Method and Apparatus for Sharing Information Using a Handheld Device
A method and apparatus for sending information to a data processing apparatus for identifying a document to share with a recipient. A handheld device is capable of communicating with the data processing apparatus. Information is captured from the document and stored in the handheld device as document data. A communications path is established between the handheld device and the data processing apparatus. The document data is sent to the data processing apparatus through the communications path. Reference documents are provided. Each reference document has reference data stored in a memory. At least a portion of the received document data is extracted as scanning data. The reference data is retrieved from the memory. The scanning data is compared with the reference data. When the scanning data matches at least a portion of the reference data of one of the reference documents, the one reference document is selected as the identified document for forwarding to the recipient.
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This application is a continuation of pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/604,982, filed on Oct. 23, 2009, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,856,474, issued on Dec. 21, 2010, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,392,287 issued on Jun. 24, 2008, the entirety of which are incorporated herein by reference.
FIELDThe present invention relates generally to sharing information and, more particularly, to identifying a document from information input to a handheld device and forwarding the document to a designated recipient.
BACKGROUNDSharing information from documents is generally a manual and time-consuming process. When an individual reads a newspaper or magazine article and wishes to share the article with someone, he must endure a multi-stepped process fraught with frustration and potential for mistake.
A number of conventional means for sharing documents are available, although none are particularly palatable. In the above example, to share the newspaper or magazine article, the individual would have to choose one of the following means: physically tear out or photocopy the article and mail it, photocopy the article and fax it, read the article over the phone, scan the article into a computer and send it electronically, or visit the website for the newspaper or magazine, find the article, then send the uniform resource locator (“URL”) for the website to the desired recipient.
The tasks above are needlessly time consuming and problematic. In the time required to manipulate the physical document and arrange for sending, the recipient could have already read the article and discussed it with the sender, if only the recipient had received the article sooner. Moreover, with all of the effort required on the part of the sender to coordinate sending the document, there is a strong likelihood the sender may lose interest altogether and not even attempt to send the article.
SUMMARYOne aspect of the present invention relates to sending information to a data processing apparatus for identification of a document having the information. A handheld device having a memory is capable of communicating with the data processing apparatus. Information is captured from the document. The captured information is stored in the memory of the handheld device as document data. A communications path is established between the handheld device and the data processing apparatus. The document data is retrieved from the memory of the handheld device and sent to the data processing apparatus through the communications path for identification of the document.
Another aspect of the present invention relates to identifying the document for sharing with a recipient, in the data processing apparatus. Reference documents are provided. Each reference document has reference data stored in a memory. The document data received from the handheld device is associated with one of the reference documents. At least a portion of the received document data is extracted as scanning data. The reference data is retrieved from the memory. The scanning data is compared with the reference data. When the scanning data matches at least a portion of the reference data of one of the reference documents, the one reference document is selected as the identified document.
The invention may be better understood with reference to the following figures. The components in the figures are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clear illustration of principles.
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In some exemplary embodiments, part or all of server 125 is implemented as the data processing apparatus 300 described with reference to
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In step 210, the user 105 captures information from the document 110. In some exemplary embodiments, the handheld device includes an input device such as a microphone and is thus capable of receiving audio voice signals. The user 105 can convey information by speaking into the microphone. In an alternative embodiment, the microphone is physically separated from the handheld device, yet coupled to the device so the audio signals can easily pass to the device for storage in memory. In another exemplary embodiment, the handheld device is provided with a scanning mechanism. In one example, the scanning mechanism is provided as a “plug-in” cartridge that interfaces with the handheld device, as with the Handspring VISOR™ PDA. The scanner can be coupled to the handheld device by other means for scanning the information from the document and conveying the information to the handheld device for storage. Conventional scanners may be used, as will be understood by those skilled in the art. Other conventional means for converting printed text from the document to digital data may readily be used.
Various types of information can be captured from the document and stored in the handheld device. Suitable information includes: title of the document 110, author, publication name (e.g., name of newspaper or magazine), and the date of publication for document 110. The captured information can include one or more of these types of information and/or other types of information.
When the information is captured by the scanner or scanning mechanism, the scanned information is converted to digital data using conventional techniques. Also, audio signals received by the microphone are converted to digital data using a digital-to-audio (“D/A”) converter or other suitable means. The digital data is then stored in a memory within the handheld device as captured information or document data.
