Patent Publication Number: US-2005138546-A1

Title: Personalized web page on a home network for viewing on a television

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD  
      This invention relates generally to computer networking in a home setting, and more particularly to a system and method of integrating televisions in a home with a home network for accessing information on the Internet.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      The Internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Everyday, millions of people use the Internet to read news, shop on-line, search for information, and chat with others, etc. The Internet presents a wealth of information. With thousands of websites providing downloadable information, a user can search for and gather desired information using well-developed search engines and services available on the Internet. Some websites even provide web pages customized for individual users. A user can specify to the web server providing the custom web page service the types of information she likes to see, such as weather, local traffic, world and local news, stock market reports, entertainment, sports, etc. The custom web page server will then go to various information sources to retrieve the selected types of information, and presents the collected information in the customized web page. Thus, instead of having to access multiple websites, the user only has to go to the site of the custom web page server and open her personal web page composed by the server, and all the information of the types she specified is there for her to review.  
      In conjunction with the expansion of the reaches of the Internet, the number of home networks has also been growing rapidly. The prices of personal computers and networking devices have fallen tremendously, and it is very easy for a household with multiple computers to set up a home network. As a result, computer networking is no longer limited to work places and has entered many homes. The availability of home networking has opened many possibilities of home automation. Such possibilities, however, are mostly unrealized at this time. Many users implement home networks mainly for the purpose of being able to access the Internet from different computers in the home and to share data and programs among the home computers, and the aspect of information/data access is largely independent of and unrelated to other aspects of home activities and functions.  
      For instance, watching television is a major form of home entertainment. If a user watching television in the living room wants to access the Internet to read her custom web page during a commercial break, she has to go to her study room where her personal computer is located, sit down in front of the personal computer, and use the computer to connect to the custom web page server to get her custom web page. If the Internet connection of the user is slow or if the custom web page server is slow or overloaded, the user may have to wait for a while for her custom web pages to download and is not able to see the pages instantly.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      In view of the foregoing, the present invention provides a home network system that composes and caches a personalized web page for a user and enables the user to use her television to review the personalized web page instantly. The home network includes a media server that is capable of accessing the Internet. The user can use the user interface presented by the media server to specify the types of information to be included in her personalized web page. The media server then goes to the Internet to collect information of the types specified by the user, and use the retrieved information to construct the personalized web page. The personalized web page is stored in a cache to enable instant delivery over the home network. The television is connected to a TV client on the home network. The TV client presents an option in a menu that can be selected by the user to view the personalized web page. When the user invokes the option to view her personalized web page, the TV client instantly retrieves the personalized web page cached by the media server and displays the web page on the television for viewing by the user. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram generally illustrating an exemplary computer system on which components of a home network configured in accordance with the invention may be implemented;  
       FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram showing an embodiment of a home network that constructs personalized web pages with information collected from the Internet and presents the personalized web page on a television for viewing;  
       FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary user interface for a user to configure personalized web pages;  
       FIG. 4  is a schematic diagram illustrating exemplary user interface screens for a user to invoke the function of viewing her personalized web page on the television; and  
       FIG. 5  is a flow diagram summarizing the operation of constructing a personalized web page for a user and presenting the web page on a television for viewing by the user.  
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
      Turning to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements, the invention is illustrated as being implemented in a suitable computing environment. Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a personal computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.  
      The following description begins with a description of a general-purpose computing device that may implement components of a home network of the invention for integrating data access and home entertainment. The home network architecture of the invention that compiles personalized web pages for a user and shows the pages on a television connected to the home network for viewing will be described in greater detail with reference to  FIGS. 2-5 . Turning now to  FIG. 1 , a general purpose computing device is shown in the form of a conventional personal computer  20 , including a processing unit  21 , a system memory  22 , and a system bus  23  that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  21 . The system bus  23  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory includes read only memory (ROM)  24  and random access memory (RAM)  25 . A basic input/output system (BIOS)  26 , containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the personal computer  20 , such as during start-up, is stored in ROM  24 . The personal computer  20  further includes a hard disk drive  27  for reading from and writing to a hard disk  60 , a magnetic disk drive  28  for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk  29 , and an optical disk drive  30  for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk  31  such as a CD ROM or other optical media.  
