Narrowcast Media Content Distribution and Display System with Content Biasing Engine

Abstract

A media content distribution and display system and method that includes a central server, a plurality of remote display devices, and an electronic network for communicating therebetween. The central server receives and stores a plurality of media content, where each of the media content has one or more attributes associated therewith that relate to characteristics of the media content. The plurality of remote display devices receive via the electronic network the media content from the central server. Each of the remote display devices includes at least one electronic display, one or more target attributes associated with the remote display device that relate to environmental variables of the remote display device, and a biasing engine for comparing the media content attributes with the target attributes, and for causing the electronic display to display only those of the media content having one or more of the attributes associated therewith that satisfy a predetermined matching criteria with respect to the one or more target attributes.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving, by a remote display device, a plurality of media content from a server, each of the media content having one or more content attributes representative of one or more characteristics of the media content, the content attributes including one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables;   collecting, by one or more hardware sensors and/or one or more software sensors, raw data of a physical environment and/or a demographic environment, for passage of the raw data to one or more data point collectors of a data point engine;   deleting, by the one or more data point collectors, unwanted data from the raw data to generate, by the data point engine, one or more target attributes representative of the one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables associated with the remote display device;   comparing, by the remote display device, the one or more attributes with the one or more target attributes; and   displaying, by the remote display device, a subset of the media content having one or more content attributes that satisfy a matching criteria based on the one or more target attributes.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 obtaining, by the remote display device, the one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables using one or more sensors. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more hardware sensors configured to detect one or more environmental parameters associated with the remote display device. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more software sensors configured to collect information selected from a group consisting of stock quotes, product inventory, sales related information, time related information, and location information. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 associating, by the remote display device, one or more weights with the one or more target attributes; and 
 ranking, by the remote display device, the subset of the media content based on the one or more weights. 
 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the displaying is based at least on the ranking and one or more rules, the one or more rules specifying a display time for the subset of the media content. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 retrieving, by the remote display device, the subset of media content from the server before the displaying when the subset of media content is not locally stored. 
 
     
     
         8 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions to configure a processor to perform operations comprising:
 receiving, by a remote display device, a plurality of media content from a server, each of the media content having one or more content attributes representative of one or more characteristics of the media content, the content attributes including one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables;   collecting, by one or more hardware sensors and/or one or more software sensors, raw data of a physical environment and/or a demographic environment, for passage of the raw data to one or more data point collectors of a data point engine;   deleting, by the one or more data point collectors, unwanted data from the raw data to generate, by the data point engine, one or more target attributes representative of the one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables associated with the remote display device;   comparing, by the remote display device, the one or more attributes with the one or more target attributes; and   displaying, by the remote display device, a subset of the media content having one or more content attributes that satisfy a matching criteria based on the one or more target attributes.   
     
     
         9 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 obtaining, by the remote display device, the one or more variables using one or more sensors.   
     
     
         10 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more hardware sensors configured to detect one or more environmental parameters associated with the remote display device. 
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 9 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more software sensors configured to collect information selected from a group consisting of stock quotes, product inventory, sales related information, time related information, and location information. 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 associating, by the remote display device, one or more weights with the one or more target attributes; and   ranking, by the remote display device, the subset of the media content based on the one or more weights.   
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the displaying is based at least on the ranking and one or more rules, the one or more rules specifying a display time for the subset of the media content. 
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 retrieving, by the remote display device, the subset of media content from the server before the displaying when the subset of media content is not locally stored.   
     
     
         15 . An apparatus comprising:
 at least one processor; and   at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one processor, the at least one memory, and the computer program code configured to cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:   receiving a plurality of media content from a server, each of the media content having one or more content attributes representative of one or more characteristics of the media content, the content attributes including one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables;   collecting, by one or more hardware sensors and/or one or more software sensors, raw data of a physical environment and/or a demographic environment, for passage of the raw data to one or more data point collectors of a data point engine;   deleting, by the one or more data point collectors, unwanted data from the raw data to generate, by the data point engine, one or more target attributes representative of the one or more physical environmental variables and/or demographic environmental variables associated with the remote display device;   comparing the one or more attributes with the one or more target attributes representative of one or more variables; and   displaying a subset of the media content having one or more attributes that satisfy a matching criteria based on the one or more target attributes.   
     
     
         16 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 obtaining the one or more variables using one or more sensors.   
     
     
         17 . The apparatus of  claim 16 , wherein the one or more sensors comprise one or more hardware sensors or one or more software sensors,
 wherein the one or more hardware sensors are configured to detect one or more environmental parameters associated with the apparatus, and   wherein the one or more software sensors are configured to collect information selected from a group consisting of stock quotes, product inventory, sales related information, time related information, and location information.   
     
     
         18 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 associating one or more weights with the one or more target attributes; and   ranking the subset of the media content based on the one or more weights.   
     
     
         19 . The apparatus of  claim 18 , wherein the displaying is based at least on the ranking and one or more rules, the one or more rules specifying a display time for the subset of the media content. 
     
     
         20 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 retrieving the subset of media content from the server before the displaying when the subset of media content is not locally stored.