Enabling participation in an online community using visual machine-readable symbols
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsJohn-Alistair George, Adam Connelly
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A facility for coordinating an online discussion is described. The facility receives an indication that a user has captured a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier that identifies a particular online discussion. In response, the facility incorporates into an online forum that hosts this online discussion an indication that this user captured a symbol encoding an identifier that identifies this online discussion.
Claims27
A method in a computing system for supporting an online discussion, comprising:
- using a distinguished handheld device that is associated with a distinguished user to capture an image of a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier for a distinguished online discussion;
- wirelessly transmitting a notification containing a copy of the identifier decoded from the captured symbol from the device for delivery to a server;
- in response to receiving the notification in the server, storing an indication of the capture identifying the distinguished user and the distinguished online discussion;
- and
- in response to the stored indication, displaying in an online forum hosting the distinguished online discussion a visual indication that the distinguished user has captured the symbol for the distinguished online discussion.
A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to perform a method for coordinating an online discussion, the method comprising:
- receiving an indication that a distinguished user has captured a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier that identifies a distinguished online discussion;
- and
- incorporating into an online forum that hosts the distinguished online discussion an indication that the distinguished user captured a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier that identifies the distinguished online discussion.
A wireless handset, comprising:
- a symbol capture subsystem for visually capturing an image of a machine-readable symbol encoding data;
- a symbol decoding subsystem that processes the captured image to discern data encoded into the symbol;
- and
- an action determination subsystem that transforms the data discerned by the symbol decoding subsystem into an action specified by the data;
- and
- an action performance subsystem that invokes the action specified by the data.
A computer memory containing a symbol data structure, comprising visual information representing a machine-readable symbol encoding an identifier for a particular topical discussion,
- such that the represented machine-readable symbol may be visually captured to join the discussion.
A communication network conveying a generated data signal, the data signal comprising:
- a content identifier decoded from a machine-readable symbol representing a discussion;
- and
- a user identifier identifying a user who visually captured the machine-readable symbol,
- such that a receiver of the data signal may log the capture of the machine-readable symbol by the user.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.