      The hard disk drive  27 , magnetic disk drive  28 , and optical disk drive  30  are connected to the system bus  23  by a hard disk drive interface  32 , a magnetic disk drive interface  33 , and an optical disk drive interface  34 , respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the personal computer  20 . Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk  60 , a removable magnetic disk  29 , and a removable optical disk  31 , it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories, read only memories, storage area networks, and the like may also be used in the exemplary operating environment.  
      A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk  60 , magnetic disk  29 , optical disk  31 , ROM  24  or RAM  25 , including an operating system  35 , one or more applications programs  36 , other program modules  37 , and program data  38 . A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer  20  through input devices such as a keyboard  40  and a pointing device  42 . Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  21  through a serial port interface  46  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB) or a network interface card. A monitor  47  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  23  via an interface, such as a video adapter  48 . In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices, not shown, such as speakers and printers.  
      The personal computer  20  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  49 . The remote computer  49  may be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the personal computer  20 , although only a memory storage device  50  has been illustrated in  FIG. 1 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 1  include a local area network (LAN)  51  and a wide area network (WAN)  52 . Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.  
      When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer  20  is connected to the local network  51  through a network interface or adapter  53 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer  20  typically includes a modem  54  or other means for establishing communications over the WAN  52 . The modem  54 , which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus  23  via the serial port interface  46 . In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer  20 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.  
      In the description that follows, the invention will be described with reference to acts and symbolic representations of operations that are performed by one or more computers, unless indicated otherwise. As such, it will be understood that such acts and operations, which are at times referred to as being computer-executed, include the manipulation by the processing unit of the computer of electrical signals representing data in a structured form. This manipulation transforms the data or maintains it at locations in the memory system of the computer, which reconfigures or otherwise alters the operation of the computer in a manner well understood by those skilled in the art. The data structures where data is maintained are physical locations of the memory that have particular properties defined by the format of the data. However, while the invention is being described in the foregoing context, it is not meant to be limiting as those of skill in the art will appreciate that various ones of the acts and operations described hereinafter may also be implemented in hardware.  
      Referring now to  FIG. 2 , the present invention is directed to a home network  70  that is configured to provide the functionality of compiling personalized web pages for a user, and enables the user to instantly view the personalized web pages on a television. In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 2 , the home network  70  connects devices for work and entertainment functions. For instance, a productivity station  72 , which may be located in the study room of the house, includes a desktop personal computer  74  that may be connected to the home network  70  via wired or wireless connections. The personal computer  74  may include peripheral devices, such as a printer, a scanner, and a video camera for video conferencing, etc. The home network  70  is also connected to a television  82 , which may be part of a home entertainment center located in the living room of the house. As described in greater detail below, the television  82  is connected to the home network via a TV client module  86 . Another television  84 , which may be located in the bedroom, is also connected to the home network  70  by its TV client module  88 . The home network  70  may also have wireless devices connected thereto. To that end, the home network  70  includes one (or more) wireless access point (WAP)  96  that functions as the base station for a wireless local area network (LAN) and is typically plugged into an Ethernet hub or server. The wireless communications allows a user to move around the house with her mobile device without losing connection to the home network. The wireless devices include, for example, a notebook computer  90 , a tablet PC  92 , a PDA  94 , etc. In a preferred embodiment, the home network is based on an IP-based Ethernet local area network.  
