Friday, October 05, 2007

Genre Mosaic View

Imagine this. You're sitting at home and decide you want to watch a sporting event. You're not sure what sport, but you just want to find something good.

How would you find those shows on your telly?

Right now? Not so easy. You can hit the 'Guide' button on your remote. Then you can scroll through the electronic programming guide, channel-by-channel, looking for sports you recognize. Or you can browse by theme, such as 'Sports Misc,' looking for the sport you want.

If you search by either method, you get a title and a short description. That's it.

What if you could see video of six different sporting events at the same time before you make your selection? Plus, that'd be a really sweet way to watch multiple college football games on any given Saturday in October. That's what Cox Communications would like to offer you some day.

Yesterday the USPTO published a patent application (20070234388) from Cox Communications for "Generating a genre-based video mosaic in a cable services network."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever seen Back to the Future II. When Marty goes to the house where his future family lives, you see his son go to the media room, rattle off a list of sixteen channels and they all pop up in a mosaic on a giant screen. I have wanted one ever since I saw it.