U.S. patent application number 11/422581 was filed with the patent office on 2006-12-28 for input device for web content manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological stress indicators.
Invention is credited to Eileen McCarthy, John McCarthy.
Application Number | 20060293921 11/422581 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34619771 |
Filed Date | 2006-12-28 |
United States Patent
Application |
20060293921 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
McCarthy; John ; et
al. |
December 28, 2006 |
INPUT DEVICE FOR WEB CONTENT MANAGER RESPONSIVE TO BROWSER VIEWERS'
PSYCHOLOGICAL PREFERENCES, BEHAVIORAL RESPONSES AND PHYSIOLOGICAL
STRESS INDICATORS
Abstract
A bioelectrode input device, including a phone has control
through buttons, electrodes, and sensors along its body for
connection with the mastoid process, condyle, pinna (auricle), and
the ear canal. The bioelectrode input device also may sensors for
breath analysis, voice stress analysis, decibel analysis, galvanic
skin response, body and head posture recognition monitor (a level),
facial recognition device, voice signature analyzer and
authentication, EMG, pulse oximeter, thermometer, electromagnetic
radiant monitor, body fluid, earwax and pheromone analyzer.
Inventors: |
McCarthy; John; (Woodland
Hills, CA) ; McCarthy; Eileen; (Woodland Hills,
CA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
KLEINBERG & LERNER, LLP
2049 CENTURY PARK EAST
SUITE 1080
LOS ANGELES
CA
90067
US
|
Family ID: |
34619771 |
Appl. No.: |
11/422581 |
Filed: |
June 6, 2006 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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09693677 |
Oct 19, 2000 |
6904408 |
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11422581 |
Jun 6, 2006 |
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11145730 |
Jun 6, 2005 |
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11422581 |
Jun 6, 2006 |
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60688137 |
Jun 6, 2005 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/2 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A61B 5/6815 20130101;
G06Q 10/10 20130101; G06Q 30/02 20130101; A61B 5/6838 20130101;
G16H 40/67 20180101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/002 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 10/00 20060101
G06Q010/00 |
Claims
1. An Internet-enabled wireless web device for gathering and
processing biometric data, the device connected in wireless
communication with a server running an application, comprising: a
web-enabled cellular phone running an application, the application
functioning to accept inputs from a first communications port and a
second communications port, the first communications port including
a generic input/output port and the second communications port
including a wireless link to a network, the generic input/output
port for receipt of a user's biometric parameters.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 09/693,677, filed Oct. 19, 2000, now U.S. Pat.
No. 6,904,408 and of application Ser. No. 11/145,730, filed Jun. 6,
2005. Applicant also claims priority based on U.S. Provisional
Patent Application No. 60/688,137, filed Jun. 6, 2005
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The present invention relates to measurement of, galvanic
skin response (GSR) temperature, pulse rate, blood volume pulse,
respiration, voice stress, posture, decibel, EMG, body fluid, ear
wax, and electromyographic EMG voltages present in and at the ear
while a person is using a computer or cell phone. The invention
becomes the input device for the invention described in applicants'
patent No. U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,408 and application Ser. No.
11/145,730
[0004] The present invention relates to website media content
controls used to make real-time selections of media displayed to a
consumer viewer of a website and methods for selecting the
materials that will satisfy the viewer, meet targets of advertisers
to specific audiences and induce the sale of merchandise/download
pay-for-use media. More particularly, the present invention
pertains to a BioNet method, system and personalized web content
manager used to customize the web browsing experience of the viewer
and facilitate online sales by web site merchandisers, the BioNet
method and system being responsive to browser viewers'
psychological preferences in a legacy database, and at least one of
available real time observable behavioral signals that indicate
attention and stress. The real time observable behavioral emotional
indicators include skin temperature, pulse rate, heart rate, blood
pulse volume, respiration rate, respiration volume, EMG
electromyogram, EEG electroencephalogram, ERP evoked response
potential a specialized EEG, voice stress, gesture recognition
(video face tracking, eye motion, limb-hand finger point tracking,
infra red jaw motion or clenching, sweat/GSR galvanic skin
resistance, pupil dilation, eye blink response, drug and hormone
levels via sweat chemical analyzer, which are obtained by computer
accessories such as a video camera on a PC/workstation, a voice
stress analyzer on a PC workstation or independent IP network
vehicles, BioPhone, BioMouse, BioHeadband, BioBand, BioRemote
control, 2way BioPager, BioVRVisor. BioNet method, system and
personalized web content manager advances of the art of managing
web content by web servers and ad servers in the field of
filtering, analyzing the time series of browser users clicks called
click-stream in real time using the behavioral and physiological
signals as a personal signature of the browser operator creating
emotional footprints or track taken toward or away from online
purchases. Several heading discuss relevant prior inventions upon
which the present invention depends.
[0005] 2. General Background and State of the Art
[0006] Since the invention of the mouse at Xerox Parc and the
application in Apple computers, IBM personal computers and
work-stations the mouse has become primary source of control and
input for computers. There are now other input devices, including
joysticks, gloves, and touch pads. Cellular phones have become
widely used input/output devices for connecting to the World Wide
Web due to their convenience and wireless feature among other
persons.
[0007] When the Internet was considered an information highway,
search tools were needed to sort through the millions of documents
available to find those that were of interest. Search engines were
invented to automate the process of sorting and ranking materials
by relevance. Prior art inventions relate to information retrieval
include U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608 by Meske -Hypertext information
retrieval using profiles and topics relate to selection of
information of interest, in which a client/server model for
information retrieval of online information resources which
includes the receipt of a plurality of information organized by
profile and topic in a first markup language, and the parsing of
the plurality of information into portions of information in a
second markup language, including anchors referencing each of the
portions of information to allow hypertext viewing and accessing.
The Meske patent emphasized the use of SGML Standard General Markup
Language as a second markup language to provide keys to selected
information segments within email and news articles from the
Internet, and on-line services, filtering the vast amount of
information which is available in order that a user obtains that
information which is of interest to the viewer.
[0008] Recent U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,539 by Cohen shows systems have
evolved to intelligent information retrieval system that finds
matches to request with information, scores the relative merit of
the matches, and displays the matches in ranked order. Websites
used for searches such as AltaVista.com, Yahoo.com, AskJeeves.com,
Google.com, Lycos.com, Excite.com and others utilize automated bots
that collect information and use a stored index for rapid
retrieval. The search engines include typical components (a)
finder/locater of sources of information, (b) a source repository
for storing the locations of information; (c) a sampler for
sampling messages from the located source of information; (d) a
matcher for determining a matching score for the retrieved message;
and (e) a message repository for storing the retrieved message and
the matching score.
[0009] The personal search systems are becoming more personalized
for example the U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,152 by Rapaport is a "Personal
Feedback Browser for Obtaining Media Files" that uses a personal
profile database obtaining media files from the Internet. Selected
media files are displayed based on user-specified information
stored in the personal profile database, which includes, the
interests, attitude/aptitude, reading comprehension and tastes of a
user.
[0010] The GroupLens System was developed means to gather research
data on personalized recommendation systems. The ROC collaborative
filter is outlined in U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,199 to Brad Miller et al.
entitled "System and method and article of manufacture for using
receiver operating curves to evaluate predictive utility"
NetPerceptions has employed this system for several years as stated
in a press release dated Nov. 15, 1996 in which they announced "Net
Perceptions Showcases GroupLens Collaborative Filtering Technology
At Biennial CSCW Conference. Net Perceptions today will be
demonstrating applications of its GroupLens.TM. collaborative
filtering technology. Net Perceptions is a corporate sponsor of the
CSCW 96 conference, and will host an afternoon reception at the
Hyatt Regency Cambridge from 3:30-7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 19,
where new applications and technologies will be demonstrated. The
GroupLens research project was first reported at CSCW 94 by the
University of Minnesota team that pioneered the groundbreaking
technology. The GroupLens collaborative filtering toolkit offers
web marketers an affordable and flexible way to track consumer
behavior and customize web contact for each consumer according to
that consumer's preferences and interests."
[0011] The GroupLens system is an article recommendation system for
electronic forums, specifically Usenet news. The purpose of
GroupLens is to increase the value of time spent reading electronic
forums. Internet newsgroups can carry hundreds of new postings
every day. Many of these articles are off the newsgroup topic, and
many more are not personally interesting to you. It is no longer
feasible to read every article posted to a newsgroup in order to
find interesting content. The GroupLens system makes reading
Internet news productive again by highlighting articles of likely
interest and warning against articles that will not be
interesting.
[0012] In the arena of online sales a repeated visit to a website,
for example a travel site, permits the web site media provider to
specifically configure the site to match the interests, travel
tastes (outlined by booking queries for travel at specific times to
specific destinations), spending habits and credit card buying
behavior (history) of the consumer. Observation of behaviors during
web browsing and the resultant click through to a buy or
abandonment of the web page allows implicit inferences to be made
concerning the buyer's motivation and potentially selecting the
customized view best suited to the consumer and even predicting
future buying choices. Fore example identifying the interests and
automatically sending particular marketing messages through web ads
or email can make the visit more accommodating to the consumer
visitor. Assuming a consistent behavior pattern exists, the web
site may offer a quick response tailored to the individual desires.
The site that responds becomes a sticky site that is revisited and
more information is accumulated at each visit making each
successive visit potentially more user friendly.
[0013] When limited individual personal information is available,
the undefined interests attitudes and tastes may be matched via
identification of common interests using a correlation of known
variable characteristics or classification of individuals that may
have associated common values. This is the so called "Group lens"
or collaborative filter described in P. Resnick et al., "GroupLens:
An Open Architecture for Collaborative Filtering of Netnews,"
reprinted from Proceedings of ACM 1999 Conference on Computer
Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 175-186. Breese et al. (see below)
noted that where there are a large number of possible associations
between variables, the large number of possibilities presents a
challenge to decide which elements of the personal profile database
should be used for classification of common interests. Only the
strongest interests may be of useful predictive value. U.S. Pat.
No. 6,018,738 to Breese et al. entitled "Methods and apparatus for
matching entities and for predicting an attribute of an entity
based on an attribute frequency value" can use harmonized The
values of the attributes may be adjusted based on number of
entities that have values for a particular attribute so that the
values decrease as the number increases. The attributes of the
entities may be harmonized and provided with default values so that
entities being matched have common attributes defined by the union
of the attributes of the entities being matched. The attributes of
the entities may be expanded and provided with default values so
that the entities being matched have attributes that neither had
originally. The match values may be normalized to provide a weight
value, which may be used to predict an attribute value of a new
entity, based on known attribute values of known entities. The
weight values may be tuned such that relatively high weights are
amplified and relatively low weights are suppressed.
[0014] In many instances, the personal buying characteristics are
multi faceted and unpredictable. Personalities and behaviors are as
unique and personally individualized as handwriting. Due to the
similar complexity of the problem of handwritten word recognition
problem, some handwriting recognition methods may be useable in
observation of consumer behavior at web sites. Many pattern
recognition patents focus on recognition of handwritten characters.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,464 to Kojima "Character Recognition Method and
Apparatus, Including Generation of a Degree of Belief" that
describes a certainty factor which approximates the probability
that the recognized characters are valid. The handwriting problem
is similar in that the endless variation allows the complexity of
the problem to increase and add new variables to be observed
tracked, analyzed, and evaluated for suitability and predictive
value.
[0015] The present system affords another "hard to deceive" and
practically unconsciously monitored parameters which instantly
indicate significant viewer responses to web media impressions.
[0016] Computer Systems with Browsers and Display Devices in Ever
Smaller Packages: Prior Art FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608 shows
a standard workstation or personal computer web browser. The
updated workstation with BioData input devices is shown in FIG. 7
and described in detail below in preferred embodiment is a computer
system, such as a workstation, personal computer or other
processing apparatus in which the client 50 operates a browser 200
or a server 150 may be operative is illustrated in FIG. 8. A web
appliance browser, two way email device, mini-browser devices using
WAP, wireless application protocol, new 3G wireless standard, or
NTT DoCoMo Japanese standard may be a platform for a browser. A
workstation in which one implementation of the present invention
may be practiced includes system comprises a bus or other
communication means for communicating information, and a processing
means coupled with bus for processing information, a random access
memory (RAM) or other volatile storage device (main memory),
coupled to bus for storing information and instructions to be
executed by processor. Main memory also is used for storing
temporary variables or other intermediate information during
execution of instructions by processor. System also comprises a
read only memory (ROM) and/or other static storage device coupled
to bus for storing static information and instructions for
processor, and a data storage device such as a magnetic disk or
optical disk and its corresponding disk drive both fixed and
removable. Data storage device is coupled to bus for storing
information and instructions. This may be used for storage of the
various files to be described here including profiles, indices,
temporary cached web information, topics and files.
[0017] System coupled to a display device, such as a cathode ray
tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) or a VR visor to bus
coupled for displaying information to a computer user. Such a
display may further be coupled to bus via a frame buffer, which
information such as a single or multiple frames or images for
display upon display device. A keyboard alphanumeric input device,
including alphanumeric and other keys, may also be coupled to bus
for communicating information and command selections to processor.
A voice recognition processor may take the role of the alphanumeric
input device. An additional user input device is cursor control,
such as a mouse, a push-pointer, a trackball, stylus, or cursor
direction keys, coupled to bus for communicating direction
information and command selections to processor, and for
controlling cursor movement on display.
[0018] Note, also, that any or all of the components of system and
associated hardware may be used in various embodiments; however, it
can be appreciated that any configuration of the system may be used
for various purposes according to the particular implementation.
The components described above may be implemented on a device of a
very small size by building a system on a chip (SOC) that
incorporates microcircuits which perform the functions of the
building blocks through construction of a single chip built with
components which use IP intellectual property modules that allow
construction of various memory processor and data transfer
components as constructed with custom application specific
integrated circuits ASIC's and DSP digital signal processing
modules. Bio Remote control 340, BioPhone wireless 341, and 2way
BioPager 342 and Bhopal Pocket PC are self contained wireless
devices include within a system on a chip or miniature system with
the RAM ROM CPU and Mass storage as well as BioData sensors and
device controls and mini-browser displays and sometimes audio
speakers or headphones. In particular FIG. 7 shows the evolution of
smaller and smaller portable devices for web browsing including
BioRemote controls for interactive TV, WebTV and set top cable or
satellite receiver boxes 340, PDA's personal digital assistants
with wireless modem communication Palm Pilot.RTM. device from 3Com
and Pocket PC 343, 2 way pagers with email and biosensors 342,
cellular telephones that incorporate small lower resolution
displays, DSP digital signal processors and very low-power
microprocessors and biosensors such as the BioPhone wireless
343.
[0019] One skilled in the art appreciates that the following
methods and apparatus may be implemented in special purpose
hardware devices, such as discrete logic devices, large scale
integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specific integrated
circuits (ASIC's), or other specialized hardware. Other programming
languages, C, BasicC, C++ and other operating systems such as Unix,
Posix, and variations of Linux platforms.
[0020] Personalization and customization of the Web browser helps
to get the consumer buyer what she or he wants to buy and helps
sellers to sell by understanding what motivates buyers to buy:
Boston Consulting Group has reported that eMarket-places will
increase competitive pressures on online sellers as buyers are
increasingly able to comparison shop. Twenty-five percent of
sellers surveyed had already decreased prices due incremental price
pressures as their customers went online. By 2004, another 50%
expected to also decrease their prices. In response to this threat
(referred to by BCG as "commoditization"), sellers intend to cut
costs, increase differentiation or both. The customization or
personalization of Web content is the most effective way to offer
the consumer exactly what they want.
