Abstract:
A method for identifying a predetermined type of content such as video from data retrieved on the Internet to facilitate bookmarking of the content is disclosed. The method comprises determining a source location of data retrieved from the Internet, determining whether the data correspond to the predetermined type of content, and responsive to determining that the data correspond to the predetermined type of content, storing the source location of the data. The method may further comprise retrieving at least a portion of the content through the Internet, and storing at least a part of the retrieved portion of the content as a graphical representation of the content. The method may further comprise displaying said part of the retrieved portion of the content in a user interface for bookmarking the content together with the source location and information describing the content.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention relates to identifying a particular type of content retrieved from the Internet, and more specifically, identifying the content of interest downloaded from the Internet and its source URL and storing the source URL for bookmarking the content. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    Internet users often browse the Internet to find content of interest, such as video content, music content, and the like. The users typically use Internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer™ from Microsoft Corporation, running on their computers to find and play such content on the Internet. The users access a particular website that is associated with the content by entering the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or source location of the website in the Internet browser. Upon accessing the website, users typically find a link or an icon that is associated with the content. Activating the link or icon causes the content to be played in the Internet browser. 
         [0005]    Due to various reasons including copyright restrictions and protection of the content from illegal copying, the websites often cause the actual URL or the source location of the content itself hidden from view by the user in the Internet browsers. Thus, it is not possible for a user who viewed or played such content that was of interest to the user to bookmark the actual URL or the source location of the content itself. Rather, the user has to bookmark the URL or the source location of the website that included the icon or link that leads to that played content. This has the disadvantage that it is not possible to directly access the content of interest without first accessing the website and that the website may not necessarily maintain the link or icon leading to the content. 
         [0006]    Therefore, there is a need for a convenient way of identifying the actual URL or source location of the content viewed or played while browsing the Internet. There is also a need for a convenient way of bookmarking the content with the identified URL or source location. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0007]    Embodiments of the present invention include a computer-implemented method for identifying a predetermined type of content from data retrieved on the Internet to facilitate bookmarking of the content. The method comprises determining a source location of data retrieved from the Internet, determining whether the data correspond to the predetermined type of content, and responsive to determining that the data correspond to the predetermined type of content, storing the source location of the data. 
         [0008]    The method may further comprise determining whether the data correspond to a predetermined type of page, and responsive to determining that the data correspond to the predetermined type of page, storing the source location of the data. The method may still further comprise retrieving at least a portion of the content through the Internet, and storing at least a part of the retrieved portion of the content as a graphical representation of the content. Furthermore, the method may further comprise displaying said part of the retrieved portion of the content in a user interface for bookmarking the content together with the source location and information describing the content. 
         [0009]    In one embodiment, the predetermined type of content is video data. In one embodiment, the source location is determined by determining the URL of the source location of the data retrieved from the Internet based on packet information corresponding to the data. 
         [0010]    The present invention has the advantage that the actual source location or URL of the content can be determined and saved automatically while the content is being retrieved from the Internet. Therefore, the actual URL and graphical representations of the retrieved content can be presented later in a user interface by which the retrieved content can be conveniently added to a content bookmark. Since the actual URL is already determined and presented in the user interface together with the graphical representation of the content, a large part of the essential information for bookmarking the content is already readily available for bookmarking in the user interface without the need for any additional access to the content or source location through the Internet. 
         [0011]    The features and advantages described in the specification are not all inclusive and, in particular, many additional features and advantages will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of the drawings, specification, and claims. Moreover, it should be noted that the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. 
     
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0012]    The teachings of the embodiments of the present invention can be readily understood by considering the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
           [0013]      FIG. 1  illustrates the architecture of the system for identifying content and the source locations for content bookmarking, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  illustrates a method of identifying the content of interest and its actual URLs to facilitate bookmarking of the content with the URL, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0015]      FIG. 3  illustrates a method of bookmarking the content of interest with its actual URL, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0016]      FIG. 4  illustrates the URLs stored in the stack of the browser plug-in application for identifying content of interest and its actual URLs, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0017]      FIG. 5  illustrates a user interface for bookmarking the content of interest with its actual URL, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS 
       [0018]    The Figures (FIG.) and the following description relate to preferred embodiments of the present invention by way of illustration only. It should be noted that from the following discussion, alternative embodiments of the structures and methods disclosed herein will be readily recognized as viable alternatives that may be employed without departing from the principles of the claimed invention. 
