Loading patent…
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
InventorsBrian Scott Amento, Christopher Harrison, Larry Stead
Estimating the term…
Virtual environments are presented on displays along with multimedia programs to permit viewers to participate in a social interactive television environment. The virtual environments include avatars that are created and maintained in part using continually updated animation data that may be captured from cameras that monitor viewing areas in a plurality of sites. User input from the viewers may be processed in determining which viewers are presented in instances of the virtual environment. Continually updating the animation data results in avatars accurately depicting a viewer's facial expressions and other characteristics. Presence data may be collected and used to determine when to capture background images from a viewing area that may later be subtracted during the capture of animation data. Speech recognition technology may be employed to provide callouts within a virtual environment.
1-24. (canceled)
A method of presenting avatars with a multimedia program, the method comprising:
A system for presenting avatars combined with multimedia programs, comprising:
A non-transitory computer readable storage media including program instructions for simultaneously presenting avatars and a multimedia program, the program instructions including instructions for:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.