System and Method for Assisted Awareness

Abstract

A data feed is monitored to determine whether a condition is satisfied. If the condition is satisfied, an alert is initiated to attract a user's attention. Thereafter, playback mode is entered causing the example system to playback a short period of time-compressed data that occurred just prior to the event occurring to set context for the user. Once the playback signal has caught up with the real-time data feed, the data is output at normal levels. Other configurations, which are described herein, are also possible.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13 / 347,300, filed Jan. 10, 2012, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 950,904, filed Sep. 27, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,117,102, entitled “System and Method for Assisted Awareness,” the contents of which are fully incorporated by reference herein.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention relates to the field of human-computer interface technology, and more particularly to a system and method for alerting a user when a particular event occurs and providing contextual feedback to the user regarding the same.BACKGROUND[0003]Many computer-based innovations rely upon a human-computer interface to effectively convey information to the user. Graphics programs on a personal computer, a spacecraft cockpit, dash instrumentation in a vehicle, a personal digital assistant, or any other computer and / or embedded computation machine typically employs the us...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent text is about a system and method for alerting a user when a particular event occurs and providing contextual feedback to the user regarding the same. This system and method can be used in electronic trading to provide users with important information without causing them to feel overwhelmed with too much information. The technical effect of this patent is to help users who are using computer-based systems to effectively deal with the large amount of data that they need to process and make informed decisions.

Problems solved by technology

As such, much effort has gone into ways to filter or reduce the amount of “information overload” on the user.

Yet, there is another problem, generally referred to as “attention deficit,” that is not often solved by using the same tools that reduce information overload.

Attention deficit refers to the idea that the human user does not have nearly enough attention to deal with all of the information presented in traditional manners.

Additionally, the user might be subject to other distractions and interruptions, such as receiving an email or answering a telephone call.

This limited ability may result in missing important pieces of information that were presented at the same time, or near the same time, the user was focusing on something else.

In some instances, where there is a great deal of information being displayed in a single window, the user might even miss something being presented in the same window on which he is currently focusing on.

It may be very difficult, next to impossible, for the user to be aware of everything that is potentially relevant to the user's activity without some assistance.

As indicated earlier, much effort has already gone into designing an interface that guides and constrains human interactions to reduce the cognitive and memory load on the individual.

While helping the user focus on one particular window of information may be desirable, this effort does not address the sort of problems incurred by users of such computer-based systems, especially in the electronic trading industry.

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