Information distribution system for use in an elevator

What is claimed is:

1. An elevator display system for use with an elevator in a building, the elevator display system comprising:

an elevator display unit having a display monitor positioned within the elevator to display video information to passengers within the elevator; and

a building server which, retrieves scheduling information associated with the video information from a remote production server and over a data communication path, and receives building message information from a user interface, the building server generating a building play list from the scheduling information and building message information, the building playlist used to display the video information at predetermined times for display at the elevator display unit.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising the user interface for generating the building message information received by the building server.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the building message information includes a text message and

a start date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor;

an end date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor; and

a day segment indicating a portion of a day the text message is displayed on the display monitor.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the text message is in HTML format.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface is remote from said building server and communicates with said building server over the data communications path.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the data communications path is the Internet.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the data communications path is via a dial-up modem.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the data communications path is a local area network.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising the user interface which generates a building operations play list from the building message information, the building operations playlist and scheduling information, in aggregate, defining the building playlist.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the scheduling information is in the form of a production server play list and is associated with general and commercial information for display on the display unit.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the building server includes a parser which generates the building play list from the production server play list and the building operations play list.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising the production server which generates said production server play list associated with the general and commercial information.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the production server includes:

a production server database for storing building-related data, general information-related data, and commercial information-related data; and

a scheduling module which retrieves the data from the production server database and generates the additional scheduling information.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the general information-related data and the commercial information-related data include addresses from where the general and commercial information, respectively, can be retrieved over the data communication path.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the production server further includes a building loader interface through which data is passed between the production server and the building server; the building loader interface encrypting the data passed between the production server and the building

server and authenticating that the building server is associated with the system.

16. A method of displaying video information to an elevator display unit within an elevator located in a building, the method comprising:

providing to a building server:

scheduling information from a remote production server associated with video information to be displayed;

building message information from a user interface;

generating, from the scheduling information and building message information, a building play list associated with the video information; and

generating a display for viewing at the elevator display unit the video information at predetermined times in accordance with the building playlist.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the play list is performed with a graphical user interface.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the building message information includes a text message and the scheduling information includes:

a start date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor;

an end date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor; and

a day segment indicating a portion of a day the text message is displayed on the display monitor.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the user interface is remote from said building server and communicates with said building server over a data communications path.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the user interface generates a building operations play list from the building message information.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the the scheduling information is in the form of a production server play list said production server play list being associated with general and commercial information for display on the display unit.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein generating the building play list includes parsing the building play list from the production server play list and the building message information.

23. The system of claim 1 wherein the building server is located at the building having the elevator display system.

24. The system of claim 2 wherein the elevator display system includes a plurality of elevator display units, each positioned within a corresponding elevator within the building, the user interface being configured to generate building message information for a specific one of the elevators.

25. The system of claim 2 wherein the user interface includes a message store for storing the building message information.

26. The system of claim 11 wherein the parser is configured to perform a URL remapping and to interleave the building message information with the production playlist to provide the building playlist.

27. The method of claim 16 wherein the building server is located at the building having the elevator display system.

28. The method of claim 16 wherein the elevator display system includes a plurality of elevator display units, each positioned within a corresponding elevator within the building, and the method further comprises generating, using the user interface the building message information for a specific one of the elevators.

29. The method of claim 22 wherein parsing includes:

remapping the building message information; and

interleaving the building message information with the production playlist to provide the local building playlist.

30. A user interface for use with an elevator display system, the elevator display system including an elevator display unit having a display monitor positioned within an elevator of a building to display video information to passengers within the elevator and a building server which generates a building playlist used to display the video information at predetermined times for display at the elevator display unit, the user interface including:

a message generation module for generating building messages for display at the elevator display unit;

a building message playlist generator for generating a building message playlist including the building messages, the building message playlist received by the building server; and

a connection setup module for selecting one of a plurality of connection paths for connecting the user interface to the building server.

31. The user interface of claim 30 wherein the message generation module is configured to prompt a user for input required to generate the building messages.

32. The user interface of claim 31 wherein the message generation module includes a message entry form which allows a user to enter input required to generate the building messages.

