WO2007000741A2

WO2007000741A2 - An apparatus and method for providing a two-dimensional user interface

Info

Publication number: WO2007000741A2
Application number: PCT/IB2006/052138
Authority: WO
Inventors: Eduard Gerhard Zondag
Original assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV; US Philips Corp
Current assignee: Koninklijke Philips NV; US Philips Corp
Priority date: 2005-06-28
Filing date: 2006-06-27
Publication date: 2007-01-04
Anticipated expiration: 2007-12-28
Also published as: WO2007000741A3

Abstract

An apparatus and method for generating a two-dimensional on-screen user interface for a display of a sequence of media selectable by a user. The on-screen user interlace contains a large collection of music which allows a user to selectively choose a desired media content by pointing to a specified location on the display.

Description

AN APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A TWO-DIMENSIONAL USER

INTERFACE

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing a two- dimensional user interface of media for interactively displaying and/or playing such information.

Digital electronics have made it possible to store a large amount of content on small portable devices. Typically, the stored content needs to be searched in a quick and user- friendly manner. As such, the current available user interfaces use a folder-based structure, which limits the user to find desired items as he is confronted with an enormous amount of digital music, for example. Various innovations are focused on improving the navigation in a list-based hierarchical setting. However, improving the easy use of this type of interface may not be adequate since finding items in the increasingly long lists is difficult and time- consuming.

Accordingly, there is a need to create a user interface when using portable music players that is both fast and easy with as little interaction as possible, while meeting the users' demands even in a large music collection and on a small screen.

The present invention provides a system and method for dynamically generating a media interface for display at an end user device. This interface relies on a two-dimensional play area, where a pointer such as a finger for example, is used for selection of one or more subsets of interest within the play area. The meaning of these subsets is defined by the two axes on the display, and possibly extra selection criteria, such as specific buttons, may be added on the screen. More specifically, the system includes an on-screen user interface display that generates a subset of programs which allows a user to easily select from a large collection of media. A user's ability to navigate a large collection of media is provided by creating a two-dimensionally selectable play area on the display and then clicking on certain regions of the play area. The on-screen display may be shifted, zoomed in or out, or may indicate different criteria to enable a user to make a selection based on the two axes in the play area.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a portable audio system according to one embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 2 shows an on-screen user interface display illustrating a play area and subsets according to one embodiment of the invention.

Now, an exemplary portable audio system in which an embodiment of the present invention can be implemented will be described with respect to FIG. 1. It should be noted that although the system is described in the context of a portable audio system for operating a consumer electronics device, this is exemplary only. Hence, the principles of the invention may be applied in user interface systems for operating other, non-consumer or non-portable electronics apparatuses, car radio/car system and for operating application programs on Personal Computers (PCs) or other devices, for example.

Referring to FIG. 1, the portable audio system 10 providing an on-screen user interface display according to one embodiment of the invention includes an input device 20, a coder/decoder (CODEC) 22, an amplifier 24, a graphic interface device 26, a processor 28, a memory 30, a power supply 32, a display 34, and an VO interface 36. Those skilled in the art will appreciate, however, that the present invention is not restricted to implementation in this type of media system and that more or fewer components can be included therein. In this exemplary embodiment, the input device 20 may be implemented using a touch-sensitive display, etc. as known to those skilled in the art. The codec 22 converts a digital data stream to an analog signal. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the codec 22 may be implemented using any of the known CODEC technologies for speech applications, music applications, etc. The analog amplifier 24 amplifies the converted analog signal received from the codec 22 and supplies the amplified analog signal to an external audio output device, such as headphones, speaker, etc.

The processor 28 may be implemented using any programmable controller or a processor, such as a microprocessor, digital signal processor (DSP), a central processing unit (CPU) or the like. The memory 30 may include various types of storage, such as random access memory (RAM) and/or read-only memory (ROM) and may further include a basic input-output system (BIOS), which contains instructions that allow the processor to communicate with various peripheral devices. The power supply provides power to all the components of the system 10 and may comprise a plurality of AAA batteries, for example. The power supply 32 may also include an external power supply to supply a regulated voltage. The display 34 may be implemented as a liquid crystal display (LCD) and may include a touch-screen of about 4 inches, which would fit on the front of a typical portable music player, for example. However, it is not limited to a small display and the method described herein can be applied to generate a playlist in any device with a display.

The I/O interface 36 may be a serial interface and/or a universal serial bus (USB) interface that serves to connect the system components. The VO interface 36 represents any of a number of different mechanisms and techniques for routing signals to and from the system components. For example, the I/O interface 36 may include jacks for audio cables that route audio signals, coaxial cables that route video signals, two-wire serial lines or infrared or radio frequency transceivers that route control signals, optical fiber or any other routing mechanisms that route other types of signals. In a representative operation, the user presses the "Folk" button to select this music genre. Then, by using a finger, stylus, etc., the user draws an arbitrary-shaped figure on the screen that delineates or circumscribes a particular area that represents playset 200 (FIG. 2). The playset 200 contains music selections bounded by 2 criteria: the horizontal axis represents the year that the music was created/produced by an artist, record company, etc., and the vertical axis represents the tempo (style) of the music. With reference to the playset 200 of the illustrative example, the user selects all folk music between the years of about 1950 through about 1980 having a range from an easy to medium tempo. Any linear or countable selection type can be used as for either axis. The application can (possibly dynamically) choose and scale the best suited selection types for the axes. Other examples beside music tempo and year of release include areas or countries around the world, type of lead instruments, song lengths, etc.

A number of buttons, such as "Pop", "Jazz", "Folk", "Blues", Classical", etc., allow the user to select an overall music genre to which a selection should apply. It is understood, of course, that other buttons reflecting various search criteria may be used without departing from the spirit of the invention. The other search criteria may include artist, title, composer, production company, etc.

