Other

Neil David Matthews

Simon J Gibbs

Joseph Alexander Dara-Abrams

Harold Aaron Ludtke

Yoshifumi Yanagawa

Jon Arthur Fairhurst

Arunachalam Balaraman

Thomas Edward Birmingham

Wim Bronnenberg

A method and system for providing a user interface for a networked target device within a home audio/visual network. The DDI allows any DDI target to describe its physical appearance including controls and displays, etc., to a DDI controller. The controller can be a remote physical device or can be a software program resident on the same or separate device as the target. The controller interfaces with the target to obtain the DDI data and generates a user interface for the target including: 1) interactive controls; and 2) user display information pertinent to the target. The DDI allows the controller to trigger actions on the target as if a user had physically manipulated the controls of the target. The controller and the target are connected to the same communication network. A particular embodiment operates within the HAVi architecture. The controller communicates with the user by using the input and output devices of (typically) the device upon which the controller is executing. This communication can be done in a controller-implementation-dependent manner. The target can be a DCM that controls its device in a implementation-dependent manner. The controller may be written in a generic manner that does not need to be implemented with knowledge of a particular target in mind; all target-dependencies are represented in the DDI data provided by the target to the controller.

Data driven interaction for networked control of a DDI target device over a home entertainment network

A method and system for modifying the look and feel of a user interface of a broadcast application program without altering the broadcast application program. In one embodiment, user interfaces are represented as a hierarchical scene including a background and several components. Within an electronic network, broadcast applications can become resident, e.g., land, on a vendor's device within the network where the device has the ability to display a user interface. The present invention provides a set of mattes that can be used to modify the visual presentation of the user interface of a broadcast application without altering the broadcast application. In this way, the vendor of the device can have some level of control regarding the way in which user interfaces are displayed on the device. Each matte controls the way in which an associated component of the user interface is displayed and how the component is combined with other components. In one embodiment, mattes can force components to become semi-transparent thereby creating certain fading effects, special effects with respect to windows in focus, special effects on windows becoming iconified, wiping effects, etc., with respect to the components of the user interface. The present invention can be implemented as a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) which can be used by an application manager of the vendor's device, e.g., a digital television receiver. The APIs would be available to broadcast applications and could be used for visual effects involving elements of an application's user interface.

Method and system for modifying the visual presentation and response to user action of a broadcast application's user interface

A method and system for communicating state information for a target consumer electronic device in a home network to multiple controller devices, where the controller devices are each implementing a controller software element that conforms to a different protocol than the other. The target consumer electronic device is represented within the home network by a target software element. A first controller software element conforming to a data driven interaction (DDI) protocol accesses the target software element. A second controller software element conforming to a protocol different from the DDI protocol concurrently accesses the target software element. The first controller software element and the second controller software element cause a change in state of the consumer electronic device. The target software element notifies the first controller software element and the second controller software element of the state information for the target consumer electronic device. The target software element notifies the first controller software element according to the DDI protocol and notifies the second controller software element according to the protocol different from the DDI protocol. The first controller software element and the second controller software element use the state information to manage their respective user interfaces such that consistency is maintained between the user interfaces.

Synchronizing a data driven interaction controller and a non-data driven interaction controller

Growing community of inventors

Tadley, United Kingdom

Neil David Matthews