WO2005101193A2 - Scanning apparatus and related techniques - Google Patents

Scanning apparatus and related techniques Download PDF

Info

Publication number
WO2005101193A2
WO2005101193A2 PCT/US2005/013586 US2005013586W WO2005101193A2 WO 2005101193 A2 WO2005101193 A2 WO 2005101193A2 US 2005013586 W US2005013586 W US 2005013586W WO 2005101193 A2 WO2005101193 A2 WO 2005101193A2
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
document
user
information
text
documents
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US2005/013586
Other languages
French (fr)
Other versions
WO2005101193A3 (en
Inventor
Martin T. King
James Q. Stafford-Fraser
Clifford Kushler
Dale Grover
Original Assignee
King Martin T
Stafford-Fraser James Q
Clifford Kushler
Dale Grover
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from US11/004,637 external-priority patent/US7707039B2/en
Application filed by King Martin T, Stafford-Fraser James Q, Clifford Kushler, Dale Grover filed Critical King Martin T
Priority to US11/547,835 priority Critical patent/US8713418B2/en
Priority to KR1020077009691A priority patent/KR101212929B1/en
Priority to PCT/US2005/034319 priority patent/WO2006036853A2/en
Priority to PCT/US2005/034734 priority patent/WO2006037011A2/en
Priority to EP05800941.6A priority patent/EP1810496A4/en
Publication of WO2005101193A2 publication Critical patent/WO2005101193A2/en
Priority to US11/365,983 priority patent/US7990556B2/en
Priority to PCT/US2006/007108 priority patent/WO2006093971A2/en
Priority to US11/672,014 priority patent/US8081849B2/en
Publication of WO2005101193A3 publication Critical patent/WO2005101193A3/en
Priority to US12/859,736 priority patent/US8261094B2/en
Priority to US13/195,193 priority patent/US8531710B2/en
Priority to US13/966,002 priority patent/US9030699B2/en
Priority to US13/966,236 priority patent/US9811728B2/en
Priority to US14/080,305 priority patent/US9460346B2/en
Priority to US14/252,395 priority patent/US9319555B2/en
Priority to US15/281,732 priority patent/US9773167B2/en
Priority to US15/679,237 priority patent/US20170364746A1/en
Priority to US15/716,414 priority patent/US20180096203A1/en
Priority to US16/133,654 priority patent/US10769431B2/en

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/93—Document management systems
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
    • G06F16/953—Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines
    • G06F16/9535—Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Definitions

  • Patent Application No. entitled ARCHIVE OF TEXT CAPTURES
  • the present disclosure relates to document identification.
  • a system includes a scanner and at least one display and/or speaker to provide a user of the scanner an indication of actions available for a portion of a document from which scanned information is obtained, the indications obtained via markup data for the document.
  • a system includes a scanner, a device comprising a scan-able identification, and logic to associate the user of the scanner with the device when the scan-able identification is scanned.
  • a method includes scanning information from a document, forming a document signature from the scanned information, locating a plurality of candidate electronic documents that may correspond to the document from which the information was scanned, and applying information about or content of at least one of the electronic documents to reform the document signature.
  • a scanner includes logic to self-clock scan data into a memory, and logic to determine when sufficient scan data is obtained to likely identify the document from which the data was scanned.
  • a system includes a scanner, user data, and a matching service to match users of the system according to user data obtained from scanning rendered documents.
  • a system includes logic to receive scanned information and to charge a user for services associated with the scanned information.
  • a system includes logic to convert scanned information into document searches, and logic to anonymize the searches.
  • a scanner includes scan property settings, to cause at least one of an annotation, highlight, or action to be associated with scanned information.
  • a scanner includes physical highlighting capability to produce a physical indication of scan properties on a rendered document.
  • a system includes a scanner, and an associated device, the associated device comprising a cache of documents and/or indexes for documents recently and/or likely scanned by the scanner.
  • a system includes content, markup information for the content, and services associated with the content and accessed via the markup information.
  • a method includes identifying a document from which information was scanned, and including information about the document and/or location within the document from which the information was scanned in stored user information.
  • a method includes scanning information, using the scanned information to search for documents, receiving ambiguous search results, and applying additional scanned information to search again for documents.
  • a method includes scanning text that has special formatting; taking or enabling an action associated with the special formatting.
  • a method includes scanning information, forming an offset representation of the scanned information, and applying the offset representation to search for documents.
  • Figure 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. [0,027,] Fjguie ,2Js, ale.acaching CQ,m ⁇ ppnent diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment.
  • Figure 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner.
  • Figure 4 is a block diagram of a scanning system including markup information and menus.
  • Figure 5 is a block diagram of a system for locating and/or authenticating a user of a scanner.
  • Figure 6 is a block diagram of a system and method of document- assisted document signature resolution.
  • Figure 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanning device.
  • Figure 8 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a document interaction system.
  • Figure 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner and associated device.
  • Figure 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a document interaction system.
  • Figure 11 is a flow chart of an embodiment of a method of gathering user information.
  • Figure 12 is a flow chart of an embodiment of a method of locating a document as information is scanned.
  • Figure 13 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanning arrangement.
  • Figure 14 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
  • Figure 15 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
  • Figure 16 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
  • Figure 14 is illustration of an embodiment of an offset representation of scanned information.
  • Logic refers to signals and/or information that may be applied to affect the operation of a device.
  • Software, hardware, and firmware are examples of logic.
  • Hardware logic may be embodied in circuits. In general, logic may comprise combinations of software, hardware, and/or firmware.
  • the system uses a sample of text captured from a paper document, for example using a handheld scanner, to identify and locate an electronic counterpart of the document.
  • the amount of text needed by the facility is very small in that a few words of text from a document can often function as an identifier for the paper document and as a link to its electronic counterpart.
  • the system may use those few words to identify not only the document, but also a location within the document.
  • a typical use of the system begins with using an optical scanner to scan text from a paper document, but it is important to note that other methods of capture from other types of document are equally applicable.
  • the system is therefore sometimes described as scanning or capturing text from a rendered document, where those terms are defined as follows:
  • a rendered document is a printed document or a document shown on a display or monitor. It is a document that is perceptible to a human, whether in permanent form or on a transitory display.
  • Scanning or capturing is the process of systematic examination to obtain information from a rendered document.
  • the process may involve optical capture using a scanner or camera (for example a camera in a cellphone), or it may involve reading aloud from the document into an audio pasture ,d,e,v,ice oriv Din ⁇ i,t.,on a keypad or keyboard.
  • a scanner or camera for example a camera in a cellphone
  • an audio pasture for example a camera in a cellphone
  • Figure 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. Other embodiments may not use all of the stages or elements illustrated here, while some will use many more.
  • Text from a rendered document is captured 100, typically in optical form by an optical scanner or audio form by a voice recorder, and this image or sound data is then processed 102, for example to remove artifacts of the capture process or to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
  • a recognition process 104 such as OCR, speech recognition, or autocorrelation then converts the data into a signature, comprised in some embodiments of text, text offsets, or other symbols. Alternatively, the system performs an alternate form of extracting document signature from the rendered document.
  • the signature represents a set of possible text transcriptions in some embodiments. This process may be influenced by feedback from other stages, for example, if the search process and context analysis 110 have identified some candidate documents from which the capture may originate, thus narrowing the possible interpretations of the original capture.
  • a post-processing 106 stage may take the output of the recognition process and filter it or perform such other operations upon it as may be useful. Depending upon the embodiment implemented, it may be possible at this stage to deduce some direct actions 107 to be taken immediately without reference to the later stages, such as where a phrase or symbol has been captured which contains sufficient information in itself to convey the user's intent. In these cases no digital counterpart document need be referenced, or even known to the system.
  • next stage will be to construct a query 1 08 or a set of queries for use in searching.
  • Some aspects of the query construction may, depend on,, thetician makeupsea ⁇ c process used and so cannot be performed until the next stage, but there will typically be some operations, such as the removal of obviously misrecognized or irrelevant characters, which can be performed in advance.
  • the query or queries are then passed to the search and context analysis stage 110.
  • the system optionally attempts to identify the document from which the original data was captured.
  • the system typically uses search indices and search engines 112, knowledge about the user 114 and knowledge about the user's context or the context in which the capture occurred 116.
  • Search engine 112 may employ and/or index information specifically about rendered documents, about their digital counterpart documents, and about documents that have a web (internet) presence). It may write to, as well as read from, many of these sources and, as has been mentioned, it may feed information into other stages of the process, for example by giving the recognition system 104 information about the language, font, rendering and likely next words based on its knowledge of the candidate documents.
  • the next stage will be to retrieve 120 a copy of the document or documents that have been identified.
  • the sources of the documents 124 may be directly accessible, for example from a local filing system or database or a web server, or they may need to be contacted via some access service 122 which might enforce authentication, security or payment or may provide other services such as conversion of the document into a desired format.
  • Applications of the system may take advantage of the association of extra functionality or data with part or all of a document.
  • advertising applications discussed in Section 10.4 may use an association of particular advertising messages or subjects with portions of a document.
  • This extra associated functionality or data can be thought of as one or more overlays on the document, and is referred to herein as "markup.”
  • the next stage of the process 130 is to identify any markup relevant to the captured data.
  • markup may be provided by the user, the originator, or publisher of the document, or some other party, and may be directly accessible from some source 132 or may be generated by some service 134.
  • markup can be associated with, and apply to, a re i ⁇ dsce 1 d satisfy ⁇ loc ⁇ 3e ⁇ jt, l an /,pr the digital counterpart to a rendered document, or to groups of either or both of these documents.
  • actions may be taken 140. These may be default actions such as simply recording the information found, they may be dependent on the data or document, or they may be derived from the markup analysis. Sometimes the action will simply be to pass the data to another system. In some cases the various possible actions appropriate to a capture at a specific point in a rendered document will be presented to the user as a menu on an associated display, for example on a local display 332, on a computer display 212 or a mobile phone or PDA display 216. If the user doesn't respond to the menu, the default actions can be taken.
  • FIG. 2 is a component diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment.
  • the operating environment includes one or more optical scanning capture devices 202 or voice capture devices 204.
  • Each capture device is able to communicate with other parts of the system such as a computer 212 and a mobile station 216 (e.g., a mobile phone or PDA) using either a direct wired or wireless connection, or through the network 220, with which it can communicate using a wired or wireless connection, the latter typically involving a wireless base station 214.
  • the capture device is integrated in the mobile station, and optionally shares some of the audio and/or optical components used in the device for voice communications and picture-taking.
  • Computer 212 may include a memory containing computer executable instructions for processing an ord er from scanning devices 202 and 204.
  • an order can include an identifier (such as a serial number of the scanning device 202/204 or an identifier that partially or uniquely identifies the user of the scanner), scanning context information (e.g., time of scan, location of scan, etc.) and/or scanned information (such as a text string) that is used to uniquely identify the document being scanned.
  • scanning context information e.g., time of scan, location of scan, etc.
  • scanned information such as a text string
  • the operating environment may include more or less components.
  • the network 220 are search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239.
  • the network 220 may be a corporate intranet, the public Internet, a mobile phone network or some other network, or any interconnection of the above.
  • the devices may all be operable in accordance with well-known commercial transaction and communication protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol (IP)).
  • IP Internet Protocol
  • the functions and capabilities of scanning device 202, computer 212, and mobile station 216 may be wholly or partially integrated into one device.
  • scanning device, computer, and mobile station can refer to the same device? depending upon whether the device incorporates functions or capabilities of the scanning device 202, computer 212 and mobile station 216.
  • some or all of the functions of the search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239 may be implemented on any of the devices and/or other devices not shown.
  • the capture device may capture text using an optical scanner that captures image data from the rendered document, or using an audio recording device that captures a user's spoken reading of the text, or other methods. Some embodiments of the capture device may also capture images, graphical symbols and icons, etc., including machine readable codes such as barcodes.
  • the device may be exceedingly simple, consisting of little more than the transducer, some storage, and a data interface, relying on other functionality residing elsewhere in the system, or it may be a more full-featured device. For illustration, this section describes a device based around an optical scanner and with a reasonable number of features.
  • Scanners are well known devices that capture and digitize images. An offshoot of the photocopier industry, the first scanners were relatively large devices that captured an entire document page at once. Recently, portable optical scanners have been introduced in convenient form factors, such as a pen-shaped handheld device. criz[0024]Jrjround. some., e bedments, the portable scanner is used to scan text, graphics, or symbols from rendered documents. The portable scanner has a scanning element that captures text, symbols, graphics, etc, from rendered documents. In addition to documents that have been printed on paper, in some embodiments, rendered documents include documents that have been displayed on a screen such as a CRT monitor or LCD display.
  • FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner 302.
  • the scanner 302 comprises an optical scanning head 308 to scan information from rendered documents and convert it to machine-compatible data, and an optical path 306, typically a lens, an aperture or a n image conduit to convey the image from the rendered document to the scanning head.
  • the scanning head 308 may incorporate a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) imaging device, or an optical sensor of another type.
  • CCD Charge-Coupled Device
  • CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
  • a microphone 310 and associated circuitry convert the sound of the environment (including spoken words) into machine-compatible signals, and other input facilities exist in the form of buttons, scroll-wheels or other tactile sensors such as touch-pads 314.
  • Feedback to the user is possible through a visual display or indicator lights 332, through a loudspeaker or other audio transducer 334 and through a vibrate module 336.
  • the scanner 302 comprises logic 326 to interact with the various other components, possibly processing the received signals into different formats and/or interpretations.
  • Logic 326 may be operable to read and write data and program instructions stored in associated storage 330 such as RAM, ROM, flash, or other suitable memory. It may read a time signal from the clock unit 328.
  • the scanner 302 also includes an interface 316 to communicate scanned information and other signals to a network and/or an associated computing device.
  • the scanner 302 may have an onboard power supply 332.
  • the scanner 302 may be powered from a tethered connection to another device, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection.
  • USB Universal Serial Bus
  • a reader may scan some text from a newspaper article with scanner 302. The text is scanned as a bit- mappe ,.image .yia he scanning head 308.
  • Logic 326 causes the bit-mapped image to be stored in memory 330 with an associated time-stam p read from the clock unit 328.
  • Logic 326 may also perform optical character recognition (OCR) or other post-scan processing on the bit-mapped image to convert it to text.
  • OCR optical character recognition
  • Logic 326 may optionally extract a signature from the image, for example by performing a convolution-like process to locate repeating occurrences of characters, symbols or objects, and determine the distance or number of other characters, symbols, or objects between these repeated elements.
  • the reader may then upload the bit-mapped image (or text or other signature, if post-scan processing has been performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 316.
  • a reader may capture some text from an article as an audio file by using microphone 310 as an acoustic capture port.
  • Logic 326 causes audio file to be stored in memory 328.
  • Logic 326 may also perform voice recognition or other post-scan processing on the audio file to convert it to text.
  • the reader may then upload the audio file (or text produced by post-scan processing performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 31 ⁇ .
  • the selective power of a search query based on a few words is greatly enhanced when the relative positions of these words are known, only a small amount of text need be captured for the system to identify the text's location in a corpus.
  • the input text will be a contiguous sequence of words, such as a short phrase.
  • Finding document and location in document from short capture [0035] In addition to locating the document from which a phrase originates, the system can identify the location in that document and can take action based on this knowledge.
  • the system may also employ other methods of discovering the document and location, such as by using watermarks or other special markings on the rendered document.
  • 1 of Aie- user may be determined from a unique identifier associated with a capturing device, and/or biometric or other supplemental information (speech patterns, fingerprints, etc.).
  • the search query can be constructed taking into account the types of errors likely to occur in the particular capture method used.
  • One example of this is an indication of suspected errors in the recognition of specific characters; in this instance a search engine may treat these characters as wildcards, or assign them a lower priority.
  • the capturing device may not be in communication with the search engine or corpus at the time of the data capture. For this reason, information helpful to the offline use of the device may be downloaded to the device in advance, or to some entity with which the device can communicate. In some cases, all or a substantial part of an index associated with a corpus may be downloaded. This topic is discussed further in Section 15.3.
  • the queries may be saved and transmitted to the rest of the system at such a time as communication is restored.
  • multiple queries may be launched in response to a single capture, either in sequence or in parallel.
  • queries may be sent in response to a single capture, for example as new ⁇ wpr.djS, ⁇ , ⁇ ⁇ vchan.a ⁇ d ⁇ d tppion hezier, capture, or to query multiple search engines in parallel.
  • the system sends queries to a special index for the current document, to a search engine on a local machine, to a search engine on the corporate network, and to remote search engines on the Internet.
  • the response to a given query may indicate that other pending queries are superfluous; these may be cancelled before completion.
  • search engine that handles traditional online queries also to handle those originating from rendered documents.
