Patent Publication Number: US-2007117627-A1

Title: Method and system for a similarity-based game

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
      This application claims the benefit of provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/738,177, filed Nov. 18, 2005, by the same inventors, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH  
      Not applicable  
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      The present invention relates generally to games and relates more particularly to biometric similarity based games.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      Sometimes people are known to remark to others that they look like some well known personality. It is also common for people to wonder whether they look like some famous person and if so by how much. Similarly, it is also known that some people wonder whether their voice, or more particularly their singing voice, or that of their friend, sounds like that of a well known person, especially that of a singer. However, up until now, the only ways in which people could be judged on their similarities to others was through manually mediated celebrity-look-alike contests/games and Karaoke contests/games.  
      Many people would enjoy a game in which photographs of the players are compared to that of a celebrity, and ranked in order of similarity (or dissimilarity).  
      Further, many people would enjoy a game in which recorded clips of their voices, especially of their singing voices, are compared to that of a famous singer and ranked in order of similarity (or dissimilarity).  
      Such a game, if it existed, would benefit greatly from the use of digital cameras and microphones and from computer-mediated ranking. For example, a group of users may decide to play such a game using a computer, wherein they use a digital camera connected to the computer to photograph themselves and have the computer adjudicate similarities of the photographs of the various players to that of some predetermined celebrity.  
      It is likewise possible to use a microphone connected to a computer to record voice samples of the players and have the computer adjudicate similarities of the voices of the various players to some predetermined celebrity&#39;s voice.  
      Further, such a game will also benefit from the use of digital media, computer networks and mobile devices such as cellular phones, laptop computers and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA). For example, a group of players may congregate to play a celebrity look-alike game in which may use their cellular phone&#39;s camera to capture and transmit photographs of themselves and their fellow players to a remotely located computer that calculates the similarities and responds with the results that show the degrees of similarities of the various players to a predetermined celebrity.  
      Likewise, cellular phones or PDAs could also be used to capture the voices of the players for transmittal to a remote similarity-adjudicating computer.  
      The reader will appreciate that the adjudicating computer need not necessarily be remotely located. The necessary similarity calculations and adjudication can also be performed on the same device to which the media capturing devices are directly connected.  
      Thus, there is a need for a method and system for providing a celebrity look-alike or celebrity sound-alike game.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      In one embodiment, the present invention provides a method and system for a game for a plurality of players wherein players are successively compared with a pre-determined referent and scoring is determined at least in part upon the correspondence of each player to the referent. In one embodiment, the referent is a celebrity whose photo is the object of comparison to the photos of the players. In another embodiment, the referent is a singer, whose voice sample is then the object of comparison to corresponding voice samples of the players. In another embodiment the referent may be a fellow player, or a person selected from some internal database of persons or fictional characters maintained by the game server. The correspondence is determined at least in part on the basis of any quantifiable biometric data relating to the players or the referent. Biometric data means data pertaining to biological or psychological attributes of a person or a fictional character. Quantification refers to the process of deriving measurements.  
      The invention also provides a system to enable a plurality of players to play a game, wherein the system may be implemented using one or more computers and a communication network. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      The present invention can be readily understood by considering the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:  
       FIG. 1  is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method for implementing one embodiment of the game.  
       FIG. 2  is a flow diagram illustrating another embodiment of the method wherein correspondence between a player and the referent is determined by the extraction and comparison of characteristic features from their respective representations.  
       FIG. 3  depicts an architecture of the said embodiment of the game; this embodiment assumes that the game is implemented in a distributed manner as a two-part system.  
       FIGS. 4 , ( a ) through ( d ) inclusive depict exemplar user interface screens of one embodiment of a game according to the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
      The present invention relates to games and more specifically to celebrity-similarity games, including but not limited to celebrity-look-alike and celebrity-sound-alike games. Such games may be for private or home use (e.g. at private parties or other social gatherings) or at public use (e.g. at bars, night-clubs or television game shows). The method and system of the present invention may be implemented so as to transform virtually any computing device (including a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wristwatch, a portable video/music player, a car video player/music, a hi-fi/entertainment center, a television, a gaming console, a dedicated video device, a digital camera, a digital video recorder (DVR), a cable or satellite set top box, a dedicated gaming device, among others) into a gaming system capable of capturing photographs or sound samples of game players, comparing the photographs with that of a predetermined celebrity and delivering a judgment as to which player has a photograph that has been deemed to be most similar to that of the selected celebrity. Moreover, the method and system of the present invention may be implemented to score players not only by similarity to celebrities, but also by similarity to fellow players, or to any other persons whose photographs, voice samples or other biometric data may be available.  