         [0019]    Reference will now be made in detail to several embodiments of the present invention(s), examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying figures. It is noted that wherever practicable similar or like reference numbers may be used in the figures and may indicate similar or like functionality. The figures depict embodiments of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following description that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein. 
         [0020]      FIG. 1  illustrates the architecture of the system for identifying content and the source locations for content bookmarking, according to one embodiment of the present invention. A user computer  100 , a content source computer  102 , and a server  104  communicate with one another through a network  106  such as the Internet using conventional network communication protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP. 
         [0021]    The content source computer  102  stores content for viewing in other computers through the network  106 . For purposes of illustration herein, the content source computer  102  is described herein as a video server that stores video content and makes the video content available for viewing at other remote computers through the network  106 . However, note that the content source computer  102  can store any other type of content such as music for playing at other remote computers through the network  106 . 
         [0022]    For purposes of illustration, the user computer  100  is described herein as a general purpose computer. However, note that the user computer  100  can be any type of computing device, for example, personal computers, a general personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smartphone (including both computing functions and cellular telephone functions), media players (e.g., mp3 music players or video players), a cellular telephone with some computing functionality, etc. The user computer  100  runs an Internet browser such as Internet Explorer™ from Microsoft Corporation, and also includes a plug-in application for the browser. The plug-in application is adapted to run in the background of the Internet browser, and performs the method of identifying the content of interest (here, video content) and the actual URL or source location of the content. The plug-in application also sends the URLs corresponding to the identified video content to the server  104  to facilitate bookmarking of the video content in a video bookmarking application running on the server  104 . 
         [0023]    More specifically, a user browses the Internet  106  using the Internet browser on the user computer  100  to view video content stored in various locations throughout the network  106 . For example, the user may browse the Internet to find video content stored on the content source computer  102 . The content source computer  102  provides the video content to the user computer  100  through the network  106  via links  110 ,  108  so that the video content can be played on the Internet browser on the user computer  100 . 
         [0024]    The browser plug-in application running in the background of the user computer  100  monitors the actual URLs of the network traffic through the link  108  by analyzing the packets in the network traffic, and identifies video content in the network traffic. In one embodiment, video content can be identified based on the http headers and/or the file extensions (e.g., mpg, avi, .mov, .wmv, and the like) associated with the packets for the content. In another embodiment, video content can be identified by examining the file signatures (also known as “magic numbers”) of a video content. Typically, video content can be identified by a predetermined pattern (file signatures or magic numbers) in a portion of the video content file. For example, the first few binary bytes of the actual video content can have a predetermined pattern and thus be predictable for a specific video file format. Thus, video content can be identified by examining portions of the network traffic and identifying a predetermined file signature (magic number) associated with a particular type of video content or video file. When video content is identified, the browser plug-in application stores the URL corresponding to the identified video content and also provides the stored URL to the server  104  through the network  106  via the links  108 ,  112 . 
         [0025]    The server  104  includes a bookmarking application that operates in conjunction with the browser plug-in application. The bookmarking application receives the URLs corresponding to the identified video content sent from the browser plug-in application ion the user computer  100 . Using the received URLs, the bookmarking application accesses the video content corresponding to the received URLs and obtains snapshots (for example, still images) of parts of the video content. The bookmarking application also assigns identifications to the video snapshots together with the URLs and stores the video snaps shots with the URLs. The identifications of the video snapshots and the associated URLs are sent back to the browser plug-in application on the user computer  100  through the network  106  via the links  112 ,  108 . 
         [0026]    When the user accesses the bookmarking application on the server  104  from the user computer  100  through the network  106 , a predetermined number of the most recent identifications stored in the browser plug-in application are sent back to the server  104  through the network  106 . The server  104  causes the video snapshots and the URLs corresponding to those most recent identifications to be displayed in a user interface for creating, editing, or managing bookmarks for video content. The bookmarking application of the server  104  causes such user interface to be displayed on the user computer  100  by providing data to be used in the user interface through the network  106  via the links  112 ,  108 , so that the user can create, edit, delete, or otherwise manage the video bookmarks. 
