SUBTLE INFO PERSONALIZATION ON PUBLIC DISPLAYS

The present invention relates to public displays and, more particularly, to the showing of personalized information on a public display. For a variety of large information displays used in public spaces an apparent issue is targeting the right audience. Since a public display provides powerful means to attract the attention of passersby to particular content, content owners want to explore more efficient means of exploiting public displays. One idea often considered is to display personalized content where personalization is based on personal characteristics and even personal interests of an individual attending the public display. This idea was illustrated in its extreme form in one of the scenes of the movie "Minority Report" by Steven Spielberg, in which a person walking in a public space is besieged by personalized video advertisements accompanied with a personalized audio message. Even though people generally prefer to receive relevant content, personalized information displayed on a public screen is privacy sensitive. Different studies report that even if information is displayed anonymously, like for instance flight details in an airport application (see Toye E., et al, "Using camera-phones to interact with context- aware mobile services," University of Cambridge Technical Report UCAM-CL-TR- 609, ISSN 1476-2986, December 2004), people feel wary of having such information displayed on a public screen and would prefer it on a small private screen. More specifically, adaptation of the information on a public display based on a user profile would reveal interests of a particular person to others which makes it unacceptable for many people. Research exists to suggest that when a person is using a display, nearby persons feel less reluctant to glance at and read content from it if it is a public display (see Tan D. S., Czerwinski M., "Information Voyeurism: Social Impact of Physically Large Displays on Information Privacy," short paper at CHI2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2003). Accordingly, there exists a need to provide public displays which can personalize the information displayed, yet allay the privacy concerns of users.

The present invention addresses the above-noted shortcomings of the prior art and is directed to an interactive public display with subtle personalization. The display includes a personal profile determination module for determining a personal profile of a person detected to be approaching said display. The display further includes a processor for deriving, based on the determined profile, personalized information and for simultaneously showing, on the display, the derived information with other information not personalized for that person. In this context, the other or non-personalized information is not merely a screen template wholly or in part, if a screen template exists. The screen template might consist of any image, such as formatting lines/structures or soft buttons, that is not variable information, but which may coexist on-screen among variable information such as items selected from an inventory for display to the viewer.

The processor, alternatively or in addition, mixes, for subsequent presentation, the derived personalized information with non-personalized information to achieve, in the resulting mixture, a predetermined ratio between numbers of screen items for display respectively contained within the two types of information. The resulting mixture of screen items is shown to the person.

The display further might include means for positioning personalized and non- personalized information, on the display, relative to the user position in such a way that personalized information would be covered by the user's body making it difficult for passersby to see the covered information.

Details of the novel interactive public display are set forth below with the aid of the following drawings, wherein similar features are annotated with the same reference numerals throughout:

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of an exemplary system for subtle public display of personalized information, according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of one embodiment of the process for operating the display of FIG. 1; and FIG. 3 is a flow chart of an alternative embodiment of the process for operating the display of FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 depicts, by way of illustrative and non-limitative example, an exemplary system 100 for subtle public display of personalized information, according to the present invention. The system 100 includes a display 104 which, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, is embedded in a shop window 108. The display 104 has a screen area 112, a storage memory (not shown), and a display controller 116 for controlling the display and memory. The closed curve delimiting the screen area 112 is provided in FIG. 1 merely for purposes of explanation. Also shown in FIG. 1 are a user 120 and a passerby 124.

In the inside surface of the shop window glass behind the screen area 112, switching elements of an active-matrix liquid crystal display ("AMLCD") may be attached. However, the intended scope of the disclosure herein is not limited to such display type, and may be implemented using any kind of display technology, such as plasma display, transparent OLED, backprojection displays similar to DNP Holoscreens (see DNP™ Holoscreen, e-ink electrophoretic display, etc., in, for example, a kiosk disposed in a public place.

The display controller 116 includes a viewer locator 128, a personal profile determination module 132 and a processor 136.