33. The user interface of claim 30 wherein the building message playlist generator includes:

a first parser for identifying message text within each of the building messages; and

a second parser for converting the message text into a format capable of being read by the elevator display system.

34. The user interface of claim 33 wherein the format is HTML.

35. The user interface of claim 30 wherein the plurality of connection paths for connecting the user interface to the building server include at least one of the group consisting of a local area network, a dial-up modem, and Internet service provider.

Description Submit all comments and votes

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to providing information in an elevator and other such personnel transport vehicles.

The impetus for constructing skyscrapers and other high-rise structures lies in providing a more efficient use of real estate, particularly in urban areas where the value of real estate is at a premium. The primary mode of transportation in such structures is the elevator, particularly in buildings having many floors.

Visual information provided in an elevator is generally limited to floor information and passenger instructions in the event of an emergency or assistance is required. An elevator may also include a static placard posting the day's present and their locations.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention features a system for displaying video information to passengers of an elevator in accordance with a play list defining a sequence of messages. The video information messages can include combinations of digital advertising, "real-time" general information, as well as, building-related information.

In one aspect of the invention, the system includes an elevator display unit having a display monitor for displaying video information to the passengers, and a local server which, receives scheduling information associated with the video information over a data communication path and, in accordance with the scheduling information, generates a play list used to display at the elevator display unit.

In another aspect of the invention, a method of providing general information and commercial information within an elevator includes the steps of: a) providing to a local server, scheduling information associated with video information to be displayed; b) generating, from the scheduling information, a play list associated with the video information; and c) generating a display for viewing at the elevator display unit within the elevator, the video information at predetermined times in accordance with the scheduling information.

By "video information", it is meant any combination of general, commercial, and building-related information. By "commercial information", it is meant any information relating to commerce and trade including advertisements. "General information" is used here to mean information of general interest, including news (recent happenings, sports, entertainment, etc.) and weather. General information can also include information associated

with the building within which the elevator is a part, for example, 1) events associated with the building; 2) traffic; 3) transportation schedules (e.g., train/shuttle services). By "building-related information", it is meant that information specifically related to the particular building where the elevators transport residents, tenants, and visitors of the building. The building-related information may include certain types of commercial information, such as advertising for businesses within or local to the building (e.g., coffee, shop, parking, florist), as well as announcements by building management for available space within the building. The building-related information can also include forms of general information, particularly relevant to the building and its elevator passengers. For example, such information can include building activities (e.g., holiday events, fire alarm testing), public address/emergency messages, traffic information, and other information useful to the elevator's passengers. In general, the building-related information is less limited by the type of information, and more by its geography.

With this system, advertisers, online content providers, and building management/owners can interact with a specific, well-defined, and targeted audience in an elevator, a setting where passengers often feel uncomfortable being confined with complete strangers. Elevator passengers often seek ways to avoid making eye contact with fellow passengers during what feels like an endless, unnerving duration of time. Passengers no longer need to stare aimlessly at the floor or ceiling, but have an informative media resource to watch.

Occupants of high-rise office buildings are typically business people with understood interests and buying tendencies. These people are ideal recipients for targeted content and advertising. The system allows content providers (e.g., local and national news sources) and advertisers to selectively target audiences based on the demographics of a building, city, region, business segment, etc. Similarly, national, regional, and local online content providers are afforded an opportunity to provide elevator passengers with information of general interest. The system also provides building owners and managers the ability to provide video information particularly relevant and useful to tenants and visitors of their buildings.

Embodiments of these aspects of the invention may include one or more of the following features. The local server receives the scheduling information from the production server over a data communication network (e.g., the Internet)

The system also includes a production server which generates scheduling information associated with the general and commercial information. Thus, the production server serves as a central distribution site where, among other things, the scheduling information (e.g., building play lists or scripts) are generated. The production server includes a production server database for storing building-related data, general information-related data, and commercial information-related data. This database includes, for example, building characterization data, as well as the addresses from where the general and commercial information can be retrieved over the data communication path.

The production server includes a scheduling module, which retrieves the data from the production server database and generates the scheduling information and a building loader interface through which data is passed between the production server and the local server. The building loader interface encrypts the data passed between the production server and the local server and authenticates that the local server is one associated with the system.

