A system for distributing media includes a wide area network (WAN), a media player coupled to the WAN at a first home, and a media server coupled to the WAN at a second home for providing media. A service is coupled to the WAN for receiving a request for media from the media player and for establishing a connection between the first and second homes over the WAN. Media is streamed across the WAN from the second home to the first home. The system may include a storage device coupled to the media player where media is transferred across the WAN for storage at the storage device. A media device may be coupled to the media player for playing the streamed/transferred media where the media player and the media device may comprise a television, stereo, or computer and the media item may comprise video, photographs, or audio.

A method and apparatus for secure transfer and playback of multimedia content enables the secure transfer of multimedia content from a digital video recorder (DVR) to a personal computer (PC) and further to a handheld device. A DVR determines which devices on a Local Area Network (LAN) are authorized to share and/or retrieve content from the DVR. The DVR receives a connection request from a PC on the LAN, authorizes the connection request and establishes a secure connection between the DVR and the PC. Once the secure connection is established, the DVR receives a request for multimedia content from the PC, prepares the multimedia content for transfer and transfers the multimedia content to the PC.

Example techniques relate to playback queue subscriptions. An example implementation involves a computing system receiving, from a first computing device associated with a first user account, an instruction to enable subscription to a first playback queue associated with a first media playback system. In response to the instruction, the computing system enables second user accounts to subscribe to the first playback queue. The second user accounts are registered with respective second media playback systems in respective second household. The computing system receives, from a particular second media playback system, a request to subscribe to the first playback queue; and in response, sends one or more messages that update a control interface of the first control device to display a subscriber indication and (ii) sends one or more messages that populate a second playback queue of the particular second media playback system with audio tracks of the first playback queue.

A method at an electronic device with a display includes: displaying a user interface having a first region and a second region; receiving, and displaying in the first region of the user interface, a live video stream of a physical environment captured by a remote video camera; displaying, in the second region, a timeline corresponding to a timespan for a first portion of a duration during which the live video stream may have been recorded; in response to receiving a user interaction to move the timespan to a second portion of the duration, transitioning the displayed timeline to a new timeline that corresponds to the timespan for the second portion, and while transitioning, displaying, in the first region, a subset of video frames representing the first and/or second portion of the duration.

A method and apparatus for performing an integrated search is provided. An interface is provided that allows users to search and select any data related to a searchable term. Searchable terms may comprise titles of content, actors, and tags. Upon receiving results from the initial search, the user progresses through the initial search by selecting a result from the initial search and conducting a further search of that selection. The search may progress through many layers of searching in order to find information useful to the user and the user may perform actions based upon results of the search. The search implements a display with two columns, the first column displaying selectable data, and the second column displaying results to the selected data. The search is further customizable based upon a privacy level selected by the user.

Techniques to customize a media processing system are described. A media processing system is described capable of integrating a large set of heterogeneous electronic devices into a single integrated system with enhanced navigation capabilities and automated configuration services. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

A Unified Content Delivery Network system (UCDN) system which is formed from a network of one or more inter-operable Peer networks.

A hierarchical hybrid adaptive Secure Peer-Assisted Networking System (termed SPAN-AI),using a hierarchical AI driven approach under a unified secure content-addressable architecture which is based on five key SPAN-AI sub systems: unified naming; unified discovery; hybrid adaptive routing; scalable pubsub; and embedded security; all of said five key SPAN-AI sub systems securely integrated and jointly optimized via a hierarchical, pluggable AI framework, with an associated simulation, training, and development pipeline that embeds AI agents with varying degrees of awareness and optimization capabilities at peer, edge, or core or other network levels (hierarchies).

Methods, systems, and media for presenting media content are provided. In some embodiments, the method comprises: receiving, at a streaming media device connected to a display device, an instruction, from a mobile phone communicatively coupled with the streaming media device using a peer-to-peer networking protocol, to launch an application for presenting media content on the display device; in response to receiving the instruction, transmitting a request to a media content sharing service associated with the application for presenting media content to render a video player on the display device; receiving, from the mobile phone, an instruction to present a media content item on the display device using the video player; transmitting, to the mobile phone, a request for a first portion of the media content item, wherein a plurality of portions of the media content item including the first portion have been previously downloaded to the mobile phone; receiving, from the mobile phone, the first portion of the media content item using the peer-to-peer networking protocol; storing the first portion of the media content item in memory of the streaming media device; and causing the first portion of the media content item to be presented on the display device using the video player by playing the stored first portion of the media content item from the memory of the streaming media device.

A data sharing system includes a first sharer terminal, a receiver terminal and a service server. The service server is configured to receive a first sharer identity data, a first sharing command and a identity verification which is one of a share characteristic and a first shared data from the first sharer terminal. The service server, according to the first sharer identity data, the first sharing command and a share request, adds a new share list, or saves, modifies, or deletes at least one share list saved in a list storage module.

A method and apparatus for performing an integrated search is provided. An interface is provided that allows users to search and select any data related to a searchable term. Searchable terms may comprise titles of content, actors, and tags. Upon receiving results from the initial search, the user progresses through the initial search by selecting a result from the initial search and conducting a further search of that selection. The search may progress through many layers of searching in order to find information useful to the user and the user may perform actions based upon results of the search. The search implements a display with two columns, the first column displaying selectable data, and the second column displaying results to the selected data. The search is further customizable based upon a privacy level selected by the user.