May 3rd, 2007
EXCLUSIVE: Updated: Google-compatible Phone Interface platform described in Patent app
Update: This platform is not a Google patent application, but a patent app that would be compatible with Google advertising- as well as other competing brands.
Published just this morning, a new Google-compatible patent application illustrates a phone interface that would use a standard desktop-type phone that would display a series of Google-supplied advertisements downloadable from the Internet.
This would not be a separate Google Phone instrument, but as the Patent name indicates, an Internet Protocol Phone System that would display ads that could be integrated with a touch-sensitive dialpad system for response and ecommerce.
The Abstract describes the invention as:
A telephone system that can be controlled by graphical user interfaces (GUIs) displayed using a graphical page description language (GPDL), e.g. HTML, on a touch-sensitive display screen provided with the telephone.
An application program interface (API) enables a commonly available user interface tool, e.g. Microsoft Front Page, to program any number of telephone functions for display and access via the GUIs on the display screen.
Since the GUIs are downloaded from a server connected to the internet, the pages displayed on the display screen can be varied according to personal preference or according to temporal and/or geographical criteria, e.g. advertisements can be sent depending on the time or day, month or year to telephones depending on their location (houses, apartments, hotels).
The Internet Protocol Phone System would also be able to enable the phone instrument to serve as an Internet-capable radio accessing streaming radio stations.
The best way to get a complete picture of what this IP Phone System is able to do would be for us to consider the art of Figure 3, along with its accompanying explanation.
I am going to do that now. I've bold-faced sections that describe particular applications possible with this platform.
With reference to FIG. 3, the present invention can also be used in a system that provides interactive advertisements via the internet to the display screen 16 of each telephone 1.
Various advertisers will store their advertisements on one or more centralized servers 31 for transmission to the telephones 1 of end users, wherein the players will interpret the advertisement page and display it on the display screen 16.
The transmitted advertisements can be determined based on the geographical location of the telephones and on temporal criteria. For example, in a urban or suburban community advertisements relating to fast food restaurants will be transmitted in the late afternoon and early evening, while grocery store advertisements will be transmitted in the early morning.
Real estate advertisements can be sent to telephones in apartment buildings 32 or town homes 33, while hardware or home improvement store advertisements will be transmitted only to single family homes 34 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. High end automobile advertisements could be sent to homes 36 on certain streets or areas in which real estate prices are known to be high.
The present invention is particularly suited for use in hotels and hotel chains, in which the advertisements can be tailored to time of day and to specific rooms or groups of rooms, e.g. advertisements for breakfast specials in the hotel restaurant and for local attractions in the morning, advertisements for local fast food restaurants at lunch, and advertisements for local entertainment in the afternoon and evening.
Moreover, advertisements for fine dining establishments and spa visits can be restricted to suites and the more expensive rooms. Some advertisements can be designed for every hotel in a chain of hotels, e.g. hotel restaurants and services, nationally run advertisements, while other advertisements will be specific to the geographical location of the hotel, e.g. local restaurants and attractions.
Hotel facilities, such as housekeeping, room service, check out and spa, can all be advertised on the display screen 16 with tabs providing a direct telephone link thereto. The display screen 16 can also be personalized according to accommodate specific individuals or groups of people with information and links specific thereto, e.g. convention schedules, local maps to destinations, selected menu according to predetermined requirements, and special prices associated particular therewith.
Each advertisement can include a GUI representation of a button or tab with a phone number, which when pushed initiates a telephone call, as hereinbefore described, to the advertiser or a representative thereof. In addition, each advertisement can include links to related pages with additional information about the advertiser in any reasonable form, e.g. GUI, pictures, audio, and video or any combination thereof. Alternatively, the processor 12 and the API 17 can recognize telephone numbers in the advertisements, and convert them to telephone links for initiating a telephone call.