[0021] The process of getting the consumer what she or he wants
must offer explicit value for the customer and requires the steps
of the vendor gathering data about the customer, converting the
information to differentiate customers and then customizing each
offer, communication and interaction to offer explicit value for
customers and in so doing meeting the vendor's objectives of
building customer value while retaining revenue, profitability and
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
[0022] The messages intended to reach a consumer may be very
different with distinct executions for different types of
consumers. For example Eddie Bauer has identified the "Help me
choose" consumer who is too busy to shop and requires values and
themes which focus on convenience, durability and practicality,
size availability help to made expedient, you deserve something
attitude and a solution oriented program. In contrast, the "Spice
up your wardrobe" approach focuses on professional shoppers and
provides upscale themes that include updates styles of classic
look, options to spice up wardrobe, national brand trusted for
quality, a fun attitude, orientation toward spontaneity. It is
helpful to categorize shoppers into these profiles based on
preferences explicitly given by consumers and by inference from
consumer behavior.
[0023] Broadvision and Macromedia LikeMinds Personalization Server
and Vignette encourage visitors to become repeat customers by
offering a Web site that interacts with visitors individually and
in real time, and quickly directs visitors to personally relevant
content and products they are likely to purchase. The software is
added to an existing web server or to a distributed server
environment where media content is controlled by the LikeMinds
Server. Macromedia LikeMinds enables you to meet these challenges
by delivering highly-accurate product recommendations, personally
relevant content and targeted promotions for each individual Web
visitor. The Macromedia's Like Minds system requires hardware
platform, web server and database software. Typical systems include
a Wintel ("Windows and Intel") Platform Windows NT.RTM. Server 4.0,
Dual Pentium.RTM. processor, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB Hard Disk real time or
a Sun Platforms Solaris 2.6, 2.7, Dual UltraSPARC-II, 1 GB RAM, 1
GB Hard Disk a Web Server such as Microsoft Internet Information
Server (Active Server Pages), Netscape Enterprise Server (Live
Wire), Any JSP-compliant Web server, or Any CGI-compliant Web
server with Other Interfaces including COM, C, C++, Java and a
Database Server Oracle 8 and 8i (native), SQL Server 7.0.
[0024] A personal interactive selling system for reducing the sales
assistance provided by live personnel has been introduced and
patented.
[0025] SAS e-Intelligence indicated the objective is to build
customer value revenue profitability and satisfaction. SAS has made
the well known point "The more product complexity increases, the
more guided selling is necessary for e-commerce success" in an
online slide presentation shown in FIG. 3C.
[0026] Neural network systems have optimized the personalization of
websites and identification of consumer subgroups particularly
identifying the subgroup that engages in online fraud: Human-like
learning through neural networks can provide better even better
results. When multiple neural networks are paralleled into one
architecture such as Nestor Learning Systems
(http://www.nestor.com/) generalize and discriminate among consumer
groups. Differentiation is important to help eliminate consumer
credit card fraud by recognizing behavior that fits a profile of a
potentially fraudulent transaction. A recent article sidebar
entitled "Most fraud detection tools command a hefty price, but
that's starting to change" Dec. 13, 1999 PC Week (now called
E-week) feature article "Strategies--Cutting Out e-fraud" described
three solutions. Internet Fraud Screen from CyberSource, a 1997 a
spinoff from Beyond.com, a SAS customer, uses artificial
intelligence and advanced mathematics to compare new transactions
with characteristics of millions of transactions in a database and
assign a risk factor to each transaction. HNC Software's eFalcon
uses neural network technology to ferret out fraudulent
transactions. Clear Commerce Corp's FraudShield released a fraud
detection system. Nestor Inc released Prism to detect fraudulent
online transactions that is based on neural networks.
Characteristics that fit a profile of a potentially fraudulent
transaction are for example a combination of the use of PO Box as a
mailing address, the use of a free non-traceable email box like
Juno or HotMail as a mailing address, a non working telephone
number, and the delivery of high cost credit card purchases to an
address that is not the same as the credit card billing address.
These transactions are double checked before shipment of goods
occurs.
[0027] Multimedia type preferences for animation rich media and
chat vary from consumer to consumer and vary with the type of
browser that is available: Less than 20% e-retailers are using web
technologies such as Java, Flash, or chat functions to enhance the
sales experience, according to a recent Jupiter Communications
survey (August 2000 reported in eMarketer). Jupiter also reported
that 60% of merchants based upgrading user-interface technologies
on customer feedback. However, surveying consumers, Jupiter found
that more than 50% of shoppers would use such rich media
technologies. Specifically, 56% would use virtual dressing rooms
and 51% would use zoom-and-spin technologies.
[0028] The dynamic nature of web interfaces presents big
challenges. Some web-based media types are interactive and send new
output to the user interface in discrete blocks, in response to
user input or messages from the web server; others (such as
animated graphics) continuously change their output without
requiring any external stimulus. Moreover, the appearance of a web
page is determined by the browser and modified by options set on
the user's browser (e.g. a user can instruct the browser not to
display graphics nor do WAP Wireless Application Protocol connected
Internet devices such as two way pagers and Internet ready cell
phones which have no high pixel density graphics display).
Personalized interfaces mean that different users may interact with
the web page differently on quite different user interfaces but the
website delivers highly-accurate product recommendations,
personally relevant content, and targeted promotions for each
individual Web visitor.
[0029] For the foregoing reasons and critical limitation of the
displays, wireless mobile systems will require the use of much
focused ads with a concise message. Research by Ovum
http://www.ovum.com/ discussed mobile advertising and its
differences from Web marketing. Ovum advised potential mobile
advertisers to use a highly targeted, low-volume, high-value model
where users have a strong element of control over the number, type,
and timing of ads received. Data privacy concerns regarding
releasing cell phone numbers and list of services desired to
marketers makes users' cooperation in accepting advertising
critical. This means the advertising must support services that are
vulnerable to changes by users on an ongoing basis to users, and it
will require a trading-off compromised privacy for convenience.
[0030] None of these preferences uses continuous Biosignal feedback
to confirm the successful match of content with suggestion that is
no systems determines whether suggested content based a viewer's
demographic and or psychological profile and collaborative filter
is what the viewer desires. A null hypothesis test is performed
whenever media is presented. The present system includes a
monitored physiologic response that is used as feedback and
combined with demographic/psychological background information and
behavioral history to determine the unconscious of subliminal
viewer responses. The unconscious stress indicators can be use with
a null hypothesis test to determine if the material is stress
inducing. The null hypothesis is more stress is more interest, that
is less boredom. When interest is aroused, it is more likely to
produce the desired result, a sale. The presence or absence of
stress alone is not an indicator of interest or possibility of
future purchases. Stress must be evaluated in context through
neural network analysis of the whole situation
[0031] Dimensional Database Storage in Tables That Allow View and
Analysis of Time Associated Data: A dimensional database may be
implemented using a conventional relational database program such
as the Oracle 8.1 product commercially available from Oracle
Corporation of Redwood Shores, Calif. or the Microsoft Access and
SQL7 products commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of
Redmond, Wash. Virtual databases may also be used, treating several
databases as if they were a single data-base. Conventional
relational databases with specialized tools for On-Line Analytical
Processing, or OLAP-optimized databases may also be used. Such
databases are sometimes referred to as MOLAP, ROLAP or DOLAP
databases and are described at
http://www.sentrytech.com/dw05dem.htm. Non-database implementations
such as those storing data using objects, records, arrays or flat
files may be used to implement dimensional databases. Keys may be
implemented using conventional pointers or look-up table
approaches.
[0032] Methods for physically storing temporal data are well known
and newer developments U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,024 to Bair--Amazon.com
shows a System and method for selecting rows from dimensional
databases as those databases are expanded with more data associated
with time in a manner that creates yet another table that allows
searching for data rows that are collected over a time series
Temporal query primitive functions may then be applied to the
dimension tables in a manner that permits comparison of events and
data that changes over time. Of particular interest in this patent
is the activity of a person viewing media, typically a files or
pages on a website and the sequence of files viewed and actions
performed that leads toward a purchase of a product or service.
[0033] Methods for Acquiring Psychological and Physiological
Information from a Web Browser Viewer: Well-known tools such as the
Myers Briggs personality test and the Kersey temperament sorter.
The Jungian personality profile has been combined with speech
analysis for purposes of "lie detection" in a personal computer
system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,188 to Bogdashevsky.
Heretofore, systems of this type have not yet been implemented on
line for entertainment or sales purposes.
[0034] Guided Selling Systems that Automate and Improve the Online
Sales Process with Human-like Interactions: U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,149
by Tavor describes a virtual sales representative for assisting a
customer in the selection of a purchase product from an e-shop
virtual shop, and more particularly, to software which is capable
of assisting a computer user to complete an on-line sales
transaction in a substantially similar manner as a human sales
representative, providing advice and interacting in a conversation
like fashion with the browser. The automatic sales agents evolved
from interactive tools used to sell mortgages by BrightStreet.
[0035] Broadband Systems that Allow Multiple Communications
Channels to Reach the Home and Provide Information Selected to
Match User Profile According to User's Priority and Available
Bandwidth, Capability for Various Types of Messaging, Media
Graphics, Streaming Media, High Quality Sound: U.S. Pat. No.
6,044,403 by Gerszberg of AT&T shows a Network server platform
for Internet, JAVA server and video application server that enables
high speed Internet connections through two wire high speed copper
wire connections over the existing single twisted pair using xDSL
transmission schemes and coupled to a network server to provide a
vast array of new services to customers. Network servers including
a relaying host an intelligent services director (ISD) at the
customer services equipment and a facilities management platform
(FMP) at the local office allows new services such as simultaneous,
multiple calls (voice analog or digital), facsimile, Internet
traffic connectivity, videophone, utility metering, broadcasting,
multicasting, bill viewing, information pushing in response to a
user profile, directory look-up and other services that can be
implemented via a network server platform via this architecture. A
network server platform for hosting a plurality of services
comprises, for example, a memory for storing a user profile, the
user profile containing interests of a user, and for storing
information related to their interests and a controller for
controlling the collection of information from information servers
and for pushing the collected information to the user in accordance
with their defined priority.
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS AND BACKGROUND
[0036] Ad: For web advertising, an ad is usually a banner, a
graphic image of a designated pixel, size and byte size limit. It
is usually an animated GIF (a series of pictures displayed in a
repetition that appears to move). Banners and other special
advertising that include an interactive element, a high quality
audio or visual element beyond the usual are known as rich media.
Multiple locations on a given page may be available for ads.
[0037] Ad Media type: The medium for the ad, be it HTML text with
tags that control characteristics (color size font design and table
layout), small photos and art (GIF Graphic Interchange Format),
banner ad, higher quality larger photographs (.jpg Joint
Photographic Expert Group), simple audio (.wav) or synthesized
music, streaming media audio (QuickTime.TM., REAL.TM. Audio or
Windows.TM. Media Player).
[0038] Ad rotation: Ads are often rotated into ad spaces from a
list. This is usually done automatically by software on the web
site or at a central site administered by an ad broker or server
facility that it sells impressions and sponsorships and tracks
impressions for a network of web sites.
[0039] Ad space: An ad space is a sellable space on a web page that
is reserved for ads. A group of spaces within a web site that share
the same characteristics can be sold as an ad space group so that
an ad purchase can be made for the group of spaces.
[0040] Ad view: An ad view is the same as an ad impression, that is
a usually a full view single ad that appears "above the fold" on a
web page when the page arrives at the viewer's display. A web page
may offer space for a number of different ad views banners sidebars
and pop ups.
[0041] Affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing is the use by a web
site that sells products of other web sites, called affiliates, to
help market the products. The relationship implies that web sites
pay commissions on sales made Amazon.com, the bookseller, created
the first affiliate program and hundreds of other companies have
followed since.
[0042] Banner: A banner is an advertisement in the form of a
graphic image that is located across a top of a web page or is
positioned in a margin or other space reserved for ads. Banner ads
are usually GIF Graphics Interchange Format images that load
quickly. Size limits on the file are made so that the ad file will
display quickly. Most ads are animated GIF's since animation has
been shown be attractive to users. Size ranges from 1 k or 3 k to
70 or 90 k for animated GIF's. Most banners are 468 pixels wide by
60 pixels high. Smaller sizes include 125 by 125 and 120 by 90
pixels. Banner sizes have been established as standard sizes by the
Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
[0043] Beyond the banner Besides banner ads other ways to use the
Internet to communicate a marketing message include: sponsoring a
web site or a feature on it; e-mail newsletter ads; co-branding
sharing (logo displays) with another company and its web site;
contest promotion and other new ways to engage and interact with
the desired audience. "Beyond the banner" may be a media rich
banner, splash pages (interstitials that show up in a new browser
window) and streaming video infomercials.
[0044] Browser: A browser is an application program that provides a
way to look at and interact with all the information on the World
Wide Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the
Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse text
files online. When the first Web browser with a graphical user
interface was invented (Mosaic, in 1992), the term seemed to apply
to Web content, too. Technically, a Web browser is a client program
that uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make requests
of Web servers throughout the Internet on behalf of the browser
user. Parts of Mosaic went into the first widely used browser,
Netscape Navigator, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. With a few
exceptions such as Opera, these Navigator and Internet Explorer
browsers are the only two browsers that the vast majority of
Internet users have today. Online services, such as America Online,
CompuServe, and Prodigy, had their own browsers, but now offer the
customized versions of Netscape (Mozilla) or Microsoft browser. The
newer version of these two browsers have the ability to run applet
programs in Java.TM. or Active X extensions to HTML.
[0045] Caching: To speed up viewing and save bandwidth, a user's
browser with an internal cache, network cache servers and proxy
servers save recently viewed files to avoid having to resend files
before each view. Using a cache of pages in a cache server or the
user's computer means that some ad views will not be known by the
ad counting programs and is a source of concern. Although
preventing caching gives a more accurate count, specifying no
caching for all pages means that users will have slower time to
view from each click.
[0046] Click: is an action that requests the view of a web page.
According to ad industry recommended guidelines from FAST, a click
is "when a visitor interacts with an advertisement." This does not
apparently mean simply interacting with a rich media ad, but
actually clicking on it so that the visitor is headed toward the
advertiser's destination. (It also does not mean that the visitor
actually waits to fully arrive at the destination, but just that
the visitor started going there.)
[0047] Click stream: A click stream is a recorded path of the pages
a user requested in going through one or more web sites. Click
stream information helps web site owners understand how visitors
are using their site and which pages are viewed the most.
Advertisers learn how users get to the client's pages, what pages
they look at, and how they go about ordering a product. This is the
most important behavioral record available for use in determining a
user profile
[0048] Clickthrough: A clickthrough is what is counted by the
sponsoring site as a result of an ad click. In practice, click and
clickthrough tend to be used interchangeably. A clickthrough,
however, seems to imply that the user actually received the page
instead of request only. Some advertisers are willing to pay only
for clickthroughs rather than for ad impressions
[0049] Click rate: Often called CTR or clickthrough rate, click
rate is the percentage of ad views that resulted in clickthroughs.
A clickthrough is an indication of the ad's effectiveness and it
results in the viewer getting to the advertiser's web site where
other messages can be provided. A click to an immediate product
order window can lead to a quick sale. Evaluation of clickthrough
based on the campaign objectives, how enticing the banner message
is, how explicit the message is (a teaser message is more likely to
be clicked), audience/message matching, how new the banner is, how
often it is displayed to that particular user. Reports n general,
show click rates for high-repeat, branding banners vary from 0.15
to 1%. Ads with provocative, mysterious, or other compelling
content can induce click rates ranging from 1 to 5% and sometimes
higher. The click rate for any given ad tends to shrink upon
repetition.
