Synchronizing Digital Content via Position Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Decoupled companion content, such as e-books and audio books, pose challenges in providing a synchronous presentation experience due to their separate storage, sources, and timing of acquisition, making it difficult for users to access and synchronize these contents across different devices.
Innovation Solution
A system that identifies companion content pairs and generates synchronization information to enable synchronous playback across devices, including content synchronization information that maps text segments to audio timestamps and manages notifications for users based on their context and preferences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If companion content is stored separately on different devices, then content can be accessed independently on each device, but synchronous presentation between devices becomes difficult to achieve
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a content management system as an intermediary that stores synchronization information mapping content identifiers to presentation positions. This mediator enables devices to independently access content while maintaining synchronization by querying the central system for position mapping data, resolving the contradiction between independent access and synchronized presentation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds a new dimension of synchronization information storage separate from the content itself. Instead of trying to synchronize content directly across devices, the system creates a separate metadata layer that maps content identifiers to presentation positions, allowing independent content access while enabling synchronization through this additional informational dimension.
2Ease of operation
If content is obtained from different sources at different times, then acquisition flexibility is improved, but content coupling and synchronization become decoupled
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-storing synchronization information that maps content identifiers to presentation positions before actual content consumption. This advance preparation allows devices to independently acquire content from different sources at different times while still enabling synchronization through the pre-established mapping relationships, thus maintaining flexibility without increasing complexity.
3Reliability
If synchronization information is transmitted to multiple devices, then synchronous presentation capability is enhanced, but network bandwidth and system resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential synchronization information (content identifiers and presentation positions) from the full content data and transmits only this metadata to devices. By separating the synchronization metadata from the actual content, the system enhances synchronous presentation capability while minimizing network bandwidth consumption, as only small metadata packets need to be transmitted rather than full content files.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to one or more configured computing systems identifying when decoupled content includes a companion content pair (e.g., a first content and a second content) that can be synchronously or interchangeably presented. Further, aspects of the present disclosure relate to notifying a user of the availability of companion content. Notifications can be displayed to a user at any number of notifications triggers that indicate the user may be interested in acquiring companion content. Further, notifications may correspond to an offer to acquire at least a portion of companion content, such as a trial of the companion content. If a user accepts such an offer, synchronization information may be used to begin presentation of the companion content from a last consumed position of a corresponding first content.