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In step 225, the server 125 then extracts at least a portion of the received document data as scanning data. This extraction may be performed using conventional voice recognition programs to extract portions of digital audio signals and convert these to text-based digital data. Suitable voice recognition programs include Dragon NATURALLY SPEAKING®, Lernout & Hauspie L&H VOICE XPRESS™, and Lernout & Hauspie Power Translator Pro. In step 225, the server attempts to identify the source document 110 using the captured information. To this end, server 125 cross-references the extracted portion of the information with reference data associated with a plurality of reference documents stored in repository 140. That is, the data processing apparatus accesses the reference data, and compares the scanning data with the reference data. In an alternative embodiment, this cross-referencing operation is performed by a human who uses the extracted portion of the information to index physical documents to identify one or more documents having information matching the extracted portion of information.
In step 230, the server 125 extracts the address data from the information received from the handheld device. For digital address data representing an e-mail address, phone number, or postal mailing address spoken into the microphone, a conventional voice recognition program is used to convert the voice-based address data to text-based digital data. The server 125 then attempts to identify the recipient using the text-based digital data. In some embodiments, when the address data is spoken or typed exactly, the text-based address data is used directly as the mailing address. In other embodiments, a table lookup operation is performed by server 125 using the text-based address data by cross-referencing a directory or listing of e-mail addresses associated with real names. This listing is maintained in storage medium 140. In an alternative embodiment, this table lookup operation is performed by a human, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
Proceeding to step 240, when the server cannot identify one of the referenced documents in step 225, or server 125 cannot identify recipient 135 from the address information 230, server 125 sends a signal to the handheld device operated by the user, such as an e-mail message passed via data network 130. This signal includes a message requesting further information and/or clarification of the data already submitted. For example, if the system identified two or more documents matching the captured information, the message prompts the user to specify which of the identified documents to send to recipient 135. Alternatively, the user may be prompted to re-enter address information. The method then returns to step 220, when the user sends-such information to the server. In steps 225 and/or 230, the server again attempts to identify the document and/or identify the recipient.
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In some embodiments, programs for performing methods in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the invention are embodied as computer program products. These generally include a storage medium or media having instructions stored thereon used to program a computer to perform the methods described above. Examples of suitable storage medium or media include any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, DVDs, CD ROMs, magnetic optical disks, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, hard disk, flash card, smart card, and other media.
Stored on one or more of the computer readable media, the program includes software for controlling both the hardware of a general purpose or specialized computer or microprocessor. This software also enables the computer or microprocessor to interact with a human or other mechanism-utilizing the results of exemplary embodiments of the invention. Such software includes, but is not limited to, device drivers, operating systems and user applications. Preferably, such computer readable media further include software for performing the methods described above.
In certain other embodiments, a program for performing an exemplary method of the invention or an aspect thereof is situated on a carrier wave such as an electronic signal transferred over a data network. Suitable networks include the internet, a frame relay network, an ATM network, a wide area network (WAN), or a local area network (LAN). Those skilled in the art will recognize that merely transferring the program over the network, rather than executing the program on a computer system or other device, does not avoid the scope of the invention.
It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments of the invention are merely possible examples of implementations set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of the invention. Variations and modifications may be made to the above-described embodiments of the invention without departing from the spirit and principles of the invention. All such modifications and variations are intended to be included herein within the scope of the invention and protected by the following claims.
Claims
1. A method comprising:
- storing a plurality of reference documents in a memory device, including storing reference data for each reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the reference data comprises data representing human-readable content from an associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the human-readable content includes actual content from the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
- receiving, at a data processing system from a mobile device in communication with the data processing system, digital audio data captured by the mobile device from audio voice signals identifying actual content of a source document, wherein the digital audio data comprises digital data converted from the audio voice signals;
- extracting at least a portion of the digital audio data as scanning data;
- retrieving the reference data for at least one reference document from the memory device;
- comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes comparing human-language content in the scanning data with actual text content in the retrieved reference data of the at least one reference document;
- if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data, identifying the at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as being the same document as the source document.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the scanning data includes data identifying a name of the source document.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the scanning data includes data identifying at least one of the author, title and reference number of the source document.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the memory device is a remote storage device.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- identifying, when the scanning data matches at least a portion of the reference data associated with a second reference document of the plurality of reference documents, the second reference document as an alternative identified document; and
- sending at least a portion of the alternative identified document to the mobile device.
6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:
- receiving an indication from the mobile device indicating the at least a portion of the at least one reference document or the at least a portion of the second reference document as being equivalent to the source document.