[0050] Cookie: A cookie is a file on a web user's hard drive (it's
kept in one of the sub-directories under the browser file
directory) that is used by web sites to record data about the user.
Multiple cookies may come from the same website. There may be a
cookie that is associated with a specific individual session.
Cookies help control multiple ad sequences by telling the web page
server which ad the user has just seen so that a different ad will
be rotated into the next page view.
[0051] Cost-per-action: (CPA) Cost-per-action is what an advertiser
pays for each visitor that takes some specifically defined action
in response to an ad beyond simply clicking on it. For example, a
visitor might visit an advertiser's site and request to be
subscriber to their newsletter.
[0052] Cost-per-lead: This is a yield figure for cost-per-action.
Statistics can account for visitors that provide enough information
to be used as a sales lead. This overall figure can be estimated
regardless of how the ad is purchased. It may include other
promotional costs giveaways raffle costs free subscriptions and
others.
[0053] Cost-per-sale (CPS): Sites that sell products directly from
their web site or can otherwise determine sales generated as the
result of an advertising sales lead can calculate the cost-per-sale
of web advertising.
[0054] Coulomb network: Relaxation Model for Memory with High
Storage Density by Charles M. Bachmann et al.--Neural Networks, pp.
1-9. A neural network system is considered in which memories of
events have already been recorded in a layer of cells. A method is
found for the consolidation of the number of memories required to
correctly represent the pattern environment in N dimensions using
an expansion and contraction of areas. Refer to U.S. Pat. No.
4,897,811 by Scofield, entitled N-dimensional coulomb neural
network that provides for cumulative learning of internal
representations. This is one of several methods useable for
reducing the complexity of the neural network to a minimal cumber
of neural circuits necessary so that the network can operate more
rapidly.
[0055] CPM: CPM is "cost per thousand" ad impressions, an industry
standard measure for selling ads on web sites. This measure is
taken from print advertising.
[0056] CPTM: CPTM is "cost per thousand targeted" ad impressions,
apparently implying that the audience you are selling is targeted
to particular demographics.
[0057] Demographics: Demographics are data about the size and
characteristics of a population or audience (including for example,
gender, age group, income group, purchasing history, personal
preferences, and so forth).
[0058] Domain Name: A domain name locates an organization or other
entity on the Internet. For example, the domain name
www.totalbaseball.com locates an Internet address for
"totalbaseball.com" at Internet point 199.0.0.2 (and a particular
host server named "www". The "com" part of the domain name reflects
the purpose of the organization or entity (in this example,
"commercial") and is called the top-level domain name. The
"totalbaseball" part of the domain name defines the organization or
entity and together with the top-level is called the second-level
domain name. The second-level domain name maps to and can be
thought of as the "readable" version of the Internet address. See
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,211987,00.html for
the source of this definition. The principal domain name standards
are RFC 1034--Domain Names Concepts and Facilities available at
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1034.txt and RFC 1035--Domain Names
Implementation and Specification
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1035.txt.
[0059] FAST: FAST is a coalition of the Internet Advertising Bureau
(IAB), the ANA, and the ARF that has recommended or is working on
guidelines for consumer privacy, ad models and creative formats,
audience and ad impression measurement, and a standard reporting
template together with a standard insertion order. FAST originated
with Proctor and Gamble's Future of Advertising Stakeholders Summit
in August 1998. FAST's first guideline, available in March 1999,
was a guideline on "Basic Advertising Measures."
[0060] Filtering: Filtering is the immediate analysis by a program
of a user (click) request to determine which ad(s) to return in the
requested page. A web page request combined with information using
the user viewer's cookie files, IP address, login id and using a
marketing database can by identify a an individual or a member of a
cluster of users that can tell a web site or its ad server whether
it fits a certain characteristic such as coming transferring from a
particular company's address or that the user is using a particular
level of browser with versions with Java, ActiveX, multimedia
plug-ins or advanced HTML. The web ad server can respond
accordingly.
[0061] Fold: "Above the fold," a term taken from print media for a
prime viewable ad. This means an ad that is viewable as a whole as
soon as the web page arrives. You do not have to scroll (down or
sideways) to see it. Since screen resolution can affect what is
immediately viewable, it is good to know whether the web site's
audience tends to set their resolution at 640 by 480 pixels or at
800 by 600 (or higher).
[0062] Gesture recognition: Gesture recognition is the ability to
interpret simple hand-written symbols such as check marks and
slashes, the ability to recognize hand signals, the ability to
recognize body movements of limbs and the ability to recognize eye
blinks, and head/face movements. In 1998, Toshiba introduced a
device that uses infrared light reflected from a user's hand to
sense its motion. Computer analysis of monocular cameras (without
reflector tags that were once required) to follow trace motions of
body parts (waving arms) using Hidden Markov Models. Live
demonstrations from Microsoft Research in Silicon Valley
demonstrated 9 months ago at the Windows 2000 product release that
computers are able to recognize facial components and key
recognizable features on faces including mouth lines, cheek lines,
lines between the eyes, eyebrow positions, nose and jaw directions
all of which can indicate the direction a person is facing and head
nods or shaking indicated by changes in direction of the head. A
sequence of image frames can be reduces a wire frame or stick
figure representation for identified facial components on each
frame. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,494 entitled Method and apparatus for
real-time gesture recognition by Nguyen which dealt with limb
gestures, pattern matching was achieved on the sequence on a
frameset by input into a statistical model that compared the
reduced frameset data with recognizable gestures the motions by
pattern recognition permits an operation based on the semantic
meaning of the gesture to be performed by the computer.
[0063] Hit: A hit is the sending of a single file to a browser. The
file type can be an HTML file, an image, an audio file, or other.
Since a single web page request can have delivered with it a number
of individual files, the number of hits from a site is a not an
accurate indication of its actual number of visitors. It can be an
indicator of traffic flow to the website but his is confused by
proxy and cache servers that share frequently viewed files at a
location on the Internet.
[0064] HTML: definition from the Whatis.com website at the URL
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition.sub.13
Page/0,4152,214031,00.html
[0065] HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of "markup"
symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World
Wide Web browser. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a
Web page's words and images for the user. The individual markup
codes are referred to as elements (but people also refer to them as
tags).
[0066] HTML is a standard recommended by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
[0067]
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,213331,00.html) and
adhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and
Netscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional
non-standard codes. The current version of HTML is HTML 4.0.
However, both Internet Explorer and Netscape implement some
features differently and provide non-standard extensions. Web
developers using the more advanced features of HTML 4 may have to
design pages for both browsers and send out the appropriate version
to a user. Significant Internet Explorer 4.0 to current 5.5 and
Netscape Navigator 4.0 and above have features in HTML 4 that are
sometimes described in general as cascading sheets or dynamic HTML.
What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an extensible form of
HTML called Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
[0068] See
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,213550,00.html.
[0069] Impression: According to the "Basic Advertising Measures,"
from FAST, an ad industry group, an impression is "The count of a
delivered basic advertising unit from an ad distribution point."
Impressions are how most web advertising is sold and the cost is
quoted in terms of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
[0070] Insertion order (IO): An insertion order is a formal,
printed order to run an ad campaign. Typically, the insertion order
identifies the campaign name, the web site receiving the order and
the planner or buyer giving the order, the individual ads to be run
(or who will provide them), the ad sizes, the campaign beginning
and end dates, the CPM, the total cost, discounts to be applied,
and reporting requirements and possible penalties or stipulations
relative to the failure to deliver the impressions.
[0071] IP address: See
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212381,00.html for
this definition, which is based on Internet Protocol Version 4. In
the most widely installed level of the Internet Protocol (IP)
today, an IP address is a 32-binary digit number that identifies
each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packet
across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail,
the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in
the message (in each of the packets) and sends it to the IP address
that is obtained by looking up the domain name in the Uniform
Resource Locator you requested or in the e-mail address you're
sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient can see the IP
address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can
respond by sending another message using the IP address it
received.
[0072] An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular
network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device
(which can be a server or a workstation) within that network. On
the Internet itself--that is, between the routers that move packets
from one point to another along the route--only the network part of
the address is looked at. The identity of the network and the
device can be used to uniquely identify the session that is taking
place without knowing exactly where the workstation and browser are
located.
[0073] The Network Part of the IP Address: The Internet is really
the interconnection of many individual networks (sometimes referred
to as an Internetwork). Therefore, the Internet Protocol (IP) is
the set of rules for one network communicating with any other (or
for broadcast messages, all other networks). Each network must know
its own address on the Internet and that of any other networks with
which it communicates. To be part of the Internet, an organization
needs an Internet network number, which it can request from the
Network Information Center (N IC). This unique network number is
included in any packet sent out of the network onto the
Internet.
[0074] The Local or Host Part of the IP Address: In addition to the
network address or number, information is needed about which
specific machine or host in a network is sending or receiving a
message. Therefore, the IP address needs both the unique network
number and a host number (which is unique within the network). (The
host number is sometimes called a local or machine address.) Part
of the local address can identify a subnetwork or subnet address,
which makes it easier for a network that is divided into several
physical subnetworks (for examples, several different local area
networks) or to handle many devices.
[0075] IP Address Classes and Their Formats: Since networks vary in
size, there are four different address formats or classes to
consider when applying to NIC for a network number: [0076] Class A
addresses are for large networks with many devices. [0077] Class B
addresses are for medium-sized networks. [0078] Class C addresses
are for small networks (fewer than 256 devices). [0079] Class D
addresses are multicast addresses.
[0080] The IP address is usually expressed as four decimal numbers,
each representing eight bits, separated by periods. This is
sometimes known as the dot address and, more technically, as dotted
quad notation. For Class A IP addresses, the numbers would
represent "network.local.local.local"; for a Class C IP address,
they would represent "network.network.network.local." The number
version of the IP address usually is represented by a name or
series of names called the domain name.
[0081] Static vs. dynamic IP addresses is a very important detail
in the IP world. The discussion above assumes that IP addresses are
assigned on a static basis. In fact, many IP addresses are assigned
dynamically from a pool. Many corporate networks and online
services economize on the number of IP addresses they use by
sharing a pool of IP addresses among a large number of users. If
you're an America Online user, for example, your IP address will
vary from one logon session to the next because AOL is assigning it
to you from a pool that is much smaller than AOL's 15 to 20 million
subscribers. The dynamically assigned IP addresses are reused when
another user/workstation is given a lease for the address by a DHCP
(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) that lets network
administrators manage centrally and automate the assignment of
Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in an organization's network. To
keep track of the users of the "leased" IP addresses a network
router or firewall uses network address translation (NAT) to keep
track of and translate inside (local area network) address and
outside (Internet) addresses and sends the messages from the
outside network to the station that has been assigned the IP
address on the local area network (LAN) and vice versa.
[0082] Internet Protocol (IP): The Internet Protocol (IP) is the
method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to
another on the Internet. IP provides the routing mechanism. Each
computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP
address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the
Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an e-mail
note or a Web page), the message is divided into little chunks
called packets. Each of these packets contains both the sender's
Internet address and the receiver's address. Any packet is sent
first to a gateway computer that understands a small part of the
Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination address and
forwards the packet to an adjacent gateway that in turn reads the
destination address and so forth across the Internet until one
gateway recognizes the packet as belonging to a computer within its
immediate neighborhood or domain. That gateway then forwards the
packet directly to the computer whose address is specified.
[0083] Because a message is divided into a number of packets, if
necessary, each packet can be sent by a different route across the
Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than the order
they were sent in. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It is
up to another protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to
put them back in the right order.
[0084] IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is
no established connection between the end points that are
communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is
treated as an independent unit of data without any relation to any
other unit of data. (The reason the packets are put in the right
order is TCP, the connection-oriented protocol that keeps track of
the packet sequence in a message.)
[0085] See http://www.edtn.com/encyclopedia/search?term=ip and
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,214031,00.html, the
sources for this definition. The official definitions are in
Internet Engineering Task Force's Request for Comments (RFC) 791 at
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc791.txt and in IBM's Redbook, TCP/IP
Tutorial and Technical Overview, in print and at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/gg243376.html.
[0086] (Ad) Inventory: Inventory is the total number of ad views or
impressions that a web site has to sell over a given period of time
(usually, inventory is figured by the month).
[0087] Knowledge Database: A knowledge database (composed from a
collection of observed physical characteristics) is shown by
example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,835 to Han entitled "Automatic
knowledge database generation for classifying objects and systems
therefore which discloses classifying objects according to a
pre-defined set of primitives, or attributes, as an important tool
in quantifying characteristics associated with a sample object
taken from a population of similar objects. In this regard, object
classification is useful where the parent population is very large,
for example, in categorizing and cataloging celestial images, or
when the population is dynamic and its characteristics change over
time, such as defects on semiconductor wafers, or magnetic disks,
cataloging bacteria, and the like. Temporal or demographic shifts
in object classes are identified by sampling objects, recording
their attributes, and determining an object class appropriate to
that object. In determining the object class of an object, a
knowledge database ("KDB") typically compares the characteristics
of an unknown object to the characteristics of pre-classified
objects cataloged in the KDB. KDB's are generally encoded as
machine-readable code in a computer system, and the comparison is
performed by a computer to automatically classify the unknown
object. Using the characteristic of known defects contained in the
KDB that maps characteristics and location of known defects, a
machine observes each sample defect under a video microscope and
classifies each defect according to location and characteristic of
a class (e.g., particle, pit, scratch, or contaminant).
[0088] Media broker: Media brokers aggregate sites and sell ad
spaces on multiple sites for the convenience of advertisers and
media planners and buyers.
[0089] Media buyer: A media buyer, at an advertising agency or
large company, works with a media planner to allocate the money
provided for an advertising campaign among specific print or online
media (magazines, radio, TV, web sites and other media such as
billboards, direct mail, email telemarketing etc.) The media buyer
requests proposals and negotiates terms and final costs and places
the advertising orders.
[0090] Network Address Translation: NAT is (Network Address
Translation), an IETF standard that allows an organization to
present itself to the Internet with one address. NAT converts the
address of each LAN node into one IP address for the Internet and
vice versa. It also serves as a firewall by keeping individual IP
addresses hidden from the outside world the translation of an
Internet Protocol address (IP address) used within one network to a
different IP address known within another network. One network is
designated the inside network and the other is the outside.
Typically, a company maps its local inside network addresses to one
or more global outside IP addresses and unmaps the global IP
addresses on incoming packets back into local IP addresses. This
helps ensure security since each outgoing or incoming request must
go through a translation process that also offers the opportunity
to qualify or authenticate the request or match it to a previous
request. NAT also conserves on the number of global IP addresses
that a company needs and it lets the company use a single IP
address in its communication with the world.
[0091] NAT is included as part of a router (See
http://www.edtn.com/encyclopedia/search?term=NAT,
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212924,00.html) and
often a corporate firewall. (See
http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212125,00.html )
Network administrators create a NAT table that does the
global-to-local and local-to-global IP address mapping. NAT can
also be used in conjunction with policy routing. NAT can be
statically defined or it can be set up to dynamically translate
from and to a pool of IP addresses.
[0092] Neural network: A modeling technique based on the observed
behavior of biological neurons and used to mimic the performance of
a system. It consists of a set of elements that start out connected
in a random pattern, and, based upon operational feedback, are
molded into the pattern required to generate the required results.
A neural network is a system of circuits or programs and data
structures that mimics the learning operations of the human brain
and produces an "expert" output based on what it has learned in a
supervised or unsupervised learning paradigm in which pairs of
inputs and output patterns are presented to the network the
sequences are recorded in a memory. A neural network is initially
"trained" or fed large amounts of data and rules about data
relationships. The An outer first layer of neurons receives input
and learns to categorize inputs giving a weight to each input and
outputting to a middle layer that combines multiple input layers
and forwards the further abstracted information to an output layer.