       FIG. 1  is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a method  100  for implementing a game according to the present invention. A game according to the method  100  starts at step  105  and proceeds to step  110  wherein a referent is selected from a set of referents which is available to the method and the referent is presented to the players. It can be understood that the presentation of the referent to the players may be effected by means including but not limited to computer screens, speakers, tactile feedback equipment and human or robotic artists.  
      Next, a correspondence is determined between the selected referent and each of the players in step  115 . If the selected referent was an image of a celebrity, then step  115  determines the similarities of images of each of the players in turn to that of the celebrity. If the selected referent was a voice sample of a celebrity, then step  115  determines the similarities of voice samples of each of the players to that of the celebrity.  
      Using the results of step  115 , the method proceeds to the next step,  120 , in which scores are assigned to the players based, at least in part, upon the correspondence determined in step  115 . In one embodiment of the game method, the maximum score is assigned to the player with the most correspondence to the referent. In another embodiment, the maximum score is assigned to the player with the most correspondence to the referent. Many scoring parameters can be adapted to provide interesting variations of a game according to the method  100 .  
      In step  125  the scores assigned in step  120  are accumulated for each player.  
      In step  130 , a decision is made: If either multiple rounds of play are sought then the method cycles back to step  110  and repeats the procedure until no more rounds are sought at step  130 . If multiple rounds of play are not sought, or if the game&#39;s embodiment disallows more rounds at this step, then the method proceeds to step  135 .  
      In step  135 , the method provides for communicating or declaring as the winner the player with the most points, and proceeds to finish at step  140 .  
       FIG. 2  is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the method wherein correspondence between players and the referent is determined from characteristic features extracted from their respective representations.  
      The method  200  of  FIG. 2 . starts at step  205  whereafter it proceeds to step  210  in which it selects a referent from a predetermined set of referents.  
      It can be understood that the referent can be one or more elements from a set including but not limited to representations of a persons, especially of celebrities, or representation of a fictitious persons including but not limited to computer generated persona, representations of players of the current or past games, and representations of persons who have consented to being used as referents in the game.  
      Next, in step  215 , characteristic features are extracted from the referent selected in step  210 . The said feature extraction can be performed using any one of a number of feature extraction algorithms extant in the literature on digital signal processing. For example, if the referent is a digital image, one of the simplest sets of extracted features may be a sequence of numbers encoding the raw pixel values of the said image. Alternately, the set of extracted features may be more sophisticated and use algorithms that first detect salient landmarks within the image such as the coordinates of the eyes, nose, mouth, etc., and then calculate features using wavelet measurements at these landmark locations. Likewise, the features may also comprise mel-cepstral coefficients from the referent&#39;s voice sample, a sequence of measurements characterizing the referent&#39;s biological attributes or a sequence of measurements characterizing referent&#39;s psychological attributes. The method  200  is independent of the actual feature extraction algorithm used in step  215 . It is a mark of strength of the invention that often a compromise can be made between the degree of the sophistication of the feature extraction algorithm and the quality of the similarity measure ultimately obtained. For implementations using, for example, limited computing capability an algorithm suitable to this or other device limitations may be used with the inventive method. For an excellent discussion of several feature extraction algorithms and wavelet based signal processing, see “Digital Image Processing” by William K. Pratt, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003.  
      In the next step,  220 , representations are acquired of each of the players of the game. If the referent was a digital image, then the representations acquired in this step are photographs of each of the players. If the referent was a song-clip or voice sample, then the representations acquired in this step are song or voice samples of the players respectively. In the next step  225 , features are extracted from each of the representations acquired in step  220 . In the preferred embodiment step  220  uses the same algorithm that was used in step  215 .  
      In step  230 , each of the feature sets extracted in step  225  are in turn compared to the feature set extracted in step  215  of the referent selected in step  210 . The said comparison between two feature sets can performed using any of a number of feature set comparison algorithms extant in the literature in computer science and statistics. For example, one of the simplest comparison algorithms may be a mean-squared-error metric, which calculates the sum of the squares of the differences between individual corresponding features in the two sets that are the object of comparison. The mean-squared-error metric calculates a measure of dissimilarity. The value calculated by the metric is larger for more dissimilar feature sets and must be interpreted accordingly. Likewise, a Euclidean distance metric may be used, in which each of the two feature set is interpreted as a point in high dimensional space, and the Euclidean distance between the points in this space represents the degree of dissimilarity between their feature sets. As noted in the discussion of step  215 , the method  200  is independent of the exact similarity calculation or comparison algorithm used. It is often the case that a compromise can be reached between the degree of sophistication of the comparison algorithm and the quality of the similarity measure ultimately obtained. It can also be appreciated that the said comparison can be performed by human or robotic judges.  