  • Conventional search engines may be enhanced or modified in a number of ways to make them more suitable for use with the described system.
  • the search engine and/or other components of the system may create and maintain indices that have different or extra features.
  • the system may modify an incoming paper-originated query or change the way the query is handled in the resulting search, thus distinguishing these paper-originated queries from those coming from queries typed into web browsers and other sources.
  • the system may take different actions or offer different options when the results are returned by the searches originated from paper as compared to those from other sources.
  • the same index can be searched using either paper-originated or traditional queries, but the index may be enhanced for use in the current system in a variety of ways.
  • Extra fields can be added to such an index that will help in the case of a paper-based search.
  • ndp ⁇ r entry pdi atip :: dQqument availability in paper form
  • the first example is a field indicating that the document is known to exist or be distributed in paper form. The system may give such documents higher priority if the query comes from paper.
  • Another important example may be recording information about the layout of a specific rendering of a document.
  • the index may include information about where the line breaks and page breaks occur, which fonts were used, any unusual capitalization.
  • the index may also include information about the proximity of other items on the page, such as images, text boxes, tables and advertisements.
  • semantic information that can be deduced from the source markup but is not apparent in the paper document, such as the fact that a particular piece of text refers to an item offered for sale, or that a certain paragraph contains program code, may also be recorded in the index.
  • indexing in the knowledge of the capture method is the knowledge of the type of capture likely to be used.
  • a search initiated by an optical scan may benefit if the index takes into account characters that are easily confused in the OCR process, or includes some knowledge of the fonts used in the document.
  • the query is from speech recognition, an index based on similar-sounding phonemes may be much more efficiently searched.
  • the system stores the appropriate offset or signature information in an index.
  • Indices may be maintained on several machines on a corporate network. Partial indices may be downloaded to the capture device, or to a machine close to the capture device. Separate indices may be created for users or groups of users with particular interests, habits or permissions. An index may exist for each filesystem, each directory, even each file on a user's hard disk. Indexes are published and subscribed to by users and by systems. It will be important, then, to construct indices that can be distributed, updated, merged and separated efficiently.
  • a search engine may take different actions when it recognizes that a search query originated from a paper document.
  • the engine might handle the query in a way that is more tolerant to the types of errors likely to appear in certain capture methods, for example.
  • queries from a capture device can reach the engine by a different channel or port or type of connection than those from other sources, and can be distinguished in that way.
  • some embodiments of the system will route queries to the search engine by way of a dedicated gateway.
  • the search engine knows that all queries passing through the dedicated gateway were originated from a paper document.
  • Section 13 describes a variety of different factors which are external to the captured text itself, yet which can be a significant aid in identifying a document. These include such things as the history of recent scans, the longer-term reading habits of a particular user, the geographic location of a user and the user's recent use of particular electronic documents. Such factors are referred to herein as "context.”
  • search engine may keep track of a user's scanning history, and may also cross-reference this scanning history to conventional keyboard-based queries. In such cases, the search engine maintains and uses more state information about each individual user than do most conventional search engines, and each interaction with a search engine may be considered to extend over several searches and a longer period of time than is typical today.
  • Some of the context may be transmitted to the search engine in the search query (Section 3.3), and may possibly be stored at the engine so as to play a part in future queries. Lastly, some of the context will best be handled elsewhere, and so becomes a filter or secondary search applied to the results from the search engine.
  • the described system can emit and use not only information about documents as a whole, but also information about sub-regions of documents, even down to individual words. Many existing search engines concentrate simply on locating a document or file that is relevant to a particular query. T qs,e trj ,t, i , can yyo ⁇ , 1 on constitus,iiner grain and identify a location within a document will provide a significant benefit for the described system.
  • the search engine may use some of the further information it now maintains to affect the results returned.
  • the system may also return certain documents to which the user has access only as a result of being in possession of the paper copy (Section 7.4).
  • the search engine may also offer new actions or options appropriate to the described system, beyond simple retrieval of the text.
  • the described system In addition to performing the capture-search-retrieve process, the described system also associates extra functionality with a document, and in particular with specific locations or segments of text within a document. This extra functionality is often, though not exclusively, associated with the rendered document by being associated with its electronic counterpart. As an example, hyperlinks in a web page could have the same functionality when a printout of that web page is scanned. In some cases, the functionality is not defined in the electronic document, but is stored or generated elsewhere.
  • markup is as an "overlay" on the document, which provides further information about — and may specify actions associated with — the document or some portion of it.
  • the markup may include human-readable content, but is often invisible to a user and/or intended for machine use. Examples include options to be displayed in a popup-menu on a nearby display when a user captures text from a particular area in a rendered document, or audio samples that illustrate the pronunciation of a particular phrase.
  • Any document may have multiple overlays simultaneously, and these may be sourced from a variety of locations.
  • Markup data may be created or supplied by the author of the document, or by the user, or by some other party. ,[0,077J.M ⁇ r ⁇ u P, ' t il rp ⁇ ,, L ⁇ , ⁇ attached to the electronic document or embedded in it. It may be found in a conventional location (for example, in the same place as the document but with a different filename suffix). Markup data may be included in the search results of the query that located the original document, or may be found by a separate query to the same or another search engine.
  • Markup data may be found using the original captured text and other capture information or contextual information, or it may be found using already-deduced information about the document and location of the capture. Markup data may be found in a location specified in the document, even if the markup itself is not included in the document.
  • the markup may be largely static and specific to the document, similar to the way links on a traditional html web page are often embedded as static data within the html document, but markup may also be dynamically generated and/or applied to a large number of documents.
  • An example of dynamic markup is information attached to a document that includes the up- to-date share price of companies mentioned in that document.
  • An example of broadly applied markup is translation information that is automatically available on multiple documents or sections of documents in a particular language.
  • Users may also install, or subscribe to particular sources of, markup data, thus personalizing the system's response to particular captures.
  • the system may add certain items to a pop-up menu (e.g., a link to an online bookstore) whenever the user captures the word "book," or the title of a book, or a topic related to books.
  • a pop-up menu e.g., a link to an online bookstore
  • digital counterpart documents or indices are consulted to determine whether a capture occurred near the word "book," or the title of a book, or a topic related to books - and the system behavior is modified in accordance with this proximity to keyword elements.
  • markup enables data captured from non-commercial text or documents to trigger a commercial transaction.
  • Annotations are another type of electronic information that may be associated with a document.
  • a user can attach an audio file of his/her thoughts about a particular document for later retrieval as voice annotations.
  • a multimedia annotation a user may attach photographs of places referred to in the document.
  • the user generally supplies annotations for the document but the system can associate annotations from other sources (for example, other users in a work group may share annotations).
  • markup data may often be supplied by third parties, such as by other readers of the document. Online discussions and reviews are a good example, as are community-managed information relating to particular works, volunteer-contributed translations and explanations.
  • markup By analyzing the data captured from documents by several or all users of the system, markup can be generated based on the activities and interests of a community.
  • An example might be an online bookstore that creates ar qp, ,pj, n ⁇ q a,tjp,r
  • the markup may be less anonymous, and may tell the user which of the people in his/her contact list have also read this document recently.
  • Other examples of datastream analysis are included in Section 14.
  • Markup based on external events and data sources [0087] Markup will often be based on external events and data sources, such as input from a corporate database, information from the public Internet, or statistics gathered by the local operating system.
  • Data sources may also be more local, and in particular may ; provide information about the user's context - his/her identity, location and activities.
  • the system might communicate with the user's mobile phone and offer a markup layer that gives the user the option to send a document to somebody that the user has recently spoken to on the phone.
  • the identity of the user will be known. Sometimes this will be an “anonymous identity,” where the user is identified only by the serial number of the capture device, for example. Typically, however, it is expected that the system will have a much more detailed knowledge of the user, which can be used for personalizing the system and to allow activities and transactions to be performed in the user's name.
  • One of the simplest and yet most useful functions that the system can perform is to keep a record for a user of the text that s/he has captured and any further information related to that capture, including the details of any documents found, the location within that document and any actions taken as a result.
  • the user can be presented with a "Life Library," a record of everything s/he has read and captured. This may be simply for personal interest, but may be used, for example, in a library by an academic who is gathering material for the bibliography of his next paper. ,£0P93JJ,n,.,,sp,me -cirj ⁇ ujxisjtances, the user may wish to make the library public, such as by publishing it on the web in a similar manner to a weblog, so that others may see what s/he is reading and finds of interest.
  • the capture can be stored in the library and can be processed later, either automatically or in response to a user request.
  • a user can also subscribe to new markup services and apply them to previously captured scans.
  • a record of a user's past captures is also useful for the system. Many aspects of the system operation can be enhanced by knowing the user's reading habits and history. The simplest example is that any scan made by a user is more likely to come from a document that the user has scanned in the recent past, and in particular if the previous scan was within the last few minutes it is very likely to be from the same document. Similarly, it is more likely that a document is being read in start-to-finish order. Thus, for English documents, it is also more likely that later scans will occur farther down in the document. Such factors can help the system establish the location of the capture in cases of ambiguity, and can also reduce the amount of text that needs to be captured.
  • the device may be embedded in a mobile phone or in some other way associated with a mobile phone account.
  • a scanner may be associated with a mobile phone account by inserting a SIM card associated with the account into the scanner.
  • the device may be embedded in a credit card or other payment card, or have the facility for such a card to be connected to it. The device may therefore be used as a payment token, and financial transactions may be initiated by the capture from the rendered document. 6.2-2,.,, , , using.,s.canner.
  • the device may therefore be used as a payment token, and financial transactions may be initiated by the capture from the rendered document.
  • the scanner may also be associated with a particular user or account through the process of scanning some token, symbol or text associated with that user or account.
  • scanner may be used for biometric identification, for exam ple by scanning the fingerprint of the user.
  • the system may identify the user by matching the voice pattern of the user or by requiring the user to speak a certain password or ph rase.
  • the capture device When the capture device is used to identify and authenticate the user, and to initiate transactions on behalf of the user, it is important that communications between the device and other parts of the system are secure. It is also important to guard against such situations as another device impersonating a scanner, and so-called "man in the middle" attacks where communications between the device and other components are intercepted.
  • An advantage of the described system is that there is no need to alter the traditional processes of creating, printing or publishing documents in order to gain many of the system's benefits. There are reasons, though, that the creators or publishers of a document - hereafter simply referred to as the
  • the system allows for printed documents to have an associated electronic presence.
  • Conventionally publishers often ship a CD-ROM with a book that contains further digital information, tutorial movies and other multimedia data, sample code or documents, or further reference materials.
  • some publishers maintain web sites associated with particular publications which provide such materials, as well as information which may be updated after the time of publishing, such as errata, further comments, updated reference materials, bibliographies and further sources of relevant data, and translations into other languages. Online forums allow readers to contribute their comments about the publication.
  • the described system allows such materials to be much more closely tied to the rendered document than ever before, and allows the discovery of and interaction with them to be much easier for the user.
  • the system can automatically connect the user to digital materials associated with the document, and more particularly associated with that specific part of the document.
  • the user can be connected to online communities that discuss that section of the text, or to annotations and commentaries by other readers. In the past, such information wou ld typically need to be found by searching for a particular page number or chapter.
  • Some publishers may have mailing lists to which readers can subscribe if they wish to be notified of new relevant matter or when a new edition of the book is published.
  • the user can register an interest in particular documents or parts of documents more easily, in some cases even before the publisher has considered providing any such functionality.
  • the reader's interest can be fed to the publisher, possibly affecting their decision about when and where to provide updates, further information, new editions or even completely new publications on topics that have proved to be of interest in existing books.
  • Many aspects of the system are enabled simply through the use of the text already existing in a document.
  • extra functionality can be added by printing extra information in the form of special marks, which may be used to identify the text or a required action more closely, or otherwise enhance the document's interaction with the system.
  • special marks which may be used to identify the text or a required action more closely, or otherwise enhance the document's interaction with the system.
  • the simplest and most important example is an indication to the reader that the document is definitely accessible through the system.
  • a special icon might be used, for example, to indicate that this document has an online discussion forum associated with it.
  • Such symbols may be intended purely for the reader, or they may be recognized by the system when scanned and used to initiate some action. Sufficient data may be encoded in the symbol to identify more than just the symbol: it may also store information, for example about the document, edition, and location of the symbol, which could be recognized and read by the system.
  • the printed document is a gateway to extra materials and functionality, access to such features can also be time-limited. After the expiry date, a user may be required to pay a fee or obtain a newer version of the document to access the features again.
  • the paper document will, of course, still be usable, but will lose some of its enhanced electronic functionality. This may be desirable, for example, because there is profit for
  • Coupons are an example of a type of commercial document that can have an expiration date.
  • Section 10.5 discusses the use of the system's statistics to influence compensation of authors and pricing of advertisements.
  • the system deduces the popularity of a publication from the activity in the electronic community associated with it as well as from the use of the paper document. These factors may help publishers to make decisions about what they will publish in future. If a chapter in an existing book, for example, turns out to be exceedingly popular, it may be worth expanding into a separate publication.
  • An important aspect of the described system is the ability to provide to a user who has access to a rendered copy of a document access to an electronic version of that document.
  • a document is freely available on a public network or a private network to which the user has access.
  • the system uses the captured text to identify, locate and retrieve the document, in some cases displaying it on the user's screen or depositing it in their email inbox.
  • a document will be available in electronic form, but for a variety of reasons may not be accessible to the user. There may not be sufficient connectivity to retrieve the document, the user may not be entitled to retrieve it, there may be a cost associated with gaining access to it, or the document may have been withdrawn and possibly replaced by a new version, to name just a few possibilities.
  • the system typically provides feedback to the user about these situations.
  • Access to the document may be restricted to specific users, or to those meeting particular criteria, or may only be available in certain circumstances, for example when the user is connected to a secure network.
  • Section 6 describes some of the ways in which the credentials of a user and scanner may be established.
  • Documents that are not freely available to the general public may still be accessible on payment of a fee, often as compensation to the publisher or copyright-holder.
  • the system may im lement payment facilities directly or may make use of other payment methods associated with the user, including those described in Section 6.2.
  • Electronic documents are often transient; the digital source version of a rendered document may be available now but inaccessible in future.
  • the system may retrieve and store the existing version on behalf of the user, even if the user has not requested it, thus guaranteeing its availability should the user request it in future. This also makes it available for the system's use, for example for searching as part of the process of identifying future captures.
  • a trusted "document escrow" service can retrieve the document on behalf of the user, such as upon payment of a modest fee, with the assurance that the copyright holder will be fully compensated in future if the user should ever request the document from the service.
  • Variations on this theme can be implemented if the document is not available in electronic form at the time of capture .
  • the user can authorize the service to submit a request for or make a payment for the document on his/her behalf if the electronic document should become available at a later date.
  • association may not be quite so direct: a user may be granted access based on an account established by their employer, or based on their scanning of a printed copy owned by a friend who is a subscriber.
  • the described system could be coupled to a database which records the location of an original document, for example in an archiving warehouse, making it easy for somebody with access to a copy to locate the archived original paper document.
  • OCR Optical Character Recognition
  • a scanning device for use with the described system will often be small, portable, and low power.
  • the scanning device may capture only a few words at a time, and in some implementations does not even capture a whole character at once, but rather a horizontal slice through the text, many such slices being stitched together to form a recognizable signal from which the text may be deduced.
  • the scanning device may also have very limited processing power or storage so, while in some embodiments it may perform all of the OCR process itself, many embodiments will depend on a connection to a more powerful device, possibly at a later time, to convert the captured signals into text. Lastly, it may have very limited facilities for user i interaction, so may need to defer any requests for user input until later, or operate in a "best-guess" mode to a greater degree than is common now.
  • OCR optical character recognition
  • the OCR process can be informed by the contents of the document corpus as it progresses, potentially offering substantially greater recognition accuracy.
  • Such a connection will also allow the device to inform the user when sufficient text has been captured to identify the digital source.
  • the font may be downloaded to the device to help with the recognition.
  • While component characters of a text fragment may be the most recognized way to represent a fragment of text that may be used as a document signature, other representations of the text may work sufficiently well that the actual text of a text fragment need not be used when attempting to locate the text fragment in a digital document and/or database, or when disambiguating the representation of a text fragment into a readable form.
  • Other representations of text fragments may provide benefits that actual text representations lack. For example, optical character recognition of text fragments is often prone to errors, unlike other representations of captured text fragments that may be used to search for and/or recreate a text fragment without resorting to optical character recognition for the entire fragment. Such methods may be more aDpropriate for some devices used with the current system.
  • characterizations of text fragments may include, but are not limited to, word lengths, relative word lengths, character heights, character widths, character shapes, character frequencies, token frequencies, and the like.
  • the offsets between matching text tokens i.e., the number of intervening tokens plus one are used to characterize fragments of text.
