Sony Corporation

Sony Electronics Inc

Other

Nicholas James Colsey

Peter Rae Shintani

Thomas Patrick Dawson

Brant L Candelore

Mark Eyer

Robert Hardacker

Djung N Nguyen

Behram Mario Dacosta

Leo Pedlow

Rolf Toft

Ludovic Etienne Douillet

Milton Massey Frazier

Mark Hanson

Dayan Golden

Jason R Meerbergen

David K L Yang

Frederick J Zustak

Takaaki Ota

Edgar Allan Tu

Andrew M Proehl

George Edward Williams

David Boyden

Takashi Hironaka

Matthew Chang

Rajesh Rao

Ian Charles Matthews

Aditya Krishnan

Klaus Hofrichter

William Arthur Schupp

David George Thiele

Fred Zustak

Leo Mark Pedlow, Jr

Robert L Hardacker

Rajesh K Rao

George Williams

Mark A Hanson

A TV-set is equipped with HDMI and USB connections that allow it to display and run audio-video content from a variety of conventional consumer devices. The TV-set is further equipped to provide a secure HDMI-USB interface that will allow the transfer of licensed high definition content and Internet subscriber services. Such secure HDMI-USB interface also enables a selection of proprietary application modules to be attached. Downloadable user interface templates, much like XML style sheets, are rendered to a user interface displayed on the screen. These are associated with corresponding thumbnails and URI's that allow a user to surf through lists and catalogs of materials, and then to play them in the appropriate formats and provide the machine with a customized controller. A remote commander is simplified, yet expanded to control all the attached devices through interactions with the user interface. The functions of the remote commander's keys change depending on where the user is navigating and what device is being controlled, similar to so-called soft-keys.

Automatically reconfigurable multimedia system with interchangeable personality adapters

In certain implementations, a method of automatically changing an attribute defining operation of a television system involves determining that a plurality of short range radio frequency (RF) transceiver devices have entered RF range of the television system, the television system having a short range RF transceiver compatible with that of the short range RF transceiver device; binding the short range RF transceiver devices to the television set to establish an identity (ID) for the short range RF transceiver devices; determining a priority of each of the plurality of identified short range RF devices; at the television system, looking up a functional attribute associated with the identity having the highest priority; and setting the television parameter according to an attribute associated with a short range RF device having highest priority. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.

User identification and prioritization using Bluetooth

A data sharing methodology and structure for communication between users of digital Internet-accessible devices, such as set-top boxes, is described. Users of Internet-accessible devices can establish connections between trusted users of other Internet-accessible devices and transfer personal information using either the Internet or the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Some examples of the type of information that may be transferred include IP addresses, e-mail, multimedia objects, and voice data. Once personal identification information has been exchanged, future communications may be easily re-established and maintained.

Data sharing and linkage for IP telephony set-top boxes

A method and structure that allows a user who has access to an audio/visual object to cause an interactive control element of an interactive multimedia system to grab and store off for future retrieval the audio/visual object by simply activating a selection mechanism of the interactive multimedia system.

Selective capture and storage of A/V objects in an interactive multimedia system

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Del Mar, CA, United States of America

Nicholas James Colsey