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending at least a portion of the at least one reference document to the mobile device.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the sending comprises:
- attaching the identified at least one reference document to an e-mail message, and
- sending the e-mail message to a data processing system.
9. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of sending includes sending the identified at least one reference document to a receiving address.
10. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of sending includes sending an image of at least a portion of at least one reference document.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting includes:
- extracting at least a portion of the captured digital audio data as scanning data by converting digital audio data to text-based digital data.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the steps of receiving, retrieving, comparing and identifying are performed by a data processing system of a server connected to the mobile device by a wireless network connection.
13. A method comprising:
- capturing digital audio data regarding a document utilizing a mobile device, wherein the digital audio data comprises audio data representing actual content from the document;
- establishing a communications path between the mobile device and a data processing system;
- sending the captured digital audio data from the mobile device to the data processing system via the communications path; and
- receiving, at the mobile device from the data processing system, data representing at least a portion of the actual content of the document.
14. The method of claim 13 wherein the step of receiving includes receiving the entire document.
15. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving at least a portion of a reference document as an alternative identified document; and sending at least a portion of the alternative identified document to the mobile device.
16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:
- receiving an indication from the mobile device indicating the at least a portion of the alternative identified document as being equivalent to the document.
17. The method of claim 13 wherein the entire document is sent to address data provided by the mobile device.
19. The method of claim 13 wherein capturing the digital audio data includes:
- receiving the digital audio data as spoken audio, and converting the spoken audio to a digital audio signal; and
- wherein storing the captured digital audio data includes storing the digital audio signal.
20. The method of claim 13 further comprising storing the captured digital audio data in a memory of the mobile device.
21. The method of claim 13 further comprising storing the captured digital audio data in a remote storage device.
22. The method of claim 13 further wherein the captured digital audio data includes data identifying at least one of the author, title and reference number of the source document.
23. A data processing system for identifying one of a plurality of reference documents from information received from a handheld device in communication with the data processing system, the data processing system coupled to the data network and each reference document having reference data, the data processing system comprising: storing a plurality of reference documents in a memory device, including storing reference data for each reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the reference data comprises data representing human-readable content from an associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the human-readable content includes actual content from the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents;
- at least one memory device in which a plurality of instructions are stored; and
- a processor coupled to the at least one memory device and capable of executing instructions in the memory device to: (i) access the reference data in the at least one memory device, and (ii) receive the information from the handheld device, wherein the information comprises data scanned from a document by the handheld device, wherein execution of the instructions causing a plurality of steps to be performed including:
- receiving, at a data processing system from a mobile device in communication with the data processing system, digital audio data captured by the mobile device from audio voice signals identifying actual content of a source document, wherein the digital audio data comprises digital data converted from the audio voice signals;
- extracting at least a portion of the digital audio data as scanning data;
- retrieving the reference data for at least one reference document from the memory device;
- comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes comparing human-language content in the scanning data with actual text content in the retrieved reference data of the at least one reference document;
- if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data, identifying the at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as being the same document as the source document.
24. The data processing apparatus of claim 23, wherein the execution of the instructions by the processor causes further steps to be performed, namely:
- receiving address information identifying a receiving address for a recipient;
- establishing a communications path between the data processing system and a device associated with the recipient via the data network, and
- sending, using the address information, at least a portion of the one or more reference documents to the receiving address of the recipient via the communications path.
25. The data processing system of claim 23, wherein sending at least a portion of the identified document includes:
- sending at least a portion of one or more reference documents to a receiving address of the recipient via transmission over a data network coupling the handheld device to the data processing system.
26. The data processing system of claim 23, further comprising sending data representing at least a portion of the identified one or more reference documents.
27. The data processing system of claim 26, wherein sending data representing at least a portion of the identified document includes:
- sending at least a portion of the identified document to a receiving address via facsimile transmission.
28. The data processing apparatus of claim 26, wherein sending the selected document includes:
- attaching the selected document to an e-mail message, and sending the e-mail message to the receiving address via the data network.
28. The data processing apparatus of claim 23, further wherein the scanning data includes data identifying at least one of the author, title and reference number of the source document.