  • each token i.e., the particular letter, digit or symbol, or group of these, that corresponds to the token image
  • the offset number is the distance (number of tokens) to the next occurrence of the same token. If the to ⁇ n, ,s advocate.,uoiqu,eorialwi,tl i ⁇ finishtte,.text string, the offset is zero (0).
  • the sequence of token offsets thus generated is a signature that can be used to identify the scanned text.
  • the token offsets determined for a string of scanned tokens are compared to an index that indexes a corpus of electronic documents based upon the token offsets of their contents (Section 4.1 .2).
  • the token offsets determined for a string of scanned tokens are converted to text, and compared to a more conventional index that indexes a corpus of electronic documents based upon their contents
  • the user may be offered that document for purchase either in paper or electronic form.
  • the user may also be offered related documents, such as those quoted or otherwise referred to in the paper document, or those on a similar subject, or those by the same author.
  • the capture of text may be linked to other commercial activities in a variety of ways.
  • the captured text may be in a catalog that is explicitly designed to sell items, in which case the text will be associated fairly directly with the purchase of an item (Section 18.2).
  • the text may also be part of an advertisement, in which case a sale of the item being advertised may ensue.
  • the user captures other text from which their potential interest in a commercial transaction may be deduced.
  • a reader of a novel set in a particular country might be interested in a holiday there. Someone reading a review of a new car might be considering purchasing it.
  • the user may capture a particular fragment of text knowing that some commercial opportunity will be presented to them as a result, or it may be a side-effect of their capture activities.
  • advertisements In a traditional paper publication, advertisements generally consume a large amount of space relative to the text of a newspaper article, and a limited number of them can be placed around a particular article.
  • advertising can be associated with individual words or phrases, and can selected according to the particular interest the user has shown by capturing that text and possibly taking into account their history of past scans.
  • the system may gather a large amount of information about other aspects of a user's context for its own use (Section 13); estimates of the geographical location of the user are a good example. Such data can also be used to tailor the advertising presented to a user of the system.
  • the system enables some new models of compensation for advertisers and marketers.
  • the publisher of a printed document containing advertisements may receive some income from a purchase that originated from their document. This may be true whether or not the advertisement existed in the original printed form; it may have been added electronically either by the publisher, the advertiser or some third party, and the sources of such advertising may have been subscribed to by the user. 10
  • 16.1 can be an extremely valuable source of information about the interests and habits of a user. Subject to the appropriate consent and privacy issues, such data can inform offers of goods or services to the user. Even in an anonymous form, the statistics gathered can be exceedingly useful.
  • Advertising and other opportunities for commercial transactions may not be presented to the user immediately at the time of text capture. For example, the opportunity to purchase a sequel to a novel may not be available at the time the user is reading the novel, but the system may present them with that opportunity when the sequel is published.
  • a user may capture data that relates to a purchase or other commercial transaction, but may choose not to initiate and/or complete the transaction at the time the capture is made.
  • data related to captures is stored in a user's Life Library, and these Life Library entries can remain "active" (i.e., capable of subsequent interactions similar to those available at radio,the rate tir e the capture was made).
  • a user may review a capture at some later time, and optionally complete a transaction based on that capture. Because the system can keep track of when and where the original capture occurred, all parties involved in the transaction can be properly compensated.
  • the author who wrote the story - and the publisher who published the story - that appeared next to the advertisement from which the user captured data can be compensated when, six months later, the user visits their Life Library, selects that particular capture from the history, and chooses "Purchase this item at Amazon" from the pop-up menu (which can be similar or identical to the menu optionally presented at the time of the capture).
  • OSs Modern Operating Systems
  • other software packages have many characteristics that can be advantageously exploited for use with the described system, and may also be modified in various ways to provide an even better platform for its use.
  • New and upcoming file systems and their associated databases often have the ability to store a variety of metadata associated with each file.
  • this metadata has included such things as the ID of the user who created the file, the dates of creation, last modification, and last use.
  • Newer file systems allow such extra information as keywords, irriage characteristics, document sources and user comments to be stored, and in some systems this metadata can be arbitrarily extended. File systems can therefore be used to store information that would be useful in implementing the current system.
  • the date when a given document was last printed can be stored by the file system, as can details about which text from it has been captured from paper using the described system, and when and by whom.
  • OSs include support for speech or handwriting recognition, though it is less common for OSs to include support for OCR, since in the past the use of OCR has typically been limited to a small range of applications.
  • recognition components As recognition components become part of the OS, they can take better advantage of other facilities provided by the OS. Many systems include spelling dictionaries, grammar analysis tools, internationalization and localization facilities, for example, all of which can be advantageously employed by the described system for its recognition process, especially since they may have been customized for the particular user to include words and phrases that he/she would commonly encounter.
  • OS it may have a default action to be taken under those circumstances in the event that no other subsystem claims ownership of the capture.
  • OS has default action for particular documents or document types [00177] If the digital source of the rendered document is found, the OS may have a standard action that it will take when that particular document, or a document of that class, is scanned. Applications and other subsystems may register with the OS as potential handlers of particular types of capture, in a similar manner to the announcement by applications of their ability to handle certain file types.
  • Markup data associated with a rendered document, or with a capture from a document can include instructions to the operating system to launch specific applications, pass applications arguments, parameters, or data, etc.
  • the OS may also provide a way to register such actions and associate them with particular scans.
  • Most software applications are based substantially on standard
  • a typical use of the system may be for the user to scan an area of a paper document, and for the system to open the electronic counterpart in a software package that is able to display or edit it, and cause that package to scroll to and highlight the scanned text (Section 12.2.1 ).
  • the first part of this process, finding and opening the electronic document is typically provided by the OS and is standard across software packages.
  • the second part, however - locating a particular piece of text within a document and causing the package to scroll to it and highlight it - is not yet standardized and is often implemented differently by each package.
  • the availability of a standard API for this functionality could greatly enhance the operation of this aspect of the system.
  • the system may wish to perform a variety of operations upon that text. As an example, the system may request the surrounding text, so that the user's capture of a few words could result in the system accessing the entire sentence or paragraph containing them. Again, this functionality can be usefully provided by the OS rather than being implemented in every piece of software that handles text.
  • the system uses the application pop-up menus traditionally associated with clicking the right mouse button on some text. The system inserts extra options into such menus, and causes them to be displayed as a result of activities such as scanning a paper document.
  • the OS keeps a simple record of when any document was printed and by whom.
  • the OS takes one or more further actions that would make it better suited for use with the system. Examples include:
  • [ ⁇ & ff ⁇ r ⁇ "OS'"6fte'h” maintains certain categories of folders or files that have particular significance.
  • a user's documents may, by convention or design, be found in a "My Documents" folder, for example.
  • Standard file- opening dialogs may automatically include a list of recently opened documents.
  • Categories may be enhanced or augmented in ways that take into account a user's interaction with paper versions of the stored files. Categories such as “My Printed Documents” or “My Recently-Read Documents” might usefully be identified and incorporated in its operations.
  • markup Since important aspects of the system are typically provided using the "markup" concepts discussed in Section 5, it would clearly be advantageous to have support for such markup provided by the OS in a way that was accessible to multiple applications as well as to the OS itself. In addition, layers of markup may be provided by the OS, based on its own knowledge of documents under its control and the facilities it is able to provide.
  • Digital Rights Management the ability to control the use of particular data according to the rights granted to a particular user, software entity or machine. It may inhibit unauthorized copying or distribution of a particular document, for example.
  • the user interface of the system may be entirely on a PC, if the capture device is relatively dumb and is connected to it by a cable, or entirely on the device, if it is sophisticated and with significant processing power of its own. In some cases, some functionality resides in each component. Part, or indeed all, of the system's functionality may also be implemented on other devices such as mobile phones or PDAs. [00199] The descriptions in the following sections are therefore i ⁇ d ⁇ ' atl'drfs ' f wf a may" be desirable in certain implementations, but they are not necessarily appropriate for all and may be modified in several ways.
  • a handheld scanner may have a variety of ways of providing feedback to the user about particular conditions. The most obvious types are direct visual, where the scanner incorporates indicator lights or even a full display, and auditory, where the scanner can make beeps, clicks or other sounds. Important alternatives include tactile feedback, where the scanner can vibrate, buzz, or otherwise stimulate the user's sense of touch, and projected feedback, where it indicates a status by projecting onto the paper anything from a colored spot of light to a sophisticated display.
  • Important immediate feedback that may be provided on the device includes:
  • the device may provide a variety of ways for the user to provide input in addition to basic text capture. Even when the device is in close association with a host machine that has input options such as keyboards and mice, it can be disruptive for the user to switch back and forth between manipulating the scanner and using a mouse, for example.
  • the handheld scanner may have buttons, scroll/jog-wheels, touch-sensitive surfaces, and/or accelerometers for detecting the movement of the device. Some of these allow a richer set of interactions while still holding the scanner.
  • the system in response to scanning some text, the system presents the user with a set of several possible matching documents.
  • the user uses a scroll-wheel on the side of the scanner is to select one from the list, and clicks a button to confirm the selection.
  • the user can indicate a large region of text by scanning the first few words in conventional left-to-right order, and the last few in reverse order, i.e. right to left.
  • the user can also indicate the vertical extent of the text of interest by moving the scanner down the page over several lines.
  • a backwards scan might indicate cancellation of the previous scan operation.
  • the device may be used to capture text when it is out of contact with other parts of the system.
  • a very simple device may simply be able to store the image or audio data associated with the capture, ideally with a timestamp indicating when it was captured.
  • the various captures may be uploaded to the rest of the system when the device is next in contact with it, and handled then.
  • the device may also upload other data associated with the captures, for example voice annotations associated with optical scans, or location information.
  • More sophisticated devices may be able to perform some or all of the system operations themselves despite being disconnected. Various techniques for improving their ability to do so are discussed in Section 15.3. Often it will be the case that some, but not all, of the desired actions can be performed while offline. For example, the text may be recognized, but identification of the source may depend on a connection to an Internet-based search engine. In some embodiments, the device therefore stores sufficient information about how far each operation has progressed for the rest of the system to proceed efficiently when connectivity is restored.
  • the operation of the system will, in general, benefit from immediately available connectivity, but there are some situations in which performing several captures and then processing them as a batch can have advantages. For example, as discussed in Section 13 below, the identification of the source of a particular capture may be greatly enhanced by examining other captures made by the user at approximately the same time. In a fully connected system where live feedback is being provided to the user, the system is only able to use past captures when processing the current one. If the capture is one of a batch stored by the device when offline, however, the system will be able to take into account any data available from later captures as well as earlier ones when doing its analysis.
  • a scanner will often communicate with some other device, such as a PC, PDA, phone or digital camera to perform many of the functions of the system, including more detailed interactions with the user.
  • some other device such as a PC, PDA, phone or digital camera to perform many of the functions of the system, including more detailed interactions with the user.
  • the document may be retrieved from local storage or a remote location. (Section 8)
  • a software application may be started to edit, view or otherwise operate on the document.
  • the choice of application may depend on the source document, or on the contents of the scan, or on some other aspect of the capture. (Section 1 1.2.2, 11.2.3)
  • the application may scroll to, highlight, move the insertion point to, or otherwise indicate the location of the capture. (Section 11.3)
  • Annotations may be associated with the document or the captured text. These may come from immediate user input, or may have been captured earlier, for example in the case of voice annotations associated with an optical scan. (Section 19.4)
  • Markup may be examined to determine a set of further possible operations for the user to select. 12.2.2. Contextual popup menus
  • the scanner device projects a popup menu onto the paper document.
  • a user may select from such menus using traditional methods such as a keyboard and mouse, or by using controls on the capture device (Section 12.1.2), gestures (Section 12.1.3), or by interacting with the computer display using the scanner (Section 12.2.4).
  • the popup menus which can appear as a result of a capture include default items representing actions which occur if the user does not respond - for example, if the user ignores the menu and makes another capture.
  • the system provides a real-time display of the documents or the locations found, for example in list, thumbnail-image or text-segment form, and for the number of elements in that display to reduce in number as capture continues.
  • the system displays thumbnails of all candidate documents, where the size or position of the thumbnail is dependent on the probability of it being the correct match.
  • the text captured will occur in many documents and will be recognized to be a quotation.
  • the system may indicate this on the screen, for example by grouping documents containing a quoted reference around the original source document. 12.2.4. Scanning from screen
  • Some optical scanners may be able to capture text displayed on a screen as well as on paper. Accordingly, the term rendered document is used herein to indicate that printing onto paper is not the only form of rendering, and that the capture of text or symbols for use by the system may be equally valuable when that text is displayed on an electronic display-
  • the u ser of the described system may be required to interact with a computer screen for a variety of other reasons, such as to select from a list of options. It can be inconvenient for the user to put down the scanner and start using the mouse or keyboard. Other sections have described physical controls on the scanner (Section 12.1.2) or gestures (Section 12.1.3) as methods of input which do not require this change of tool, but using the scanner on the screen itself to scan some text or symbol is an im portant alternative provided by the system.
  • the optics of the scanner allow it to be used in a similar manner to a light-pen, directly sensing its position on the screen without the need for actual scanning of text, possibly with the aid of special hardware or software on the computer.
  • An im ortant aspect of the described system is the use of other factors, beyond the simple capture of a string of text, to help identify the document in use.
  • a capture of a modest amount of text may often identify the document uniquely, but in many situations it will identify a few candidate documents.
  • One solution is to prompt the user to confirm the document being scanned, but a preferable alternative is to make use of other factors to narrow down the possibilities automatically.
  • Such supplemental information can dramatically reduce the amount of text that needs to be captured and/or increase the reliability and speed with which the location in the electronic counterpart can be identified. This extra material is referred to as "context,” and it was discussed briefly in Section 4.2.2. We now consider it in more depth.
  • Another example of useful context is the user's geographical location.
  • a user in Paris is much more likely to be reading Le Monde than the Seattle Times, for example.
  • the timing, size and geographical distribution of printed versions of the documents can therefore be important, and can to some degree be deduced from the operation of the system.
  • the time of day may also be relevant, for example in the case of a user who always reads one type of publication on the way to work, and a different one at lunchtime or on the train going home.
  • Section 14 covers the analysis of trie data stream resulting from paper-based searches, but it should be noted here that statistics about the popularity of documents with other readers, about the timing of that popularity, and about the parts of documents most frequently scanned are all examples of further factors which can be beneficial in the search process.
  • the system brings the possibility of Google-type page-ranking to the world of paper.
  • One example is connecting one user with others who have related interests. These may be people already known to the user.
  • the system may ask a university professor, "Did you know that your colleague at XYZ University has also just read this paper?"
  • the system may ask a user, "Do you want to be linked up with other people in your neighborhood who are also how reading Jane Eyre?"
  • Such links may be the basis for the automatic formation of book clubs and similar social structures, either in the physical world or online.
  • Section 10.6 has already mentioned the idea of offering products and services to an individual user based on their interactions with the system.
  • Current online booksellers for example, often make recommendations to a user based on their previous interactions with the bookseller. Such recommendations become much more useful when they are based on interactions with the actual books.
  • the user will also not just be capturing some text, but will be causing some action to occur as a result. It might be emailing a reference to the document to an acquaintance, for example. Even in the absence of information about the identity of the user or the recipient of the email, the knowledge that somebody considered the document worth emailing is very useful.
  • a capture device for use with the system needs little more than a way of capturing text from a rendered version of the document.
  • this capture may be achieved through a variety of methods including taking a photograph of part of the document or typing some words into a mobile phone keypad.
  • This capture may be achieved using a small hand-held optical scanner capable of recording a line or two of text at a time, or an audio capture device such as a voice-recorder into which the user is reading text from the document.
  • the device used may be a combination of these - an optical scanner which could also record voice annotations, for example - and the capturing functionality may be built into some other device such as a mobile phone, PDA, digital camera or portable music player.
  • the device will incorporate many of these, sometimes very few.
  • the capture device will be able to communicate with another device that already has them (Section 15.6), for example using a wireless link, and sometimes the capture functionality will be incorporated into such other device (Section 15.7).
  • the device implements the majority of the system itself. In some embodiments, however, it often communicates with a PC or other computing device and with the wider world using communications facilities.
  • these communications facilities are in the form of a general-purpose data network such as Ethernet, 802.11 or UWB or a standard peripheral-connecting network such as USB, IEEE-1394 (Firew ⁇ re), BluetoothTM or infra-red.
  • a wired connection such as Firewire or USB
  • the capture device may appear to a connected machine to be a conventional peripheral such as a USB storage device.
  • the device may in some circumstances “dock” with another device, either to be used in conjunction with that device or for convenient storage.
  • Sections 3.5 and 12.1.4 have raised the topic of disconnected operation.
  • the device can still be useful, though the functionality available will sometimes be reduced.
  • the device can record the raw image or audio data being captured and this can be processed later.
