2898 results about "Multimedia information" patented technology

Telephone calls, data and other multimedia information is routed through a hybrid network which includes transfer of information across the internet utilizing telephony routing information and internet protocol address information. A media order entry captures complete user profile information for a user. This profile information is utilized by the system throughout the media experience for routing, billing, monitoring, reporting and other media control functions. Users can manage more aspects of a network than previously possible, and control network activities from a central site. A directory service that supports a hybrid communication system architecture is provided for routing traffic over the hybrid network and the internet and selecting a network proximal to the origination of the call.

A system and method supporting the automatic conversion of multimedia information from a first format to a second format in a broadband access gateway and/or network-based server are disclosed. The broadband access gateway and/or network-based server may convert multimedia information that is in a format that an access device is not capable of processing. The gateway and/or server may automatically detect the format incompatibility, and may automatically convert or arrange for conversion of the multimedia information to a format that is compatible with the access device, based upon compatibility information associated with the access device. The conversion may be based upon a set of user-defined quality of service criteria, and may be subject to the control of digital rights management parameters associated with the requested multimedia information. The user of the access device may be prompted when the conversion is expected to impact the quality of the multimedia information being played, and the user may be offered options that permit the user to minimize the impact upon the user.

A method and system supporting handoff of a multimedia call session using background network scanning is disclosed. A mobile multimedia handset may engage in the exchange of a multimedia information stream via a first wireless network, and may sniff a portion of radio frequency spectrum for a second wireless network. Information about available services and network quality of service for the second network may be received by querying the second wireless network or from advertising by the second wireless network. Hand-off between the two networks may be based upon the results of the comparison and one or more user-defined criteria, and the handoff may be synchronized according to predefined events in the stream of multimedia information.

A system and method of registering or exchanging information about the availability of multimedia information and services is disclosed. Access devices in a wireless local area network (WLAN) and/or personal area network (PAN) may register, with a wireless broadband access gateway, selected information about multimedia information and services that they have and may share. Information about the available multimedia information and services may be shared by the wireless broadband access gateway with other access devices within the coverage area of the WLAN or PAN. Access devices may then access the multimedia information and services of other access devices via the wireless broadband access gateway, based upon information identifying and authenticating the recipient. A broadband connection permits the gateway to pass multimedia information and service activity to and from the access devices within the coverage area of the WLAN or PAN.

The underlying invention generally relates to the field of mobile computing, wireless communication, and interactive multimedia applications in mobile communication networks with high-speed access. Particularly, it refers to a customized multimedia information channel system presenting advertisement information (124a) and, if desired, other multimedia streams on a mobile communication and computing device (100) equipped with a Liquid Crystal Display (102) designed to meet modern business-to-business (B2B) requirements. In this connection, interactive operation is guaranteed by a digital wireless data and control link (108) between said mobile computing device (100) and a product (122) to be advertised. In contrast to conventional solutions, said mobile computing device (100) comprises a User Control Board (101) with an Application Programming Interface (105c) providing an intercommunication between a software routine (105b), said User Control Board (101), the display (102) of said device (100), and an additional hard-disk drive (111) for storing content data (124a) to be rendered on the display (102) of said device (100). Thereby, said User Control Board (101) is capable of communicating with a specific file server (118) over a bi-directional air interface (108) and a Wireless Local Area Network (120) by transmitting user requests (123) and receiving content information (124a), receiving control information (124b) from a remote control device (116), and transmitting status information (124c) to the remote control device (116). Furthermore, said device (100) is capable of receiving identification information (126) about the product (122) from a tag device (114) attached to said product (122).

The invention provides for techniques to process and produce email documents. The techniques provide for organizing a first plurality of email documents into a plurality of document groups, reviewing a document group from the plurality of document groups, and associating a review content with the document group. The techniques provide for ways to propagate the review content to one or more email documents associated with the document group and producing a second plurality of email documents. The techniques provide for annotating one or more email documents in accordance with the review content. Depending on the embodiment, review content may include text, graphics, audio, tag, and multimedia information. Produced documents can be searched and browsed in accordance with information in the review content. Email documents can be grouped by information in meta information and/or header information associated with the email documents into various groups, including threads or conversations, for example.

A system and method supporting the collection and searching of information about sources of multimedia information and services is disclosed. A broadband access gateway may collect information describing multimedia information and services that may be available for sharing by access devices with which it is in wired or wireless communication. The collected descriptive information may be searched by the broadband access gateway using parameters provided by a user of an access device, to identify multimedia information and services of interest to the user. The results of the search may be distributed to the user that requested the search, and may be used to access the identified multimedia information and services. The gateway may classify the collected descriptive information about the available multimedia information and services, to simplify access by the user. The broadband access gateway may also support the synchronization of multimedia information across two or more access devices.

A wireless broadband access gateway having a wireless interface compatible with any of a number of commercial wireless wide area network standards provides enhanced wire area network coverage via a broadband network. The gateway may function as a wireless wide area network base station having a small coverage area, and may be communicatively coupled via a broadband access provider to a broadband wireless controller that cooperatively coordinates call management for access devices comprising cellular or mobile multimedia handsets. The broadband network may comprise cable, digital subscriber line, satellite, T1, or T3 type networks, and may carry traffic unrelated to the signaling, control, voice, and multimedia information of associated with wide area network calls. The wireless broadband access gateway may comprise a set-to-box, and may operate to convert from air interface protocols used to communicate with mobile handsets of the wireless wide area network, to/from the packet-based protocols that may be used in the broadband network.

