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US 8,799,952 B2Granted
Virtual channels
AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsRichard Carl Gossweiler, III, John Blackburn, David A. Brown, Neha Gupta, Manish Gordhan Patel, Mehran Sahami, Thomas H. Taylor, Daniel John Zigmond
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system for providing listings of multimedia events and for allowing a user to create virtual channels from the listings is described. The user can specify a headend or zip code and enter a search query to find multimedia events that are of interest to the user. In response, the system provides a list of multimedia events as the results of the user's search query. If the user so desires, the user can create a virtual channel based on the search results, according to certain embodiments of the invention.
Claims18
A method comprising:
- at a computer system including one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs, the one or more processors executing the one or more programs to perform the operations of:
- responsive to a search query for time-bounded multimedia events:
- a set of search results including a set of time-bounded multimedia events relevant to the search query, wherein
- a time-bounded multimedia event, in the set of time-bounded multimedia events, is a broadcasting event associated with a broadcast time including:
- a start time and an end time;
- and
- information identifying a start time and an end time of a respective time-bounded multimedia event in the set of time-bounded multimedia events
- a user selection of a plurality of time-bounded multimedia events in the set of time-bounded multimedia events included in the search results:
- (i) formatting for display information representing the plurality of time-bounded multimedia events as a plurality of rows on a grid having a first axis and a second axis, wherein:
- the first axis corresponds to units of time;
- one row of the plurality of rows displays time-bounded multimedia events in a virtual channel at positions in the row corresponding to respective scheduled broadcast times of the time-bounded multimedia events in the virtual channel;
- and
- the virtual channel comprises the plurality of the time-bounded multimedia events selected by a user;
- (ii) enabling the user to fill a first time slot in the virtual channel with overlapping time-bounded multimedia events without requiring modification to the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events;
- and
- (iii) formatting for display, in the first time slot, a representation of a numeric count of the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events.
13 more elements
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs that are executable by a computing device so as to perform a process, the one or more programs of the computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which when executed cause the computing device to perform the operation of:
- responsive to a search query for time-bounded multimedia events:
- obtaining a set of search results including a set of time-bounded multimedia events relevant to the search query, wherein
- a time-bounded multimedia event, in the set of time-bounded multimedia events, is a broadcasting event associated with a broadcast time including:
- a start time and an end time;
- and
- the set of search results also information identifying a start time and an end time of a respective time-bounded multimedia event in the set of time-bounded multimedia events;
- and
- responsive to a user selection of a plurality of time-bounded multimedia events in the set of time-bounded multimedia events included in the search results:
- (i) formatting for display information representing the plurality of time-bounded multimedia events as a plurality of rows on a grid having a first axis and a second axis, wherein:
- the first axis corresponds to units of time;
- one row of the plurality of rows displays time-bounded multimedia events in a virtual channel at positions in the row corresponding to respective scheduled broadcast times of the time-bounded multimedia events in the virtual channel;
- and
- the virtual channel comprises the plurality of the time-bounded multimedia events selected by a user;
- (ii) enabling the user to fill a first time slot in the virtual channel with overlapping time-bounded multimedia events without requiring modification to the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events;
- and
- (iii) formatting for display, in the first time slot, a representation of a numeric count of the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events.
13 more elements
A system, comprising:
- one or more processors;
- memory coupled to the one or more processors;
- and
- one or more programs stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including:
- responsive to a search query for time-bounded multimedia events:
- obtaining a set of search results including a set of time-bounded multimedia events relevant to the search query, wherein
- a time-bounded multimedia event, in the set of time-bounded multimedia events, is a broadcasting event associated with a broadcast time including:
- a start time and an end time;
- and
- the set of search results also includes information identifying a start time and an end time of a respective time-bounded multimedia event in the set of time-bounded multimedia events;
- and
- responsive a user selection of a plurality of time-bounded multimedia events in the set of time-bounded multimedia events included in the search results:
- (i) formatting for display information representing the plurality of time-bounded multimedia events as a plurality of rows on a grid having a first axis and a second axis, wherein:
- the first axis corresponds to units of time;
- one row of the plurality of rows displays time-bounded multimedia events in a virtual channel at positions in the row corresponding to respective scheduled broadcast times of the time-bounded multimedia events in the virtual channel;
- and
- the virtual channel comprises the plurality of the time-bounded multimedia events selected by a user;
- (ii) enabling the user to fill a first time slot in the virtual channel with overlapping time-bounded multimedia events without requiring modification to the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events;
- and
- (iii) formatting for display, in the first time slot, a representation of a numeric count of the overlapping time-bounded multimedia events.
17 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.