  • it can be important to give feedback where possible about whether the data,, captured is likely to be sufficient for the task in hand, whether it can be recognized or is likely to be recognizable, and whether the source of the data can be identified or is likely to be identifiable later. The user will then know whether their capturing activity is worthwhile. Even when all of the above are unknown, the raw data can still be stored so that , at the very least, the user can refer to them later.
  • the user may be presented with the image of a scan, for example, when the scan cannot be recognized by the OCR process.
  • the SimpleScanner a low-end offline example [00271]
  • the SimpleScanner has a scanning head able to read pixels from the page as it is moved along the length of a line of text. It can detect its movement along the page and record the pixels with some information about the movement. It also has a clock, which allows each scan to be time- stamped. The clock is synchronized with a host device when the SimpleScanner has connectivity. The clock may not represent the actual time of day, but relative times may be determined from it so that the host can deduce the actual time of a scan, or at worst the elapsed time between scans.
  • the SimpleScanner does not have sufficient processing power to perform any OCR itself, but it does have some basic knowledge about typical word-lengths, word-spacings, and their relationship to font size. It has some basic indicator lights which tell the user whether the scan is likely to be readable, whether the head is being moved too fast, too slowly or too inaccurately across the paper, and when it determines that sufficient words of a given size are likely to have been scanned for the document to be identified.
  • the SimpleScanner has a USB connector and can be p lugged into the USB port on a computer, where it will be recharged. To the computer it appears to be a USB storage device on which time-stamped data files have been recorded, and the rest of the system software takes over from this point. 15.3.2.
  • the SuperScanner - a high-end offline example
  • the " SuperScanner also depends on connectivity for its full operation, but it has a significant amount of on-board storage and processing which can help it make better judgments about the data captured while offline.
  • the captured pixels are stitched together and passed to an OCR engine that attempts to recognize the text.
  • a number of fonts including those from the user's most-read publications, have been downloaded to it to help perform this task, as has a dictionary that is synchronized with the user's spelling-checker dictionary on their PC and so contains many of the words they frequently encounter.
  • Also stored on the scanner is a list of words and phrases with the typical frequency of their use - this may be combined with the dictionary. The scanner can use the frequency statistics both to help with the recognition process and also to inform its judgment about when a sufficient quantity of text has been captured; more frequently used phrases are less likely to be useful as the basis for a search query.
  • the full index for the articles in the recent issues of the newspapers and periodicals most commonly read by the user are stored on the device, as are the indices for the books the user has recently purchased from an online bookseller, or from which the user has scanned anything within the last few months.
  • the titles of several thousand of the most popular publications which have data available for the system are stored so that, in the absence of other information the user can scan the title and have a good idea as to whether or not captures from a particular work are likely to be retrievable in electronic form later.
  • the system informs user that the captured data has been of sufficient quality and of a sufficient nature to make it probable that the electronic copy can be retrieved when connectivity is restored. Often the system indicates to the user that the scan is known to have been successful and that the context has been recognized in one of the on-board indices, or that the publication concerned is known to be making its data available to the system, so the later retrieval ought to be successful.
  • Firewire or USB port at which point, in addition to the upload of captured data, its various onboard indices and other databases are updated based on recent user actiy,ity impart,a, ⁇ d...new publications. It also has the facility to connect to wireless public networks or to communicate via Bluetooth to a mobile phone and thence with the public network when such facilities are available.
  • Some embodiments of the system use a scanner that scans in contact with the paper, and which, instead of lenses, uses an image conduit a bundle of optical fibers to transmit the image from the page to the optical sensor device.
  • a scanner that scans in contact with the paper, and which, instead of lenses, uses an image conduit a bundle of optical fibers to transmit the image from the page to the optical sensor device.
  • Such a device can be shaped to allow it to be held in a natural position; for example, in some embodiments, the part in contact with the page is wedge-shaped, allowing the user's hand to move more naturally over the page in a movement similar to the use of a highlighter pen.
  • the conduit is either in direct contact with the paper or in close proximity to it, and may have a replaceable transparent tip that can protect the image conduit from possible damage.
  • the scanner may be used to scan from a screen as well as from paper, and the material of the tip can be chosen to reduce the likelihood of damage to such displays.
  • some embodiments of the device will provide feedback to the user during the scanning process which will indicate through the use of light-, textsp,u,n,d, or . tactile.. feedback when the user is scanning too fast, too slow, too unevenly or is drifting too high or low on the scanned line.
  • the capture device may form an important part of identification and authorization for secure transactions, purchases, and a variety of other operations. It may therefore incorporate, in addition to the circuitry and software required for such a role, various hardware features that can make it more secure, such as a smartcard reader, RFID, or a keypad on which to type a PIN.
  • the scanning head may also be able to read a fingerprint.
  • the voice pattern of the user may be used.
  • the device is able to form an association with other nearby devices to increase either its own or their functionality.
  • it uses the display of a nearby PC or phone to give more detailed feedback about its operation, or uses their network connectivity.
  • the device may, on the other hand, operate in its role as a security and identification device to authenticate operations performed by the other device. Or it may simply form an association in order to function as a peripheral to that device.
  • An interesting aspect of such associations is that they may be initiated and authenticated using the capture facilities of the device. For example, a user wishing to identify themselves securely to a public computer terminal may use the scanning facilities of the device to scan a code or symbol displayed on a particular area of the terminal's screen and so effect a key transfer. An analogous process may be performed using audio signals picked up by a voice-recording device.
  • the functionality of the capture device is integrated into some other device that is already in use.
  • the integrated devices may be able to share a power supply, data capture and storage capabilities, and network interfaces. Such integration may be done simply for convenience, to .reduce,.. cost, or to enable functionality that would not otherwise be available.
  • Some examples of devices into which the capture functionality can be integrated include:
  • webcam camera
  • BluetoothTM headset or a remote control
  • MP3 player a voice recorder, a digital camera or a mobile phone
  • the phone hardware is not modified to support the system, such as where the text capture can be adequately done through voice recognition, where they can either be processed by the phone itself, or handled by a system at the other end of a telephone call, or stored in the phone's memory for future processing.
  • voice recognition can either be processed by the phone itself, or handled by a system at the other end of a telephone call, or stored in the phone's memory for future processing.
  • Many modern phones have the ability to download software that could implement some parts of the system.
  • voice capture is likely to be suboptimal in many situations, however, for example when there is substantial background noise, and accurate voice recognition is a difficult task at the best of times.
  • the audio facilities may best be used to capture voice annotations.
  • the camera built into many mobile phones is used to capture an image of the text.
  • the phone display which would normally act as a viewfinder for the camera, may overlay on the live camera image information about the quality of the image and its suitability for OCR, which segments of text are being captured, and even a transcription of the text if the OCR can be performed on the phone.
  • the phone is modified to add dedicated capture facilities, or to provide such functionality in a clip-on adaptor or a separate Bluetooth-connected peripheral in communication with the phone.
  • the phone has connectivity with the wider world, which means that queries can be submitted to remote search engines or other parts of the system, and copies of documents may be retrieved for immediate storage or viewing.
  • a phone typically has sufficient processing power for many of the functions of the system to be performed locally, and sufficient storage to capture a reasonable amount of data. The amount of storage can also often be expanded by the user. Phones have reasonably good displays and audio facilities to provide user feedback, and often a vibrate function for tactile feedback. They also have good power supplies.
  • the Life Library (see also Section 6.1.1) is a digital archive of any important documents that the subscriber wishes to save and is a set of embodiments of services of this system. Important books, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, etc., can all be saved in digital form in the Life Library. Additionally, the subscriber's annotations, comments, and notes can be saved with the documents.
  • the Life Library can be accessed via the Internet and World Wide Web.
  • the system creates and manages the Life Library document archive for subscribers.
  • the subscriber indicates which documents the subscriber wishes to have saved in his life library by scanning information from the document or by otherwise indicating to the system that the particular document is to be added to the subscriber's Life Library.
  • the scanned information is typically text from the document but can also be a barcode or other code identifying the document.
  • the system accepts the code and uses it to identify the source document. After the document is identified the system can store either a copy, of the document in the user's Life Library or a link to a source where the document may be obtained.
  • One embodiment of the Life Library system can check whether the subscriber is authorized to obtain the electronic copy. For example, if a reader scans text or an identifier from a copy of an article in the New York Times (NYT) so that the article will be added to the reader's Life Library, the Life Library system will verify with the NYT whether the reader is subscribed to the online version of the NYT; if so, the reader gets a copy of the article stored in his Life Library account; if not, information identifying the document and how to order it is stored in his Life Library account.
  • NYT New York Times
  • the system maintains a subscriber profile for each subscriber that includes access privilege information.
  • Document access information can be compiled in several ways, two of which are: 1 ) the subscriber supplies the document access information to the Life Library system, along with his account names and passwords, etc., or 2) the Life Library service provider queries the publisher with the subscriber's information and the publisher responds by providing access to an electronic copy if the Life Library subscriber is authorized to access the material. If the Life Library subscriber is not authorized to have an electronic copy of the document, the publisher provides a price to the Life Library service provider, which then provides the customer with the option to purchase the electronic document.
  • the Life Library service provider either pays the publisher directly and bills the Life Library customer later or the Life Library service provider immediately bills the customer's credit card for the purchase.
  • the Life Library service provider would get a percentage of the purchase price or a small fixed fee for facilitating the transaction.
  • the system can archive the document in the subscriber's personal library and/or any other library to which the subscriber has archival privileges. For example, as a user scans text from a printed document, the Life Library system can identify the rendered document and its electronic counterpart. After the source document is identified, the Life Library system might record information about the source document in the user's personal library and in a group library to which the subscriber has archival privileges.
  • Group libraries are collaborative archives such as a document repository for: a qrouo working togeth.er. n a project, a group of academic researchers, a group web log, etc.
  • the life library can be organized in many ways: chronologically, by topic, by level of the subscriber's interest, by type of publication (newspaper, book, magazine, technical paper, etc.), where read, when read, by ISBN or by Dewey decimal, etc.
  • the system can learn classifications based on how other subscribers have classified the same document. The system can suggest classifications to the user or automatically classify the document for the user.
  • annotations may be inserted directly into the document or may be maintained in a separate file.
  • the article is archived in his Life Library with the scanned text highlighted.
  • the article is archived in his Life Library along with an associated annotation file (thus leaving the archived document unmodified).
  • Embodiments of the system can keep a copy of the source document in each subscriber's library, a copy in a master library that many subscribers can access, or link to a copy held by the publisher.
  • the Life Library stores only the user's modifications to the document (e.g., highlights, etc.) and a link to an online version of the document (stored elsewhere). The system or the subscriber merges the changes with the document when the subscriber subsequently retrieves the document.
  • the source document and the annotation file are provided to the subscriber and the subscriber combines them to create a modified document.
  • the system combines the two files prior to presenting them to the subscriber.
  • the annotation file is an overlay to the document file and can be overlaid on the document by software in the subscriber's computer.
  • Subscribers to the Life Library service pay a monthly fee to have the system maintain the subscriber's archive. Alternatively, the subscriber pays a small amount (e.g., a micro-payment) for each document stored in the archive. Alternatively, the subscriber pays to access the subscriber's archive on a per-access fee. Alternatively, subscribers can compile libraries and allow others to access the materials/annotations on a revenue share model with ' tlie life Library service provider and copyright holders. Alternatively, the Life Library service provider receives a payment from the publisher when the Life Library subscriber orders a document (a revenue share model with the publisher, where the Life Library service provider gets a share of the publisher's revenue).
  • a small amount e.g., a micro-payment
  • subscribers can compile libraries and allow others to access the materials/annotations on a revenue share model with ' tlie life Library service provider and copyright holders.
  • the Life Library service provider receives a payment from the publisher when the Life Library subscriber orders a document (a
  • the Life Library service provider acts as an intermediary between the subscriber and the copyright holder (or copyright holder's agent, such as the Copyright Clearance Center, a.k.a. CCC) to facilitate billing and payment for copyrighted materials.
  • the Life Library service provider uses the subscriber's billing information and other user account information to provide this intermediation service. Essentially, the Life Library service provider leverages the pre-existing relationship with the subscriber to enable purchase of copyrighted materials on behalf of the subscriber.
  • the Life Library system can store excerpts from documents. For example, when a subscriber scans text from a paper document, the regions around the scanned text are excerpted and placed in the Life Library, rather than the entire document being archived in the life library. This is especially advantageous when the document is long because preserving the circumstances of the original scan prevents the subscriber from re-reading the document to find the interesting portions. Of course, a hyperlink to the entire electronic counterpart of the paper document can be included with the excerpt materials.
  • the system also stores information about the document in the Life Library, such as author, publication title, publication date, publisher, copyright holder (or copyright holder's licensing agent), ISBN, links to public annotations of the document, readrank, etc.
  • Some of this additional information about the document is a form of paper document metadata.
  • Third parties may create public annotation files for access by persons other than themselves, such the general public. Linking to a third party's commentary on a document is advantageous because reading annotation files of other users enhances the subscriber's understanding of the document.
  • XPO, ⁇ !] In, s ⁇ r .OT,b reliabilitypdiments, t e system archives materials by class.
  • This feature allows a Life Library subscriber to quickly store electronic counterparts to an entire class of paper documents without access to each paper document. For example, when the subscriber scans some text from a copy of National Geographic magazine, the system provides the subscriber with the option to archive all back issues of the National Geographic. If the subscriber elects to archive all back issues, the Life Library service provider would then verify with the National Geographic Society whether the subscriber is authorized to do so. If not, the Life Library service provider can mediate the purchase of the right to archive the National Geographic magazine collection.
  • a variation on, or enhancement of, the Life Library concept is the "Life Saver," where the system uses the text captured by a user to deduce more about their other activities.
  • the scanning of a menu from a particular restaurant, a program from a particular theater performance, a timetable at a particular railway station, or an article from a local newspaper allows the system to make deductions about the user's location and social activities, and could construct an automatic diary for them, for example as a website.
  • the user would be able to edit and modify the diary, add additional materials such as photographs and, of course, look again at the items scanned.
  • Portable scanners supported by the described system have many compelling uses in the academic setting. They can enhance student/teacher interaction and augment the learning experience. Among other uses, students can annotate study materials to suit their unique needs; teachers can monitor classroom performance; and teachers can automatically verify source materials cited in student assignments.
  • a child's interaction with a paper document, such as a book, is monitored by a literacy acquisition system that employs a specific set of embodiments of this system.
  • the child uses a portable scanner that communicates with other elements of the literacy acquisition system.
  • the literacy acquisition system includes a computer having a display and speakers, and a database accessible by the factionporj p, ⁇ ,te , he. spanp,er $ scale dimensioncoupled with the computer (hardwired, short range RF, etc.).
  • the literacy acquisition system compares the scanned text with the resources in its database to identify the word.
  • the database includes a dictionary, thesaurus, and/or multimedia files (e.g., sound , graphics, etc.).
  • multimedia files e.g., sound , graphics, etc.
  • the system uses the computer speakers to pronounce the word and its definition to the child.
  • the word and its definition are displayed by the literacy acquisition system on the computer's monitor.
  • Multimedia files about the scanned word can also be played through the computer's monitor and speakers. For example, if a child reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" scanned the word "bear," the system might pronounce the word "bear” and play a short video about bears on the computer's monitor. In this way, the child learns to pronounce the written word and is visually taught what the word means via the multimedia presentation.
  • the literacy acquisition system provides immediate auditory and/or visual information to enhance the learning process.
  • the child uses this supplementary information to quickly acquire a deeper understanding of the written material.
  • the system can be used to teach beginning readers to read, to help child ren acquire a larger vocabulary, etc.
  • This system provides the child with information about words with which the child is unfamiliar or about which the child wants more information.
  • the system compiles personal dictionaries. If the reader sees a word that is new, interesting, or particularly useful or troublesome, the reader saves it (along with its definition) to a computer file. This computer file becomes the reader's personalized dictionary. This dictionary is generally smaller in size than a general dictionary so can be downloaded to a mobile station or associated device and thus be available even when the system isn't immediately accessible.
  • the personal dictionary entries include audio files to assist with proper word pronunciation and information identifying the paper document from which the word was scanned.
  • the system creates customized spelling and vocabulary tests for students. For example, as a student reads an assignment,,,,th,e, ⁇ l stud, ⁇ r ⁇ i ,!O.ay scan unfamiliar words with the portable scanner. The system stores a list of all the words that the student has scanned. Later, the system administers a customized spelling/vocabulary test to the student on an associated monitor (or prints such a test on an associated printer).
  • Teachers can use the system to detect plagiarism or to verify sources by scanning text from student papers and submitting the scanned text to the system. For example, a teacher who wishes to verify that a quote in a student paper came from the source that the student cited can scan a portion of the quote and compare the title of the document identified by the system with the title of the document cited by the student. Likewise, the system can use scans of text from assignments submitted as the student's original work to reveal if the text was instead copied.
