WO2009112586A1

WO2009112586A1 - Service provision from objects filmed or photographed by a mobile terminal

Info

Publication number: WO2009112586A1
Application number: PCT/EP2009/053023
Authority: WO
Inventors: Stéphane Saada; Olivier Poupel; Marin Osmond; Stephane Dufosse; Valentin Lefevre; Nicolas Livet
Original assignee: Alcatel Lucent; Total Immersion
Priority date: 2008-03-14
Filing date: 2009-03-13
Publication date: 2009-09-17
Also published as: FR2928803B1; EP2255304A1; FR2928803A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a communication method that comprises the following steps: establishment of a media session between a mobile terminal (2) and a remote communication system (3); use of the terminal (2) for taking at least one shot containing at least one physical object located in the environment of the terminal (2); real-time transmission by the mobile terminal (2) of the one or each shot to the communication system (3) during the media session; reception of the one or each shot by the communication system (3); analysis of the one or each shot in the communication system (3); identification by the system (3) of at least one object contained in the one or each shot; identification by the system (3) of at least one media service associated with said object(s); real-time activation of at least one procedure for providing the service(s) to said terminal (2).

Description

Providing services from objects filmed or photographed from a mobile terminal

The invention relates to the field of telecommunications. Modern mobile networks have integrated, in addition to voice transmission, a number of media services that mobile devices can access through either specific protocols, such as the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), or standard protocols such as than HTTP, available on the latest generation terminals which, thanks to their power, can support this type of protocol. Users can thus browse the Internet from their terminals and access a large number of media services, including the provision of content: data, commercial-type information, multimedia objects such as sound, images or videos.

Despite the increase in bit rates permitted by the latest generation standards (from 64 Kbits / s in high mobility to 2 Mbits / sec in low mobility for UMTS), the procedures for providing services offered by Internet applications Mobile devices on the terminals concerned remain trapped in conventional schemes, according to which the user wishing to obtain a service performs a prior (usually semantic) search of said service, then by successive approaches accesses a portal offering this service.

Functionalities have been proposed to facilitate and accelerate access to the desired services, for example the possibility of formulating requests in natural language, cf. for example, US Patent Application No. US 2007/294725 (Cohen), or the possibility of obtaining online data (such as a web page) in relation to a geographical area in which the terminal is located, cf. . for example US Pat. No. 7,248,862 (Sony Ericsson),

However, these functionalities do not offer a fully satisfactory solution to the problems of ease and speed of access to the desired services. A query in natural language, for example, has the disadvantage of not always being well understood by the system to which it is addressed; In the case of obtaining data related to the position of the terminal, this solution assumes that the terminal is equipped with a satellite positioning system, such as GPS. This limits its implementation to only part of the fleet of mobile terminals.

The invention aims in particular to provide a solution for simplifying and accelerating access to media services from mobile terminals.

For this purpose, the invention firstly proposes a communication method comprising the following operations:

- Establishment of a media session between a termina! mobile and a remote communication system; - Realization by the terminal of at least one shot containing at least one real object located in the environment of the terminal;

- Transmission of each or every shot by the mobile terminal to the communication system during the media session;

- Reception of the or each shot by the communication system;

- Analysis of iia or each shot, within the communication system;

- Identification by the system of at least one object contained in the shot; - identification by the system of at least one media service associated with said object (s);

- Activation of at least one procedure for providing the service (s) to the mobile terminal.

A complementary step may include activating in real time, during the same media session, a plurality of terminal service delivery procedures, corresponding to separate objects included in a single shot or in video outlets. separate view.

The service provisioning procedure comprises for example a step of displaying in real time, on the terminal, information related to the or each service.

The service is for example associated with one or more interactive functionalities that can be activated from the terminal.

Also, it can provide in this case a control operation, performed from the terminal, an interaction offered by the media service. The method that has just been presented can, for example, be applied to the downloading of media objects from the terminal.

In second place, the invention proposes a communication system comprising: a media server, able to establish a media session with a mobile terminal; a video application server connected to the media server; an augmented reality server, connected to the video application server, programmed, on command of the video application server, to perform an analysis of images within a shooting received from the mobile terminal via the media server; a database of media objects, connected to the augmented reality server.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent in the light of the description given hereinafter with reference to the appended drawing which illustrates a communication system and a communication method according to the invention.

The network architecture 1 represented comprises a mobile terminal 2

(mobile telephone, communicating PDA or Smartphone), connected, via the air interface, to a communication system 3 comprising a media server 4, which ensures the establishment of media sessions with the terminal 2, a video application server 5 connected to the media server 4, an augmented reality server 6 connected to the video application server 5, a database 7 connected to the augmented reality server or integrated therewith and in which are stored images of objects and services associated with each of these images.

By server, here means any computer system capable of integrating functionalities or any computer program capable of implementing a method. The media server 4 and the mobile terminal 2 are configured to establish between them media sessions (for example according to the RTP or H234m protocol). allowing in particular ^the exchange of audio / video data.

The mobile terminal 2 is equipped with a camera for taking pictures (photos, video) of the environment of the terminal 2. The terminal is also equipped with a screen 8 allowing the display of images and video and a keyboard 9 allowing the user to enter commands.

The system 3 is configured to provide in real time to the terminal 2, from a shooting containing at least one object identifiable by the system 3 (monument, trade, mark, logo), a media service associated with this object or to each identifiable object.