With respect to another illustrative example in FIG. 2, the user presses the "Jazz" button to select the music of that genre. Using a stylus or finger, the user draws a figure on the screen that circumscribes another area that represents playset 300 (FIG. 2). The playset 300 contains Jazz music selections from about 1980 through late 1990 having a range from a fiery to medium tempo.

Playback within a selected playset may be carried out in any order, such as random, or in the order of the specific criteria. For example, earlier music selections are played back before more recent, easy before fiery, etc.

The processor 28 provides a play area on the display 34 in order to assist users to find the music they like to hear or other types of program, such as video clips, news items, TV programs, literatures, etc., they like to view. The play areas include, for example, the displays shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 so that a playset can be generated with a minimum interaction by users for a subsequent play. The processor 28 in conjunction with the display 34 displays the music or other program in response to both menu-item selection, such as "Folk", "Jazz" etc., and user navigation commands. A graphical user interface according to one embodiment of the present invention enables the user to search for specific items as well as for general music (a non-specific search). The specific items may be searched by genre, artist, album, and song and according to the time period. In the play area, types of songs, for example, may be positioned based on the sound of their music and the year they were created, so that clusters of similar songs are grouped in a two-dimensional selectable playset. Different clusters of music collection may be indicated by different color. Accordingly, the user can navigate the music collection to select a subset of music by selecting a desired region of the play area.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a play area using genre, time, and coloring to indicate different tempo information. As shown, a collection of music can be displayed in a two- dimensional play area. An area is depicted with a period of interest on the horizontal X-axis and a style/tempo range on the vertical Y-axis. The axes might be shifted, zoomed in or out, or be assigned different meanings to reflect different search criteria as stated above. Also, a plurality of selectable buttons, software or otherwise, can be used to represent different genres to allow the user to select an overall music genre by moving a pointer over the area. It is also possible to select a part of an axis, thereby selecting all music in the other dimension. For example, after pressing the "Folk" button, the user could move a pointer/finger over the style axis from easy to fiery, thereby selecting folk music from all periods. Note that the style easy-fiery may be derived from track properties, such as beats per minute.

It will be appreciated that the user does not have to draw a closed-shaped figure on the screen. The user may start drawing a figure and then let the processor connect the starting and ending points with a straight line to complete the area of interest. It will be further appreciated that by briefly pressing a single spot on the screen the user selects for playback a single track and/or a predetermined group of tracks pertaining to a particular year and tempo.

It will be further appreciated that by holding a single spot using either a finger or a pointer for some time, the user creates a growing circle on the display, covering a specific area of interest representing the desired playset. The circle stops expanding when the finder/stylus is released, thereby designating the playset of interest. This playset encompasses a range of years and various tempo of music according to the horizontal and vertical axes of the play area. It will be further appreciated that a playset selection of music can be based on random area or preset area selections, instead of just random/preset track selection. The genre buttons may become "mood" selection buttons, each selecting a random playset according to a play area.

It should be noted that the same way to generate a play area map as explained above could be applied when there are other types of genre or classification of music on the screen. Thus, although artist maps are shown in Figures 2 and 3 for illustrative purposes, it is to be understood that the present invention can support different combinations of music classification representing other groupings of music. Thus, the number of different music classifications in the drawing should not impose limitations on the scope of the invention. While the present invention has been described in connection with the preferred embodiments of the various figures, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications and additions may be made to the described embodiment for performing the same function of the present invention without deviating therefrom. For example, while exemplary embodiments of the invention are described in the context of music data, one skilled in the art will recognize that the present invention is not limited to music, and that the methods of tailoring media to a user, as described in the present application, may apply to any computing device or environment, such as a gaming console, handheld computer, portable computer, etc., whether wired or wireless, and may be applied to any number of such computing devices connected via a communications network, and interacting across the network. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that a variety of computer platforms, including handheld-device operating systems and other application-specific operating systems are contemplated, especially as the number of wireless networked devices continue to proliferate. Therefore, the present invention should not be limited to any single embodiment but rather construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the appended claims.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus (10) having a display (34), comprising: a processor for generating a 2-dimensional play area according to a vertical axis and a horizontal axis, the play area representing a collection of media content stored in the apparatus, the processor being operable to select a playset for playback in response to a user pointing to a region on the display, the playset containing a subset of the media content.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the playset includes different coloring schemes to represent an overview of different media collections selected from the play area.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the display (34) is a touch-screen display.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising at least one button representing a genre of the media content, such that if the button is activated the playset is limited to the selected genre.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is operable to provide a single item of the media content in the playset when the user briefly points to the region on the display.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is operable to provide a plurality of items of the media content in the playset when the user points to the region on the display for a period of time.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the playset contains a collection of media content according to one of time period, style, tempo, artist, and title in the two-dimensional display.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the media content comprises music, movies, TV programs, and/or literature.

9. A method for generating a user interface in a processor-controlled device with a display, comprising: generating a 2-dimensional play area according to a vertical axis and a horizontal axis, the play area representing a collection of media content stored in the apparatus; and selecting a playset for playback in response to a user pointing to a region on the display, the playset containing a subset of the media content.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the playset includes different coloring schemes to represent an overview of different media collections selected from the play area.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the display (34) is a touch-screen display.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising at least one button representing a genre of the media content, such that if the button is activated the playset is limited to the selected genre.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the processor is operable to provide a single item of the media content in the playset when the user briefly points to the region on the display.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the processor is operable to provide a plurality of items of the media content in the playset when the user points to the region on the display for a predetermined period of time.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the playset contains a collection of media content according to one of time period, style, tempo, artist, and title in the two-dimensional display.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the media content comprises music, movies, TV programs, and/or literature.

17. A computer-readable medium bearing computer-executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 9.