         [0027]      FIG. 2  illustrates a method of identifying the content of interest and its actual URLs to facilitate bookmarking of the content with the URLs, according to one embodiment of the present invention. As the process begins  202 , the browser plug-in application running on the user computer  100  monitors the URL being accessed by the Internet browser while the user accesses various websites on the Internet  106 . The URLs can be monitored by analyzing the packet data in the network traffic and identifying the URLs in the packet data. Since the network traffic typically complies with TCP/IP and HTTP protocols, the URLs would consist of a header beginning with “http:H//” that can be used to identify the URLs. Another indicator of the URL would be the http content type in the http headers. 
         [0028]    For each webpage accessed by the user computer  100 , the browser plug-in application determines  206  whether the webpage is a text or html page and whether the website is a redirect page. Determining whether the webpage is a text or html page can be accomplished by analyzing the http headers of the packets corresponding to the webpage. The http headers are lines of text that are sent before the HTML content is sent. They include, for example, the http status codes, the content type, the content length, the content of the cookies for the browser to store, etc. For instance, an example QuickTime™ video file by Apple Computer, Inc. typically includes the following types of http headers: HTTP/1.1 200 OK; Date: Wed, 15 Nov. 1995 06:25:24 GMT; Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 04:58:08 GMT; Content-Length: 260121; Content-Type: video/quicktime. These headers would appear before immediately before the stream of a QuickTime video. For another example, a redirect page would typically include the following types of headers: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently; Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:25:24 GMT; Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 04:58:08 GMT; Content-Type: text/html. For still another example, a regular web page would typically include the following types of headers: HTTP/1.1 200 OK; Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:25:24 GMT Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 04:58:08 GMT; Content-Type: text/html. Also a webpage can be determined to be a redirect page if the HTTP status codes of the packets corresponding to the webpage are, for example,  301 ,  302 ,  303 , or  304 . If the accessed webpage is a text or html page and is not a redirect page, the URL of that webpage, as determined by the browser plug-in application in step  204 , is added  208  to a stack maintained by the browser plug-in application and the process goes to step  204  to continue to monitor the URLs of subsequent webpages accessed by the user computer  100 . 
         [0029]    If the accessed webpage is not a text or html page or is a redirect page, then the browser plug-in application determines  210  whether the accessed webpage is the content type of interest (here, video content). If the accessed webpage is video content, the URL of the video, as determined by the browser plug-in application in step  204 , is added  212  to the stack. Then, the browser plug-in application sends  214  a pair of the URLs corresponding to the video content and the immediately preceding text or html page to the server  104 . Note that the browser plug-in application and the user&#39;s identification or log-in ID with the server  104  may be associated with each other, and the log-in ID may be sent to the server  104  together with the pair of the URLs to store the URLs in the server  104  properly associated with the user&#39;s log-in ID. 
         [0030]    Sending the URL corresponding to the immediately preceding text or html page in addition to the URL corresponding to the video content is beneficial, because in some instances the video bookmarking application in the server  104  is not able to bookmark the URL to the actual video content due to copyright restrictions. In one embodiment, the bookmarking application in the server  104  classifies the URL of the video content to “whitelisted domains,” “blacklisted domains,” and “graylisted domains.” Whitelisted domains are URLs known to the bookmarking application to have no copyright restriction, in which case the URL of the actual video content can be used to bookmark the video content. Blacklisted domains are URLs known to the bookmarking application to have copyright restrictions, in which case the URL of the actual video content cannot be used to bookmark the video content. For blacklisted domains, the URL of the immediately preceding text or html webpage is used to bookmark the video content and thus the video content will have to be accessed through that text or html page rather than being directly accessed. Graylisted domains are URLs unknown to the bookmarking application to be either a whitelisted domain or a blacklisted domain. Users of the bookmarking application can designate the graylisted domain as either a whitelisted domain or a blacklisted domain, which designation can also be corrected by the bookmarking application if it turns out to have been incorrectly designated. 
