Sonos landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for techniques of embedding ads as “structured metadata” in a “digital media playback system” for distribution to “multimedia players” installed in a home's “zones” and giving users the interactive capability to respond through a dedicated “input interface” on a controller. “Traditional” ad channels “can only provide static content and cannot engage potential customers interactively,” said the patent (10,061,742) based on a January 2010 application and naming Jonathan Lang and Ron Kuper as inventors. Lang is Sonos director-innovation and Kuper director of the company's Advanced Concepts Lab. The internet’s rapid growth offers advertisers “a unique opportunity to make interactive advertisement campaigns possible by allowing end users to close the loop, namely inducing users to click on an advertisement being served or linking the users to the actual product or service,” said the patent. Music publishers “supplement their revenue with advertising and connecting the audience with other products or services,” it said. Placing ads “between two musical pieces may not get a close attention from a listener as the listener may switch to another piece of music when a previous one is over,” it said. “There is a need for solutions that allow advertising to happen anytime an advertiser may deem appropriate.” Sonos didn’t comment.

Sonos landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for techniques of embedding ads as “structured metadata” in a “digital media playback system” for distribution to “multimedia players” installed in a home's “zones” and giving users the interactive capability to respond through a dedicated “input interface” on a controller. “Traditional” ad channels “can only provide static content and cannot engage potential customers interactively,” said the patent (10,061,742) based on a January 2010 application and naming Jonathan Lang and Ron Kuper as inventors. Lang is Sonos director-innovation and Kuper director of the company's Advanced Concepts Lab. The internet’s rapid growth offers advertisers “a unique opportunity to make interactive advertisement campaigns possible by allowing end users to close the loop, namely inducing users to click on an advertisement being served or linking the users to the actual product or service,” said the patent. Music publishers “supplement their revenue with advertising and connecting the audience with other products or services,” it said. Placing ads “between two musical pieces may not get a close attention from a listener as the listener may switch to another piece of music when a previous one is over,” it said. “There is a need for solutions that allow advertising to happen anytime an advertiser may deem appropriate.” Sonos didn’t comment.

Sonos landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for techniques of embedding ads as “structured metadata” in a “digital media playback system” for distribution to “multimedia players” installed in a home's “zones” and giving users the interactive capability to respond through a dedicated “input interface” on a controller. “Traditional” ad channels “can only provide static content and cannot engage potential customers interactively,” said the patent (10,061,742) based on a January 2010 application and naming Jonathan Lang and Ron Kuper as inventors. Lang is Sonos director-innovation and Kuper director of the company's Advanced Concepts Lab. The internet’s rapid growth offers advertisers “a unique opportunity to make interactive advertisement campaigns possible by allowing end users to close the loop, namely inducing users to click on an advertisement being served or linking the users to the actual product or service,” said the patent. Music publishers “supplement their revenue with advertising and connecting the audience with other products or services,” it said. Placing ads “between two musical pieces may not get a close attention from a listener as the listener may switch to another piece of music when a previous one is over,” it said. “There is a need for solutions that allow advertising to happen anytime an advertiser may deem appropriate.” Sonos didn’t comment.

BERLIN -- Sixteen tool, SoC and content vendors -- but not yet any TV brands or film studios -- independent of the core founding companies of Fox, Panasonic and Samsung are the first “adopters” of the HDR10+ Technologies licensing program, said the consortium Tuesday in a pre-IFA announcement. The update came a year to the day after Fox, Panasonic and Samsung first announced on the eve of 2017's IFA that they will form an “open,” licensable certification and logo program built around Samsung’s HDR10+ dynamic-metadata HDR platform (see 1708280018).

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 13-17 in case they were missed.

ATLANTA -- A “proof of concept” set to begin in September will provide for brainstorming and early-stage testing on the use of blockchain technology in processes related to NAFTA and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Vincent Annunziato, director of CBP’s Business Transformation and Innovation Division, told a group of reporters at the CBP 2018 Trade Symposium on Aug. 14. CBP will consider not only the technical capabilities of blockchain and any business benefits but also whether use of the technology fits with the agency’s regulatory and policy scheme.

The federal indictment of Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., won’t set back growing momentum to end 911 fee diversion, with House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Leonard Lance, R-N.J., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., ready to keep Collins’ 911 Fee Integrity Act (HR-6424) moving, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in an interview. Increasing national attention by Congress and the FCC is putting pressure on states to stop using 911 funds for unrelated purposes, lawmakers and other officials told us.

Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he's hopeful the U.S. and Mexico "will be able to close up no later than the middle of the week the remaining issues" on their NAFTA renegotiations and that trilateral discussions would then start. As to what those remaining issues are, Guajardo spoke elliptically, as he left the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Aug. 17, about government actions that are connected with "financial items" -- but he did clarify this does not concern trade in the financial sector.

Customs and Border Protection is focused on deploying new technologies and catching up with the massive growth in e-commerce as it moves toward the end of the decade, Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a CBP event in Atlanta. Beyond helping confront the “seismic shift” in the supply chain over the past several years, new technologies -- like RF identification and facial recognition -- will soon smooth trade across land borders, McAleenan said Tuesday. The growth in e-commerce “looks more like a rocket taking off than a plane,” he said. Small parcel shipments doubled 2016-17, and the agency doesn’t see the trend abating. CBP needs new legal and regulatory authority and partnerships so it can oversee new parties in the supply chain -- e-marketplaces like Amazon and warehousing operations for third-party sellers -- plus existing entities it has never regulated. Blockchain “may also be part of the answer,” giving CBP the ability to determine product origin and whether the product came from a trusted supplier, supply chain and e-marketplace, McAleenan said. Companies are looking at the technology from the perspective of “their ecosystem for their business model,” so one may use blockchain to ensure its provenance from the beginning of the supply chain while another may use it to add data that can ride along the blockchain and share more information about a shipment.

The Northern Mariana Islands should make sure no money is diverted from a proposed 911 fund, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a Wednesday letter to Gov. Ralph Torres (R). In a July 21 letter to O’Rielly, Torres said the territory doesn’t have a 911 system or active public safety answering points and thus isn’t collecting fees or charges. “The current structure provides emergency response calls to all municipal governments through dedicated telephone land lines with individual telephone handset units handled by radio dispatchers under the Department of Public Safety,” the governor said. Lawmakers are drafting a bill to create emergency 911 and next-generation 911 systems, with a 911 surcharge, he said.