Patents Portfolio
U.S. Patent: 8,711,408
Patent Title
Smart television system having methods or means for accessing paid or subscribed digital content from the internet
Meta Information
Issued Date: April 29, 2014
Inventor: William Ho Chang et al
External Links: UPSTO, Google Patents
Technical Fields
Abstract
Smart television systems and methods for rendering digital content accessed from over the Internet is disclosed. The smart television system is a device that may include an operating system, and one or more applications installed or installable for accessing digital content over the Internet. The method may include providing security or authentication information to one or more servers over the Internet, providing payment or subscription information to the one or more servers, selecting a reference from a list of references to digital content, and providing, to the one or more servers, a content object that includes the selected reference to digital content. Subsequently, the smart television system may receive, from the one or more servers over the Internet, the digital content corresponding to the selected reference to digital content for rendering. The smart television system may further include a touch sensitive screen.
Sample Claim
1. An output system device that includes a television for rendering digital content received from one or more servers over the Internet, the output system device including:
an information apparatus for accessing the Internet,
an output device that includes a television for rendering the digital content, the information apparatus being structurally wired and being directly connected to the output device, the television including:
a display screen,
a user interface displayed on the display screen for providing user interface components or functionalities,
a wireless communication unit for enabling wireless connection to wireless local area networks, the wireless communication unit being compatible, at least partly, with at least part of a protocol within IEEE 802.11 standards,
an output controller, included in the output device, for decoding and for image processing of at least part of the digital content, the image processing includes one or more of a color management operation and a scaling operation on at least part of the digital content,
a rendering engine included in the output device for rendering at least part of the image processed digital content onto the display screen of the television,
a memory or storage component for storing at least part of the digital content, and for storing at least part of one or more content objects as encapsulations or references to the digital content,
the output system device being operable for:
providing, security or authentication information restricted to a user, from the output system device to the one or more servers over the Internet, the security or authentication information being restricted to said user for enabling said user access of the digital content;
providing, at the output system device, at least one of payment or subscription information of said user to the one or more servers over the Internet, the payment or subscription information of said user related to enabling said user access of the digital content;
obtaining, at the output system device from the one or more servers over the Internet and in dependence of having provided the security or authentication information restricted to said user, a list of pointers or references to one or more digital content;
selecting, at the output system device, a pointer or a reference to the digital content from the list of pointers or references to the one of more digital content stored at the one or more servers over the Internet;
providing, from the output system device to the one or more servers over the Internet, one or more content objects, the one or more content objects including at least the pointer or the reference to the selected digital content, and the one or more content objects being in accordance to an object or software component model suitable for sending to the one or more servers over the Internet;
receiving, via the wireless communication unit of the output system device, digital content from the one or more servers over the Internet, the received digital content corresponding to the pointer or the reference to the selected digital content included in the one or more content objects sent from the output system device to the one or more servers over the Internet, and the receiving of the digital content from the one or more servers over the Internet being dependent on the security or the authentication information restricted to said user provided from the output system device to the one or more servers over the Internet, and the receiving of the digital content being dependent on the payment or the subscription information provided by said user from the output system device to the one or more servers over the Internet;
processing at least part of the received digital content at the output controller, which includes a decoding operation and an image processing operation, the image processing operation including a color management operation and a scaling operation on at least part of the received digital content; and
delivering at least part of the processed digital content from the output controller to the rendering engine for rendering of at least part of the processed digital content by the rendering engine at the display screen of the television.