  • capturing text from an academic textbook links students or staff to more detailed explanations, further exercises, student and staff discussions about the material, related example past exam questions, further reading on the subject, recordings of the lectures on the subject, and so forth. (See also Section 7.1.)
  • the system is used to teach foreign languages. Scanning a Spanish word, for example, might cause the word to be read aloud in Spanish along with its definition in English.
  • the system provides immediate auditory and/or visual information to enhance the new language acquisition process.
  • the reader .uses this suppler ⁇ eptary information to acquire quickly a deeper understanding of the material.
  • the system can be used to teach beginning students to read foreign languages, to help students acquire a larger vocabulary, etc.
  • the system provides information about foreign words with which the reader is unfamiliar or for which the reader wants more information.
  • Reader interaction with a paper document, such as a newspaper or book, is monitored by a language skills system.
  • the reader has a portable scanner that communicates with the language skills system.
  • the language skills system includes a computer having a display and speakers, and a database accessible by the computer.
  • the scanner communicates with the computer (hardwired, short range RF, etc.).
  • the database includes a foreign language dictionary, thesaurus, and/or multimedia files (sound, graphics, etc.).
  • the system compares the scanned text with the resources in its database to identify the scanned word. After the word has been identified, the system uses the computer speakers to pronounce the word and its definition to the reader.
  • the word and its definition are both displayed on the computer's monitor.
  • Multimedia files about grammar tips related to the scanned word can also be played through the computer's monitor and speakers. For example, if the words "to speak” are scanned, the system might pronounce the word “hablar,” play a short audio clip that demonstrates the proper Spanish pronunciation, and display a complete list of the various conjugations of "hablar.” In this way, the student learns to pronounce the written word, is visually taught the spelling of the word via the multimedia presentation, and learns how to conjugate the verb. The system can also present grammar tips about the proper usage of "hablar" along with common phrases.
  • the user scans a word or short phrase from a rendered document in a language other than the user's native language (or some other language that the user knows reasonably well).
  • the system maintains a prioritized list of the user's "preferred" languages.
  • the system identifies the electronic counterpart of the rendered document, and determines the location of the scan within the document.
  • the system also identifies a second electronic counterpart of the document that has been translated into one of the user's preferred languages, and determines the location in the translated document corresponding to the location of the scan in the original document.
  • the system identifies a small region (e.g., a paragraph) that includes the corresponding location of the scanned location.
  • the corresponding translated location is then presented to the user. This provides the user with a precise translation of the particular usage at the scanned location, including any slang or other idiomatic usage that is often difficult to accurately translate on a word-by-word basis.
  • a user researching a particular topic may encounter all sorts of material, both in print and on screen, which they might wish to record as relevant to the topic in some personal archive.
  • the system would enable this process to be automatic as a result of scanning a short phrase in any piece of material, and could also create a bibliography suitable for insertion into a publication on the subject.
  • Conventional Internet search engines typically provide free search of electronic documents, and also make no charge to the content providers for including their content in the index.
  • the system provides for charges to users and/or payments to search engines and/or content providers in connection with the operation and use of the system.
  • subscribers to the system's services pay a fee for searches originating from scans of paper documents.
  • a stockbroker may be reading a Wall Street Journal article about a new product offered by Company X.
  • the stockbroker uses the system to search special or proprietary databases to obtain premium information about the company, such as analyst's reports.
  • the system can also make arrangements to have priority indexing of the documents most likely to be read in paper form, for example by making sure all of the newspapers published on a particular day are indexed and available by the time they hit the streets.
  • Content providers may pay a fee to be associated with certain terms in search queries submitted from paper documents. For example, in one embodiment, the system chooses a most preferred content provider based on additional context about the provider (the context being, in this case, that the content provider has paid a fee to be moved up the results list). In essence, the search provider is adjusting paper document search results based on pre-existing financial arrangements with a content provider. See also the description of keywords and key phrases in Section 5.2.
  • Such content may be protected by a firewall and thus not generally indexable by third parties.
  • the content provider may nonetheless wish to provide an index to the protected content.
  • the content provider can pay a service provider to provide the content provider's index to system subscribers.
  • a law firm may index all of a client's documents. The documents are stored behind the law firm's firewall.
  • the law firm wants its employees and the client to have access to the documents through the portable scanner so it provides the index (or a pointer to the index) to the service provider, which in turn searches the law firm's index when employees or clients of the law firm submit paper-scanned search terms via their portable scanners.
  • the law firm can provide a list of employees and/or clients to the service provider's system to enable this function or the system can verify access rights by querying the law firm prior to searching the law firm's index.
  • the index provided by the law firm is only of that client's documents, not an index of all documents at the law firm.
  • the service provider can only grant the law firm's clients access to the documents that the law firm indexed for the client.
  • the search function revenue can be generated from paid subscriptions from the scanner users,, .put, althoughc,aj ⁇ ajso be generated on a per-search charge.
  • the content delivery revenue can be shared with the content provider or copyright holder (the service provider can take a percentage of the sale or a fixed fee, such as a micropayment, for each delivery), but also can be generated by a "referral" model in which the system gets a fee or percentage for every item that the subscriber orders from the online catalog and that the system has delivered or contributed to, regardless of whether the service provider intermediates the transaction.
  • the system service provider receives revenue for all purchases that the subscriber made from the content provider, either for some predetermined period of time or at any subsequent time when a purchase of an identified product is made.
  • Consumers may use the portable scanner to make purchases from paper catalogs.
  • the subscriber scans information from the catalog that identifies the catalog. This information is text from the catalog, a bar code, or another identifier of the catalog.
  • the subscriber scans information identifying the products that s/he wishes to purchase.
  • the catalog mailing label may contain a customer identification number that identifies the customer to the catalog vendor. If so, the subscriber can also scan this customer identification number.
  • the system acts as an intermediary between the subscriber and the vendor to facilitate the catalog purchase by providing the customer's selection and customer identification number to the vendor.
  • a consumer scans paper coupons and saves an electronic copy of the coupon in the scanner, or in a remote device such as a computer, for later retrieval and use.
  • An advantage of electronic storage is that the consumer is freed from the burden of carrying paper coupons.
  • a further advantage is that the electronic coupons may be retrieved from any location.
  • the system can track coupon expiration dates, alert the consumer about coupons that will expire soon, and/or delete expired coupons from storage.
  • An advantage for the issuer of the coupons is the possibility of receiving more feedback about who is using the coupons and when and where they are captured and used.
  • the system may be used to auto-populate an electronic document that corresponds to a paper form.
  • a user scans in some text or a barcode that uniquely identifies the paper form.
  • the scanner communicates the identity of the form and information identifying the user to a nearby computer.
  • the nearby computer has an Internet connection.
  • the nearby computer can access a first database of forms and a second database having information about the user of the scanner (such as a service provider's subscriber information database).
  • the nearby computer accesses an electronic version of the paper form from the first database and auto- populates the fields of the form from the user's information obtained from the second database.
  • the nearby computer then emails the completed form to the intended recipient.
  • the computer could print the completed form on a nearby printer.
  • the system has a portable scanner that contains the user's information, such as in an identity module, SIM, or security card.
  • the scanner provides information identifying the form to the nearby PC.
  • the nearby PC accesses the electronic form and queries the scanner for any necessary information to fill out the form.
  • the system can be used to automatically populate electronic address books or other contact lists from paper documents. For example, upon receiving a new acquaintance's business card, a user can capture an image of the card with his/her cellular phone. The system will locate an electronic copy of the card, which can be used to update the cellular phone's onboard address book with the new acquaintance's contact information. The electronic copy may contain more information about the new acquaintance than can be squeezed onto a business card. Further, the onboard address book may also store a link to the electronic copy such that any changes to the electronic copy will be automatically updated in the cell phone's address book.
  • the business card optionally includes a symbol or text that indicates the existence of an electronic copy.
  • the cellular,, phppe, can,,, emphasisusecet wholly or partially a phone icon next to the phone number on the business card can be recognized to determine the location of the phone number.
  • the system can enhance the proofreading and editing process.
  • One way the system can enhance the editing process is by linking the editor's interactions with a paper document to its electronic counterpart.
  • the system will make the appropriate annotations or edits to an electronic counterpart of the paper document. For example, if the editor scans a portion of text and makes the "new paragraph" control gesture with the scanner, a computer in communication with the scanner would insert a "new paragraph” break at the location of the scanned text in the electronic copy of the document.
  • a user can make voice annotations to a document by scanning a portion of text from the document and then making a voice recording that is associated with the scanned text.
  • the scanner has a microphone to record the user's verbal annotations. After the verbal annotations are recorded, the system identifies the document from which the text was scanned, locates the scanned text within the document, and attaches the voice annotation at that point. In some embodiments, the system converts the speech to text and attaches the annotation as a textual comment.
  • the system keeps annotations separate from the document, with only a reference to the annotation kept with the document.
  • the annotations then become an annotation markup layer to the document for a specific subscriber or group of users.
  • the system identifies the document, opens it using a software package, scrolls to the location of the scan and plays the voice annotation. The user can then interact with a document while referring to voice annotations, suggested changes or other comments recorded either by themselves or by somebody else. 19-5. Help In Text
  • a markup layer associated with a paper document contains help menu information for the document. For example, when a user scans text from a certain portion of the document, the system checks the markup associated with the document and presents a help menu to the user. The help menu is presented on a display on the scanner or on an associated nearby display.
  • the portable scanner is used to scan information from computer monitors and televisions.
  • the portable optical scanner has an illumination sensor that is optimized to work with traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) display techniques such as rasterizing, screen blanking, etc.
  • CTR cathode ray tube
  • a voice capture device which operates by capturing audio of the user reading text from a document will typically work regardless of whether that document is on paper, on a display, or on some other medium.
  • a public kiosk displays a dynamic session ID on its monitor.
  • the kiosk is connected to a communication network such as the Internet or a corporate intranet.
  • the session ID changes periodically but at least every time that the kiosk is used so that a new session ID is displayed to every user.
  • the subscriber scans in the session ID displayed on the kiosk; by scanning the session ID, the user tells the system that he wishes to temporarily associate the kiosk with his scanner for the delivery of content resulting from scans of printed documents or from the kiosk screen itself.
  • the scanner may communicate the Session ID and other information authenticating the scanner (such as a serial number, account number, or other identifying information) directly to the system.
  • the scanner can communicate directly (where "directly” means without passing the messaqe through the kiosk) with the system by sending the session initiation message through the user's cell phone (which is paired with the user's scanner via BluetoothTM).
  • the scanner can establish a wireless link with the kiosk and use the kiosk's communication link by transferring the session initiation information to the kiosk (perhaps via short range RF such as BluetoothTM, etc.); in response, the kiosk sends the session initiation information to the system via its Internet connection.
  • the system can prevent others from using a device that is already associated with a scanner during the period (or session) in which the device is associated with the scanner. This feature is useful to prevent others from u sing a public kiosk before another person's session has ended.
  • the user scans a barcode on a monitor of a PC which s/he desires to use; in response, the system sends a session ID to the monitor that it displays; the user initiates the session by scanning the session ID from the monitor (or entering it via a keypad or touch screen or microphone on the portable scanner); and the system associates in its databases the session ID with the serial number (or other identifier that uniquely identifies the user's scanner) of his/her scanner so another scanner cannot scan the session ID and use the monitor during his/her session.
  • the serial number or other identifier that uniquely identifies the user's scanner
  • the scanner is in communication (through wireless link such as BluetoothTM, a hardwired link such as a docking station, etc.) with a PC associated with the monitor or is in direct (i.e., w/o going through the PC) communication with the system via another means such as a cellular phone, etc.
  • a menu 412 of available actions/options associated with a document, and/or portion thereof, is provided on a display 406.
  • the display 406 may be part of the scanner 404, or provided by an associated device.
  • the menu 412 may be associated with a specific point and/or area 409 of a document 402.
  • the menu 412 may also be responsive to context such that its content varies (in other words, is not static), depending on a variety of factors.
  • the markup 411 includes a mapping from the document and/or portions thereof to the menu items.
  • the markup 41 1 may vary, at least in part, according to the . - ⁇ se ⁇ apd, practicesscanning context.
  • the markup 411 may apply to several or all areas of the document.
  • An example of markup information would be the following "If an item is referenced in the document portion (such as 409) associated with this markup or within some s ecified logical distance (such as number of sentences or physical placement on paper) for which our system knows of a selling opportunity, present the selling opportunity as an item of the menu 412." For example, scanning text in a magazine near an advertisement for WXY Florist could bring up a menu which included the option, "Order WXY Flowers Now.”
  • Contents of menus 412 may be based, at least in part, on attributes of the user and/or attributes of a demographic to which the user belongs.
  • Contents of menu 412 may be based on prior individual or group behaviors.
  • a simple example would be a user who it is determined to be re-reading a passage they are known to have read earlier, and whom provided annotations to that passage (e.g. voice notes, or written or electronic markings).
  • a menu item which might be generated for a re-reading of a portion of content 409 might include "See earlier markings".
  • menus may be presented audibly.
  • the menu item provided might include an item such as "Listen to earlier voice annotations”. Items may be presented audibly in addition to presentation on a display. Items presented audibly may vary somewhat from items presented on a display, due to differences in the medium.
  • Menu ite s 412 may vary, at least in part, according to scan context, such as the location of the user, the date, and/or the time of day.
  • the document portion 409, date, and user characteristics, and/or many other possible influenci ng factors, may be combined in determining contents of menus.
  • An advertiser might, for instance, purchase the right to appear in a menu between April 1st and April 15th for text scanned from pages 3 through 17 of a magazine , when the user has recorded purchases of $50 or more in the last 30 days.
  • Markup instructions 411 and/or other factors may also determine the position of items in the menu, e.g. what appears at or near the top of the menu. Markup instructions 411 and/or other factors may determine which item or items are default selections for a menu, or which are highlighted or made special in some other way. ⁇ oq ⁇ 8] ,
  • One way help insure that the user actually intended to make the purchase is to have a separate action which the user performs to complete the purchase.
  • This action might be, for example, to operate a control on the scanning device 404, speak a certain word or phrase, or to scan a special symbol or phrase printed in the document (for example, a statement like "I agree to purchase").
  • the content presented in a rendered document will be supplemented by additional material.
  • this additional material will be "premium content,” i.e., it will only be available for an additional charge, or to customers who have the proper privileges and access - generally by maintaining a special account/relationship with the content vendor or service provider.
  • the availability of premium content can be indicated by one or more special symbols or marks - which might further be specific as to the type of content, its cost, etc.
  • Setting User Location and Associated Displays [0011] In some embodiments of the system, information about the location of the user is determined and maintained. This may be useful, for example, when the user has access to a display device 504 (for example via a kiosk 502) and wants content delivered there.
  • a label or other scanner-readable indicator 506 maybe available to the user.
  • a scanner 404 may scan the label 506.
  • the indicator 506 may enable identification of the specific display device 504 and/or other environmental or context information. In some embodiments, scanning the indicator 506 may enable identification of the user's location. In some embodiments, the indicator 506 may be unique to a particular device 502 and/or display device 504.
  • the identifying label 508 may be uniquely generated and displayed on the display device 504.
  • the generated label 508 may contain information about the devigeotro devis5Q,2, adoptedaQ.d/.Q,r display 504, and/or other information such as a session identification (e.g. browser session id).
  • User information 514 including location/associated device information for the scan may be retained by the system for use in other contexts.
  • the user may identify themself to the system by scanning a special code or mark 512 which maybe printed on a card 510 and carried in the user's wallet. If the coded information on the carcJ 510 is not easily duplicated or copied, a level of trusted authentication may be achieved.
  • the card 510 may contain logic.
  • the card 510 may be a "smart card”. In some embodiments, such as when the card 510 comprises logic, the information on the card may vary over time.
  • Context and Resolving Ambiguity Short fragments of scanned text which are potentially ambiguous.
  • a short phrase may occur in multiple documents, and at multiple locations within a document. Errors introduced in the capture process have larger impact when only a small amount of material is ca ptured.
  • errors may be reduced.
  • An example of using additional information cornes from the field of speech recognition. Taken out of context, arbitrary spoken phrases are extremely difficult to decipher with high accuracy. However, by restricting the context and/or limiting the vocabulary, remarkable accuracy may be achieved. Recently directory assistance and other phone services have been offered where the user accesses the system purely by voice input. What makes this possible is the restricted domain of a limited, known vocabulary.
  • the system may determine the user's request with great accuracy. This is done by limiting the possible interpretations of the speech to the names of companies having 1-800 numbers, and by further prioritizing the results according to popularity (which equates to probability).