The output layer may then be feedback to correct the weights on the
first or second layer to get optimal results. The FAQ at URL:
ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ.html produced by
saswss@unx.sas.com (Warren S. Sarle), Cary, N.C., U.S.A is updated
monthly. The basic feature of neural networks is the
self-organizing or self-optimizing feature outlined in U.S. Pat.
No. 4,325,259 to Cooper entitled "Self organizing general pattern
class separator and identifier"
[0093] Well known to the users of this technology is the ability to
score or scale the quality of the pattern matching for use in
making decisions. Known uses for neural net-works applications such
as robotics, diagnosing, forecasting, image processing, especially
handwritten character and symbol recognition and pattern
recognition. Some patents are (1) in medical diagnostics for
example Comanor's invention owned by Chiron disclosed in U.S. Pat.
No. 5,860,917 entitled "Method and apparatus for predicting
therapeutic outcomes" which uses SMILES similarity metric least
squares for intelligent analysis of medical records. (2) In
profiling persons in review of insurance claims and Federal income
taxes others uses include for risk of fraud in credit card
transactions, see Nestor.com Prism system and U.S. Pat. No.
5,822,741 to Fischthal at Lockheed Martin Corporation entitled
"Neural Network/Conceptual Clustering Fraud Detection
Architecture"; U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,226 to Gopinathan entitled
"Fraud detection using predictive modeling"; U.S. Pat. No.
5,966,650 to Hobson entitled "Detecting mobile telephone misuse";
and U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,643 to Anderson et al. entitled "System for
Detecting Counterfeit Financial Card Fraud" in which counterfeit
financial card fraud is detected based on the premise that the
fraudulent activity will reflect itself in clustered groups of
suspi cious transactions. A system for detecting financial card
fraud uses a computer database comprising financial card
transaction data reported from a plurality of financial
institutions. The transactions are scored by assigning weights to
individual transactions to identify suspicious transactions. (3) in
data mining, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,787425 to Bigus entitled
"Object-oriented data mining framework mechanism." (4) In character
recognition, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,043 to Gaborski entitled
"Neural network with back propagation controlled through an output
confidence measure" is for OCR optical character recognition
systems with attention to retraining the system only when
characters change outside a predefined range, which through
controlling back propagation and adjustment of neural weight and
bias values through an output confidence measure, smoothly, rapidly
and accurately adapts its response to actual changing input data
(characters). Specifically, the results of appropriate actual
unknown input characters, which have been recognized with an output
confidence measure that lies within a pre-defined range, are used
to adaptively re-train the network during pattern recognition. (5)
in associative memories, also referred to as content addressable
memories, which are widely used in the field of pattern matching
and identification, expert systems and artificial intelligence see
the widely used associative memory the Hopfield artificial neural
network. Hopfield artificial neural networks are described in U.S.
Pat. No. 4,660,166 to Hopfield entitled "Electronic Network for
Collective Decision Based on Large Number of Connections Between
Signals" by which means a decision may be made with only partial
set of inputs
[0094] Neural network knowledge: Neural network knowledge is
acquired in layers. Neural networks are taught by successive
presentation of sets of signals to their primary inputs with each
signal set derived from a pattern belonging to a class of patterns,
all having some common features or characteristics. Each time a set
of signals is presented to the primary inputs, the synaptic weights
must be adapted in order for the neural network to learn from this
input. Basic knowledge is gained by training the neurons to
differentiate and build up a memory of associations that may be
called fuzzy logic. Neural network usually involves a large number
of processors operating in parallel, each with its own small sphere
of knowledge and access to data in its local memory. Networks that
are more complex have deeper layers and feed-forward systems use
learned relationships stored in memory data to "feed forward" to
higher layers of knowledge.
[0095] Opt-in e-mail: Opt-in e-mail is e-mail containing
information or advertising that users explicitly request (opt) to
receive. Typically, a web site invites its visitors to fill out
forms identifying subject or product categories that interest them
and about which they are willing to receive e-mail from anyone who
might send it. The web site sells the names (with explicit or
implicit permission from their visitors) to a company that
specializes in collecting mailing lists that represent different
interests. Whenever the mailing list company sells its lists to
advertisers, the web site is paid a small amount for each name that
it generated for the list. Opt-in e-mail usually starts with a
statement that tells you that you have previously agreed to receive
such messages.
[0096] Pay-per-click: In pay-per-click advertising, the advertiser
pays a certain amount for each clickthrough to the advertiser's web
site. The amount paid per clickthrough is arranged at the time of
the insertion order.
[0097] Pay-per-lead: In pay-per-lead advertising, the advertiser
pays the source of for each sales lead generated, that is a
finder's fee for every visitor that clicked on a site and then
filled out a product interest form.
[0098] Pay-per-sale: Pay-per-sale is the customary way to pay web
sites that participate in affiliate programs, such as those of
Amazon.com and Beyond.com where the source of the sale gets a fee
for each sale.
[0099] Pay-per-view: Since this is the prevalent type of ad buying
arrangement at larger web sites, this term tends to be used only
when comparing this most prevalent method with pay-per-click and
other methods.
[0100] Pixel: A pixel is a "picture element" a dot on the
programmable color graphic file or in a computer image. The
physical size of a pixel will approximate the physical size of the
dot pitch (let's just call it the dot size) of the display.
Sometimes a pixel will be larger than the physical size of the
screen's dot (that is, a pixel will use more than one dot on the
screen).
[0101] Proof of performance: Some advertisers want proof that the
purchased ads have actually run and that clickthrough figures are
accurate. There is no physical reprint or, tear sheets taken from a
printed publication prove that an ad was run. On the web, there is
no proof of performance standard. Media broker and the ad buyer
usually check the web site to determine when the ads are actually
running and require weekly figures during a campaign. Reports are
used but some look directly at the figures, viewing the ad server
or web site reporting tool via network management tools.
[0102] Psychographic characteristics: This is a term for personal
interest information that is gathered by web sites by requesting it
from users. For example, a web site could ask users to list the web
sites that they visit most often. Advertisers could use this data
to help create a demographic profile for that site.
[0103] Psychological/physiological profile: is a term unique to
this invention.
[0104] Resolution: Resolution is the number of pixels (individual
points of color) contained on a display monitor, expressed in terms
of the number of pixels on the horizontal axis and the number on
the vertical axis. The sharpness of the image on a display depends
on the resolution and the size of the monitor. Larger monitors can
show more detail because the size will be large enough to see the
small displays. The 640.times.480 VGA (the old standard),
800.times.600 XGA (the new standard for a web page XGA-2
(1024.times.768 or 1280.times.1028 or more for large screens) are
able to show a large amounts of information because the pixels are
being spread over a larger number of inches at a reasonable size. A
15-inch monitor at 1024.times.768 resolution would be displaying a
small banner in a very tiny area and would require a very high
number of dots per inch to show the details. The PDA (Portable
Digital Assistant Palm Pilot device or Pocket PC) has a smaller
resolution of A mobile phone display is only capable of
[0105] Rich media: Rich media is advertising that contains
perceptual or interactive elements more elaborate than the usual
banner ad. Today, the term is often used for banner ads with popup
menus that let the visitor select a particular page to link to on
the advertiser's site. Rich media ads are generally more
challenging to create and to serve. Some early studies have shown
that rich media ads tend to be more effective than ordinary
animated banner ads.
[0106] ROI, Return on Investment: is measure of how successful an
ad or campaign was in terms of what sales revenues were returned
for the money invested.
[0107] Splash page: A splash page (also known as an interstitial)
is a preliminary page that runs before the regular home page of a
web site and usually promotes a particular site feature or provides
advertising. A splash page is often new browser window that
contains a rich media video or animation that jumps to the home
page after a short period of time.
[0108] Sponsor: A Sponsor is an advertiser who has sponsored an ad
and has also helped sponsor or sustain the web site itself. It can
also mean an advertiser that has a special relationship with the
web site and supports a special feature of a web site.
[0109] Targeting: Targeting is purchasing ad space on web sites
that match audience and campaign objective requirements.
[0110] Transmission Control Protocol: TCP (Transmission Control
Protocol) is a method or protocol used along with the Internet
Protocol (I P) to send data in the form of message units between
computers over the Internet. While IP takes care of handling the
actual delivery of the data, TCP takes care of keeping track of the
individual units of data (called packet) that a message is divided
into for efficient routing through the Internet. TCP is known as a
connection-oriented protocol, which means that TCP provides
transport functions, which ensures that the total amount of bytes
sent is received correctly at the other end. UDP is an alternate
transport that does not guarantee delivery. UDP is widely used for
real-time voice and video transmissions where erroneous packets are
not retransmitted. TCP is responsible for ensuring that a message
is divided into the packets that IP manages and is responsible for
reassembling the packets back into the complete message at the
other end. See, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for
Comments 793. DARPA 1981 Internet standards known a RFC.
http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/net/odds-ends/rfc/rfc793.
[0111] Unique visitor: A unique visitor is someone with a unique
address who is entering a web site for the first time that day (or
some other specified period). Thus, a visitor that returns within
the same day is not counted twice. A unique visitors count lets ad
people know how many different people there are in the audience
during the time period, but not how much they used the site during
the period.
[0112] Unique visit: A unique visit is a count for someone who is
entering a web site from another sited for the first time on a
single day or later time even on that day or some within some other
specified period. Thus, a visitor that returns to the site can be
counted for each visit from outside the site, for example in
response to banner ads leaving the web site and returning
later.
[0113] User session: A user session is someone with a unique
address that enters or reenters a web site each day (or some other
specified period). A user session is can be determined by counting
only those users that haven't reentered the site within the past 20
minutes or a similar period. User sessions indicate total site
activity better than "unique visitors" since they indicate
frequency of use and can be used to count repeat visits.
[0114] View: A view is either an ad view or a page view. Usually an
ad view is what's meant. There can be multiple ad views per page
views. View counting should consider that a small percentage of
users choose to turn the graphics off (not display the images) in
their browser.
[0115] Visit: A visit is a web user with a unique address entering
a web site at some page for the first time that day (or for the
first time in a lesser time period). The number of visits is
roughly equivalent to the number of different people that visit a
site. This term is ambiguous unless the user defines it, since it
could mean a user session or it could mean a unique visitor that
day.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
[0116] The World Wide Web is more than an information superhighway,
a source of information. The Web has become an attractive
multimedia shopping mall. The more time a happy consumer spends at
the merchandiser, the more chances to sell products to the visitor.
The present invention has objectives that are distinguishable from
presently used web media selection systems and web content controls
that are intended to satisfy customer viewers' expressed likes and
dislikes and by paying constant attention to the selection of media
programming that the viewer has chosen. According to Wexler
probably the most common form of social navigation is information
recommendation, sometimes referred to as social filtering.
Shardanand, Upendra & Pattie Maes. "Social Information
Filtering: Algorithms for Automating `Word of Mouth`," Proceedings
of CHI'95 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
Press, 1995. Information, usually in the form of ratings, from
other users is applied to help the current user. This is done
either by selecting one or a few items from a large database of
potentially recommendable items, or by ordering, rating or
filtering information items based on past ratings data. Systems
which fall into this category include: (1) the Bellcore video
recommender. Hill, Stead, Rosenstein & Furnas. "Recommending
and Evaluating Choices in a Virtual Community of Use," Proceedings
of CHI'95 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
Press, 1995; (2) the MIT Media Lab's HOMR music-recommendation
system. Salton, Gerard. The SMART System--Experiments in Automatic
Document Processing, Prentice Hall, 1971; (3) the Do-I-Care Agent
(DICA) for Web pages, Starr, Ackerman & Pazzani. "Do-I-Care: A
Collaborative Web Agent," Proceedings of CHI'96 Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, 1996; and (4) the Usenet
news rating system GroupLens, Miller, Riedl, & Konstan.
"Experiences with GroupLens: Making Usenet Useful Again,"
Proceedings of the 1997 Usenix Winter Technical Conference, January
1997. Hill and Terveen's PHOAKS (People Helping One Another Know
Stuff) system, Hill, Will & Loren Terveen. "Using
Frequency-of-Mention in Public Conversations for Social Filtering,"
Proceedings of CSCW'96 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative
Work, ACM Press, 1996, uses FAQs and other postings to select URLs
for recommendation.
[0117] The invention does something entirely different. BioNet
method and system allows monitoring of physiologic and
psychological signals that indicate stress, emotion, moods or
boredom in the context before a sale and help the web content
provider maintain the interests and buying momentum of a
viewer.
[0118] The use of viewer surveys and monitoring of browser activity
to controls selection of media presented on a website and used to
control selection of ads presented to viewers based on a profile of
viewer interests is well known to the website proprietors based
that rely upon individually collected interest surveys and large
scale demographic studies for generating increased activity that
leads to sales. With multiple ad views on several banners and
sidebars, it is difficult to attribute behavior to a particular ad
view. At a given moment monitoring viewer attention and the
immediate viewer response in real time in sync with the views can
give advertisers a better measure of viewer response. Recently the
multitude of portal websites open with a membership questionnaire
and offer incentives such as customized newsletters, product
finders, price watchers, daily reminders, free electronic
mailboxes, customized web pages, personalized product catalogs and
affinity programs such as discount coupons frequent viewer miles,
contests, prizes raffles and giveaways to get people to come back
again and again. More specifically, advertising controls used to
select media for websites heretofore devised and utilized survey
tools that are known to consist basically of familiar expected
questionnaires on preferred choices in books music movies and other
products coupled with background demographic information and
"collaborative filtering or Group Lens" software for comparing
surveys and collecting demographics that intend to suggest what the
viewer is most likely to want based on what similar viewers have
like. The statistics help the advertiser reach a targeted audience
and make the selection of the ever preset "banner ad" that is
placed on the top of many web pages. Ad panning systems are moving
toward a real time analysis of consumer groups to ads. The
real-time speed of analysis permits customization or
personalization of ads to fit the group of consumers or the
individual. The ad cost per lead or cost per click may be verified
and rates for ads may be set based on the targeted audience and the
responsiveness of the audience. Vendors make competitive claims
about how effective the systems are at prediction consumer
responses to future ad campaign.
[0119] Personality profile information may be useful in making
guided sales because the response is different for different types
of persons. Online training question and answers offers opportunity
to collect profile information while a person performs online
training. Answering the question as part of an online
negotiation-training program can give personal insights. For
example answering the Question: Choose the three most common fears
you will encounter when you are negotiating? Failure, Humiliation,
Suffering, Loss, The unknown. These fears need to be dealt with in
the sales process. Information on how the viewer responds can be
obtained explicitly by surveyor implicitly by observation of
behavior within contest. The most widely known fear used in sales
is the limited time promotion that works on the fear of losing a
good deal. "Act now the price will never be better!" The
questionnaire is not necessary since valuable personal information
can be inferred by observing behaviors and keeping a record of
sales after presentations that work on the limited time offer
principle. The fear of loss can be ascertained by the behavior that
shows the consumer taking the bait and buying.
[0120] FIG. 2 shows alternative models that APT Applied Predictive
Technology claims to use multiple algorithms to identify the
optimal analytical method to solve each predictive challenge. In
comparison, APT says competing approaches rely upon one and only
one predictive statistical technique, exposing users to its flaws
when it is not the best predictor of future results. APT builds
competing models and employs genetic algorithms to choose the best
approach. Modeling techniques employed include: neural networks,
collaborative filtering (clustering/filtering), logistic regression
decision trees, and linear regression. Neural networks appear to be
the best method.