The production server includes a billing module, which generates documentation relating to the duration of time the general information and commercial information is displayed at elevator display unit. A database maintenance module is also included within the production server to update the production center database with information relating to elevator occupancy as a function of time.

The local server communicates with the elevator display unit via a local area network including local and general information databases and a scheduling information parser. General information and commercial information retrieved over the data communication path are cached in respective ones of the local and general information databases. The scheduling information parser generates a local building play list from the scheduling information retrieved from the production server.

The local area network includes an Ethernet path for connection to the elevator display unit. The elevator display unit further includes an occupancy detector for determining, at predetermined intervals, the number of occupants riding within a particular elevator.

Generating the elevator play list is performed with a graphical user interface.

For the BOM interface, the video information includes a text message (e.g., in HTML format) and the play list includes a start date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor; an end date on which the text message is displayed on the display monitor; and a day segment indicating a portion of a day the text message is displayed on the display monitor.

The user interface is remote from said local server and communicates with said local server over a data communications path, such as the Internet, a dial-up modem, or a local area network. The play list is a building operations play list, with the video information and scheduling information for generating the building operations play list relating to building operations.

The local server further receives a production server play list from a production server, remote from said local server, over a data communication network, said production server play list associated with general and commercial information for display on the display unit. The local server includes a parser, which generates a local building play list from the production server play list and the building operations play.

Other features of the invention will be apparent from the following description and from the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the information distribution system of the invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates the concept of micro-demographics.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a building subsystem portion of the information distribution system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an example of a display screen of the display monitor of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the production center of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram for the operation of a scheduler module of the production center.

FIG. 7 illustrates the format of a play list.

FIG. 8 is a functional block diagram of a building server of the building subsystem portion of FIG. 3.

FIG. 9 is a functional block diagram of the wide area Interface between building servers and the distribution channel.

FIG. 10 is a functional block diagram of the display generator LAN interface.

FIG. 11 is a functional block diagram of the display server architecture.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating the BOM interface of the information distribution system of the invention.

FIG. 13 is an example of a message template used by the BOM interface to create messages.

FIG. 14 illustrates the format of a BOM play list.

FIG. 15 is a functional block diagram of a building server of the building subsystem portion of FIG. 12.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the parsing function of the BOM interface.

FIG. 17 illustrates the format of a local building play list.

FIG. 18 is a functional block diagram of the display server architecture.

DESCRIPTION

Referring to FIG. 1, an information distribution system 1 provides a media outlet for distributing general information along with digital advertising to elevator display units 10 mounted in elevators 12 of high rise office buildings 14 (represented by dashed-line boxes). System 1 includes a production center 20 which- among other important tasks described below- creates and distributes elevator display data by merging advertising with the "real time" general information. The general information is considered "real time" because the information is relatively current (refreshed at defined periodic intervals) with system 1 collecting, formatting, and displaying the information without human intervention. The general information is provided by any number of sources 22 (e.g., websites) connected via a distribution channel, here the Internet 24.

Each building 14 includes a building server 28 which interfaces with production center 20 via Internet 24 to develop presentations of merged advertising and general information to be exhibited on elevator display units. As is described in greater detail below, each building server provides the general and advertising information to each elevator display unit 10 of associated elevators 12 through a local area network (LAN) 30.

Information distribution system 1 utilizes a concept called "micro-demographics" which allows advertisers and online providers to target a highly desirable demographic, business population. The desired audience targeted by a particular advertiser or on-line provider may vary greatly and depend on a number of factors. As will be discussed below, system 1 collects or otherwise determines the demographics associated with a particular building as well as the occupants of that building. Thus, the geographical location and elevator traffic patterns of the building, and the nature of the business of the building occupants are determined by and stored at production center 20 so that a building script or play list 68 (FIG. 5) of advertisements and general ("real time") content can be matched to the building.