  • T-9 allows use rs to input text from the mobile phone keypad with just one key-press per letter - even though each key-press is supplementqgit .ambig ous,, (,bq,cause each key repres nts 3 or 4 different letters).
  • the trick in the T-9 system is reference to an internal dictionary of possible words, including the relative frequencies (probability) of each word. Although multiple words may match a particular key sequence in T-9, usually one of these words is by far the most probable choice.
  • a previously ambiguous document capture, or one with error(s) can be resolved into a better or acceptable document signature that identifies the document from which the capture was made, a nd optionally the location of the capture within that document.
  • One source of additional information is an index or archive of information about the digital counterparts (or "source” documents) corresponding to rendered documents, generally including the one being scanned. Thus information that is un certain or even partially incorrect is made useful by reference to the potential source document.
  • a scanner 404 scans information off of a rendered document 402.
  • the document 402 may be rendered in print or electronically.
  • OCR 604 may optionally be applied to form a document signature 602.
  • the signature formation process does not encompass full OCR. It may encompass any method of developing a document signature, such as determining offset-based signatures from fragments of text, tokenization, template matching, and other techniques described here or known in the field of document imaging and retrieval.
  • the document signature generated 602 may be incomplete, partially resolved, or comprise ambiguities and/or error(s).
  • the document signature 602 may be used to locate candidate electronic documents 606-608, one or more of which may correspond to the rendered document.
  • the candidate documents 606-608 are applied to the signature generation process 604 to further resolve the document signature 602.
  • the analysis performed may extract information from the candidate documents 606-608, such as dictionaries, font information, language and other context data, and use this additional information to develop a better document signature 602.
  • the additional information may comprise a dictionary of words or phrases limited to the candidate documents S06-608.
  • the improved document signature 602 may in turn refine and resolve the candidate document set.
  • the resolved (disambiguated) search results may comprise, idqntifj cation of one actual document from the original candidate document set 606-608.
  • Capture Device Embodiments [0022]
  • Figure 7 is an embodiment illustrating elements of a scanner 404.
  • the scanner may be part of a more general purpose device, e.g . a cell phone (for example making use of some of the existing components fo r phone-based cameras and audio components), or it may be a stand alone device.
  • Stand alone devices may employ Bluetooth or other short range wireless communications to communicate to and from a server or host device or network in real time.
  • One means for accomplishing this is for the scanning device to automatically detect and communicate with a user's mobile phone when the user is traveling, and to their desktop or laptop computer when these are available.
  • the specific connection employed optionally provides information about user context; this information is in turn used to interpret captures, determine appropriate menu presentations to the user, etc.
  • this context data is associated with and recorded for individual captures or groups of captures that occurred in that context.
  • the capture device may be built into a small device which communicates via USB. This has the advantage that the power source may be recharged whenever the capture device is plugged into tine USB communications port.
  • the scan element 712 may be moved across an image comprising printed or otherwise rendered data (not shown), capturing pixels.
  • the slice detector 714 signals that a slice of the data has been captured.
  • the data slice is provided to the latch bank 704.
  • the result is stored image fragment 708. Additional image fragments 709 710 may also stored in memory 706.
  • the user may benefit from direct and immediate feedback from the scanning device. This feedback might include signals that the scan is likely to be satisfactory and may be completed.
  • the scanner may determine that a large enough quantity of text or data has been scanned or that the pattern of scan slices is likely to produce unique and thus satisfactory results for future processing.
  • the scanner may determine (or receive information confirming) that the document was located, that the data captured is unique or ambiguous (optionally including number of candidate matches), etc.
  • Logic 720 monitors scanned data and signals using LED 716 or tone, ,ge,nerat ⁇ r,,,7 ,8, ,W.hen sufficient data has been captured to identify the document, e.g. to form a unique or likely-unique signature for the document.
  • the logic 720 may use the LED 716 or tone generator 718 to indicate to the user that the scan has or may likely produce ambiguous or unsatisfactory results.
  • the capture device includes an additional visual signal (e.g., LED similar to 716, or different color displayed by LED 716) or auditory signal (e.g., via tone generator 718) to indicate that the location of a capture within the document is recognized/known by the capture device or by the system.
  • the capture device indicates separately that the document is known/recognized and that the capture location within the document is known/recognized.
  • the scanner 404 processes captured data in real-time, e.g. as it is received from the optical or acoustic sensors in the device.
  • the initial data from a capture may be used to query for matching documents and/or locations within a document, even while the scan is still in progress.
  • queries can be transmitted to a search engine or index associated with other elements of the system, or, in some embodiments, they may be handled by a document index and/or other data stored on the scanner 404.
  • the logic 720 may report to a user that the scan is complete because the associated source document has been found or the capture location within a document has been recognized. In some embodiments this indication is by means of LED 716 and/or tone generator 718.
  • the scanner may also work in an "off-line" mode. Fragments 708-710 can be stored in the scanner memory 706 until the scanner 404 or device comprising the scanner 404 is connected to a PC , wireless or Ethernet network, cellular network, etc. [0029] In some instances it may be desirable or necessary for the capture device to capture raw image data, postponing the actual signature processing for a later time.
  • the scanning device 404 includes flash memory 706 to store images from an optical sensor 712.
  • the data from the sensor 712 may clock itself into the flash memory - that is, transitions/changes in the image data received by the sensor may be logically combined such that when any pixel (or a minimii m number of pixels,) .p a ⁇ g ⁇ .state, a clock signal is generated by 714 as a line or slice of the image is captured.
  • a time source 703 e.g., a crystal oscillator
  • the actual time of each clock pulse may be captured as well.
  • the real-time clock data may be used to adjust for the rather uncertain clocking that comes from image/pixel transitions.
  • the clock data can be used in image reconstruction by assuming approximately constant velocity of the optical scanner, and therefore spacing data slices according to the elapsed time between them.
  • searches for the relevant content may be continued over time (e.g., automatically at fixed intervals by a service provider in the described system); when and if the document becomes available, the user can be notified. Similar notifications may be sent to users when documents change (i.e., those documents from which the users have made captures).
  • FIG. 8 may be a block diagram of a document interaction system.
  • a scanner 404 performs a scan of an area of a rendered document 402.
  • the scanned information may be shown as flowing to a billing function 808, an pp io aJ..anon,yn(pi-iip ⁇ ;:fMniRJ:ion 807 which precedes a search function 813, and a function which incorporates user information 811 and associated demographics 810 (in some embodiments, this includes or communicates with the user's Life Library), to provide user targeted features in addition to document retrieval.
  • a billing function 808 an pp io aJ..anon,yn(pi-iip ⁇ ;:fMniRJ:ion 807 which precedes a search function 813
  • a function which incorporates user information 811 and associated demographics 810 in some embodiments, this includes or communicates with the user's Life Library
  • users of the described system may be assured privacy and security for their personal data.
  • the anonymizer 807 may strip out internet protocol (IP), and other address info and personal information as required. Use of the anonymizer can insure that personal or identifying information not necessary to perform a particular function is withheld. In some embodiments searches, index queries, etc. are performed without access to the user's actual identity to insure privacy. In some embodiments the systems described may be published for "public audit" to insure that user privacy is being maintained.
  • IP internet protocol
  • the billing system 808 may be presented information by the various other system functions. Such information may include information about which documents were the subject of the searches (the search came from magazine X).
  • Credit and debit transactions may also be performed using the capture device 404.
  • the user of the capture device 404 may maintain an account with the a scan service provider in the described system - that may optionally provide searching services, document retrievals, document archiving, copyright purchases, etc.
  • the financial and accounting arrangements for this relationship may also be used to support P-commerce purchases.
  • the customer may have their credit card on file with the service provider or vendor, or, in some embodiments, the vendor itself offers credit for the customer's transactions.
  • the billing function 808 may retain user credit card other financial information.
  • billing may be provided by an Internet service or by a telephone company.
  • the scan device itself may contain "stored value”.
  • the index/search function 813 retrieves data (including, optionally, markup data) related to one or more electronic documents 802-804 from the network, or from the content repository 805 or other archive.
  • data including, optionally, markup data
  • the described system rates or ranks or determines the importance of a document or portion of a document by tracking and analyzing data associated with captures. Factors considered include how long users spend reading the documents and the order in which documents, or parts of documents, are read (for example which articles on the front page of a newspaper are read first, whether users bother to turn to the continuation of the article, etc.).
  • Additional factors considered can include how many marks and other actions (e.g., underlining, highlighting, bookmarking, annotating, forwarding, following URLS) are made by users, the types and content of marks, the demographics of the users who are marking or taking other actions, etc.
  • marks and other actions e.g., underlining, highlighting, bookmarking, annotating, forwarding, following URLS
  • Information about the user is used in some embodiments to determine the relative importance (and, optionally, the order of presentation) of candidate documents returned by capture-related queries.
  • Some embodiments of the described system can provide information about which print documents are most widely read, which documents are getting the most attention (e.g., measured by the amount of highlighting, underlining, link-following, annotating, commercial transactions, information requests, forwarding, etc).
  • publishers receive realtime, accurate data about how their publications are being read. Advertisers can accurately determine whether potential customers are paying attention to the material near to (or in) their advertisements.
  • advertisers can dynamically interact with customers who are reading printed ads - for example, by having items appear in menus associated with captures, by deriving purchase transactions from captures made in rendered documents, by allowing customers to ask for additional information related to printed advertisements, etc.
  • User actions with respect to the system embodied including user scanning behavior (e.g., what does a user show interest in by scanning) may be recorded in user data 811. Similar information may be aggregated for users having at least one common characteristic (such as race, age range, educatipn fl ncotine.i! ye,b . @pographic area, etc.) by demographics 810. The user data and demographic data, along with the scan information, may be used, among other things, to select targeted ads from ad server 812. In some embodiments, marketing and promotional materials are delivered (e.g., via email or web browser) to users based on their past capture activities.
  • user scanning behavior e.g., what does a user show interest in by scanning
  • Similar information may be aggregated for users having at least one common characteristic (such as race, age range, educatipn fl ncotine.i! ye,b . @pographic area, etc.) by demographics 810.
  • the user data and demographic data, along with the scan information may be used
  • the group comprised of all users who captured material from automotive magazines might receive an announcement when Ford Motor Corporation announces its new models.
  • Marketing Based on Capture Data [0042] It has been observed that when advertising is sufficiently focused, it becomes interesting content. A user read with interest the advertising Amazon.com because those Amazon.com maintains enough knowledge about the user's reading, musical interest or purchasing habits and interests to make truly interesting and valuable recommendations.
  • the described system allows this kind of valuable, highly-targeted communications between buyers and sellers, advertisers and customers - but base on users' interactions with rendered documents.
  • Social Networking [0043] In some embodiments the described system and data is used to help people locate others who have similar interests.
  • the user data 81 1 , demographics 810, and scan information may be used to match the user with other users of similar interests, using the matching service 809.
  • the data stream from the capture device (the scan information) may be rich in indicators about personal interests, behaviors, etc. If sufficient safeguards are deployed to insure privacy, this data may be used for the benefit of the capture device user.
  • the capture device user might choose to publish or expose certain aspects of their data (for example, what books and magazines they like to read, what they purchase) to others.
  • users publish capture-related data, for example excerpts from rendered documents, to their web logs.
  • a provider of the described services connects two parties who have similar interests, without exposing any personal data to either party, by using statistical and data analysis techniques to identify people having certain attributes.
  • Digital Rights Management [0044]
  • a Digital Rights Management (DRM) 806 feature of the described system involves manages digital rights for both content/copyright owners and for capture device 402 users. For example, if the capture device 402 user bookmarks and highlights items in a web based document, they might want to be informed if that document has been or may be about to be removed from the owner's web site.
  • Capture Properties and States [0045]
  • Figure 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a system whereby a user may set properties to associate with a scan.
  • Properties may comprise annotations, e.g associate highlighting, underline, bold, italics, etc with this scanned information
  • Other types of properties may define actions to take on the scanned info, e g shipping address for purchases, credit card information for purchases, user email address, etc
  • Some properties may physically manifest
  • setting blue highlighting may cause a blue LED to come on and make text being scanned look blue
  • Optical elements 905 may be used to physically manifest scan properties (for example, red, green and blue colored LED illumination).
  • Property settings 907 are stored in scanner memory 706, and/or in associated device 910, or in the other system components or network.
  • the properties 922 associated with the scan image information 913 are attached (associated) thereto.
  • these properties may be retrieved from storage not located on the scanner.
  • Some properties may manifest themselves at the time the document (e g., from which a capture is made) is processed and/or displayed. For example, a property indicating "make the scanned text bold" may manifest itself in the displayed document as a block of bold text, where the original scanned text was not bold.
  • Scan properties may be set using scanner controls 906, from associated device 910, or via profile loaded from the network or other system components.
  • Capture devices such as 404 may optionally have the ability to physically write and mark
  • a capture device might have a retractable tip - when extended, this tip dispenses ink or highlighter to physically mark the same text that is being scanned.
  • the capture device 404 may be capable of entering into several states, of providing the user with varying types of feedback and other data, and of yaryin ⁇ gêt b,ehaviors depending on the user's context, the material being scanned, etc.
  • any abstract property or collection of properties ight be set.
  • the user might wish to highlight in yellow, and also underline in blue, and also associate each marked passage with the category "Points of Interest", and also associate the action "forward to my email account” - all of these properties being chosen by the user and associated with the passages being scanned.
  • the state of the capture device 404 may be set by local input means (switches, buttons, rotation of part of the body of the device, etc.), but in some embodiments it may also be possible to set these and other attributes and parameters via an interactive user interface, for example via a web-based user account accessed via a standard browser on the associated device display 909 or elsewhere.
  • the capture device 404 communicates using a communications interface 716 from time to time with the digital world. This connection might be to the user's PDA, mobile phone, desktop computer, wireless network, etc. The connection might be a physical wire, or a wireless (e.g., Bluetooth or 802.1 1 ), or the capture device 404 might be "docked" from time to time by plugging it directly into a USB port, or dropping it into a custom cradle. In either of these last circumstances, in some embodiments, the capture device 404 may be recharged at the same time it is uploading or downloading data. [0O55] The current state of the capture device 404 may be indicated in various ways.
  • LEDs or a liquid crystal display on the capture device 404 itself may show the color of the current highlighting, whether the phrase being scanned is recognized (and, if so, whether it is unique). Auditory signals may also perform this function - for example, one tone might be emitted to tell the user that they have scanned enough text to have a high probability of uniqueness (using an internal algorithm based on word lengths, number of characters, etc.), and another tone might be emitted to indicate that the phrase scanned was actually found in the corpus index (or collection of corpora and/or indices being searched).
  • the capture device 404 uses optical elements near its tip to scan information in documents. Some embodiments provide additional local illumination (beyond what ambient light might be available) to assist the photo sensors. [0,0,5/1 i ⁇ s ⁇ m -emta J ' e ts this illumination, or other illumination also directed towards the document surface, may also serve as a visual feedback means for the user.
  • the illumination on the surface may indicate by its extent what region of the document is being scanned (e.g., by how wide the illuminated region is).
  • the color of this illumination may also be used to convey information, for example about ambiguity/uniqueness, state of the device, virtual underlining or highlighting ink color, etc. In this way the capture device communicates with the user by providing visual data and feedback at the user's point of gaze in the document, rather than require the user to pay attention to the capture device itself.
  • a capture device 404 When a capture device 404 is connected to a host machine or network it may upload and download information and data about documents scanned. However, it may also upload and/or download (send and/or receive) additional data, such as user preferences, the device state, etc. [0059] Recently used content, or content determined to be of likely interest, may be moved off the network and to some local cache 914 of associated device, or even onto the scanner 404. For example, when a user scans from one page of a magazine, an electronic version of that page, and all other pages of magazine, may be copied by the described system to a local cache near the user, because it's likely there will soon be scanning from other pages of same magazine. The local cache reduces latency, minimizes communication bandwidth and associated charges, etc.
  • a cache of index/document data that might assist the capture device 404 in scanning is kept on or near to the capture device 404.
  • the digital version of the document currently being scanned, as well as the document index (if it exists), and associated markup data resides on a host machine far from the user.
  • FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a system where document information is enhanced by material and capabilities provided in addition to the document. Some or all of the additional material and features may be provided by organizations distinct from the publisher 1003. [0062] In some cases a user may acquire documents with accompanying digital representations appropriate for use with the described system.
  • An example might be a college textbook, with the digital version on a CD-ROM included with the book. Or the digital version might be purchased separately by the user.
  • digital information as supplemental data, which allows the described system to be used.
  • the data provided might comprise the text of the document (including, perhaps, formatting); indices which assist in the searching process - e.g., word or offset-based indices; the table of contents, index, etc; and/or further supplemental data not appearing in the rendered version of the document, such as additional material about various topics, help screens, a bibliography, a glossary, special commercial offers to the user.
