile device to use a plug-in product to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network.

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