Each telephone 1, i.e. utilizing the processor 12 and the API 17, can also be programmed to provide a user defined home page with different functions displayed thereon or links to specific pages predetermined by the user. The linked pages can be conventional internet search, stock, news or weather webpages, e.g. Google, Yahoo, NASDAQ, and The Weather Network, or they can be customized GPDL pages stored on the server 14 or in the memory of processor 12, which access up-to-date information from the internet and displayed in a way designed by the user. Weather forecasts specific to the users location can be automatically displayed.
The latest news and sports scores can also be displayed with information specific to the user, e.g. local news instead of international, results relating to the Ottawa Senators instead of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The home page and the contents can also be dependent on the day and time, e.g. weather in the early morning, traffic in the late morning, and stock prices in the late afternoon.
A live traffic report for the user's preferred route, including live traffic cameras, can also be displayed at the touch of a button or automatically at a predetermined time approximating the user's normal departure time.
Each page can also include a GUI with a telephone link to initiate a telephone call to a person or business associated with the information displayed, e.g. the stock page can include the telephone number of the user's stock broker, the traffic report page can include the phone number of the user's office to let their boss know they will be late, the sports page can include the telephone number of a friend who is a fan of an opposing team or the same team, and the weather page can include the telephone number of the user's favourite golf course.
A link to Internet radio can also be provided, including a list of preferred radio stations. As above, the link can be established at the touch of a button or automatically according to the time of day or week, e.g. news radio in the early morning, sports in the late morning, music in the afternoon, and financial radio in the evening.
Each radio station page, which is displayed on the display screen 16 when the radio station is selected by the user, can also include a GUI with the radio station's telephone number to initiate a telephone call to the radio station, e.g. in the event the station is a talk radio station or has a current phone in contest.
Each telephone display screen 16 can also be personalized to display a photo or a series of photos stored in memory, which is provided either on the server 14 or in the telephone processor 12. The photo or photos can be displayed all the time or whenever the telephone 1 goes into a inactive mode, i.e. no actions are currently being executed. The photo of a person initiating an incoming call or the subject of an outgoing call can be displayed on the display screen 16 when the call display functionality is linked to a specific photograph in memory.
Each homepage, which is downloaded from the server 14 or memory in processor 12 and displayed to the display screen 16, and links therefrom can also be based on the phone number of the telephone 1, i.e. the area code and/or the first three numbers in the exchange. In particular, advertising as defined hereinbefore, e.g. fast food, taxis, emergency numbers, automatically downloaded from the server 14 can be predetermined based on the telephone number of the telephone 1.
Links to pages related to outgoing calls can also be made, e.g. the time of day, location specific news or sports, local weather, and local weather forecasts can be displayed, based on the area code dialed.
Whenever the telephone 1 is in use, the processor 12 accesses an "on a call" page, which the API displays on display screen 16. The "on a call" page can include information about the person on the other end of the call, e.g. name, picture, duration of call, location and/or map based on area code of call.
Furthermore, the "on a call" page can include links to the internet or other saved pages, including search engine pages, making the internet accessible during telephone conversations.
Telephone records of all the incoming and outgoing calls, including the person receiving or initiating the call, the call duration, long distance charges, can be saved in the memory provided with the processor 12 or on the server 14. If the telephone records are stored on the server 14, they can be accessed by persons having appropriate access thereto. Alternatively, the processor 12 can automatically e-mail the telephone records to designated personal on a timely basis, e.g. daily, weekly or monthly.
In addition, the processor 12 can be programmed to email a designated person whenever a phone call is initiated or received by a given telephone 1. Moreover, phone messages left in the processor's memory can also be saved on the server 14 and/or forwarded by e-mail to a designated person, e.g. in MP3 format.
A family's weekly grocery list can be saved in the memory and displayed on the display screen 16 to enable additions, either by manual entry or by identifying the additional items from a list. The list can then be sent via e-mail, telephone, fax or the internet to a grocery store, where the order would be prepared for pick-up or delivery.
Sounds exciting. What do you think?
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