[0121] Significant advertising revenues are being generated by the
click through ads in which the browser viewer follows an ad link to
another page and proceeds through to a sale. Web site providers
that displayed the ad that the viewer selected and clicked-on and
that eventually led to a sale may receive pennies or larger amounts
for each viewer who traversed the link and visited an advertiser's
web page. Notwithstanding the designs encompassed by the crowded
prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of consumer
objectives and meeting activity monitoring requirements of ad
agencies and web site content management, which makes the
selections of web pages, pictures, music and spoken audio,
animation, streaming video and other presentations BioNet method
and system offers a minimally invasive means to get immediate
confirmation of the desires and dislikes of the browser viewer at
several steps before the actual sale and permits the website
content managers to develop a database which contains the history
of the steps taken before the sale that is much more than a
click-through recording. The database includes a physiological,
psychological and emotional sequence before the sale occurs.
[0122] The BioNet method and system is suitable for use with any
website that is able to categorize web displays according to at
least three phases of a purchase and identify the best media
responses to emotional sales barriers when indicated by
electronically monitored physiological and psychological signals
are transmitted to a "ppd" physiologic/psychological database
server and may be a part integral to website or an add-on service
reached through the Internet. The categorization of purchase to a
limited number of phases which outline the general track of events
that occur in the time preceding a sale makes the planning of media
easier by reducing the decision or choices and reduces the
computational demands of the pattern recognition of a time series
of events by making "training solution" assumptions that apply to
neural networks and database clusters called emotional footprints
by the inventors. Nonetheless, the variety of psychological and
physiological input variables allows customization of a system to
meet individual situations based on the Escores for various
personality attributes, which are identifiable by legacy (already
stored) individual profiles, current
Behavioral/Emotional--Attention Indicators responses or candidate
profiles associated with the specific product being sold or.
[0123] As is often desired during an ad campaign, website ad
sponsors have scheduled for standard web content presentation and
that standard material can override media recommendations if
desired. When the conditions for override operation are met, the
website controls of the present invention will allow standard web
content to be displayed. When override is not present particularly
when the final pre sale phases are reached recommend media content
with a theme that based on recommendations of the ppd server
assists the website selection of the web page media content and
theme based on recommendation coming from the ppd server, that use
historically confirmed psychological/psychological indicators
[0124] Some web site media content controllers maintain an internal
database. The Macromedia Real Time Like Minds.TM. system is an
example of one such all-inclusive system. Frequently websites use a
distributed system in which the three tiered system Storage in back
end database, mid level business logic and Desktop browser client
level display. Extended HTML or XML is used for management of the
distributed systems. Macromedia Enterprise LikeMinds.TM. is an
example of the distributed system.
[0125] Guided selling is a new type of interactive sales system
that goes one step further to refine the computer interaction to a
level that approaches the actions of a virtual sales assistant that
interacts in a human conversational fashion with the web viewers.
U.S. Pat. No, 6,070,149 to Tavor, et al. discloses virtual sales
personnel that enable users over a network or over the WWW to
interact with an interactive sales representative system for
providing sales guidance. The system offers the user products,
services, or ideas (the "products") according to parameters
collected from the user. The system guides the customer to retrieve
the desired products. If the system does not have a product matched
to the customer requirements, preferably it will operate a
mechanism for suggesting alternatives that are the closest to the
customer requirements and for suggesting alternatives that have the
greater likelihood of leading to a decision to buy or select. SAS
mentions the guided selling technology as applied to customer
websites and cites the need for fewer live sales support
personnel.
[0126] The pattern recognizer is preferably a neural network which
has gained much complexity and ability to discriminate in evolution
from U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,436 to Shin and Sridhar describes a
"Single layer neural network system for performing separable and
non-linearly separable logical operations using complex weights."
Shin used a single neuron network, which may be configured in a
single layer is known as a perceptron known by the MP acronym for
McCulloch Pitts model of brain interconnected neurons. In general,
a perceptron accepts multiple inputs, multiplies each by a weight,
sums the weighted inputs, subtracts a threshold, and limits the
resulting signal, such as by passing it through a hard limiting
nonlinearity. A perception is described in W. McCulloch and W.
Pitts, "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous
Activity," Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, Vol. 5, pp.
115-133, 1943. Further development beyond to a difference type or
non-MP neuron cells was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,700 to
Seligson of Intel entitled "Neural network incorporating difference
neurons." An artificial neural network incorporating difference
type, non-MP (McCullough-Pitts) neuron cells and a method and
apparatus for training this network. And finally, Cooper et al. in
U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,094 discloses a parallel multi unit adaptive
nonlinear class separator and identifier. It is described as a
system for separating and identifying classes of patterns or events
which are not necessarily linearly separable. During a training
process of the system, new prototypes are created when prior stored
prototypes fail to properly classify an input pattern, and
previously stored prototypes are modified when an input pattern
falls within the sphere of influence of a prototype associated with
a different class than the input pattern. The particular neural
network that is used is not important. Of critical importance is
the ability of the system to learn and be self correcting. The
physiologic Biosignals heart rate, blood pressure skin resistance
and skin temperature as well as gestures as mood indicators are
critical nonverbal signals which have no immediate action but
rather upon recognition of a pattern of subsequent actions may be
used as a predictive indicator for future behavior. Analysis of
past behaviors and accompanying Biosignal and gesture recognition
events makes the BioNet system respond more quickly than inference
based systems that must wait for a clickthrough type event to begin
to learn
[0127] The present invention operates or may operate independently
from other website content monitoring and control systems seen in
the prior art. Alternatively, it may be embedded into a real-time
system that does not require a distributed set of servers for logic
and database storage functions.
[0128] One media content controlling method being electronic
monitoring of browser activity sensing of content viewed and
duration of display and buyer behavior, transitions to next viewed
media pages transmitting viewer information to a central database,
comparing the viewer data with other similar viewers and deriving a
suggested media presentations based upon interests expressed by
other viewers that have similar characteristics. This is the so
called collaborative filtering also described in NetConnections
patent and Miller's Group lens technology
[0129] Electronic transmission of media is driven from a website or
content controlled ad servers that are linked to multiple websites
by small "one-pixel" files in web pages that send a web page with
an embedded "web bug" that makes a call out to the ad server to
send the information to the browsers
[0130] Present computer systems include display input devices
network connections and do not have physiologic input sensors that
transmit the BioData to the workstation or computer which forwards
pertinent information to the network.
[0131] When a viewer is on a website monitoring browser activity
especially the successful click through activity that leads to
sales includes recording numbers of views of a particular page,
time spent on the page, progression to other pages on the site and
eventually sales are critical to the operation of the database and
selection of media by the recommendation system.
[0132] A first standard browser communication filtering method for
recommending being such that the source of the click is tracked to
determine the referral site from which the user browser originated
the click and arrived at the ad website. This is the transversal or
web link filtering method collects clickthrough information,
compares successful sales with the source of the buyers, and in
affiliate programs pays referring sites that result in sales.
[0133] A second browser communication filtering method being such
that filtering and clustering is used improved upon to minimize the
effort needed to make the group analysis. The so called filtering
and clustering method is known as collaborative filtering when
multiple users and websites are used to collect information about
purchases and requests so that a demographic group of consumers
independent of
[0134] A third browser communication filtering method being such a
neural network is employed in a context of a first ad viewing to
learn to the characterize the behavior of an individual consumer
and establish membership of the individual in groups of like
consumers and in a second context of later viewing to use the
characterization to select media content and thematic approach for
later views by the same consumer and group members and to
characterize the behavior of that individual and group members at
second context views and in other contexts.
[0135] Newer web site management tools and media control systems
use. A possible fourth method in this invention both the first and
second methods are combined in one filter. This is functional where
only one web server is intended to use the correlated data for user
preferences and choice of preferred media. Preferred theme and
media choice is from the vendor and consumer is the theme and
choice that leads most consistently to a sale of goods or
acquisition of information or services.
[0136] A fifth method of modification of a website content manager
employs a decision tree or logistic model for selection of media
based on statistic like and dislikes based on average Bayesian.
[0137] The preferred embodiment for the system is a self-correcting
learning system one of several multilayer a neural network
implementations which learn individual preferences/recommendations
and group preferences/recommendations are employed. A hierarchy of
choices for recommendations based on individuals, groups and media
providers. What is unique to the system is the ability of the web
content provider to override the recommendations and use a
"campaign approach" or force the use of standard media and theme
choices and force the selection of ads shown to viewers to evaluate
specific new materials. This override permits testing of media on
viewers and collection of data for diverse individuals and groups
of individual where new media has been developed. This also can be
used for forced repetition saturation campaigns. Biosignal
responses, click through and buying responses are observed and the
system learns and evaluates the responses even before the
clickthrough has been completed.
[0138] FIG. 10 shows the hierarchy of choices for recommendation
that requires a threshold for both individual and group
recommendations. An individual measure of confidence in the
individual recommendation based on individual preferences is
desired to be above an individual confidence threshold. If the
individual measure confidence is not sufficient to trust the
recommendation, the website content provider may use the group data
to determine a group recommendation instead of the individual
recommendation. A group measure of confidence in the group
recommendations based on group preferences is desired to be above a
group confidence threshold. If the group measure of recommendation
is not sufficient to trust the group recommendation or if the
default is required by the advertiser, the default content and
theme will be used.
PRINCIPLE OF THE INVENTION
[0139] Internet browsers are viewed by consumers and are considered
an excellent medium for ads and making "on-line" sales. The problem
that consumer viewers often browse and select products but abandon
the online shopping cart before a sale is completed.
[0140] The inventors' experience that more customers achieve a
satisfactory result is a closed sale for the salesperson in a
situation where a live salesperson is able to answer customer
questions and understand and respond to the unspoken objections
shown by the customers body language, gestures, eye contact and
tone of voice that are reliable indicators if the potential buyer
has problems with the sale. BioNet method, system and personalized
web content manager is responsive to browser viewers' psychological
preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators
that are available through the use of psychological/physiological
monitoring devices attached to the browser equipment, thus
preserving website's efficient operation. Preservation of buying
momentum and continued browsing with minimal delays are primary
concerns addressed by the invention.
[0141] While these devices fulfill their respective, particular
objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not
disclose a new BioNet method, system and personalized web content
manager that immediately responds to real time indications of
stress or interest of the website viewer. The inventive device
includes Biosignal sensors, hardware for obtaining physiologic
information, and gesture recognition, means for computer analysis
of the Biosignals, including taking a baseline measure before media
is presented and recording perturbations from baseline, means for
sending the information from a client web browser to a computer
network that keeps a history of viewer interactions with the
website including those actions which preceded earlier sales for
purposes of creating a knowledgebase of predictable consumer
behaviors.
[0142] In these respects, the BioNet method, system and
personalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'
psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic
stress indicators according to the present invention substantially
departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior
art, and in so doing provides a method and apparatus primarily
developed for receiving immediate consumer feedback for the purpose
of selectively advising websites on what media will meet the
content and themes desired by the consumer. Immediate feedback is
obtained by using the stress or discomfort indicated through
Biosignals made available by selected Biosignal sensors and
combined with database information that includes the context of the
viewing situation, the psychological profile of the viewer, and
particularly includes the recognizable pathway that includes steps
at least the last three steps before a sale is recorded. Based upon
the context and viewer history website content provider is given
suggestions for presentations that satisfy viewers and achieve
maximum sales efficiency that will lead to quicker sales and fewer
abandoned visits.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0143] In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known
types of website media content and theme controls used to provide a
content to a web viewer the present browser viewer's
physiologic/psychological information to a website content provider
so that the information can be transmitted to browser viewers now
present in the prior art, the present invention provides a new
BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager
responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators construction
wherein the same can be utilized for selectively presenting media
choices to the consumer with aims to reach a maximum satisfaction
of viewer desires without a loss of momentum toward a with sale
with minimum time consumption by the user and minimum bandwidth
consumption by the media selected.
[0144] The general purpose of the present invention, which will be
described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new
BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager
responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators apparatus
and method which has many of the advantages of the present
personalized web content managers and includes many novel features
that result in a new BioNet method, system and personalized web
content manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological
preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators
which is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even
implied by any of the prior art portals website controls, website
ad monitoring systems controls used to control and suggest media
content supplied to a browser viewer, either alone or in any
combination thereof.
[0145] To attain this, the present invention generally comprises a
web browser connected to a network, browser being software running
on a digital computer input output devices capable of text display,
optionally sound and multimedia display, and including the standard
button keyboard or mouse, specialized physiological input
accessories acquire signals; further comprising a database for
storing user preferences, psychological data and physiological
data, an analysis component for identifying patterns of activities
for individuals and groups of individuals using the browser, and a
recommending component for recommending to a web content provider
the media type and message themes to be viewed by the browser
user.
[0146] There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more
important features of the invention in order that the detailed
description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in
order that the present contribution to the art may be better
appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that
will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject
matter of the claims appended hereto.
[0147] In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment
of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the
invention is not limited in its application to the details of
construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in
the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The
invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced
and carried out in various ways. In addition, it is to be
understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are
for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as
limiting.
[0148] As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the
conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be
utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods
and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present
invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded
as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not
depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
[0149] Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable
the PTO and the public generally, and especially the scientists,
engineers and software practitioners in the art who are not
familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine
quickly from a cursory inspection the essence of the technical
disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to
restrictively define the invention of the application, which is
measured by the claims, nor is the abstract intended to limit the
scope of the invention in any way.
[0150] It is therefore an object of the present invention to
provide a new BioNet method, system and personalized web content
manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators which is not
anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even implied by any of
the prior art website content controls used to control web pages,
rich multimedia and ads to a consumer web browser, either alone or
in any combination thereof for viewing on any of new wireless media
browsers including PDA's (personal digital assistants PALM OS or
Pocket PC), cell phones, pagers that are soon to be available with
Bluetooth, G3, and the WAP Wireless Application Protocol.
[0151] It is another object of the present invention to provide a
new BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager
responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators which may be
easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed.
[0152] It is a further object of the present invention to provide a
new BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager
responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators which is of
a flexible and reliable architecture scalable for use on systems
with web browsers on various personal computers and Internet
appliances that use operating Microsoft Windows, Linux, OS/2, PALM
OS, Windows CE severed by web servers that operate on a variety of
UNIX, Windows NT, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, Apple Macintosh OS n-X
others on various server platforms .
[0153] An even further object of the present invention is to
provide a new personalized web content manager responsive to
browser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses
and physiologic stress indicators which is susceptible of a low
cost of programming and distribution with regard to both media and
labor, and which accordingly is then susceptible of low prices of
sale to the advertisers and media providers, thereby making such
personalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'
psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic
stress indicators economically available to the buying public.
[0154] Still another object of the present invention is to provide
a new BioNet method, system and personal web content manager
responsive to behavioral responses and physiologic stress
indicators which provides in the apparatuses and methods of the
prior art some of the advantages thereof, while simultaneously
overcoming some of the delayed response of existing recommendation
systems that must wait for explicit action via user click or input
before deciding on further recommendations and disadvantages
normally associated therewith.
[0155] Still another object of the present invention is to provide
a new BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager
responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators for
selectively recommending to the web content provider the theme to
be pursued on the website ad media presentations based on signal
received telling the consumer responses to ads before behavioral
actions indicate the consumer's choice.
[0156] Still yet another object of the present invention is to
provide a new BioNet method, system and personalized web content
manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators that is self
correcting, in response to changes of individual responses. Where
suggested media content and themes do not match the desired result
showing a greater inclination toward a sale according to legacy
history rules proposed for an individual, the system can fall back
from individual profile matching to group profile matching or to
default campaign or product profile matching.