A networked public multimedia kiosk based on a personal computer compares key codes resulting from user input with a table. If a key code, or key code sequence, matches an entry in the table, the user input is ignored. This restricts use of the computer by the public. Different levels of access to the computer may be provided by modifying the table through a password controlled security program. For enhanced security, gamma tables (which control the brightness of the screen output) may be set to zero while the operating system of the computer is loading.

A system and method for the aggregation of multimedia information storage via a broadband access gateway is disclosed. Information about storage resources accessible to a broadband access gateway may be collected and used in selecting storage capacity used for storing multimedia information such as, for example, streaming video, broadcast video, digitized video, digitized audio, text, and digitized images. The gateway may manage storage and retrieval of the multimedia information based upon user defined criteria and characteristics of the available storage resources. Multimedia information may be parsed for storage across multiple storage resources, and the location and nature of the storage resources used for storage of multimedia information items may be unknown to the user. Storage services accessible via a broadband connection may also be used as storage resources.

An interactive exercise instruction system and method for providing interactive multimedia information to an exerciser and for providing the exerciser the ability to provide information back to the system before, during or after exercising. The interactive exercise instruction system and method generally includes receiving a selection of an exercise to perform on an exercise machine, displaying a visual indicator on the exercise surface indicating where on the exercise surface the exerciser is to make contact to perform the selected exercise, determining whether the contact area corresponds to a location of the visual indicator on the exercise surface and determining as to whether or not the exerciser is properly positioned to perform the exercise as signaled.

The invention relates to the field of building intelligentization, in particular to an intelligent home controller comprising a man-machine interaction unit, an audio-video application unit, a minimum processing unit, an indoor equipment control interface module and a 3G application unit. An SIM card is arranged in the intelligent home controller which is arranged indoors and carries out full-duplex transmission of multi-media information comprising characters, pictures, audio-visual data and the like with an outdoor doorphone and a 3G mobile phone through a 3G network; various scene modes are built in the controller and allow users to define so that the controller can realize the automatic switching of scenes; and the controller monitors electric equipment or members at home in real time in a remote wireless mode and a local wireless or wired mode of the 3G network. A time driving mechanism based on a clock and a perpetual calendar and an intelligent digital photo frame based on the event driving mechanism functions of excitation signals are arranged in the controller, wherein the time driving mechanism supports 2.4G frequency-band wireless bidirectional data transmission and audio-video wired input and playing.

To a multimedia information file including three-dimensional image data, three-dimensional display control information is added that indicates an intended three-dimensional display method for the three-dimensional image data or a data format in which the data is recorded. A three-dimensional image reproduction apparatus performs conversion appropriate for data characteristics derived from the three-dimensional display control information and then provides display. Recorded three-dimensional image data is thus given versatility so that the same three-dimensional image data can be used commonly to different three-dimensional display schemes.

The present invention relates to a system for generating a description record from multimedia information including, e.g., video data. A multimedia information input interface is used to receive multimedia information. A computer processor receives the multimedia information, processes the video information by performing video object extraction processing to generate video object descriptions from the video information, processes the generated video object descriptions by object hierarchy construction and extraction processing to generate video object hierarchy descriptions, and processes the generated video object descriptions by entity relation graph descriptions.

A method and apparatus for extracting a model vector representation from multimedia documents. A model vector provides a multidimensional representation of the confidence with which multimedia documents belong to a set of categories or with which a set of semantic concepts relate to the documents. A model vector can be associated with multimedia documents to provide an index of its content or categorization and can be used for comparing, searching, classifying, or clustering multimedia documents. A model vector can be used for purposes of information discovery, personalizing multimedia content, and querying a multimedia information repository.

A screen in which icons of a plurality of information items are arranged is displayed as a information selecting screen to display information selected from the screen by the user. In the operation, icons of information items of different kinds are horizontally displayed, and a degree of details of the information is changed in the vertical direction and a degree of recommendation of the information to the user is changed in a direction of depth. The user can easily select desired information from a large amount of various contents supplied and the information can be optimally displayed for the user.

Disclosed herein is a method and system for multimedia viewership surveying of an end-user's set-top-box (STB) The multimedia information may be received from at least one satellite via a satellite receiver. The satellite receiver may convey the multimedia information to a service provider location. At the service provider location, a content server may receive a request for transmission of multimedia information. The request may be validated to determine whether the request is authorized. The method may also include monitoring channel requests, and channel viewing times. The method may also include recording and/or logging the channel requests and information associated with the requested program in a user log. The user log may be evaluated to facilitate targeted marketing of end-user subscribers based upon demonstrated television viewing habits.

The present invention provides a system for capture and instantaneous on-demand delivery of multimedia content over a communication network to a plurality of users. Incorporated into the system is a variety of advantageous features including dynamically mapped resource locator server with central control mechanism for the administration of communication channels, users access and activity, cross-platform peer-to-peer delivery-on-demand client and user programmable content capturing component. In the preferred embodiment, the multimedia information being delivered is high quality video and audio with the purpose of multi-user multimedia broadcasting and remote video monitoring over a packet switched network, such as the Internet. However, the multimedia information can also include images, text, keystrokes, user commands, computer files, data, or any other type of information that can be transmitted over any communication network.