      In step  235 , scores are assigned to the players according to the degree of similarity calculated in step  230 . In the preferred embodiment of the game, players are awarded more points for being judged more similar to the referent. In step  240 , the assigned scores for each player are accumulated. In step  245  a decision is made whether another round is sought to be played. In the preferred embodiment the method queries the players if they desire to play another round. If they so desire, the sequence of steps from  210  to  245  is repeated. If the players do not seek to play another round or if the embodiment of the method disallows further rounds to be played, the method then proceeds to terminate at step  255  after declaring a winner at step  250 .  
      The inventive method may be implemented to transform virtually any existing computing device into a gaming system capable of comparing representations of players with referents.  
      Further, the method taught herein enables an existing computing device to provide a facility to play a game according to the method without the need to purchase additional hardware or dedicated machinery.  
      The inventive method provides for implementing any of a number of variations of the underlying game. For example, a process of acquiring photographs of the players may be turned into an enjoyable and thrilling experience in itself by imposing time-limits for such image capture and transmission, by allowing or disallowing the use of cosmetics and make-up, by rewarding with points the person who captures each photograph in such a way that it is in their best interest to not take unfavorable photos of their competitors, by promoting the use of certain possibly co-branded products and accessories (e.g. lipstick, wigs, false eye-lashes, etc.) that the players can use to make themselves look more similar to the referent selected in step  110 , etc.  
      In one embodiment, the score provided to the user is a single metric representing overall similarity. In another embodiment the calculated score is broken down into sub-scores for various components of the players&#39; images. For example, “Player  1  has a nose that is most similar to that of Jack Nicholson. Player  2  has lips that are most similar to that of Jack Nicholson” etc. In another embodiment the scores from each of the components of the previous embodiment are weighted individually combined in some suitable manner such as addition to produce an overall score.  
      Those skilled in the art will appreciate that although the present invention has been described within the exemplary context of an image comparing or voice comparing game application, the methods of the present invention may also be implemented for use in conjunction with any game application that provides a similar game playing experience by making other biometric or psychometric comparisons including but not limited to singing voice, hair-color, smile, body temperature, heart-beat rate while under artificially induced stress, the number of stutters while reading an assigned difficult textual passage, or other measurable biological or psychological attributes or phenomena, potentially while under artificially induced stress.  
       FIG. 3  depicts an exemplary architecture for implementing the game in a current embodiment. But it is understood that many other possible ways to architect the game system exist, and the depiction is not intended to limit implementation architecture within the scope of the invention. In the depicted architecture, it is assumed that the game is implemented in a distributed fashion and is restricted to using photographs as representations of the players and the referent. The first part, A, is the game application that interacts with the user. The second part, B, is a game management server that handles the back-end responsibilities associated with the game. By back-end responsibilities, we mean actions corresponding but not limited to managing multiple games from multiple game applications simultaneously, assigning unique game identifiers to each game, selecting and assigning data for each game, archiving each game, and calculating similarity or dissimilarity metrics between submitted media files. The interactions between the players, P, the application program A, and the game server, B, are depicted as block arrows named with numerals that represent the flow of events in time. That is, action  11  happens first, action  12  happens next and so on. For maximum clarity, it will be instructive to study  FIG. 3  together with FIGS.  4  ( a ) through ( d ) inclusive in which example user-interface screens from a current embodiment are provided.  
      The game application (denoted by A) is assumed to run on a device to which the players (denoted by P) have ready access. This device may be, for example, a cellular phone, Personal Digital Assistant, or a personal computer with a web-cam. Moreover, the application program is assumed to connect to a separate entity in order to embody the functionality of the game. The entity (denoted by B) is the game management server. The functions of the game management server will become clear in the following discussion. B may reside on the same computer as the application, A, or be remotely located. The reader will also appreciate that in one embodiment, the role of B could be subsumed by the game application, A, itself. In yet another embodiment, the similarity computation algorithm embodied in B may reside in a separate entity altogether. The particular embodiment and depiction chosen here is for the purpose of elucidation only.  