For this purpose, a media session is first established (101), according to a real-time protocol (for example RTP or H234m), between the terminal 2 and the communication system 3, and more precisely between the terminal 2 (a). the initiative of this one) and the media server 4.

The media server 4 then immediately signals (102) to the video application server S the opening of this media session.

During the media session established between the terminal 2 and the media server 4, at least one picture (video, photograph) is taken from the terminal 2, which shot includes at least one object that can be identified by the system 3. For example, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing, this shot includes a text or image displayed (o) on an advertising panel 10.

The or each shot is transmitted (103), in real time, by the terminal 2 to the media server 4. Assuming that the shooting is a video, the video stream is coded by the terminal 2 according to a standard adequate video compression (that is, in practice, adapted to the desired compression level: thus, for a relatively low level of compression the terminal 2 will be able to use the H.263 standard, for higher compression levels the terminal 2 can use the MPEG-4 standard, and for very high levels of compression the H.264 standard) and transmitted by RTP packets to the media server 4. Thus, the stream permanently filmed by the terminal 2, from restoration of the session, is transmitted continuously to the communication system 3.

As soon as the media session is established or at the request of the application server, the media server 4 signals without delay the receipt of the first video RTP packets to the video application server 5, which then performs (104) a server configuration. 6 augmented reality in anticipation of the operations described below.

Upon receipt, the media server 4 isolates the (or each) shot and possibly. after decompression, transmits (105) to the server 6 of augmented reality which then performs, in real time, an analysis (106) of the (or each) shot to detect the presence of an object (or a plurality of objects) of which an image would be available 7. For example, when the shooting is a video, it is cut out frame by frame, then each image is compared with the images of the database 7, by means of an image recognition technique. image, such as the Harris corner technique. An analyzed image is therefore one-to-one correspondence with an image previously stored in the database 7 and to which at least one media service is associated.

When such a service has been identified by its image, the augmented reality server extracts from the database 7 the service associated with the image (that is to say the corresponding object), and transmits it ( 107) in real time to the 4 media server that relay it, also in real time, to the terminal 2. This service may include the provision of data, commercial type information, or multimedia objects such as sounds, images or videos associated with the object identified in the shooting and that can be downloaded from the terminal 2. The service may also include an interactive feature, such as a hypertext link to a merchant site, that the user can activate from the terminal 2 (for example by means of keys of the keyboard 9) via the mobile Internet, in order to acquire one or more products or services associated with the object, such as a ringing tone. This link can be of the telephone type to a call center offering services related to the object. These are provided free purely illυstratifs, ^and one can imagine any kind of service, commercial or not, the supply of which can be engaged on a mobile terminal. As we have seen, the same shot may include several distinct objects identifiable by the system 3 (that is to say, whose images are available in the database 7). Even during the same media session, several shots can be made that contain distinct identifiable objects. In these two cases, the system 3 activates in real time, for each object identified, the procedure for providing services associated with the termina! 2. In this way; several services can simultaneously be available on the terminal 2, from which the user can make his choice, or which he can access successively or simultaneously.

Compared to a conventional method of providing services on a mobile terminal using a browser accessing a service via textual requests, the method just described provides real-time access, directly and automatically, to a service. , without the need to introduce textual search criteria.

These tests were conducted as part of a search for a service providing a ring tone associated with a commercial proposal displayed on an advertising medium, that the time savings can reach several minutes. A conventional search implementing a WAP or Web browser, first accessed from the terminal, via a search engine, to an online digital library. Several successive tests of tones were performed before the desired tone was found in the library for download. Without counting the download time or listening times for unwanted tones on the terminal (but counting the access time of the database to each tone), this search took several minutes. By implementing the method according to the invention, access to the desired tone has, however, taken less than a minute from the moment of shooting. In addition to the increased ease of use, the invention thus allows significant gains in access time to media services.

Claims

A communication method comprising the following operations: - establishing a media session between a mobile terminal (2) and a remote communication system (3);

Realization by the terminai (2) of at least one shot containing at least one real object located in the environment of the terminal (2); - Real-time transmission of the or each shot by the mobile terminal (2) to the communication system (3) during the media session;

Receiving iia or each shot by the communication system (3); ~ Analysis of the or each shot, within the system (3) of communication;

Identification by the system (3) of at least one object contained in the or each shot;

Identification by the system (3) of at least one media service associated with said object (s);

Real-time activation of at least one procedure for providing the terminal (s) (2).

2. Method according to claim 1, which comprises the real-time activation, during the same media session, of a plurality of procedures for providing services to the terminal (2), corresponding to distinct objects included in the same shooting or in separate shots.

3. Method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the service provisioning procedure comprises a step of displaying in real time, on the terminal (2), information in relation to the or each service.

4. Method according to one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the service is associated with one or more interactive features that can be activated from the terminal (2).

5. The method of claim 4, which comprises a control operation, performed from the terminal (2), an interaction offered by the media service.

6. Application of a method according to one of claims 1 to 5 to download media objects from the terminal (2).

7. communication system (3) comprising: a media server (4), able to establish a media session with a mobile terminal <2); a video application server (5) connected to the media server (4); an augmented reality server (6), connected to the video application server (5), programmed, on command of the video application server (6), to perform an image analysis within a shooting received from the mobile terminal (2) via the media server (4); a database (7) of media services connected to the augmented reality server (6).