For purposes of explanation, in the screen area 112, two personalized items 140 and five non-personalized items 144 are shown. The personalized items 140 have been laid out in the screen area 112 in greater proximity to the user 120 than the non- personalized items 144, according to one embodiment of the invention. Consequently, the passerby 124 is less likely to see or read the displayed personalized items 140 which, in the example shown, are partially hidden by the body of the user 120.

FIG. 2 shows one embodiment of a process 200 for operating the display 104 to camouflage the personalized content on display. It is determined whether a person is approaching the display 104. One technique is to provide a client with a credit or debit card of the store with a radio-frequency (RF) transponder or "RFID tag" that has been pre-programmed to respond to interrogation by a wireless transceiver that is located in the store and operated by the viewer locator 128. When the tag comes within range of the transceiver, the tag picks up a wireless signal and responds by sending the transceiver a return signal. The transceiver can be implemented as directional, so that direction and range of the card is determinable. The transmission might occur by the Bluetooth™ or the IEEE 802.11 (WiFi™) protocol. Narrowing of the distance to the display 104, as judged from iteratively determined positions of the

card, indicates whether an approach is being made to the display. Alternatively, visual identification means, such as biometrics, can be combined with motion sensors that operate with infrared or sonar ranging or pressure sensors embedded into the floor in front of the shop window to detect the approach of a person. When the viewer locator 128 detects the approach of a person 120 (step S204), it locks onto the person and determines the person's profile (step S208). When the approach of two or more persons is detected, the viewer locator 128 locks onto the closer person. In the case of RFID detection, profile information on the user 120 may already have been prepared. The information may, for instance, reside as, or be gleanable from, data maintained in the storage memory of the RFID tag. In the case of visual detection other than biometrics, facial recognition and classification means exist to determine gender, age group and race. Alternatively, the user can beam her/his profile composed on a portable device. The profile template, such as a fill-out form, can be provided to the user via a wireless local area network (LAN), as a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or Web template upon detecting that the user is in proximity of the shop window or could be acquired via a public Web page of the store. Thus, when a user moves toward the window and comes within range of the transceiver, an interrogating signal from the transceiver will trigger a specific response from a RFID transponder configured to make the response. The transponder may be embedded, for example, into a store or client card carried by the user. For example, if the phone number the user supplied when opening a store account has been preloaded into storage memory of the transponder, this phone number can be transmitted in the return signal in accordance with the pre-programming of the transponder. After having received the phone number, the transceiver can send/upload the profile template to the user's phone, if the phone is operable to receive data wirelessly, and notify the user of its arrival with a beep or other alarm. Alternatively, the transceiver can send the user a short message as via the Short Message Service (SMS). The message might contain an Internet address from which the profile template can be downloaded over a wire line or wirelessly. The profile information is preferably divided into several categories and includes, in addition to characteristics of the person, personal interests. The personal interests may be evident from the user's buying experience with a particular store or store chain, or can be visually determined by recognizing the types of clothing the person 120 is wearing. If the clothing items the person is wearing are tagged, which

is predicted to be the case for all merchandise in the near future, the items can be identified by reading their respective RFID tags.

Preferably, a collection of items for potential display, which may be represented by the store's catalog or sales inventory list, is pre-categorized, item by item, for each category. Depending upon the user profile and the camouflaging parameters, e.g., number or proportion of personalized items in the resulting mixture, the processor 136 picks, from the collection, items to be displayed. The processor 136 performs the picking by selectively taking into account particular categories for which user preferences are present in the user profile. Information or an item is defined hereinafter to be "personalized for" a person if the item or information belongs to one of the categories specified in the personal profile for that person. Thus, if the person's profile indicates a preference for the color red, purposeful selection of an item that is red from among items of different colors is deemed to "personalize" the item "for" that person. Purposeful selection of an item by virtue of its having a color other than red is not regarded herein as "personalizing" the item "for" that person, if the person's profile indicates a preference for red.

