Real time popularity based audible content acquisition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11508353-B2
Application number	US-202117361111-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2021
Priority date	Mar 4, 2014
Publication date	Nov 22, 2022
Grant date	Nov 22, 2022

Abstract

A personalized news service provides personalized news programs for its users by generating personalized combinations of audible versions of news stories derived from text-based based versions of the news stories. The audible versions may be generated from the text-based version by a text-to-speech system, or may by recording a person reading aloud the text-based version. To acquire recordings, the personalized news service can make a determination that a particular news story has a threshold extent of popularity. The news service can then transmit a request to a remote recording station for a recording of a verbal reading of the particular news story. The news service can then receive the requested recording from the remote recording station.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
determining that a media content item is referred to by a threshold number of references in a plurality of playlists, wherein the playlists contain respective sets of references to media content items;
transmitting, to a remote recording station, a request for a human verbal reading of the media content item;
receiving, from the remote recording station, an audio file of the human verbal reading;
updating the references to the media content item in the playlists to refer to the audio file of the human verbal reading; and
transmitting, to a client device, a particular playlist of the plurality of playlists, wherein the particular playlist includes a reference to the audio file of the human verbal reading.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the media content item, prior to updating, is an initial audio file generated by a computerized text-to-speech system.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein transmitting the request for the human verbal reading is based on the initial audio file having been automatically generated by the computerized text-to-speech system.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the media content item, prior to updating, is a text file.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the client device is configured to:
traverse the particular playlist;
retrieve the audio file of the human verbal reading during traversal of the particular playlist; and
play out the audio file of the human verbal reading.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the client device begins playing out the audio file of the human verbal reading before retrieval thereof completes.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the media content item comprises a news story, and wherein the remote recording station comprises a remote news studio.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting the remote recording station from a plurality of remote recording stations based on a correspondence between a feature of the remote recording station and an attribute associated with the media content item.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting the remote recording station from a plurality of remote recording stations based on a correspondence between a geographic location of the remote recording station and an attribute associated with the media content item.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein transmitting the request for the human verbal reading is in response to determining that the media content item is referred to by the threshold number of references in the plurality of playlists.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause performance of operations comprising:
determining that a media content item is referred to by a threshold number of references in a plurality of playlists, wherein the playlists contain respective sets of references to media content items;
transmitting, to a remote recording station, a request for a human verbal reading of the media content item;
receiving, from the remote recording station, an audio file of the human verbal reading;
updating the references to the media content item in the playlists to refer to the audio file of the human verbal reading; and
transmitting, to a client device, a particular playlist of the plurality of playlists, wherein the particular playlist includes a reference to the audio file of the human verbal reading.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the media content item, prior to updating, is an initial audio file generated by a computerized text-to-speech system.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12 , wherein transmitting the request for the human verbal reading is based on the initial audio file having been automatically generated by the computerized text-to-speech system.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the media content item, prior to updating, is a text file.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the media content item comprises a news story, and wherein the remote recording station comprises a remote news studio.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise:
selecting the remote recording station from a plurality of remote recording stations based on a correspondence between a feature of the remote recording station and an attribute associated with the media content item.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise:
selecting the remote recording station from a plurality of remote recording stations based on a correspondence between a geographic location of the remote recording station and an attribute associated with the media content item.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein transmitting the request for the human verbal reading is in response to determining that the media content item is referred to by the threshold number of references in the plurality of playlists.

19. A computing system comprising:
a processor;
a memory; and
program instructions, stored in the memory, that when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
determining that a media content item is referred to by a threshold number of references in a plurality of playlists, wherein the playlists contain respective sets of references to media content items;
transmitting, to a remote recording station, a request for a human verbal reading of the media content item;
receiving, from the remote recording station, an audio file of the human verbal reading;
updating the references to the media content item in the playlists to refer to the audio file of the human verbal reading; and
transmitting, to a client device, a particular playlist of the plurality of playlists, wherein the particular playlist includes a reference to the audio file of the human verbal reading.

20. The computing system of claim 19 , wherein the media content item, prior to updating, is an initial audio file generated by a computerized text-to-speech system.

Assignees

• Gracenote Digital Ventures Llc

Inventors

• Panguluri Venkatarama Anilkumar
• Yarram Venkata Sunil Kumar
• Kumar Lalit
• Defouw Gregory P

Classifications

• H04N21/25891

  being end-user preferences (retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18) · CPC title

• H04N21/233

  Processing of audio elementary streams {(monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58)} · CPC title

• H04N21/234336

  by media transcoding, e.g. video is transformed into a slideshow of still pictures or audio is converted into text · CPC title

• G06Q10/10

  Office automation; Time management · CPC title

• G06F16/639

  using playlists · CPC title