  • the supplemental materials provided for a document may not come from the document's publisher. In many cases these additional materials add to the utility and value of a document, without infringing on the rights of the document owner or copyright holder.
  • a third party might develop a rich supplemental environment for a particular work (for example, materials for the new or old Testament), and provide these materials to the user separately from the original document.
  • a third party may provide added value to a published document, and may in some cases be compensated by the user for this service.
  • the supplemental materials might be independently copyrighted or otherwise protected.
  • the scan device 404 scans all or a portion of a rendered document 402.
  • the document content 1002 was published by content publisher 1003.
  • a markup 1004 for this document 402 1002 has been created by some person or organization, and is made available by the markup provider 1005. Based at least in part on the markup 1004, additional information and/or other services such as P-Comme-rce ..transactions may be made available to the user performing the scan.
  • the services provided may include highlighting, attachment of notes to the document, shopping opportunities, forwarding the document or a portion thereof in e-mail to others, and so on. All such actions may be taken with consideration of any document DRM requirements.
  • the scan service provider (not illustrated), markup provider 1005 and/or additional service providers 1007 may, in some embodiments, be separate unrelated organizations from the content provider. Any combination thereof or all such organizations may have compensation relationships with each other as appropriate.
  • Capture Data and Signatures [0067] Data captured by the capture device may be in the form of an image of the optically-scanned region of the document.
  • FIG. 1 one embodiment of this process is shown.
  • an image is captured from a rendered document.
  • this is an audio capture of a user's voice reading text or other data from the document - e.g., it is an audio "image" of the user's voice.
  • the image is optionally stored for subsequent retrieval and/or subsequent processing.
  • data compression is applied at 1104 to reduce the size of the stored data.
  • a signature is the result of performing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the image of the document.
  • OCR Optical Character Recognition
  • a signature is the result of template matching - finding symbols which repeat in the image and recording their order and/or relative position.
  • a query is formed from the signature(s) of 1106 and a search for matching material is undertaken.
  • the query is formed by putting ASCII text which resulted from an OCR process into quotes and submitting this "exact phrase" query to a conventional search engine.
  • the.formed query comprises or includes the relative position of repeated symbols within some or all of the image.
  • the search identifies zero or more documents matching the submitted query.
  • the matching location of the query within the document(s) is optionally determined. In some embodiments these locations are returned with the document search results of 1108. In some embodiments a further lookup in the index of a document, or a search within a digital version of the document itself is required to determine the location or locations that match the signature(s).
  • the identified document(s) and location(s) are included in the user's context (e.g., history) data.
  • the matching document(s) and location(s) of this capture can optionally be used to limit the materials searched, prioritize search order
  • Subsequent captures which match material in documents, or near locations, of previous captures can be considered more like likely than matches in documents not having received previous captures from this user.
  • Iterative Searching One method of feature or signature extraction and searching is iterative. A first set of features is extracted and used in a query. In the case of multiple results from the query, the system can compare these alternative results to determine what specific features distinguish them. The described system may then return to the original data and specifically locate these distinguishing features.
  • Feature extraction may happen on the local capture device (which saves bandwidth, since only the feature data needs to be transmitted), or the raw data can be transmitted.
  • One model is for the capture device to extract and send initial features to a host device or server. If the host determines that additional inform a,ti,qn, is,, required the host may ask for additional features to be sent - including, if desired, the raw data.
  • a related model involves parallel processing.
  • the system may extract and begin processing based on some features (e.g., begin a query based on these first features) while at the same time additional or qualifying data is being gathered, transmitted, or pre-processed. If the first query is successful, the additional processing/data may be considered optional. Or it may be used to further confirm the results of the original query.
  • the subsequent data may help to resolve the ambiguity.
  • some of the query work can be done in parallel with data collection and data pre-processing steps - so the task can be completed early in many cases, with only the minimum of required data collected and processed , or so that an early signal can be provided to the user indicating that the context and location within the document is known/recognized.
  • this parallel and/or incremental approach will save communication and processing bandwidth, since data which is found to be unnecessary doesn't need to be transmitted or rocessed. It also allows the described system to notify the user (and the capture device) as early as possible when sufficient data to identify a context/location has been received.
  • Figure 12 illustrates one embodiment of iterative searching and parallel p rocessing.
  • the user is beginning to capture the phrase "capture device embodiments" from a document. They are scanning from left-to-right, a nd at this point they captured the word "capture”.
  • OCR is applied to the word "capture” and at 1206 a query is initiated (while the user continues to scan).
  • the results of search are evaluated. In some cases these results sufficiently the users location (for example, because only one document in the corpus contains the word "capture," or because one occurrence of the word in the corpus is very likely the correct match - e.g., it exceeds a threshold of certainty). In this case at 1212 the user is optionally given an indication that the capture is sufficient.
  • the matched document can be fetched for the user, opened on a nearby display, scrolled to the user's capture location, and the (still-continuing) capture by the user can be shown on the display - for example, as highlighting which moves ,acrqs,&th,P,.word,s "capture,, device embodiments" as the user continues to scan them.
  • the capture device will need to deal with noisy input data - e.g., because of bad ambient lighting, poor quality rendering of documents, erratic motion by the user, etc.
  • Some embodiments allow the user to take repeated scans over a desired portion of the image, e.g., by moving the capture device back and forth several times or by scanning left-to-right multiple times over the same region. These multiple scans can then be aligned and averaged to improve the quality of the signal.
  • a similar approach is employed in systems where voice input is accepted.
  • a user can optionally repeat a spoken capture and the system can use this redundant data to overcome background noise, etc.
  • Overlapping or Temporally Adjacent Captures [0085] A larger extent of the document (e.g., wider than the scanning area of the capture device) can be indicated or input by scanning overlapping or neighboring strips of contiguous data - e.g. lines of text. [0086] When these strips overlap it is possible for the described system to identify shifted features from the previous scan(s) as a means of reference for joining and aligning subsequent scans.
  • Figure 14 shows overlapping captures.
  • a first capture occurs.
  • a second capture occurs.
  • the first capture includes elements that also appear in the second capture - in this case, the tops of each of the letters in impartt P,p r,as.e, makeup"the, 1 diesp,ribed system can.”
  • the system can recognize that these scans are adjacent by identifying their overlapping features.
  • the system submits a constrained query representing "locate the phrase 'may do this intentionally' near the phrase 'the described system can.
  • Various Supplemental Marks may be used with the described system. These may be visible or invisible to the uses.
  • Any point in a document may have associated with it many possible actions.
  • any region or extent in a document may have associated with it many possible actions. These actions may be thought of as (and in some embod iments, actually appear as) a menu of choices available to the user. One or more of these actions may be "active" or the "default" choice - i.e., what the user's current interactions with the document represent or cause to happen.
  • These actions may be set by the user, and/or they may be enabled by default.
  • An example would be that the default actions in the body of a book are to underline each passage indicated by the user (e.g., when the user scans across that passage), and to create a bookmark pointing to that passage (which bookmark might be delivered to the user's on-line account, or to the user via email), and to mark the entire book as having one or more bookmarks set, and check whether other readers of this book have left voice or text annotations associated with this passage.
  • the default actions associated with content in the index of a book might be to note the indicated topic is of interest, and to bring up on an auxiliary display (if available) all references in the book which are associated with this item in the index, and to underline all related content when showing this book via a dynamic display (or when the user next prints any portion of the bo k).
  • the available actions and menu items are dynamically determined by such contextual data and inputs as the user's location, the stored user profile, recently scanned items, etc. It can be useful to have indications of what kinds of actions are available at any point in a rendered document.
  • printed text can be underlined or printed in a special color or accompanied by a symbol printed in the margin to indicate that this text is a hyperlin k to digital content.
  • the capture device may have the optional ability to read such supplemental markings, along with the ability to scan text.
  • the supplemental markings can be optically scanned and sent to a server or host device for interpretation - for example as a raw image.
  • the interpretation of the mark may be as simple as recognizing that it is underlined - but it could extend to recognizing complex symbols, colors, watermarks (e.g., slight variations in the text or image which identify (or help to identify) the text and the actions with which it is associated.
  • Margin markings or markings elsewhere in the document can tell the user that there is supplemental content associated with this item, that there is ah opportunity to make a purchase, or get additional information about a product, or that help is available on this topic, or there is an audio annotation at this point in the text, or that a special discount is available to users who scan this item.
  • FIG. 15 illustrates a document 1510 with a mark 1520 indicating that this document is (or will be in future) indexed or recognized by the system.
  • special content can be indicated by a special font, or a variation of the font in which a documented is printed. This tells the user that the indicated (e.g. , italicized or bold) item is scannable. Different fonts may indicate. different kin ds.pr.. classes of actions or data (italicized items might indicate that further information, for example a definition of this term, is available here).
  • the extent of the special font may be used to indicate the extent which needs to be scanned
  • these specially marked regions are more limited that the entire text of the document, and since they are known when the document is published/rendered, the described system can be prepared to handle them in special ways. If only a limited portion of a document is so indicated, then these portions are less ambiguous - and smaller segments need to be scanned.
  • the capture device or the larger system can also have specific knowledge about the particular characteristics (e.g., font) of these marked regions, and thus be prepared to give them special handling. An example might be that for these regions the capture device saves the entire image of the scanned region and forwards this for special processing - e.g., for recognition by more complex means than is available at the capture device.
  • some of the special marks may be specifically recognizable to the described system. That is, the system recognizes these special marks directly (e.g., by comparing them to stored examples or templates for each mark). In Some embodiments these marks are also distinguishable by the user - i.e., they are both machine and human readable.
  • Figure 16 d ocument 1610 contains ordinary text 1620 and 1640, and text with supplemental marking 1630. Capturing a fragment of the marked text 1630 will cause the entire marked text to be captured.
  • the marking (underlining) is also associated with an action - capturing this underlined text will cause the underlined paragraph to be posted to the user's web log.
  • the capture device or other system components specifically recognize the underlining.
  • only the text is recognized - the grouping of the text into a "cohesive" block, and the associated action of posting to a web log, are determined in markup data associated with the rendered document.
  • the underlining or other supplemental marking is recognized by the system, the presence of this marking in the capture serves to further disambiguate the captured data.
  • the word "captured” occurs in document 1610 both inside the marked text 1630 and outside this text at paragraph 1620.
  • Some embodiments include one or more general purpose supplemental marks which indicate that there is special content to be scanned at a specific location in a document - even though the system has never before encountered the document or accompanying content associated with the marks.
  • An example is a mark, known to the system, which indicates that the accompanying/neighboring/nearby content is to be scanned and transmitted to the host as an exact image, rather than for the described system to try and interpret or decode it.
  • special symbols and content embedded in documents can be forwarded to applications which are meant to handle them, even though the described system doesn't recognize them, or have knowledge of the application. This is analogous to forwarding an attachment in email.
  • One such type of associated content would be the logo, name, or trademark of a company.
  • An accompanying mark or symbol in some embodiments, similar to - or identical to - the trademark ["tm"] or registered [r- in-a-circle] marks in common use) can be recognized and can tell the system to transmit the accompanying content extant to the host or server.
  • the described system optionally then provides special subsequent processing, or the data is optionally passed to another application (for example comparison software that recognizes and matches the input data from a directory of corporate logos and trademarks)
  • Another special mark might be used to indicate a phone number - this would tell the described system that the associated data is a phone number, and the described system might forward it to a number-recognizing routine, and invoke applications for storing in an address book and/or dialing the number on the user's phone.
  • Some embodiments implement a form of special processing for small objects (including small pieces of text) which the user scans, but which have no special supplemental marking.
  • An example is a system wherein certain words or phrases (for example, the word "Microsoft") are intended to receive special treatment.
  • Processing and Transmitting Image Data [00105]
  • One of two cases generally prevail when a capture device transmits scanned data to a host server - either there was enough data to fully identify the scanned object (perhaps in conjunction with additional data scanned before or afterwards) - or there was insufficient data available to distinguish (“disambiguate") the selection, so the host or server is unable to exactly determine the material being indicated by the capture.
  • the server or host in the first case (sufficient data, selection identified) the server or host, by reference to the source document or its index, markup data, or related materials, can determine that the special word occurs in the selection, and so can invoke any appropriate action (e.g., send the user's browser to the Microsoft website, notify Microsoft that a user has scanned their name in the passage, etc).
  • the server or host can request that the capture device transmit additional data - perhaps by requesting the user to scan enough additional material to identify the selection, or by transmitting the actual raw image of the short phrase or object captured.
  • the server or host invokes special routines (e.g., conventional OCR algorithms), which recognize that the transmitted selection contains the word "Microsoft" - and the server takes the appropriate action for this object.
  • special routines e.g., conventional OCR algorithms
  • the user might only be taken to the Microsoft web site if the user is at home, and near their PC (for example, as determined by a Blue Tooth wireless connection of the capture device to the user's PC). And this might only occur if the user is capturing the word in a certain issue of a certain magazine (e.g., as deterimined by context data, and the user has never scanned the word before, etc.
  • the dynamic behavior described here is associated with a passive, printed document (e.g., on paper) by connecting that document to markup data, or a digital source document associated with the rendered document.
  • Capturing a word or phrase in a..pri.nted dpquro,pnt can send a user's browser to an internet site.
  • a company can connect to and communicate with customers using words that were printed even before the described system was developed. And the specific behavior of various interactions with the described system can be changed dynamically and programatically (e.g., certain actions for certain users when interacting with certain contexts) - even though the triggers for those interactions are passive, printed words.
  • Offset-Based Signatures [00111] In some situations the capture device extracts features of scanned text, but does not actually interpret these features.
  • the capture device can use techniques known in the art of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), including the technique of "template matching," to identify distinct symbols by using earlier occurrences of these same symbol s (in the same font) as templates.
  • OCR Optical Character Recognition
  • the captured symbols could be letters of the alphabet, but they could also be numbers, punctuation, etc.
  • the capture device doesn't necessarily interpret the symbols as characters in an alphabet, e.g., doesn't know that a particular symbol occurring in the rendered document corresponds to the letter "a”. Rather, the capture device only forwards the ordering / sequencing / relative offsets of these symbols to the host, not the actual meaning of the symbols. For example, the capture device can determine that a specific symbol is repeated at positions 1 , 12, 17, etc. - but the capture device doesn't necessarily know what the symbol actually represents).
  • FIG. 17 the phrase "capture pattern" 1710 is shown. This phrase has been segmented into distinct symbols at 1720 - as can be done using connected region analysis and other techniques from the field of OCR. In the described process of converting a captured image to offset representation, each symbol is compared to every other symbol to determine if they have the same - or nearly the same - shape. The number of character positions separating repeating symbols (those with the same shape) is then counted. These offset numbers 1730 are used as one representation of the imaged symbols.
  • the final encoding is "09780970 00100O0".
  • this offset data is transmitted from the capture device (or used locally on the device) to act as a signature.
  • documents are indexed by their character offsets - for example by scan ning the ASCII text in a digital counterpart and determining the character positions between repeating occurrences of ASCII codes. In such an index, the described offset-based signature can be located.
  • the offset-creation process can be extended - and the offset signature can be converted into actual text (i.e., the "meaning" of each of the symbols can be associated with a letter of the alphabet.) This is accomplished by consulting a dictionary of known words in the language of the document.
  • the dictionary can alternatively contain known n-grams, or a combination of words and n-grams.
  • the captured phrase is considered as a group of unknown wo ds, some or all of which are subject to constraints. These constraints are imposed both by the internal structure of each word (each word's own pattern of repeating and nonrepeating characters), and by the combined structure of the phrase (e.g., a symbol at position i in word j which must be the same as the symbol at position k in word I - for all possible words and positions) [00119] In the phrase "captured pattern" the constraints are: [00120] --word 1 must have 8 characters [00121] -word 1 must contain no repeating characters [00122] --word 2 must have 7 characters [00123] -letters 3 and.4 devisurqf jobword 2 ("t") - must match
  • the described dictionary includes frequency data
  • the most probable entries in the dictionary can be considered early in the process when searching for a match to an offset-encoded signature.
  • the frequency of objects in the dictionary is also used to rank or weight multiple matches - giving higher scores or priorities to more probable matches.
  • the above-mentioned dictionary can optionally include n-grams (letter groups), individual words, word-grams (phrases comprised of multiple words). Any or all of these can be employed, and each may optionally include frequency data.
  • the described dictionary is derived directly from a specific corpus. Each n-gram, word, phrase etc., is optionally included
  • a dictionary as described is created for a sin gle document, or for a small set of documents.
  • the dictionary for the document a user is currently capturing from is created and optionally downloaded to the capture device itself.
  • the capture device is then potentially capable of recognizing almost every phrase in tho document.
  • the algorithm for converting an offset-based signature to text is:
  • This process can be applied to n-grams, phrases, or a combination of these objects.
