HōMEframework includes global system functionality such as Visual Directories™ used by all HōMEapplications™. Visual Directories display content graphically, showing up to twenty times more choices per screen than today’s textual program guides, and they take advantage of the human cognitive ability to process visual information 60,000 times more efficiently than text information.
HōMEframework includes elements such as a Metadata Processing Engine (server), a Spatial Navigation Engine (client) and a Software Development Toolkit (SDK). HōMEframework offers global on–screen navigation buttons, which reside on the portal and all pages. Navigation buttons include Home, Search, Media Controls, and Live TV.
Key attributes of HōMEframework:
- Metadata Processing Engine (server): The Metadata Processing Engine ingests metadata from a variety of sources, and then relates the metadata in unique ways, to enable a fluid browsing experience. As the applications run, they send requests for specific metadata such as “the current top ten video–on–demand movies” to the server using a proprietary Hillcrest query language called MQL (Metadata Query Language). The server then sends the requested data to the device client.
- Spatial Navigation Engine (client, including the virtual client): The Spatial Navigation Engine software runs the applications in the HōME™ system. The client also manages the core user interface, including the display and the pointing device/remote control.
- Software Development Toolkits (metadata and applications): The SDK is designed to allow application designers to rapidly create new applications, and to allow manufacturers and service providers a means to rapidly adapt new content, hence new metadata sources. Hillcrest has two toolkits to assist in this process, the HōMEbuilder™ Services SDK and the HōMEbuilder Application SDK.
¹ Research by Dr. Hayward Andres and Dr. Candace Peterson of Portland State University
