AN INFORMATION FILLING STATION FACILITATING WIRELESS ACCESS OF DATA CONTENT OR EVENT-RELATED INFORMATION VIA A PORTABLE DEVICE OR OTHER COMPUTER-BASED DEVICES AT PREDEFINED LOCATIONS

摘要

Data content providers (304, 306, and 308) transfer data content (including DRM protected content, movies, movie products, digital movie content, etc) over a broadband network onto one or more information filling stations (IFSs 302) situated at one or more physical locations. Users are able to wirelessly communicate with the IFSs (302) via one or more of portable devices (314) that are operable in close proximity to the IFS (302). Data content requested by the portable devices include, but are not limited to: multimedia files, WWW data, real-time and interactive games, e-mail (with or without attachments), electronic newspapers, news and sports information, traffic and weather information, e-books, interactive messaging, and/or data files. Additionally, the portable devices (314) are also capable of facilitating point-of-sale purchases, facilitating electronic funds transfers and performing financial transactions for: purchasing movie tickets (directly or via auctions), downloading digital entertainment content of interest (e.g., copy of a movie of interest, copy of a movie identified based on a pre­stored profile, copy of soundtrack of a movie of interest), or movie related products. Optionally, the IFS (302) also forwards advertisements promoting products and services to the portable devices. The portable device (314) is also able to instruct the IFS (302) to selectively send each content of interest or product of interest to one or more identified locations (e.g., users can send large multimedia to their home PCs).