[0157] Even still another object of the present invention is to
provide a new BioNet method, system and personalized web content
manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences,
behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicators is useable
as an add on module to existing web site media selection
controls.
[0158] These together with other objects of the invention, along
with the various features of novelty that characterize the
invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed
to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better
understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the
specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to
the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there are
illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0159] The invention, as well as the following detailed description
of preferred embodiments, will be better understood and objects
other than those set forth above will become apparent when
consideration is given to the following detailed description
thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings
that are included by way of example, and not by way of limitation
with regard to the claimed invention.
[0160] FIG. 1 generally illustrates the cycle of operation of the
present invention.
[0161] FIG. 2 is a prior art evaluation chart by APT Applied
Predictive Technology Chart that shows a comparison of
effectiveness of various models used to predict content that
applies to an apparel website.
http://www.predictivetechnologies.com/images/right_tool.gif
[0162] FIG. 3 is a prior art illustration FIG. 3 of a client server
exchange session involving the access control and monitoring method
of the Levergood U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,780.
[0163] FIG. 3A is an illustration of a client server exchange
session involving the access control and monitoring method using a
session identifier psychological physiological indicator
transmitted over the network.
[0164] FIG. 3B is an example of an apparel website using Microsoft
Active Server Page implementation of the web server and browser
viewer that uses database elements
[0165] FIG. 3C is an online slide viewer presentation by SAS that
outlines the advantages of Managing Customer Relationships is the
key to Win-Win E-commerce.
[0166] FIG. 3D is another slide viewer presentation by SAS that
illustrates the advantages of guided selling for more complex sales
that could otherwise require sales staff actions to support the
viewer customer.
[0167] FIG. 4 is a diagram of Alkons' Dynamically-Stable
Associative Learning Neural Network System which also may be used
in the BioNet System and personalized web content manager.
[0168] FIG. 4A is a prior art multilevel neural network block
diagram of the neural network in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,093 to Cooper,
a Parallel, multi-unit, adaptive, nonlinear pattern class separator
and identifier.
[0169] FIG. 4B is a prior art multilevel neural network block
diagram of the Nestor Multilevel Neural Network in U.S. Pat. No.
4,958,093 to O'Reilly.
[0170] FIG. 5 is a schematic block diagram of the BioNet System and
personalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'
psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological
stress indicators of the present invention with a three tier
setup.
[0171] FIG. 6 is a diagram of the Likeminds.TM. Personalization
Architecture which shows personalization occurring apart from the
web content manager.
[0172] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a computer system on which a
browser or web server may operate, such as a workstation, personal
computer, Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, wireless browser or other
processing apparatus in which the client 50 or server 150 may be
operative.
[0173] FIG. 8 is an example consumer database that is a flat
representation of multidimensional databases where each column in
an OLAP online analytical processing database joins several
databases A demographic, B general, C biosignals, D Medical, E
credit score, F psychocognitive (survey), G Buying history
(BuyScore), H cookie data and I behavioral emotional states.
[0174] FIG. 8A is a block diagram of computer systems shown in
PRIOR ART U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608.
[0175] FIG. 9 is a modified a schematic diagram of the network
dataflow to and from Web server 52, Client and Database and
Financial Credit Debit server of the present invention using an
website interposed between the BDS Buy Data ppd database
(Physiologic/ Psychological Server databases where BuyScore E-Score
and kept and suggestions are sent Web server.
[0176] FIG. 10 is a scenario of a web site visit illustrated by a
pathway diagram of page views prompts and activities as two
different visitors John and Joe traverse web site pages, which are
selected based on personal preferences and responses of the
consumers.
[0177] FIG. 11 is network dataflow diagram to and from Web server
client, database and financial credit debit server for the BioNet
method and personalized web content manager responsive to browser
viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses and
physiological stress indicators.
[0178] FIG. 12 is a Flow diagram illustration of combination of
legacy rating and BioRating shown by parallel processing and
comparison of predicted results in compound neural networks.
Predictions based on explicit data input, behavior, context and
legacy data inputs are compared with predictions based on BioData
Behavior and context as employed in a BioNet system and
personalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'
psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological
stress indicators as processed without and with BioData for
purposes of suggesting web content and style and updating legacy
data preferences and BioData profiles.
[0179] FIG. 13 is a flowchart that shows the logic of selection of
the recommendations ad choice using a selection method based
override to a default ad campaign for testing T3, based on
individual profile recommendation based on individual prediction
data above a threshold confidence level T5, or based on group
profile recommendation based on group history and prediction data
above a group threshold T7 and default ad campaign where confidence
does not meet either individual or group threshold levels at tested
in steps T2 and T6 and default must be used T8.
[0180] FIG. 14 shows a simplified wireless computer Internet
connection for the FIG. 19 embodiment.
[0181] FIG. 15 is a simplified electronic circuit for connection of
the electrodes to an instrumentation amplifier for measurement of
biopotentials embodied in Bio-Phone. Bio-Phone embodies an
instrumentation amplifier and analog to digital
converter/buffer/sender that sends serial data to its own computer
or external computer/world wide web wirelessly.
[0182] FIG. 16 is a simplified electronic circuit for connection of
the electrodes to an instrumentation amplifier for measurement of
skin impedances embodied in Bio-Phone. A simplified electrical
diagram of GSR monitor which injects current on electrodes
connected between a person's ear including the pinna and ear canal
and measures voltage in an instrumentation amplifier and analog to
digital converter/buffer/sender that sends serial data
wirelessly.
[0183] FIG. 17 shows a simplified Bio-Phone apparatus with self
contained computer gathering, analyzing and utilizing data with
reciprocal user interaction without Internet connection.
[0184] FIG. 18 shows a simplified Bio-Phone apparatus that is also
its own self contained computer wirelessly connecting to the World
Wide Web.
[0185] FIG. 19 shows an embodiment of the invention that utilizes a
Bio-Phone as user's interface.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0186] With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
FIGS. 1 through 19 thereof, a new BioNet System and personalized
web content manager responsive to browser viewers' psychological
preferences, behavioral responses and physiological stress
indicators embodying the principles and concepts of the present
invention and generally designated by the reference numeral 10 will
be described.
[0187] More specifically, it will be noted that the workstation in
FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608 herein incorporated as FIG. 7
included in drawings is a computer system, such as a workstation,
personal computer or other processing apparatus in which the client
50 operates a browser 200 or a server 150 may be operative is
illustrated in FIG. 8 with a browser, various biosensors and a
voice stress analyzer. In a similar manner a web appliance browser,
two way email device, minibrowser devices using WAP, wireless
application protocol, new 3G wireless standard, or NTT DoCoMo
Japanese standard may be a platform for a browser and biosensors
and perhaps a voice stress analyzer. A workstation in which one
implementation of the present invention may be practiced includes
system 300, which comprises a bus or other communication means 301
for communicating information, and a processing means 302 coupled
with bus 301 for processing information. System 300 further
comprises a random access memory (RAM) or other volatile storage
device 304 (referred to as main memory), coupled to bus 301 for
storing information and instructions to be executed by processor
302. Arrows such as 67 represent the system bus architecture of
computer system 1. However, the bus is illustrative of any
interconnection scheme serving to link the subsystems. For example,
a local bus could be utilized to connect the central processor to
the system memory and the display adapter. A wireless
interconnection scheme could link processor display adapter and
memory. Main memory 304 also may be used for storing temporary
variables or other intermediate information during execution of
instructions by processor 302. System 300 also comprises a read
only memory (ROM) and/or other static storage device 306 coupled to
bus 301 for storing static information and instructions for
processor 302, and a data storage device 307 such as a magnetic
disk or optical disk and its corresponding disk drive both fixed
and removable. Data storage device 307 is coupled to bus 301 for
storing information and instructions. This may be used for storage
of the various files to be described here including profiles,
indices, temporary cached web information, topics, and files.
[0188] System 300 may further be coupled to a display device 321,
such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) or
a visor, which is coupled to bus 301, for displaying information to
a computer user. Such a display 321 may further be coupled to bus
301 via a frame buffer 310, which information such as a single or
multiple frames or images for display upon display device 321. An
alphanumeric input device 331, including alphanumeric and other
keys, may also be coupled to bus 301 for communicating information
and command selections to processor 302. An additional user input
device is cursor control 332, such as a mouse, a push-pointer, a
trackball, stylus, or cursor direction keys, coupled to bus 301 for
communicating direction information and command selections to
processor 302, and for controlling cursor movement on display
321.
[0189] Note, also, that any or all of the components of system 300
and associated hardware may be used in various embodiments;
however, it can be appreciated that any configuration of the system
may be used for various purposes according to the particular
implementation. Bio Remote control 340, BioPhone wireless 341, and
2way BioPager 342 and BioPalm Pocket PC are self contained wireless
devices include within a system on a chip or miniature system with
the RAM ROM CPU and Mass storage as well as BioData sensors and
device controls and minibrowser displays and sometimes audio
speakers or headphones.
[0190] In one embodiment, system 300 is one of the Sun
Microsystems.RTM. brand family of workstations such as the
SPARCstation brand workstation manufactured by Sun
Microsystems.RTM. of Mountain View, Calif. Processor 302 may be one
of the SPARC brand microprocessors manufactured by Sun
Microsystems.RTM., Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Note that the
following discussion of various embodiments discussed herein will
refer specifically to a series of routines which are generated in a
high-level programming language (e.g., the PERL, JAVA, PYTHON,
SMALLTALK interpretive and scripting languages) which is
interpreted and/or executed in system 300 at run-time. These
further are used in conjunction with the browser and server
software available from NCSA, MOSAIC NETACAPE MICROSOFT and other
SPYGLASS licenses including the specification of the appearance of
displays in HTML. One skilled in the art appreciates that the
following methods and apparatus may be implemented in special
purpose hardware devices, such as discrete logic devices, large
scale integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specific integrated
circuits (ASIC's), or other specialized hardware. Other programming
languages, C, BasicC, C ++ and other Operating systems such as
Unix, Posix, and variations of Linux platforms may be utilized.
[0191] Another embodiment Web Server platform comprises an IBM RISC
System/6000 computer running the AIX (Advanced Interactive
Executive) Operating System and a Web server program, such as
Netscape Enterprise Server Version 2.0, that supports interface
extensions. The platform also includes a graphical user interface
(GUI) for management and administration. The various models of the
RISC-based computers are described in many publications of the IBM
Corporation, for example, RISC System 6000, 7013 and 7016
POWERstation and POWERserver. While the above platform is useful,
any other suitable hardware/operating system/Web server
combinations may be used. Accordingly, the web server description
here has equal application to apparatus having similar components
and functions.
[0192] Biosignal processing could occur at a central location if
signals could be transmitted and received reliably at a central
computer. One problem for delivery of Biosignals is the
availability of broadband service to consumers' homes. Cable modems
and DSL are expected to become more popular in coming years. More
bandwidth in the last mile to the consumer's home would permit
centralized monitoring of Biosignals that are transmitted in
packets to a central server instead of being analyzed at the
browser system. August, 2000 "Emarketer" reported second quarter
growth in U.S. DSL was at 59%, according to TeleChoice. The number
of lines in service jumped 754,770 to 1.2 million and predicted
there were likely to be 10 million DSL and cable TV connections in
the U.S. in the next three or four years.
[0193] In use according to the present invention, multiplayer
neural networks are used to determine the patterns of inputs that
are most likely to lead up to a sale. The patterns of inputs are
referred to as a behavioral emotional footprint that comprises at
least three steps leading up to a sale. U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,811 by
Scofield et al. describes an N-Dimensional Coulomb Neural Network
Which Provides For Cumulative Learning of Internal Representations.
For multiplayer neural networks, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,742
by Alkon--Dynamically-Stable Associative Learning Neural Network
System and U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,469 also by Alkon--Neural Network
With Weight Adjustment Based On Prior History Of Input Signals.
Alkon says in U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,469 in accordance with the
present invention, the input presented to a basic neural network
architectural unit comprises a first input signal comprising a set
of conditioned stimuli (CS), and a second input (UCS) signal
comprising an unconditioned stimulus. In some embodiments of the
invention, CS arises from a historical pattern to be classified and
UCS represents a classification category. Conceptually, note
original patent drawing FIG. 4c shown in drawing FIG. 4 shows the
flow-through connections are analogues of pathways for
unconditioned stimuli (UCS), and the collateral connections are
analogues of pathways for conditioned stimuli (CS). The neural
networks learn to combine and differentiate in a manner similar to
the human brain. Sets of signals representing the exemplary desired
(CS) input patterns are successively applied to the primary inputs
and propagate through the neural network to the output. The
differences between the actual and desired output vales, determined
by the external teacher, are calculated to arrive at an error
signal that is employed, typically with a nonlinear algorithm,
throughout the network to adjust synaptic weights. The synaptic
weights are used to adjust the effective value of the various
neuron inputs to permit the neural model to be used to predict the
behavior of a system that has learned from past behavior. Neural
networks are useful for pattern recognition that is associative or
content-addressable memory for producing a class exemplar form an
input pattern as described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,700 Seligson
Neural network incorporating difference neurons which actually uses
a difference neuron. This process is repeated in a recurring manner
and typically requires a large number of iterations to reduce
errors appearing at the primary outputs to an acceptable level.
This method is referred to as the back-propagation method.
[0194] One other well known non-iterative method of using a neural
network employs Gaussian probability method is discussed by Minot
in U.S. Pat. No. 5,568,591 which disclosed the use of multiple
multilayer perceptrons (`MLPs`) in a neural network which
classifies data vectors using a method that utilizes comparison of
differences between authentic specimen signatures known to be from
a specific person and unknown signatures not known to be from the
same person. Minot method is suited for comparisons where a small
number of sample specimens are available. The adaptively trained
system employed synaptic coefficients or weights determined by
training on the differences between training specimens of a known
authentic class, the network being adapted to fit the number of
specimens to the classes. A network as trained is capable of
verifying signatures by operating rapidly and repeatably using the
synaptic weights retrievable from a stored database. The connection
weights for input neurons were determined by comparison of input
layer neurons and correction neurons calculating a Bayesian and by
comprising internal layer neurons and correction neurons and
adjusting weights associated therewith. The input layer quadratic
neurons 3, internal layer hyperellipsoidal neurons 4 and output
layer 5 which gives the probability that signature is in either
class 1 (valid). It is not necessary in the case of signature
comparison to use a second class of known invalid signatures for
comparisons, that being difficult unless samples of invalid
signatures are used for training. The input neurons 3 are inter
connected with correction neurons 6 and internal layer neurons 7
which are set to -1 compared to weighted inputs for purposes of
finding optimal weights Statistical calculation of mathematical
relationship of G (covariance matrices of normal distribution of k
samples are the k neighbors) and m (centroids of the
distributions). Complexity increases as each new difference
requires a new internal layer neuron and each new class requires a
new output neuron
[0195] In the present invention, the BioNet Method And Personalized
Web Content Manager Responsive To Browser Viewers' Psychological
Preferences, Behavioral Responses And Physiological Stress
Indicators, after training is completed and the neural network
controls a network computer system of computer browsers, a trained
control program can then combine the multiple inputs make a
decision to instruct the network how to behave (what to deliver to
the browser) in response to inputs from a browser user who is
interacting with the network with or without physiologic input
data.
[0196] In some cases, the neural network can initiate activity on
its own without realtime input. For example, when a known set of
legacy data (psychological characteristics) is associated with a
particular product. Inputting the known set of characteristics can
be used to determine multiple emotional footprints at several
possible states along the progression shown by example in FIG. 8.
