Recommender and media retrieval system that record group information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9875243-B2
Application number	US-201214355788-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 1, 2012
Priority date	Nov 1, 2011
Publication date	Jan 23, 2018
Grant date	Jan 23, 2018

Abstract

A recommender system provides recommendation scores based on stored ratings for media items, for example to assist control of selection of a media item for rendering by a terminal. Data representing stored rating values for media items is stored in a storage system for use to compute the recommendation scores. A processing system records an input rating value for a first one of the media items in the storage system, based on measured activity or input of a user. Furthermore information is acquired about a group of users in the company of which the input rating value applies for the user. This information is recorded in combination with the rating value. The processing system may compute a recommendation score for a second group of users from the stored rating values, dependent on a comparison of the second group of users and the recorded information about the group.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A recommender system, comprising:
a storage system for storing data representing stored rating values for media items; and
a processing system comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer program embodied thereon, the computer program including instructions for causing a processor to record an input rating value for a first one of the media items in the storage system, based on measured activity or input of a user, and to record information as recorded information about a first group of users in the company of which the input rating value applies for the user, the input rating value for a first one of the media items being dependent upon, and recorded in association with, said recorded information about said first group of users, wherein the processing system is configured to:
compute a recommendation score for a second group of users from the input rating value, dependent on a comparison of the second group of users and the recorded information about the first group in association with which the rating value was recorded; and
record an identification of the user, wherein the recorded information comprises an identification of at least one further user that was detected to be in the company of the user in said first group when the activity of the user was measured or when the input of the user was entered.

2. A recommender system according to claim 1 , comprising a user terminal configured to obtain information that identifies users present in proximity of the user terminal at a time when the activity of the user is measured or when the input of the user is entered, the recorded information about the first group of users including the information from the terminal that identifies the users present in proximity of the user terminal at said time.

3. A recommender system according to claim 1 , comprising a rendering terminal, for rendering a selected ones of the media items, and a detector configured to determine identifications of users present at the rendering terminal when the selected ones of the media items is rendered, the processing system being configured to record the determined identifications in combination with the rating value, when the rating value is recorded upon rendering of the first one of the media items.

4. A recommender system according to claim 1 , comprising a user terminal coupled to the processing system and configured to transmit data derived from the measured activity or input of the user to the processing system in association encrypted information about a composition of the first group.

5. A recommender system according to claim 1 , wherein the processing system is configured to compute a weighted sum of rating values for the first one of the media items, the recorded input rating value being weighted dependent on a count of users that is common to the first and second group.

6. A recommender system according to claim 5 , wherein the information about the first group is encrypted information about a composition of the first group, the processing system being configured to transmit the encrypted information about the composition of the first group and encrypted information about the composition of the first group to a privacy service provider and to assign a weight to the recorded input rating value dependent on a response from the privacy service provider.

7. A recommender system according to claim 6 , comprising the privacy service provider, the privacy service provider being configured to determine a count of users that are common to the first and second group from the encrypted information about the composition of the first and second group, the processing system or the privacy service provider computing the weight from said count.

8. A recommender system according to claim 1 , wherein the recorded information about the first group comprises an indication of one of a predetermined set of group types.

9. A recommender system according to claim 8 , wherein the processing system is configured to compute a weighted sum of rating values for the first one of the media items, the recorded input rating value being weighted dependent on a comparison of a group type of the second group and the indication of the group type of the first group.

10. A media retrieval system comprising a recommender system according to claim 1 , wherein the user interface system comprises a user terminal, wherein the user terminal is configured to display selectable options from a list of options at a user terminal, the list of options being constructed using the recommendation scores, and to cause a media item to be retrieved and start rendering the retrieved media item in response to selection from the list of options.

11. A method of generating a recommendation score for a media item, the method comprising:
acquiring a rating value for a media item from a user, by measuring activity of the user and/or receiving input of the user;
acquiring information about a first group of users in the company of which the acquired rating value applies for the user and recording said information as recorded information;
recording the acquired rating value for the media item, said acquired rating value being dependent upon, and recorded in combination with, said recorded information about the first group of users;
computing a recommendation score for a second group of users from the acquired rating value, dependent on a comparison of the second group of users and the recorded information about the first group in association with which the rating value was recorded; and
recording an identification of the user, wherein the recorded information comprises an identification of at least one further user that was detected to be in the company of the user in said first group when the activity of the user was measured or when the input of the user was entered.

12. A method according to claim 11 , wherein said computing the recommendation score comprises determining a count of users that belong to both the first and the second group and assigning a weight to the first one of the input rating values dependent on said count.

13. A method according to claim 11 , wherein the recorded information about the first group comprises an indication of one of a predetermined set of group types, the input rating value applying for the user when the user is part of a group of the indicated group type, the method comprising assigning a weight to the rating value dependent on a degree of match between the group type of the first group and second group and computing a recommendation score for a second group of users using the rating value weighted by said weighting value.

Assignees

• Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Tno
• Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijkonderzoek Tno

Inventors

• Veugen Peter Joannes Mathias
• Van Deventer Mattijs Oskar
• Van Brandenburg Ray

Classifications

• G06Q30/0631

  Recommending goods or services · CPC title

• G06Q30/02 Primary

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• G06F17/30017 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F21/6254

  by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification · CPC title

• G06F16/40 Primary

  of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data (retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70) · CPC title