For purposes of explanation, if the shop window 108 is displaying, as its seven items 140, 144, pictures of seven suits, at least some of the seven are preferably matched to the user profile, particularly the categories age, gender and preferred apparel style. In the following example, preferred apparel style has high relevance towards personalization for the person 120. Gender, by contrast, while perhaps indicating which suits the user 120 is not likely to consider, i.e., that of the other gender, does not carry weight commensurating with preferred apparel style in terms of personalizing the item to be displayed. The categories are therefore ranked by relevance towards personalizing for the person 120 (step S212).

To create subtlety, the processor 136 may iteratively select categories to be taken into account. The processor 136 starts with the lowest-ranked category and works up progressively, iteration-by- iteration, to the highest-ranked category. The total number of items selected for an iteration, i.e., arising from the iteration, decreases as category rank increases with the next iteration (step S216). For example, four suits may be selected based merely on the gender known from the user profile. The other categories are precluded in making this selection. In a next iteration, three suits are selected based both on gender and age group. In the subsequent iteration, the apparel style preference of the user 120 is taken into account along with gender and

age group. The shop window thus, for example, may show two classic style suits for men of age between 40 and 50, and seven additional men's suits picked without regard to apparel style, four of the seven also being picked without regard to age group.

The selection of the total mixture of suits on display has been biased to sell to the user 120, by purposefully including the two classic men's suits. However, bias in the selection is not immediately evident to the passerby 124, who sees nine suits on display but is not predisposed to notice the bias. If, by contrast, the shop window were simply to focus entirely or primarily on classic suits for men of age 40 to 50 to more completely cater to perceived interests of the user 120, onlookers 124 could become accustomed to assuming that private tastes of the user 120 can be inferred by glancing at the screen area 112. The user 120 might regard the overseeing by passersby 124 as undesirable. However, by including personalization in the mixture sparingly so as to camouflage the bias, the present invention subtly delivers the advertisement in a manner that respects the user's privacy. As an alternative or additional measure for creating subtlety, more non- personalized items 144 are displayed than personalized items 140. Using, for example, all relevant categories in the user profile, a given number of personalized items 140 are selected. Thus, two suits may be selected, each being a men's suit of classic style for age 40 to 50. Then, the two suits are mixed with a greater number, let us say five, other suits whose selection is not personalized for the person 120, or not personalized for anyone. The five suits 144 may be selected at random from the collection of suits in the store's catalog, or may purposefully be picked to deviate from the user's profile. Here, the ratio of personalized to non-personalized is 2 to 5; however, this camouflaging parameter may be pre-set, arbitrarily, randomly, pseudo- randomly or based upon empirical evidence of efficacy. The user's preference is therefore camouflaged among a greater number of non-personalized items 144.

The novel technique of camouflaging with a greater number of non- personalized items 144 can be integrated into the embodiment of FIG. 2 (step S220). Thus, for instance, suits for the gender of the user 120, i.e., men, may be selected for display in the first iteration. Then, men's suits for the age group, e.g., 40-50, of the user 120 are selected in the next iteration, making sure to select a greater number of suits without regard to gender, age group or any other basis for personalizing with respect to this user 120 or, alternatively, making sure to select away from the known

user profile. The number of non-personalized items 144 to be selected may be governed by a predetermined ratio.

Mixing of personalized and non-personalized information 140, 144 is discussed above in the context of discrete screen items, but is not limited in this manner. Moreover, camouflaging is realizable in terms of screen area. In particular, a greater portion of the screen area 112 may be devoted to the display of non- personalized information rather than personalized information.

Although, in the above discussion, the inventive display 104 is described as operating in the context of a shop window 108, the invention is not limited to such application. The display 104, may, for example, be housed in a kiosk in a train station, and present screen items 140, 144 each of which entails the details of a respective departing train, e.g., its departure time, the gate, walking time to the gate. Only one of the screen items 140 pertains to the profile of the user 120, i.e., because the name on the reservation matches the user's name pre-stored in transponder memory. Notably, in addition to the departing train details, template data may be on display. The template could include any outline framing the data or its particular sections. The template might also include buttons or other soft controls operable by the user 120 interactively.