29. A wireless personal device comprising:
- (i) an audio capturing apparatus operable to receive as input audio signals;
- (ii) a transceiver operating to receive and transmit a wireless data connection with a data processing system coupled to a wireless data network, the transceiver being operable to: establish a wireless communications path between the wireless personal device and the data processing system coupled to the wireless data network; and send a captured digital audio data from the wireless personal device to the data processing system via the wireless communications path;
- (iii) a memory in which a plurality of instructions are stored; and
- (iv) a processor coupled to the memory and capable of executing the instructions in the memory, wherein execution of the instructions causes a plurality of steps to be performed including: capturing digital audio data regarding a document utilizing the audio capturing apparatus, wherein the digital audio data comprises audio data representing audio signals identifying actual content from the document; establishing a communications path between the wireless personal device and a data processing system; sending the captured digital audio data from the wireless personal device to the data processing system via the communications path; and receiving, at the wireless personal device from the data processing system, at least a portion of the actual content of the document.
30. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the step of receiving includes receiving the entire document.
31. The wireless personal device of claim 29 further comprising receiving at least a portion of a reference document as an alternative identified document; and sending at least a portion of the alternative identified document to the wireless personal device.
32. The wireless personal device of claim 31 further comprising:
- receiving an indication from the wireless personal device indicating the at least a portion of the alternative identified document as being equivalent to the document.
33. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the entire document is sent to address data provided by the wireless personal device.
34. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein capturing the digital audio data includes:
- receiving the audio signals as spoken audio and converting the spoken audio to a digital audio signal.
35. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the wireless personal device is a cellular phone.
36. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the wireless personal device is a personal digital assistant (“PDA”).
37. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the wireless personal device is a head-wearable device including a microphone operating as the audio capturing apparatus, and an integrated heads-up display, wherein the integrated heads-up display presents at least a portion of the received actual content of the document.
38. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the wireless personal device is a wearable projector device including a microphone operating as the audio capturing apparatus, and an integrated projector that projects at least a portion of the received actual content of the document.
39. The wireless personal device of claim 29 wherein the captured digital audio data includes data identifying at least one of the author, title and reference number of the source document.
40. A computer program product, comprising:
- a non-transitory computer readable media; and
- program code on the computer readable media that when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform: storing a plurality of reference documents in a memory device, including storing reference data for each reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the reference data comprises data representing human-readable content from an associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents, wherein the human-readable content includes actual content from the associated reference document of the plurality of reference documents; receiving, at a data processing system from a wireless personal device in communication with the data processing system, digital audio data captured by the wireless personal device from audio voice signals identifying actual content of a source document, wherein the digital audio data comprises digital data converted from the audio voice signals; extracting at least a portion of the digital audio data as scanning data; retrieving the reference data for at least one reference document from the memory device; comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data, wherein comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data includes comparing human-language content in the scanning data with actual text content in the retrieved reference data of the at least one reference document; if comparing the scanning data with the retrieved reference data indicates at least the portion of the scanning data matches at least a portion of the retrieved reference data, identifying the at least one reference document of the plurality of reference documents associated with the matched at least a portion of the retrieved reference data as being the same document as the source document.
41. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the scanning data includes data identifying a name of the source document.
42. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the scanning data includes data identifying an author of the source document.
43. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the scanning data includes data identifying a publication date of the source document.
44. The computer program product of claim 40 further comprising:
- identifying, when the scanning data matches at least a portion of the reference data associated with a second reference document of the plurality of reference documents, the second reference document as an alternative identified document; and
- sending at least a portion of the alternative identified document to the wireless personal device.
45. The computer program product of claim 44 further comprising:
- receiving an indication from the wireless personal device indicating the at least a portion of the at least one reference document or the at least a portion of the second reference document as being equivalent to the source document.
46. The computer program product of claim 40 further comprising sending at least a portion of the at least one reference document to the wireless personal device.
47. The computer program product of claim 46 wherein the sending comprises:
- attaching the identified at least one reference document to an e-mail message, and
- sending the e-mail message to a data processing system.
48. The computer program product of claim 46 wherein the step of sending includes sending the identified at least one reference document to a receiving address.
49. The computer program product of claim 46 wherein the step of sending includes sending an image of at least a portion of at least one reference document.
50. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein extracting includes:
- extracting at least a portion of the captured digital audio data as scanning data by converting digital audio data to text-based digital data.
51. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein at least one of the steps of receiving, retrieving, comparing and identifying are performed by a data processing system of a server connected to the wireless personal device by a wireless network connection.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 27, 2012
Publication Date: Jan 24, 2013
Applicant: WIRELESS RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGIES LLC (Frisco, TX)
Inventor: Wireless Recognition Technologies LLC (Frisco, TX)
Application Number: 13/628,236
International Classification: G10L 21/00 (20060101);