         [0031]    Since the URLs of the text/html pages and video content are added to the stack in steps  208  and  212 , the stack typically includes the URLs corresponding to a series of text or html pages with some URLs corresponding to video content. This is shown in  FIG. 4 , which illustrates the URLs stored in the stack of the browser plug-in application, according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0032]    Referring to  FIG. 4 , the URLs  314 ,  316 ,  318 , and  320  were received in chronological order. The URL  314  (http://test.com) is the URL for the HTML page  302  which is not a redirect page. Because it is an HTML page and not a redirect page, its URL  314  is stored in the stack (see steps  206 ,  208 ). However, because the HTML page  302  is not a video page, the process in  FIG. 2  goes back to step  204  to monitor subsequent URLs for subsequently accessed pages. The Resource pages, such as Resource (gig/css/etc)  304 , are not HTML or text pages and thus their URLs are not stored in the stack as shown in  FIG. 4 . The URL  316  (http://test.com/mycategory) is the URL for the HTML page  306  which is also not a redirect page, and is also stored in the stack (see steps  206 ,  208 ). The URL  318  (http://test.com/mycategory/videoid=1&amp;token=2) is the URL for the HTML page  308  which is not a redirect page, and is also stored in the stack (see steps  206 ,  208 ). The next page  310  is an HTTP Redirect page and thus its URL is not saved in the stack (see steps  206 ,  208 ). The URL  320  (http://test.com/get?id=1&amp;token=2&amp;f=mov) is the URL for the video content  312 , and thus its URL  320  is stored in the stack (see steps  210 ,  212 ). Once the URL  320  of the video content  312  is saved, the browser plug-in application sends the pair of the URLs  320 ,  318  of the video content  312  and the immediately preceding text/html page (here, the HTML page  308 ), respectively, to the server  104  for further processing (see step  214 ). 
         [0033]    Referring back to  FIG. 2 , once the pair of URLs is sent  214  to the server  104 , the server  104  obtains and stores  216  snapshots of the video content with the pair of URLs. In this regard, the server  104  access the video content using the URL corresponding to the video, and causes a portion (e.g., 5-10%) of the video content to be played on a video player application running on the server  104 . The server  104  stores  216  each of the frames of the played video in the form of image files as the snapshots (graphical representations) for the video content. In one embodiment, the frame with the largest file size (measured in bytes) is selected and stored  216  as the representative snapshot for the video content. Note that the snapshots of the video content are obtained and stored only for whitelisted URLs or for graylisted URLs that are designated by the user to be whitelisted URLs. For blacklisted URLs, the snapshots are not obtained or stored with the pair of URLs. Also note that step  216  may be omitted if the snapshot corresponding to the URL corresponding to the video was previously obtained and thus is already stored in the server  104 . 
         [0034]    The server  104  also assigns  218  an ID (identification) to the stored snapshot of the video content and the pair of URLs, and sends  220  the assigned ID to the browser plug-in application of the user computer  104 . The browser plug-in application associates and stores  222  the ID in the stack with the pair of the URLs, and the process returns to step  204  to monitor the URLs for subsequent data accessed by the browser. 
         [0035]      FIG. 3  illustrates a method of bookmarking the content of interest with its actual URL, according to one embodiment of the present invention. The method of  FIG. 3  is performed when the user accesses the server  104  from the user computer  100  through the network  106 . As the process begins  302 , the user logs on  304  to the server  104  using. the log-in ID. This causes the browser plug-in application on the user computer  100  to send  306 , to the server  104  through the network  106 , a predetermined number (e.g., 9) of IDs corresponding to the most recently viewed video content as stored in the stack of the browser plug-in application. The server  104 , upon receipt of the IDs, retrieves  308  the snapshots of the video and the pairs of URLs corresponding to the IDs. The server  104  causes  310  the retrieved snapshots (if available) together with the URL of the video or the URL of the immediately preceding page to be displayed in a user interface for the user to create, add, delete, or otherwise edit video bookmarks for the user. The server  104  causes  310  the user interface to be displayed on the user computer  100  by providing the data to be displayed in the user interface to the user computer  100  through the network  106  via links  112 ,  108 . The bookmarking user interface is displayed  311  on the user computer  100  using the data received from the server  104 . Optionally, the user has the option of causing the browser plug-in application to capture  313  an alternate snapshot of a particular video content displayed on the bookmarking user interface and send  313  the alternate snapshot to the server  104 , in which case the server  104  would replace the previously captured snapshot for that particular video content with the alternate snapshot. Then, the process ends  314 . 