Simultaneous presentation of both personalized data 140 and non-personalized data 144 operates according to the novel principles herein preferably when the non- personalized data 144 includes more than just a screen template. Therefore, the non- personalized data 144 is assumed to include at least some variable data. In the example of the shop window 108, the non-personalized items 144 are variable in that they are selectively picked by the processor 136 from a collection of items the store wants to sell. Camouflaging to protect privacy preferably involves non-personalized information that would create the ambiguity needed to camouflage.

In the present example, non-personalized information is information of the same type, since all items are suits, although it is within the intended scope of the invention that non-personalized information mixed with personalized information may be of the same or different type.

Continuing with the example, the layout of the suits selected for display may be spatially random or pseudo-random within the screen area 112 (step S224).

The display controller 116 is, at this point, locked onto a person, because it has previously identified the person to be within a particular range of the display 104 and/or to be approaching the display.

Query is made as to whether the person is now out of range (step S228). The predetermined range may be arbitrarily delineated. Its extent(s) would likely depend upon the font- or image-size displayed and the technology used to detect the position/movement of the potential user or customer 120. Traffic speed may also be considered. If people move slowly in the ambient environment, the range, or its lateral extent, may be increased to allow the user 120 more wandering leeway before concluding that the user is out of range. Once the user is out of range, the lock is removed (step S232).

If, at this moment, another person is within range (step S236), the lock is changed to the new person and the new person's profile is determined (step S208). Change from one profile to the other can be implemented with a delay to prevent creating the impression of the existence of personal information based on the changed screen appearance during the transition.

Otherwise, if no other person is within range, the process 200 returns to the beginning (step S204). The current display may halt. Alternatively, it may continue, or discontinue after a waiting period, until or unless another person 120 arrives. Another possibility is for the display to show strictly non-personalized content while no user 120 is locked.

In an embodiment alternative to the camouflaging embodiment of FIG. 2, FIG. 3 sets forth an example of a process 300 for occluding the personalized information from view by passersby 124, according to the present invention. As seen from FIG. 1, two personalized items 140 are derived from the profile (step S304) and are partially hidden by the body of the user 120. The hiding results from the viewer locator 128 determining the location of the user 120, and from the personal profile determination module 132, in laying out the screen, then favoring greater proximity or closeness of the personalized items 140 to the user's location (step S308). The non-template, non- personalized information 144 is subsequently included to, as suggested above, amount to more items 144 than do the personalized items 140 (step S312). Alternatively or in addition, the non-personalized information 144 covers a greater portion of the screen area 112 than does the personalized information 140.

Upon display of the mixture of items 140, 144, if the person is determined to be in-range (step S228), the processor 136 checks whether the user's position has deviated beyond a predetermined threshold from his or her initial position (step S316). The deviation is detectable from, for example, computer vision applied to the face or by body tracking. If deviation is beyond the threshold, return is made to step S308 to update the layout to move the personalized items 140 closer to the user's position. Otherwise, if deviation does not exceed the threshold, a check is again made for an out-of-range condition (step S228). The feature of checking for deviation from an initial position is an optional feature. Moreover, the ordering of steps is merely exemplary, and may be rearranged in another implementation.

In yet another embodiment, when two or more users simultaneously approach the shop window display, the respective profiles of each of the users are determined and analyzed. The categories relevant for each respective user are identified. Then, a selection of personalized and non-personalized items is made based on the items within the relevant rated categories and displayed in such a way that items relevant for each user appear in a greater proximity to that user. Accordingly, step S208 in FIG. 3 would lock onto each of the simultaneously approaching persons and determine their particular profiles. Correspondingly, step S232 removes the lock of the person now out of range. As has been demonstrated above, privacy concerns of users of interactive public displays are addressed by camouflaging or hiding personalized information of the user. The hiding is customized to the user's physical position, and the camouflaging among noise does not detract from the user's discernment, consciously or subliminally, of the personalized information.