      After a certain number of players congregate and decide to play the game, they start the game application A by launching it. This may be accomplished, for example, by selecting the icon for the game and double-clicking it, etc. The arrow labeled with the numeral  11  represents this action. In action  12 , the game application asks the players to transmit their names or nicknames to it. Action  13  represents the act by the players of entering the said names into the device and ending the action with some sentinel action. In action  14 , A transmits the player names to the game manager, B, which then proceeds to create a unique location where the information pertaining to this game will be stored. This location is used for both game-play as well as for maintaining a live-game-monitoring service that the depicted embodiment (see the mock-ups in FIGS.  4 ( a ) through ( d ) inclusive) claims to provide. B then pre-selects a list of ten random celebrity images, constructs a unique game identifier and transmits them to A in action  15 . The ten celebrity images are to be used by A in each of ten possible rounds in the game. Action  16  is a pseudo-action included for the purpose of depicting looping or iteration over each of the up to ten rounds. Assuming that each round is identified by a unique numeral from one to ten, the following sequence of actions is repeated for each round or until the user terminates the looping prematurely. In action  17 , the application server selects a celebrity image, Ti, that was previously unused in this game, displays it to the player and awaits confirmation. In action  18 , the player confirms the target selection. Again, action  19  is a pseudo-action for the purpose of depicting looping or iteration over each of the players in the group of players.  
      In action  20 , A asks the player, Pj, to select his or her photographer. This step is important, though not critical, for the enjoyment of the game because it promotes fairness in play by giving players the freedom to select favorable photographers. Being selected as a photographer comes with a reward of some points for the photographer and thus it is in their own interest to not take unfair photographs since such an action could weigh against their being chosen as photographer subsequently. Therefore this variation of game-play in which points are awarded for being selected as photographer is claimed as a valuable alternative embodiment of the proposed game and this is the embodiment that is depicted in the accompanying  FIGS. 3 and 4 ( a ) through ( d ) inclusive.  
      In action  21 , the player selects his or her photographer from among his or her play-mates and indicates the choice to A. In action  22  A asks the selected photographer, Cj, to photograph and send an image of the player Pj. Cj proceeds to photograph Pj and transmit a mutually agreeable image to A in action  23 . A then transmits the image together with the image of the selected celebrity to the game manager, B, in action  24 .  
      B responds with the similarity between the two given images in action  25 . In action  26 , A displays the result of the similarity computation, together with interim standings within the round, to the players and asks for confirmation. Action  27  represents the confirmation of this information by the players. Action  28  is a pseudo-action that allows looping. It simply changes Pj from the current player to the next player in the current round and repeats the sequence of actions from action  20  until all players have had a chance to be compared to the celebrity selected for this round. At this point, in action  29 , A displays the end-of-round results in terms of some suitably and intuitively encoded similarity metric to the players. P confirms these results in action  30 . In action  31 , A displays the end-of-round results in points. In a current embodiment, the player judged to be most similar to the selected celebrity for the round gets ten points and a player gets one point each time he or she is selected to be a photographer by some other player. It is assumed that self-photography is not allowed in this embodiment of the game; but the reader will appreciate that numerous other scoring strategies are obviously conceivable, including but not limited to a different weighting of scores, and assigning points to more than just the player deemed most similar to the target celebrity. In action  31  also, A asks P if they desire to play another round. P indicates their answer to this question  32 . In action  33 , suppose another round is required; then A simply selects a hitherto unused celebrity image in this game, assigns it to Ti and repeats the sequence of actions from action  17  until either ten rounds have completed or the players choose to end after some earlier round. At the end of the game, in action  34 , A displays the cumulative end-of game scores in points. In action  35 , A sends an END-OF-GAME indication to the game server B.  
      Those skilled in the art will appreciate that although the present invention has been described within the exemplary context of a particular application, the methods of the present invention may also be implemented for use in conjunction with any application that provides a gaming opportunity based on similarity metrics.  
      Thus it is clear that that the invention provides a game that delivers an enjoyable and “addicting” playing experience that will furthermore significantly boost the sales of web-based cameras, digital cameras, microphones, cellular phones with cameras, biometric devices such as pulse meters, digital thermometers, etc., and boost revenues of telecom carriers by motivating cellular phone users to use the advanced features of their phone and the data network.  
      While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and do not impose limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the figures herein and following claims and their equivalents.