With knowledge of the emotional footprints, the default or standard
campaign can be used in cases where physiologic inputs are not
available.
[0197] FIG. 7 shows a representative database listing of input
signals and several psychological and emotional categories that are
clustered subsets of signals is that may be accumulated as a
cluster score for a characteristic subset of viewer with recorded
activities or survey questions that put he browsers viewer into a
class describable as assertive, interactive, fearful, greedy,
strong locus of internal control (I do it may way"). Thus in
accordance with the present invention, the neural network combines
characteristics of browser user sessions and legacy data, and
physiologic signals to recommend ads media and content themes to
able shown to viewer. The weighed outputs called Escores are the
equivalent to a score for conditions at that are evaluated in terms
of leading a sale.
[0198] To reach a minimum core of functionality and to make a
simpler explanation, the context of the sale has been divided into
three basic categories of pre-purchase condition, the first state
being the entrance or first view of a web page and the beginning of
the information acquisition, the second state being information
gathering up to and after product is selected, and the third being
the state after pricing and negotiation of details is completed but
before a sale is completed. Knowledge Base creates behavioral
emotional footprint that records at least three actions that
proceed to a sale. There are many pathways to a sale as is
illustrated in tree diagram or footprint diagram in FIG. 10.
[0199] The knowledge base is created by forming statistically large
groups of people, where each group exhibits the same psychological
or physiological characteristic. A larger superset of people is
divided into these psychologically or physiologically homogeneous
groups by conducting a psychological or physiological assessment,
respectively, of the superset.
[0200] As will become apparent from the description below, the
present invention may be adapted to use any website configuration,
For convenience, much of the description below concerns
psychological/psychological characteristics, although those skilled
in the art will recognize that the invention may easily be adapted
to measure responses after the database has been created using
Biosensors for acquiring psychological/physiological signals have
been removed or the browser is accessed from a location that is not
equipped with the necessary equipment.
[0201] In the classical null hypothesis test used in "lie detector"
analysis of stress a comparison of a normal response at a reference
condition and a response known to be made under a condition of
falsehood. Regardless of the test employed, formation of the
knowledge base requires two basic steps. First, psychologically
homogeneous groups are formed based upon a psychological
assessment, similar consumers are grouped together. Second, the
physiologic and parameters most closely associated with each group
are determined. To perform this step, each viewer ("reference
subject") in each group responds to ad impressions and has
physiologic signals monitored and if present speaks into the
microphone of a voice stress analyzer, is observed by the gesture
recognition device or physiologic stress monitor. Each viewer's
physiologic signals and speech is then parameterized. The process
for parameterizing both the reference subjects' speech to create
the knowledge base, and the test subject's speech for the later
pattern comparison are illustrated in FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No.
6,006,188, issued to Bogdashevsky reproduced here as The process
for parameterizing the reference subjects physiologic signals GSR
in pending "BioMouse" patent application serial number and in the
attached figure from the BioMouse application.
[0202] None of the earlier patents provides a means to working
without prior knowledge a priori collection of data on a new viewer
or subject. We recognize that ad servers and web page authors have
typical viewer demographic data, and preset static data or
personally customized preferred or a preset ad campaign, a program
a planned scheme of impressions that is to be shown to every
viewer. Physiologic responses and voice signals are acquired in
response to impressions and a knowledge base is created.
[0203] The prior art U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,188 issued to Bogdashevsky
describes a speech-based system for assessing the psychological,
physiological, or other characteristics of a test subject. The
system included a knowledge base that stores one or more speech
models based on a characteristic obtained from a group of reference
subjects. Signal processing circuitry compared the test speech
parameters of a test subject with the speech models. In one
embodiment, each speech model is represented by a statistical
time-ordered series of frequency representations of the speech of
the reference subjects. The speech model is independent of a priori
knowledge of style parameters associated with the voice or speech.
The system included speech parameterization circuitry for
generating the test parameters in response to the test subject's
speech. The speech parameterization circuitry included speech
acquisition circuitry, output circuitry for outputting at least one
indicator of a characteristic in response to the comparison
performed by the signal processing circuitry. The characteristic
may be time-varying, in which case the output circuitry outputs the
characteristic in a time-varying manner. The speech characteristics
are compared with the Jungian characteristics using the so Called
Brigs Myers compatibility profile.
[0204] The array of BioNet inputs is H, Ps, E, B, C, Ph and G as
shown is figure Table 1. Since the system is learning all signals
is done real time these can change. However the history H, Ps
psychological, E emotional, and C cognitive aspects are reached
through collection of data made available on a legacy database and
will require some stability for reliability when used for
estimation purposes but allow for change as new experiences and
routes are charted.
[0205] Indicator sources include H for individual history, Ps for
psychological compatibility, B for behavioral "motivators," and E
for emotional motivators C is for Cognitive G is for gesture
recognition, that are combined as a weighted collection of factors
called the Escore. Escore is used to indicate the affinity of a
viewer for materials that have been shown and can be an indication
of the likelihood of making an order for material or purchasing
goods software (computer programs, photographs greeting cards,
literature, or reading materials), H individual history included at
website, previous web pages viewed link source, number of times
viewed, number of links or layers entered, where on hierarchies
present context (state 1 introductory viewing 2 information
gathering or 3 end stage loading shopping basket) in the pre-buying
stages), past purchases made, and stated viewer preferences
personal profiles or commonly assigned profiles built using
demographics of like consumers of the particular product if no
profile is available.
[0206] Ps psychological compatibility indexes Myers-Briggs Jungian
character types. Character types are chosen from combinations of
four sets of opposite character constructs: E-I
(extrovert-introvert), S-N (sensoric-intuitive), T-F
(thoughtful-feeling), J-P (decision maker-plagued).
[0207] In category B, behavioral "motivators" are baseline
customers for web page authors, membership in knowledge base "like
groups," portal membership surveys and past activity history. In
category E, emotional motivators one may use a checklist from
Mazlow's hierarchy of needs such as Security vs Fear, anxiety and
loss; self confidence vs doubt, trust in others, Faith congruence
with values ideals or identity with persons or points of view,
greed, envy, guilt, loyalty or personal involvement: affinity and
ownership versus isolation and keeping at a distance,
aggressive/assertive and passive/interactive styles and various
permutations of the above.
[0208] Further pattern recognition may be optimized after
physiologic signals that indicate anger or fear may trigger a
review of historical data to identify the specific types of anger
and fear which should be recognized, categorized and used for
prompting the appropriate theme and content. Physical signs of
anger include increased hear rate and blood pressure. Trembling
speaking voice and poor posture are indicators of fear. The most
common types of fear found in negotiations fear of failure, loss
and the unknown and lesser fears of humiliation and suffering. The
context of the situation will be a cue that indicates the kind of
fear and processing the cue will allow the appropriate web content
prompt to be recommended and used as hereinafter described with
reference to FIG. 10.
[0209] C for cognitive baseline customer demographic is derived
from individual legacy data, web page collaborative filtered
demographics (most users who view this page have similar opinion
surveys, past activity history and legacy data), or simply what is
expected by the ad campaign manager for all consumers who reach the
page. cognitive baseline customer data is an approximation or
prediction of what the consumer thinks she or he is going. This
includes locus of control that is who is leading whom and who is
planning the next move among other factors.
[0210] Ph is for physiologic signals, EEG electro encephalogram
(ranging from simple band pass filtered power density correlations)
and blink detection the greater the number of blinks per minute the
higher the anxiety, sophisticated analysis of ERP (evoked response
potentials)to indicate attention or discomfort, GSR galvanic skin
resistance (that indicates sweaty palms), skin temperature, pupil
dilation, voice stress (changes in spectrum of speech), respiration
rate by thermistor or hotwire anemometer flow sensor or
trans-thoracic (across the chest or arm to arm) impedance, hear
rate by blood pulse detection via infrared diode or EKG
electrocardiogram.
[0211] G is for gesture recognition accomplished by computer
analyses of video inputs. The position of the face as recognized by
analysis of processed video signals indicates an upbeat or downbeat
attitude. The count of blinks per minute may be used for indicating
anxiety. The closed facing to the side or open facing the camera
view of interactions made when facing an avatar, a human like
interface that looks and speaks as if a human being were a talking
head on the computer screen may offer the closest clues to viewer
attitudes that can get closer to the information obtained by direct
face to face observation of a viewer. The method of neural network
pattern recognitions and analysis of pathways leading up to a sale
is presented in the flowchart FIG. 12.
[0212] Observation of pathways taken will provide a working example
as shown in the bracket diagram on FIG. 10. With reference to the
drawings a scenario shows and example of two persons, John and Joe,
both of which have with known database or presurvey information to
have a high level of assertiveness on an assertive
interactive/scale. Two individuals received different web site
treatment according to recommendations based on the combination of
additional legacy variables depending upon the known degree of
internal/external control. The example shows John, who has a high
level of internal control who remains in control of negotiations,
and Joe whose internal control level is lower and may be led or
pushed by prompts of fear or guilt by the sales agent. The
following simplified two scenario example works using the legacy
database information for more accurate personalization and
prediction for the known non-anonymous with a psychological profile
that can be used and proposed media and thematic choices determined
more rapidly and accurately than anonymous users. Anonymous users
may still be tracked based on IP address for each session tracking
to establish useful predictive suggestions based on broad
demographics, click stream and physiologic responses that identify
the traits of a demographic group. Neural networking or
collaborative filtering observation of trends for physiologic
reactions correlated with a group that has the higher degree of
internal control may be used to suggest media and themes
appropriate for the group even without the personal legacy data.
Multiple kinds of predicative models may be used for finding rules
and making predictions. Neural networks are preferred based on fast
learning characteristics. However, Linear regression, Logistic
regression, collaborative filtering (clustering/filtering), and
decision trees may be used for finding rules and making
predictions.
[0213] In a first scenario that utilizes legacy
psychological/physiological profile with decision trees and BioNet
signal monitoring is described with reference to FIG. 10.
Behavioral Prompt after a score that measures high Assertive &
Interactive, all the way through to the Sale. Beginning at the
START BOX, John logs On to Packard Motors Home Page. Two sales
tracks are described according to a simple decision tree based on
different levels of internal/external control. On the left hand
side of the figure, internal control is high and remains high, in
the control of the consumer. The eScore profile notes John has a
desire to be assertive and choose the media choice is "when
assertive interactive threshold is reached chosen media is designed
to meet consumer's content desire with a theme that suites the
consumers self determination personality." System is recording and
responding with recommendation based on the real time user
responses clickstream browser activity and physiologic signals that
indicate acceptance or rejection of media prompts. Profile (legacy
data) and context are used to select follow-up media prompts and
content themes in response to physiologic and viewer reactions
(browser activities) observed by the system.
[0214] A1 Cognitive Prompt (Internal Control): High threshold
eScore is reached for internal control. At this point John, the
consumer, takes charge of choices from web vendor. John sees his
options as the master of his own fate "Heads I win tails you lose.
Now you pick one." Collaborative filter or neural network memory of
the historic behavior of other persons with high internal control
scores suggests the name your own price option.
[0215] A2 Cognitive Prompt (Expectation is to Name Your Price):
High threshold John accepts invitation to guess our invoice cost.
Cost is disclosed with an invitation for John to offer an amount to
pay above invoice. The counter offering a price may use excess
inventory price bidding systems like priceline.com ubid.com and
other bidding websites that auction or choose a price based on
offer and acceptance for individual or grouped bids. The on line
exchange of an offer and reviewing the offer is the equivalent to a
visit to the manager's office for price or bid approval. This
process resembles in-store price haggling or bantering that
involves getting the manager approval of a minimum acceptable price
for a dealer. Preliminary physiologic indicators of viewer response
are helpful inputs to assist the price selection system in
assessing viewer response. Physiologic indicators of high stress
and interest/disinterest that could be considered the equivalent to
a shrug, a blank stare, a toss of the head or head shaking signs
that a live exchange would provide a cue to the sales person to
revisit benefits or add factors to reinforce consumer's desire to
buy. Psychological/Physiological signals are stable, showing no
perturbation, no discomfort or stress. In other words, customer's
voice does not crack under the strain of negotiation.
[0216] A3 Emotional Prompt (Greed): High threshold is reached. John
is a discount guy shown in his legacy profile. Neural data and
collaborative data suggest this is the time to deal. He wants the
bargain sale price. Give him what he wants.
[0217] A4 Emotional Prompt (Anxiety) after Best Price & No
Sale: The competitive price offered is as low as retailer will go.
System can make no further price drop. But there is no acceptance
yet. Based again on neural net data, collaborative filters for the
greedy profile and neural networks logistic regression an emotional
hang-up anxiety is indicated as possible. Suggested response is a
30 day price guarantee that reassures that no better deal can be
found and resolves the fear of losing a better deal.
[0218] A5 Behavioral Prompt (Passive Avoidance): John likes
guarantee but still won't buy. Neural net response is based on
behavioral history using legacy data that confirms this is John's
emotional footprint. He is avoiding a fear that the purchase
represents.
[0219] A6 Emotional Prompt (Fear of Failure): John likes the deal
and the retailer but is afraid to screw up. John's behavior is
frozen perhaps obsessed subconsciously. Neural filter suggested
response is a Trust probe. Have we given you what you asked
for?
[0220] A7 Cognitive Prompt (Trust): Relationship including trust
element is sold to John. Believe in us we won't let you down.
Physiologic signals still indicate stress as John keeps this trust
in his back pocket as excuse if decision to buy was wrong. John
will not be responsible for a failure because he puts his faith in
the retailer.
[0221] Special eScore is an abbreviated identifier for a special
consumer category; in this case High Internal Control &Trust is
noted after sale. The special eScores may be stored locally on
consumer's machine via cookies or in a database linked to the
consumer's identity on the web server or on the PPI database to
assist web vendors by rapidly noting a membership in a special
customer category.
[0222] John believes sale was his choice and not reaction to sales.
John gets car that he was looking for AND holds the belief that his
actions were of choice rather than reaction. The fact that John
needs independent choice and the trust element that takes him off
the hook is noted on his personal weighted eScores and may be
stored locally in a browser cookie and on a centrally stored eScore
in a PPI database. At a minimum the emotional footprint for last
three links traversed and associated themes "Fear of Failure"
"trust" are added to John's legacy profile.
[0223] In a second scenario discussed with reference to FIG. 10,
Joe logs on to Packard Motors Home Page. The path is shown
beginning at the START BOX. He views various autos and selects one
at box Al. Based on previous survey information obtained before
logging on to this website various scores have already been
established including activated cells Assertive, Interactive,
Greed, and Fear of losing the deal. From Joe's various activated
cells we his general modus operandi or behavior is assertive
interactive (as opposed to passive/aggressive, passive/avoidance).
Joe has responded with a high assertive/interactive score when
polled on his opinion about salesmen and various styles thereof. In
contrast with the example above Joes locus of control allows Joe to
follow the lead of a sales person.
[0224] B1 Cognitive Prompt (External Controls): Joe is assertive in
researching and choosing the retailer who he is confident will be
able to fulfill his need. However, once chosen, Joe wishes to
believe the experts that he has chosen "know best." Joe
relinquishes responsibility of determining what is best for him not
what choice to make once a determination has been made. He switches
to external control after the choice of vendor is made.
[0225] B2 Cognitive Prompt (Assumptions and Ideals): Joe assumes
the unsolicited $2000 discount off the MSRP list price is a result
of honorable and generally "no haggle" policy promoted by the car
dealer. Joe scores high on Assumptions and Ideals about himself and
therefore is viewed as likely to expect similar deals from others
with whom he interacts. Joe's psychological/physiological signals
show no stress.