         [0036]      FIG. 5  illustrates an example of a user interface for bookmarking the content of interest with its actual URL, according to one embodiment of the present invention. The user interface is displayed, for example, in an Internet browser  500  running on the user computer  100  with data provided by the server  104  through the network  106 . The user interface includes the video snapshots  502 ,  504 ,  506 ,  508 ,  510 ,  512  with their corresponding URLs  503 ,  505 ,  507 ,  509 ,  511 ,  513 , respectively. The number of video snapshots  502 ,  504 ,  506 ,  508 ,  510 ,  512  is identical to the predetermined number of IDs sent by the browser plug-in application on the user computer  100  to the server  104 , as illustrated in step  306  of  FIG. 3 . Therefore, additional video snapshots may exist on the user interface depending upon the number of IDs, and may be viewed by scrolling down using the scroll bar  528 . Upon clicking one of the video snapshots  502 ,  504 ,  506 ,  508 ,  510 ,  512 , the actual video accessed through the corresponding URLs  503 ,  505 ,  507 ,  509 ,  511 , or  513  can be displayed in the video screen  514  so that the user can preview the video before creating a bookmark for that video. Various data (e.g., title  516 , guide  518 , playlists  520 , keywords  522 , description  524 , or other data) can be entered for the selected video bookmark, and the video bookmark can be saved by clicking the save icon  526 . 
         [0037]    The user interface also shows the toolbar  530  that is displayed by the browser plug-in application running on the user computer  100 . The toolbar  530  includes icons such as a search channels icon  532 , a bookmark video icon  534 , a capture video frame icon  536 , and a settings icon  538 . When the capture video frame icon  536  is activated while, for example, the video corresponding to video snapshot  502  is played in the video screen  514 , the browser plug-in application causes the user computer  100  to capture a video frame of the video displayed on the video screen  514 , and send the captured video frame to the server  104  (see step  313  in  FIG. 3 ). The server  104  then replaces the video snapshot  502  with the captured video frame. 
         [0038]    The present invention has the advantage that the actual source location or URL of the content can be determined and saved automatically based on the packet data of the content while the content is being retrieved from the Internet. Therefore, the actual URL and graphical representations of the retrieved content can be presented later on in a user interface through which the retrieved content can be conveniently added to a content bookmark. Since the actual URL is already determined and presented in the user interface together with the graphical representation of the content, a large part of the essential information for bookmarking the content is already readily available for bookmarking in the user interface without the need for any additional access to the content or source location through the Internet. 
         [0039]    The methods of the present invention as described variously in  FIGS. 1-5  can be implemented in the form of computer software or a computer program product including computer instructions adapted to perform such methods. Such computer software or computer program product may be stored in any type of computer readable medium, and such computer instructions may be executed by a processor of a computer. The computer may be any type of computer, including personal computers, general purpose computer, servers, personal digital assistants, smartphones (including both computing functions and cellular telephone functions), media players (e.g., mp3 music players or video players), cellular telephones with some computing functionality, etc. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the type of hardware in which the methods are performed. 
         [0040]    Upon reading this disclosure, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate still additional alternative structural and functional designs for a system and a process for identifying content of interest in data retrieved in a network and facilitating convenient bookmarking for the identified content through the disclosed principles of the present invention. For example, although the embodiments of the present invention have been described such that the browser plug-in application runs on a user computer and the bookmarking application runs on a separate server, both the browser plug-in application and the bookmarking application may run on a single computer or can be parts of the same software. 
         [0041]    Thus, while particular embodiments and applications of the present invention have been illustrated and described, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the precise construction and components disclosed herein. Various modifications, changes and variations which will be apparent to those skilled in the art may be made in the arrangement, operation and details of the method and apparatus of the present invention disclosed herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.