      In accordance with a feature of the invention, the home network  74  further includes a media server  100 . The media server  100  may be located, for instance, in an equipment room in the home. In one embodiment, the media server  100  is implemented in a personal computer. Alternatively, the media server may be a dedicated microprocessor-based device, similar to a set-top box, with adequate hardware and software implementing media service related functions. The media server  100  may be connected to various video/audio signal sources, such as a tuner  102 , which may receive signals from different carries such as satellite, terrestrial, or cable (broadband) connections. The media server  100  is provided with capabilities to access the Internet  110 . In the illustrated embodiment, the media server is connected to an Internet gateway device (IGD)  106 , which may be connected to the Internet via a broadband cable, a DSL line, an optical connection, or a phone line (i.e., publicly switched telephone network (PSTN)). In the illustrated example, the Internet gateway device  106  is also used by the personal computer  74  in the productivity station  72  to access the Internet  110 .  
      The media server  100  enables integration of the home entertainment components/devices with the home network  70  to provide enhanced home automation experience. In particular, in accordance with the invention, the media server  100  is capable of compiling personalized web pages in accordance with configuration information entered by the user. Moreover, the media server  100  interacts with the TV client component  86  of a television  82  to enable a user to view her personalized web page on the television. To that end, the media server  100  includes a personalized web page service software component  104  that handles the various functions related to the composition and presentation of personalized web pages. As used herein, the term “web page” is used broadly to mean a presentation that resembles HTML documents that can be downloaded from a website and viewed with an Internet browser, and does not require that the page be located at a site of the World-Wide Web on the Internet.  
      To allow the user to configure a personalized web page according to her preferences, the personalized web page service  104  of the media server  100  has a configuration user interface module  124  that is programmed to provide a user interface for the user to enter configuration information. The user interface may be presented on a monitor attached to the media server, and the user may use a keyboard and a pointing device attached to the media server to enter her selections. Alternatively, the user interface may be sent to any personal computer (e.g., the personal computer  74 ) connected to the home network  70 , and the user will use the personal computer to view available options and enter her selections.  
      As illustrated in  FIG. 3 , the user interface  112  provided by the media server  100  for personalizing web pages includes queries that allow the user to enter two types of configuration information. First, to set up the service of Internet information collection, the media server  100  (or any personal computer used to present the user interface) can connect the user to an information server  108  on the Internet  1   10  that provides the service of gathering the different types of information specified by the user. The user can then enter service configuration information  114 , such as billing information and terms for the service provided by the information server  108 .  
      The user interface  112  also allows the user to enter configuration information to be used by the media server  100  to compose personalized web pages for the user. For instance, the composition configuration information may include a selection of the various types of information the user wants to include in her personalized web page. The information categories that the user can select from may include, for example, the user&#39;s e-mail inbox, the user&#39;s calendar, local traffic map, local weather report, headline stories, stock prices, selected TV guide, accurate current time, instant message buddies online, etc. The user may also specify how often the page is to be updated. The composition configuration information may also include information regarding the presentation of the personalized web page. For instance, the user may select to show her personalized web page in the form of boxes aligned along the sides of the television screen while showing the regular TV program in the center portion of the screen, or to use the entire television to show the personalized web page. The user may also select to format the page to fit on the entire television. For instance, if the television has an aspect ratio of 16:9, which is longer and narrower than the 4:3 aspect ratio of conventional televisions and computer display screens, the user can select to configure the personalized web page to fit on the entire screen instead of leaving empty bars on the sides.  
      Once the user has entered appropriate configuration information for her personalized web page, the media server  100  constructs the personalized web page. To that end, the media server  100  includes an information gatherer component  116  that periodically goes to the information server  108  or other information sources on the Internet  110  to download up-to-date information in information categories selected by the user for her personalized web page. Alternatively or in conjunction with the periodic downloading, the information server  108  may also provide information in a “push” mode to the media server  100  whenever there are changes to any information category selected by the user. In a preferred embodiment, the information sent by the information server  108  to the media server  100  for populating the personalized web page may be in the format of an XML document  118 .  
