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AssigneeAT&T Corp.
InventorsEvan Stephen Crandall, Anders Fernstedt, Steven Lloyd Greenspan, David M Weimer
Estimating the term…
A novel mechanism is disclosed by which a sender can direct information such as an audiovisual signal to a particular recipient's audiovisual display device, such as a cable television set and, thereby, share information between the sender and the recipient. In one embodiment of the invention, a calling party originates a telephone call and associates that telephone call with audio-visual information that exists on the caller's personal computer or on an Internet server. The called party answers the call, and can tune an associated cable television to the appropriate channel in order to view the audio-visual information. The caller can modify the audio-visual information during the call. Accordingly, the current invention ties together the telephone, cable, and IP networks in a manner that does not require large investments from cable or telephone service providers. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, a called party, such as a representative at a customer service center or an interactive voice response unit, can associate audio-visual information with the call such that the calling party can see the data on the appropriate television channel. In another embodiment, the telephone keypad can be used to move forwards and backwards through a series of audio-visual screens. In another embodiment, the cable subscriber can preset the television to a particular URL which can be viewed, but not navigated, without the telephone call.
A method of sharing information between a sender with access to a data network and a recipient's audiovisual display device, the recipient being identified by a voice communication network address and a data communication network address, the method comprising the steps of:
A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions for sharing information between a sender with access to a data network and a recipient's audiovisual display device, the recipient being identified by a voice communication network address and a data communication network address, the medium comprising:
A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions for sharing information between a sender with access to a data network and a recipient's audiovisual display device, the recipient being identified by a voice communication network address and a data communication network address related to the recipient's audiovisual display device, the medium comprising:
An apparatus comprising:
A method for sharing information, the method comprising the steps of:
A method of sharing information, the method comprising the steps of:
A method comprising the steps of:
A method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.