[0226] B3 Emotional Prompt (Guilt): Joe is strong-armed with guilt
prompt reminding him he came to us--for a reason. We made choices
based on what you requested and in your best interest. We didn't
beat you up while you got your discount. Thus, Joe is browbeaten to
uphold his part of the deal.
[0227] B4 Emotional Prompt (Fear): Joe is reminded how intimidating
other car dealers can be when he is pressured to choose and
negotiate for himself. Joe's psychological/physiological signals
show stress.
[0228] B5 Behavioral Prompt (Passive Aggressive): Joe likes to deal
offered and really does not want to go elsewhere, but still will
not buy. Joe wants to buy but has lost face when brow beaten. Joe's
psychological/physiological signals show increased stress, by voice
stress increase, heart rate increase, head shaking no (gesture
recognition).
[0229] B6 Emotional Prompt (Anger): Joe feels angry. He feels fear
when car shopping and now holds out and "cuts off his nose to spite
his face" even when a good deal is offered.
[0230] B7 Prompt (Ideals / Identity): Joe is reminded he is a
special and respected customer whom the president of the company
would like to personally like to contact him and thank him for his
confidence. A sale is made.
[0231] The pattern of increased stress after negotiated sale price
is a low pressure push sales technique. This specific response may
be used only when the preceding flowchart schematic is present and
the "key customer" sale would produce large income figures. The
last three steps fear prompt, anger relief prompt ant appeal to
ideals and vendor identity is recorded in Joe's person al
history.
[0232] A2 Special eScore High Internal Control after DIRECT SALE:
If a sale is made at A2 via direct path A1 to A2 the eScore system
would record the sale pathway and interpret the sale to be a
related to the High Internal Control for the individual and the
group of similar consumers identified by collaborative filtering.
PPI database correlation would give both the individual and a
filtered group a higher E-score result that indicates the closeness
to the final step on a pathway that is successful for an
individual.
[0233] The system must be able to work when insufficient
information is available. A higher E-score is associated with the
pathway that succeeds in making a sale. However when the default
website recommendation of a content theme is overriding that is
able to use default selections for trial and error approaches and
is also aware of failure to make a sale and updates are made to
individual profile accordingly. As is noted below the pathways that
available are unlimited. The system may suggest a move to an
entirely different pathway based on knowledge that the alternate
path may be fruitful.
[0234] Traversal to Alternative Presale pathway is noted in the
eScore data base. For example if the sale occurs via above pathway
two steps A1 to A2 is and is correlated closely to other sales that
have occurred via 5 steps, B1A1 To B1B1 to B1B1 to B1B1A1 to
B1B1B1, said correlations may be used to channel users through the
filter. If no sale was made at A2 and the system later filters the
user to A2A1, the system may cross over to point B1A1 prompt and
progress accordingly from that point according to a preferred
pathway. The eScore index is higher that individual and suggests
media type and content themes on the B1A1
[0235] The system continuously refreshes the eScore at every point
traversed on the matrix according to what route and how many steps
were taken to get to a particular point in the matrix. The database
may be maintained that establishes the shortest pathway (most
proficient means) for pushing a user from one location in the
matrix to another given point. The database may be maintained that
establishes the greatest historical likelihood of successful sale.
The individual's historical sales record indicates the pathway that
succeeded in the past. The choice of best pathway may be made by
comparison of an eScore (likelihood of successful sale) for each
optional pathway. The system can then make available suitable media
in any of several methods pop ups, ad banners, message suggestions,
follow-up by postal mail, electronic mail, telephone call. Vendor
cooperation is needed to make the database for external
follow-up.
[0236] Override scenario details for tool buyer entering website
with fixed promotional plan. At A2B1 by response to a web picture
ad for a power wrench from Sears where there is no name your price
option here price is named. The progression of pages shows A1B1
opening screen with models available and pricing. Offer to join
affiliate program to get special discounts is made at A1B2. Viewer
acceptance of offer to join affiliate program gives access to
limited time offers, specials and promotions. Display of product
are synchronized monitoring of psychological/physiological
stress/interest indicates some varying level of excitement in
individual products. The psychological/physiological response
monitoring confirms interests that have been profiled in the
surveys and suggests other products that have increased the
consumer's interest. Profile is updated with content information
from physiological/psychological survey that is part of the
questionnaire for joining the affiliate program. Clickthrough
behavior (joining the affiliates for discounts) modified to the
greed index. Suggests web themes will focus on greed prompts on the
items that have been indicated to be of interest by survey and
A1B2B2 lead to a sale or blank box indicating another other chosen
media email with price drop reminder and viewers indicates going to
browse on another subject.
[0237] Key buying history indicators (kept by website) include:
total amount of purchases, total amount returned or cancelled,
average number of items per order, days since last order-recency,
current back order dollars, purchasing cycle stage (1st first ad
viewing, 2nd probing for configuration or sizing and detailed price
information, to shopping done choosing shipping and 3rd payment
method, and post sale delivery return which is first ad viewing),
number of times ad is viewed, status active customer old or new
(noted by first purchase date), number of purchases in recent 6
months, average frequency of visits per month, average frequency of
buys per month, last purchase date, total net profit, total sales
revenue, product categories purchased, total gross profit, purchase
type (first, repeat, multi-repeat), returned dollars. These data
points are analyzed in combination with Biodata (physiologic
signals and gesture data) via a neural network to obtain select the
best media choice in terms of content, mood and theme rather than
content alone. Monitoring Physiologic signals may provide some
reporting means to the advertisers for evaluation of ad campaigns
showing the effects of ads on consumers even before viewer sales
decisions have occurred.
[0238] In summary, the client connection with a browser viewer
communicating via IP packets to a server may operate in a variety
of physical devices. A physiologic monitor is connected to the PC
by hardware means selected from the choices bi-directional parallel
port, U.S.B (universal serial bus), serial COMM port, IEEE 1394
Firewire port, iRDA infrared port, and wireless Bluetooth data
connection, which communicates physiologic information via Internet
Protocol to a server. A physiologic monitor may be a browser on a
Web TV or satellite TV with hand held remote that uses a built in
physiologic monitor and wireless communication channel for
connection to a server via IP communication means. A Pocket PC or
Palm-Pilot.RTM. personal digital assistant ("PDA") uses a
connection to PCMCIA or compact flash data port for collateral
connection to a physiologic monitor. When a user logs into a web
browser a first physiologic parameter baseline is established at a
client connection, a computer browser viewer and input device with
physiologic monitor and transmitted via IP to a server. When a user
clicks on a banner advertisement or otherwise begins to view ad
content, an impression is established, the impression start time is
stored, and the user's identification and second physiologic
baseline is recorded. Later, when the user undertakes
post-impression transactional activity such as downloading software
related to the impression, ordering products and services related
to the advertisement, and so on, the transactional activity along
with the user's identification, time after impression start time
and physiologic parameter changes from baselines are recorded.
Stored data at a tertiary central psychological server indicates
the cumulative number of times this individual has viewed the media
(ad content), the duration of views and results in terms of
behaviors and physiologic responses to impressions to arrive a PPI
physiologic profile indicator.
[0239] Independent of content, media is categorized according to
media type for example "text only," "highlighted text," "animated
text," "spoken verbal audio," "musical jingle," "music only not
words," "short video only animation up to 5 seconds (animated
gif)," "audio (music or voice) over short animation," "audio video
segment of a variety short (up to 10 second), medium (10 to 45
second), and standard (45 seconds to 120 second) and long (more
than)," online seminar "real audio windows media player programs,"
web call offer (click to have sales person call pre-stored phone
number immediately or at a preferred time).
[0240] Cellular phones are input/output devices connecting
individuals to the World Wide Web. For purposes of studying
biofeedback, it would be useful to have electrodes built into the
phone to gather and analyze bio-potentials while allowing
interactive capabilities where feedback supports plurality of
function. Applications may utilize artificial intelligence
(algorithm) programming, collaborative filtering, and analysis
system to provide real time "E-Score" which continuously refresh,
depending on user and end user objectives. Applicants' phone has
bioelectrodes and sensors on the surface of the phone where the
mastoid process, condyle, pinna, and the ear canal touch the phone
attaching an instrumentation amplifier with a high CMMR common mode
rejection ration that is capable of rejecting interfering
electrical signals. With bioelectrode sensors, the voltage of an
isometric muscle contractions amplified by the instrumentation
amplifier may be sufficient to trigger the phone and create a
signal. This data and other bio information can be transmitted
easily to the computer via the digital ports and wirelessly or
gathered, analyzed, and utilized at the Bio-Phone apparatus itself.
Applicants' phone also allows biopotential information to be
stored, analyzed, or utilized at the phone apparatus itself, at the
backend user, or at the external data source.
[0241] Standard electromyography, oximetryoximeter, digital
thermometers, photoplethysmography and GSR galvanic skin response
measurement technologies have not been implemented in the
input/output device used with computers. For purposes of studying
biofeedback and stress the foregoing invention presents a novel
location or electrodes used to monitor these bioelectric
measurements. Historically, two forms of EDA, electro-dermal
activity, have been studied. The most common form is exiomatically
recorded activity in which an external electrical current is passed
through the skin. Activity is indicated by the skin's electrical
response or its reciprocal, conductance. The second form is
endosomatically recorded activity (skin potentials) that involves
monitoring voltage differences between electrodes at two points on
the surface of the skin. The endosomatic method is less common in
biofeedback than exosomatically recorded skin conductance.
[0242] Cellular phones have become widely used input/output devices
for connecting to the World Wide Web due to their convenience and
wireless features. The exemplary embodiment of FIGS. 14 though 19
uses cellular phone technology in the form of a bioelectrode phone
(Bio-Phone) with a plurality of electrodes and sensors in addition
to various control buttons and fingertip contacts to measure
temperature, pulse rate, blood volume pulses and respiration.
Electrodes along the phone body bioelectrode input device measure
galvanic skin response and electromyography.
[0243] The exemplary Bio-Phone 401 (FIG. 19) fits into a user's
ear. Alternatively, the Bio-Phone could be a hand-held phone or a
combination of a held-held phone with the ear piece communicating
with each other. Any of these could contain the electrodes or
sensors. The ear piece and hand-held phone would communicate with
each other and has sensors 402, 403, 404 and 405 along the phone
body as bioelectrode input devices to measure breath, voice stress,
voice pattern analyzer, head and body posture, trigger function
decibel analysis, galvanic skin response, body and head posture
recognition monitor, facial recognition device, voice signature
analyzer and authentication, EMG, pulse oximeter, thermometer,
electromagnetic radiant monitor, body fluid, earwax and pheromone
analyzer. The circuitry for these functions integrates with voice
activation and other standard cell phone functions. These
embodiments connect the bioelectrodes on the phone to a set of
instrumentation amplifiers that measure bipolar electrical
potentials on the surface of the skin.
[0244] The Bio-Phone also stores, analyzes, and utilizes
biopotential information at the Bio-Phone apparatus, at the backend
server, or at the external data source. The Bio-Phone also may
change color or have parts change color based upon the bio
information (e.g., temperature) of the user, the content of the
data being gathered and analyzed, the content of the response back
to the user and the end users. Display 406 is one way to display
data including color change. A hand-held phone also could change
color. Alternatively, part of the housing 408, e.g., the base or
outer cover, may be constructed of a material that changes color
depending upon the user's bio-info, content of the data being
gathered and analyzed, content of the response back to the user
from end user, and based on end users protocols. Other outputs such
as LEDs/LCDs also may provide visual output.
[0245] The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) specifies three
infrared communication standards: IrDA-Data, IrDA-Control, and a
new emerging standard called Alr. IrDA refers to the IrDA-Data
standard. In general, IrDA provides wireless connectivity
technologies for devices that would normally use cables for
connectivity. IrDA is a point-to-point, narrow angle (30.degree.
cone), ad-hoc data transmission standard designed to operate over a
distance of 0 to 1 meter and at transmission speeds of 9600 bps to
16 Mbps.
[0246] Bluetooth is a radio frequency (RF) specification for
short-range, point-to-multipoint voice and data transfer. General
Bluetooth characteristics include: (1) Operates in the 2.4 GHz
Industrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM) band. (2) Uses Frequency Hop
(FH) spread spectrum, which divides the frequency band into a
number of hop channels. During a connection, radio transceivers hop
from one channel to another in a pseudo-random fashion. (3)
Supports up to eight devices in a Piconet (two or more Bluetooth
units sharing a channel). (4) Built-in security; (5) Non
line-of-sight transmission through walls and briefcases. (6)
Omni-directional. (7) Supports both isochronous and asynchronous
services; easy integration of TCP/IP for networking. (8) Regulated
by governments worldwide.
[0247] The phone body 408 (FIG. 19) is approximately 3'' long. It
has a top end 410, a bottom end 412 and front and rear walls 414,
416 and two side walls 418 and 420. Electrodes and sensors 402, 403
and 404 are located along inside side wall and front wall. Sensor
405 is one mouth piece 422. Buttons, fingertip contacts and
sensors, e.g., 426, 428 and 430 are located on outside side wall
and rear wall. A rotating/swiveling ear plug 432 approximately 1 cm
long has sensors/contacts 404 in the ear canal. The mouth piece 422
is a thin tubular extension at bottom end approximately 1 1/2
inches long with sensors and microphone located at tip end.
[0248] The various of electrodes connect to an instrumentation
amplifier for outputting a biopotential signal coupled to a means
for transmitting the biopotential signal wirelessly. See FIGS. 14
and 18.
[0249] The Bio-Phone embodies capabilities and applications
including the ability to gather, analyze, and utilize the user's
biopotentials employing algorithm programming, collaborative
filtering and analysis programming to provide "real time" scoring
applications ("E-Score via the Bio-Net System") at the Bio-Phone
apparatus and at an external source wirelessly via the
computer/World Wide Web.
[0250] A current source connects between the first electrode and
the second electrode and between the first electrode and third
electrode to perform impedance measuring between first electrodes
and other electrodes. See FIG. 16.
[0251] The electrodes and sensors measuring blood volume pulse,
galvanic skin response, electromyography, pulse rate and a digital
thermometer may be located on fingertip contacts that connect
wirelessly to the Bio-Phone.
[0252] An oximetryoximeter may be embodied in the earplug contact
with a means to couple a computer.
[0253] The bioelectrode input device also has finger tip
receptacles for the first and index finger digits. These finger tip
contacts can also gather biometric data including blood volume
pulse and pulse rate via photoplethysmograph and respiration via
oximetryoximeter while also serving the dual function as a button
to trigger/activate other functions. The electrodes in a plurality
of arrangements connected to an instrumentation amplifier may be
used to record EMG eletromyogram signals. Adding a current source
between electrodes permits galvanic skin response (GSR) impedance
measurements with the instrumentation amplifier. The Bio-Phone may
also be encased in material which will change color based on end
users protocols. The bioelectrode input device, Bio-Phone,
functions as a wireless cell phone capable of performing standard
and state of the art cell phone functions including voice
activation and voice processing, picture, video, recording, and
computer Internet connection.
[0254] The drawings do not show currently available wireless means
for direct coupling to a computer a group of wireless connection
means which comprises IrDA and Bluetooth. Use of these wireless
means nonetheless requires a direct connection of a transmitter
receiver to a telephone appliance and a corresponding direct
connection of a second transmitter receiver at the computer at the
other end of the wireless link. This type of connection is
considered to be a direct coupling of signals by the inventors.
[0255] The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the
principles of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications
and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is
not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and
operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable
modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within
the scope of the invention.
* * * * *
References