      With the information obtained from the information server  108  or other Internet sources, a web page composer component  120  of the media server constructs or edits the personalized web page to contain the up-to-date information, and saves the composed/updated personalized web page  122  in a cache  126  that allow fast retrieve of the page upon demand. To enable instant display of the personalized web page on the television on demand, the web page composer  120  preprocesses the page for fast transfer to the TV client  86  and easy rendering by the TV client for display on the television  82 . The preprocessed page may be in one of several suitable formats, such as a JPEG image, a RDP stream, or an HTML file. By way of example, the web page composer  120  may preprocess the personal web page (e.g., described in HTML) to an image stored in the memory, and then compresses this image into a JPEG file, which is transmitted on demand to the TV client, which in turn renders the JPEG for display on the television. The RDP and HTML forms of representation entail greater complexity but also provide more flexibility.  
      When the TV client  86  of a television  82  is connected to the home network  70 , it automatically discovers the personalized web page service  104  on the media server  100 . The discovery may be performed, for example, using the Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) process. The TV client  86  then forms a communication link with the media server over the home network.  
      Returning to  FIG. 2 , to enable the user to invoke the function of viewing her personalized web page, the TV client  86  is programmed to provide a user interface on the television  82  to allow the user to select that function. When the TV client  86  discovers the personalized web page service, it populates a local menu with a “View Personal Web Page” option that can be selected by the user by, for example, pressing buttons on a remote control  132 . On any television in the house that has a TV client device connected to the home network  70 , a user can use a remote control  132  to send command signals to the TV client to interactively select options presented by the TV client on the television.  
      Turning now to  FIG. 4 , in one exemplary implementation, the local menu of the media client  86  has a starting page  136  that presents a menu option  138  of “Internet Functions.” When the user viewing the television  82  uses the remote control to select that option, the TV client receives the command and displays the next menu page  140  that includes the option  146  of “View Personalized Web page.” When the user selects the “View Personalized Web page” option, the TV client  86  transmits a request to the media server  100  to invoke that function. In response, the media server  100  retrieves the personalized web page  122  from the cache  126  and transmits it to the TV client  86 . The TV client  86  then displays the received personalized web page on the television  82  for viewing by the user. Since the personalized web page can be retrieved quickly from the local cache  126  and transmitted over the home network to the TV client at a high speed, it can be displayed on demand instantly on the television  82 .  
      The operations of the media server  100  and the TV client  86  in the embodiment of  FIG. 2  for enabling the instant viewing of a personalized web page on a television is summarized in  FIG. 5 . To set up a personalized web page, the user enters configuration information through the user interface presented by the media server. (step  160 ). The configuration user interface may be, for example, displayed on the personal computer  74  functioning as a remote terminal. The configuration information includes, for example, the billing information to be used by the information server on the Internet, the types of information to be included in the personalized web page, the presentation of the page, etc. The information gatherer  116  of the media server then collects the desired information from the Internet (step  162 ), which may include periodically downloading the information from an information server  108  on the Internet  110 , or receiving information pushed down by the information server. The web page composer  120  of the personalized web page service  104  then constructs or updates the personalized web page  122  according to the configuration information provided by the user (step  166 ), and saves the web page in a cache  126  to allow fast retrieval (step  168 ). Upon connecting the TV client  86 , the TV client discovers the media server  100  on the home network and its personalized web page service  104  (step  170 ). The TV client  86  then includes an option of “View Personalized Web Page” in a local menu as part of its user interface (step  172 ). When the user selects that option (step  176 ), the TV client  86  sends the request to the media server  100  (step  178 ). In response, the media server  100  retrieves the personalized web page  122  from its cache  126 , and transmits the page over the home network to the TV client  86  (step  180 ). The TV client  86  then displays the personalized web page on the television  82  for viewing by the user (step  182 ).  
      In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of this invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the embodiments described herein with respect to the drawing figures are meant to be illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of the invention. Therefore, the invention as described herein contemplates all such embodiments as may come within the scope of the following claims and equivalents thereof.