Referring to FIG. 2, buildings 14 are shown encircled to represent that they belong to a particular geographical region. Smaller encircled groups 7a-7f represent, for example, buildings 14 within a city (e.g., Boston) are also shown encircled by larger geographical regions 8a-8b (e.g., New England). Geography is generally a very important demographic factor, however, as important may be the particular business segment which is targeted. Thus, several buildings 14a-14c which are from different geographical regions, but associated with the same business segment population (e.g., financial) may be grouped together (shown bounded by the cross hatched area). The ability to partition demographics by both geography and business segment provides tremendous value to content providers and advertisers.

In an example of one application of the system, assume an advertiser wishes to distribute an advertisement targeted specifically at the financial community in the northeast region of the United States. The advertisement needs to appear over a two week period during morning prime time hours. Production center 20 provides the advertiser with an automated request entry process for capturing this pertinent information representative of the target demographic. Production center 20 creates, from the target demographic, building play list 68 of potential building candidates for the advertisement and defines possible run time slots for when the advertisement is to be displayed. Several factors affecting which of a number of buildings are candidates and which time slots are available include: the target demographic (e.g., financial community in northeast United States), the number of advertisement impressions (i.e., the number of times an advertisement is viewed) purchased, the advertisement start and end dates (e.g., start and end of a two week period), prime time requirements (i.e., prime time morning), the advertisement format (280.times.90 animated GIF file) and advertisement locator (where GIF file is located). Once the advertisement time slots are identified, production center 20 determines the general information (e.g., news article, weather update) provided by an online provider that is to be merged and displayed with the advertisement. Building play list 68 specifies the format and content of the elevator displays for every instant of the day. Thus, in the example, production center 20 schedules the advertisement to be played at 9:00 a.m. and 15 seconds simultaneously with a local news article in one building play list while running the same advertisement at 8:15 a.m. and 0 seconds with a weather update in another building play list. It is important to note that building play list 68 defines what gets displayed and when, but does not contain the actual display content. Instead, building play list 68 provides pointers for obtaining the information over Internet 24.

With information relating to the advertisement imbedded in the building play list, production center 20 must then present the advertisement to elevator occupants. Building server 28 is responsible for downloading the building play list from production center 20, retrieving over Internet 24, the specified advertisement and general information, followed by assembling and distributing the advertisement and information within displays which are to be viewed in elevator display units 10. Building server 28 uses the pointers in play list 68 to retrieve the content and store it locally to a particular building 14. This allows building server 28 to create a very high performance broadcast channel within building 14. In the example, building server 28 uses an advertisement locator embedded in play list 68 to retrieve and store locally the animated GIF file for the advertisement. With the content stored locally, building server 28 reads play list 68, assembles displays at the times indicated by the list and distributes them to the individual elevators 12. Thus, in the example, at 9:00 a.m. and 15 seconds, building server 28 assembles the advertisement with the specified local news story and displays it in elevators 12.

Details relating to the major components of information distribution system 1 follow.

Referring to FIG. 3, elevator display unit (EDU) 10 receives and processes data provided by building server 28 to create display presentations. Elevator display unit 10 includes a display 13 controlled by a single-board computer 34 and a network interface card (NIC) 36. Display 13 includes an LCD controller, a back light assembly, a power converter, and a flat panel display (none shown). Computer 34 manages the operation of elevator display unit 10 including system setup and monitoring, network overhead, display data routing, and elevator occupancy. Network interface card 36 interacts with local area network 30 and is configured by computer 34 during system startup. Display data being broadcast downstream from building server 28 to elevator display units 10 represents the majority of the network traffic. In the downstream direction (from building server 28 to elevator display unit 10), network traffic is mostly comprised of display broadcast data. There is a limited amount of control information in the downstream direction, however this is negligible. Network interface card 36 routes display data directly to display 13. Control information will generate an interrupt to computer 34 to request service. In the upstream direction (from elevator display unit 10 to building server 28), network traffic includes occupancy information and system monitoring data. All upstream data is generated by computer 34 and passes to network interface card 36 for transmission.

Data from building server 28 is transmitted to each elevator display unit 10 via local area network 30 (shown enclosed by dashed lines). In particular, data is transmitted through copper twisted pair lines 38 via an Ethernet network switch 40 for managing data flow.

One important feature of system 5 not yet discussed, is its closed-loop nature. Advertising is measured based on impressions (i.e., the number of times an advertisement is viewed). To quantify the number of i