  • Symbol/character templates in the described system can be used to identify and match new objects.
  • these templates a re derived from earlier scanned objects by storing an image - or a compressed version of the image - taken from a capture.
  • objects in the template represent connected regions of printed/rendered material - e.g., a single (optionally, a connected) character, an icon or trademark, etc. Multiple occurrences of the same or similar objects can be combined or averaged to improve and refine the template.
  • symbol templates can be stored for use botri within a document and as the user encounters other documents.
  • One such use is to identify when the user has changed contexts, e.g., begun capturing in another document. This can be accomplished by determining that the font being captured has changed from a previous capture.
  • Another use is to provide clues to help recognize documents which the user has scanned in the past - for example, by determining that the captured font is the one employed in a specific document. In many cases different documents have different fonts and different font sizes.
  • Word frequency which is approximately proportional to the probability that a particular word will occur at some location in a document, greatly assists in the disambiguation and/or feature interpretation process.
  • some embodiments have available word n-gram frequencies and letter n-gram frequencies for a language or specific corpus.
  • the described dictionary can also be empirically derived from a corpus being indexed. That is, since the corpus is known in advance (e.g., is in the process of being indexed for subsequent search queries), in some embodiments the described system includes in the dictionary every term which the corpus contains - whether a misspelling, object of punctuation, arbitrary grouping of symbols, etc. Thus every object the user is likely to scan with the capture device will be recognized by the system.
  • Dictionary and n-gram data is used in some embodiments to select the most probable interpretation from among those which match a given piece of input data.
  • Some embodiments of the described system determine the aggregate probability of the entire candidate matching phrase in considering which combinations to consider first. This can be determined from the frequencies of each word or group of words in the phrase. Some embodiments consider the most probable aggregate phrases first.
  • One representation of grammar is as word n-grams - the frequency with which various combinations of words (e.g., phrases) occur together. In some cases the occurrence of stop-words may be excluded in calculating/recording these word n-grams and their frequencies of occurrence in a corpus.
  • Document Repository Association [00169] The described system optionally includes several ways to insure that the user can be sure that a particular rendered document is available, or will be available, in the indexed corpus or corpora known to the system. In some embodiments the described system is associated with a known corpus that users recognize and understand. For example, the described system can be directly associated with a well-known search engine on the Internet.
  • documents indexed and available in the described system are those indexed and available in the associated search engine. Users have a clear model of what to expect, based on their experience with a related corpus of indexed documents on the Internet. This conceptual association with a known corpus can be a useful part of the described system.
  • s,pr ⁇ eacheemb.od,iraents documents that are indexed in the described system carry a distinguishing mark which the user can recognize. In some embodiments this brand or mark is also associated with a known repository of source materials. Documents are marked with the brand to inform the user of the availability of the document in the system's index - e.g., that this is an "interactive" document.
  • Intranet Environments In some embodiments employed in business environments some or all documents used in the conduct of a business are indexed and archived such that an employee with a capture device can scan rendered documents with some confidence. Some embodiments deploy a server providing some or all of the described system functions on the corporate network. This server on the corporate network handles queries from capture devices (in some cases relayed through intermediate devices such as the user's desktop computer), and returns acknowledgment that the scanned information is matched, and/or returns the document itself (or a portion thereof). In many ways this server is analogous to a conventional search engine server - but it adds the unique function of accepting short signatures derived from information scanned directly from rendered documents.
  • This server may also have the capability of extending the user's query to additional servers (or passing them to conventional search engines), including the ability to pass a query to one or more repositories/search engines/indices/servers which are outside the corporate intranet.
  • the server may add additional levels of encryption and/or security to the query.
  • the capture device may host and manage the user's profile, manage security in communications with the user's capture device, allow user's to access the corporate repository and/or index from outside the corporate network, allow various kinds of access for queries coming from outside the corporate network (e.g., from employees who are traveling, from customers, etc.) Dynamic Display Interactions [00172] Because in some embodiments the capture device is also capable of reading data directly off a dynamic display for example, a CRT or flat-panel or LCD display), many new kinds of interactions between the paper and digital worlds are possible.
  • a dynamic display for example, a CRT or flat-panel or LCD display
  • One behavior is that, when a display is available, any passage scanned by the user brings up on the display the scanned information, shown in it's broader context, and any virtual actions being performed by the user, such as underlining or highlighting, actually occur on the version rendered on the display.
  • processing steps include: [00175] -the user scans a region of text with an optical scanning device [00176] -the scanned data (i.e. "image") is captured and some or all of it is stored in memory
  • the image is correlated/compared horizontally to identify tokens that match (e.g., the system slides the image horizontally over itself, noting when regions/characters/tokens match
  • -a corpus of digital source documents e.g., from ascii source, or optically-scanned images of the text
  • the signature is searched for the signature. Or, if an index is available, that is queried with the offset-based or OCR-based signature
  • Fiber Optic Ribbon Scanner A simple capture device can be constructed using a ribbon of inexpensive fiber-optic strands. These strands terminate in the wand held by the user, with optics and illumination (if required) such that images are transmitted up the fiber optic pipes as the wand is moved across a surface.
  • photodetectors At the other end of the ribbon are photodetectors which detect the image and present the data to an electronic interface, for example as data being input to flash memory or static ram, or as input being input to a processor for processing.
  • the photo-detecting elements and electronic elements are housed in a unit which connects to USB - perhaps in the same shell which contains the USB connector.
  • Position Sensing When the input/marking device senses actual position, then no interpretation of the text or content image is required, having available the user's position on the display (or tablet, etc), plus knowing where/how the document is rendered, (or the relative position of the document with respect to the position sensing frame of reference), the system can determine what text or content the user is near - and so interpret their motions, gestures, etc as they relate to the appropriate content.
  • neighboring optical sensor elements can optionally be used reference each other. That is, the signal seen by one element is compelled ⁇ Q..its neighbor(s), and this difference is used as part or all of the data stream. This has the advantage of correcting for local variations in background, illumination, etc.
  • the system In the simplest case the system is looking for state changes when sensor signal i becomes greater than sensor signal j - or v. v.. But the system can also do higher resolution measurements of the relative signals in neighboring sensors. Feedback [00189] In many cases the system indicates to the user how much information to scan. For example, if the capture device doesn't yet fully know its context, this is indicated (e.g., by an led). The indication changes when the context is determined.
  • the capture device doesn't have a communication channel to the source document or markup materials or index. However it can still make a good guess at how much information is required to uniquely identify a document, and and/or a sub-region within a document. For example, the system knows that multiple long words do much to uniquely identify a document. The system empirically / statistically determines how many words of various lengths are generally needed to insure uniqueness to a particular level of probability / certainty. In a very simple case the system employs a rule such as, "at least three words each of at least length 10". In practice the system can use more sophisticated rules.
  • Associated Display Many uses of the capture device are enabled when there is an auxiliary display device and/or computer available. If the capture device has a communication channel to the display or computer, actions and messages can be shown on the display. One simple example would be that items the user is marking in a printed document are shown sequentially on the display. Or if the user is marking the document (e.g., underlining), that specific region of the document can automatically appear on the display (for example no centered around the position of the capture device), and the user's marks can appear in the displayed version.
  • these objects can be active - i.e., by clicking on them or using the capture device directly on the display to indicate them, they can lead to a view of their specific context - e.g., the user first sees on the display a list of the various things which have been highlighted. Clicking one of these items launches a view of the item in its original context (i.e., shown with surrounding text).
  • the implementer may opt for a hardware and/or firmware vehicle; alternatively, if flexibility is paramount, the implementer may opt for a solely software implementation; or, yet again alternatively, the implementer may opt for some combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware.
  • a signal bearing media include, but are not limited to, the following: recordable type media such as floppy disks, hard disk drives, CD ROMs, digital tape, and computer memory; and transmission type media such as digital and analog communication links using TDM or IP based communication links (e.g., packet links).
  • electrical circuitry includes, but is not limited to, electrical circuitry having at least one discrete electrical circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one integrated circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one application specific integrated circuit, electrical circuitry forming a general purpose computing device configured by a computer program (e.g., a general purpose computer configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein, or a microprocessor configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein), electrical circuitry forming a memory device (e.g., forms of random access memory), and/or electrical circuitry forming a communications device (e.g., a modem, communications switch, or optical-electrical equipment
  • any two components herein combined to achieve a particular functionality can be seen as “associated with” each other such that the desired functionality is achieved, irrespective of architectures or intermedial components.
  • any two components so associated can also be viewed as being “operably connected”, or “operably coupled”, to each other to achieve the desired functionality.

Abstract

A system includes a scanner and at least one display and/or speaker to provide a user of the scanner an indication of actions available for a portion of a document from which scanned information is obtained, the indications obtained via markup data for the document.

Description

S,Q ANNING.APPARATUS AND RELATED TECHNIQUES by Martin T. King James Q. Stafford-Fraser Clifford Kushler Dale Grover
PRIORITY CLAIM AND CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a Continuation-ln-Part of U.S. Patent Application No. 11/004,637 filed on December 3, 2004, which is hereby incorporated b y reference in its entirety.
[0002] This application is related to, and incorporates by reference in their entirety, the following U.S. Patent Applications, filed on April 1 , 2005: U.S.
Patent Application No. , entitled METHODS AND SYSTEMS
FOR INITIATING APPLICATION PROCESSES BY DATA CAPTURE FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No. 435188104US1 ), U.S.
Patent Application No. , entitled DETERMINING ACTIONS
INVOLVING CAPTURED INFORMATION AND ELECTRONIC CONTENT ASSOCIATED WITH RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No.
435188075US1 ), U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled
CONTENT ACCESS WITH HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES (Attorney Docket No. 435188018US1 ), U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled SEARCH ENGINES AND SYSTEMS WITH
HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES (Attorney Docket No.
435188021 US1 ), U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled
TRIGGERING ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO OPTICALLY OR ACOUSTICALLY CAPTURING KEYWORDS FROM A RENDERED DOCUMENT (Attorney Docket No. 435188003US1 ), U.S. Patent Application
No. , entitled SEARCHING AND ACCESSING DOCUMENTS ON
PRIVATE NETWORKS FOR USE WITH CAPTURES FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No. 435188001 US1 ), U.S. Patent Appl ication
No. , entitled INFORMATION GATHERING SYSTEM AND
METHOD (Attorney Docket No. 435188005US1 ), U.S. Patent Application No. entitled DOCUMENT ENHANCEMENT SYSTEM AND
METHOD (Attorney Docket No. 43518.8009US1 ), U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled PUBLISHING TECHNIQUES FOR ADDING VALUE TO ARE DERED DOCUMENT (Attorney Docket No. 4351881 15US), U.S.
Patent Application No. , entitled ARCHIVE OF TEXT CAPTURES
FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No. 435188116US), U.S.
Patent Application No. , entitled ADDING INFORMATION OR
FUNCTIONALITY TO A RENDERED DOCUMENT VIA ASSOCIATION WITH AN ELECTRONIC COUNTERPART (Attorney Docket No. 435188118US),
U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled AGGREGATE ANALYSIS
OF TEXT CAPTURES PERFORMED BY MULTIPLE USERS FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No. 435188122US), U.S. Patent
Application No. , entitled ESTABLISHING AN INTERACTIVE
ENVIRONMENT FOR RENDERED DOCUMENTS (Attorney Docket No.
435188123US), U.S. Patent Application No. , entitled DATA
CAPTURE FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS USING HANDHELD DEVICE (Attorney Docket No. 435188117US), and U.S. Patent Application No. entitled CAPTURING TEXT FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS
USING SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION (Attorney Docket No. 435188120US).
[0003] This application claims priority to, and incorporates by reference in their entirety, the following U.S. Provisional Patent Applications:
[0004] Application No. 60/559,766 filed on April 6, 2004, Application No. 60/561 ,768 filed on April 12, 2004, Application No. 60/563,520 filed on April 19, 2004, Application No. 60/563,485 filed on April 19, 2004, Application No. 60/564,688 filed on April 23, 2004, Application No. 60/564.846 filed on April 23, 2004, Application No. 60/556,667 filed on April 30, 2004, Application No. 60/571 ,381 filed on May 14, 2004, Application No. 60/571 ,560 filed on May 14, 2004, Application No. 60/571 ,715 filed on May 17, 2004, Application No. 60/589,203 filed on July 19, 2004, Application No. 60/589,201 filed on July 19, 2004, Application No. 60/589,202 filed on July 19, 2004, Application No. 60/598,821 filed on August 2, 2004, Application No. 60/602,956 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,925 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,947 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,897 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,896 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,930 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,898 filed on August 18, 2004, Application No. 60/603,466 filed on August 19, 2004, Application No. 60/603,082 filed on Augy §t,19 ,,,2004, Application No. 60/603,081 filed on August 19, 2004, Application No. 60/603,498 filed on August 20, 2004, Application No. 60/603,358 filed on August 20, 2004, Application No. 60/604,103 filed on August 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,098 filed on August 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,100 filed on August 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,102 filed on August 23, 2004, Application No. 60/605,229 filed on August 27, 2004, Application No. 60/605,105 filed on August 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,243 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,628 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,632 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,589 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,242 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,602 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,340 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,634 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,461 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,455 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,460 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,400 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,456 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,341 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,361 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,454 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,339 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,633 filed on September 27, 2004, Application No. 60/615,378 filed on October 1 , 2004, Application No. 60/615,112 filed on October 1 , 2004, Application No. 60/615,538 filed on October 1, 2004, Application No. 60/617,122 filed on October 7, 2004, Application No. 60/622,906 filed on October 28, 2004, Application No. 60/633,452 filed on December 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,678 filed on December 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,486 filed on December 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,453 filed on December 6, 20O4, Application No. 60/634,627 filed on December 9, 2004, Application No. 60/634,739 filed on December 9, 2004, Application No. 60/647,684 filed on January 26, 2005, Application No. 60/648,746 filed on January 31, 2005, Application No. 60/653,372 filed on February 15, 2005, Application No. 60/653,663 filed on February 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,669 filed on February 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,899 filed on February 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,679 filed on February 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,847 filed on February 16, 2005, Application No. 60/654,379 filed on February 17, 2005, Application No. 60/654,368 filed on Febr-qa.ry-. S, 2QP5„„ application No. 60/654,326 filed on February 18, 2005, Application No. 60/654, 196 filed on February 18, 2005, Application No. 60/655,279 filed on February 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,280 filed on February 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,987 filed on February 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,697 filed on February 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,281 filed on February 22, 2005, and Application No. 60/657,309 filed on February 28, 2005.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0005] The present disclosure relates to document identification.
BACKGROUND ART
[0006] People come into contact with enormous amounts of information over the course of their private and professional lives. Much of this information is in printed form, such as books, magazines, manuals, labels, and so on. Much of this information is also electronic, such as email, web pages, electronic documents, and soon. Thus, there exist two universes of information, some in printed or other physical form, and some in electronic form. Each universe has its own manners by which people access and interact with the information in it. For example, printed information offers convenience and portability, and a sense of permanence. Electronic information is more easily indexed and searched.
[0007] Physical documents have an enduring appeal, as can be seen by the proliferation of paper documents in the computer age. It has never been easier to print and publish paper documents than it is today. Paper documents prevail even though electronic documents are easier to index, duplicate, transmit, search, and edit. What has been lacking are convenient and efficient manners of bridging the universes of physical and electronic information, to enable people to gain the benefits of both.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
[0008] The following summary is intended to highlight and introduce some aspects of the disclosed embodiments, but not to limit the scope of the claims. Thιere,afj|;era„-a d§,tai|s,d, description of illustrated embodiments is presented, which will permit one skilled in the relevant art to make and use various embodiments.
[0009] According to one aspect, a system includes a scanner and at least one display and/or speaker to provide a user of the scanner an indication of actions available for a portion of a document from which scanned information is obtained, the indications obtained via markup data for the document.
[0010] According to another aspect, a system includes a scanner, a device comprising a scan-able identification, and logic to associate the user of the scanner with the device when the scan-able identification is scanned.
[0011] According to another aspect, a method includes scanning information from a document, forming a document signature from the scanned information, locating a plurality of candidate electronic documents that may correspond to the document from which the information was scanned, and applying information about or content of at least one of the electronic documents to reform the document signature.
[0012] According to another aspect, a scanner includes logic to self-clock scan data into a memory, and logic to determine when sufficient scan data is obtained to likely identify the document from which the data was scanned.
[0013] According to another aspect, a system includes a scanner, user data, and a matching service to match users of the system according to user data obtained from scanning rendered documents.
[0014] According to another aspect, a system includes logic to receive scanned information and to charge a user for services associated with the scanned information.
[0015] According to another aspect, a system includes logic to convert scanned information into document searches, and logic to anonymize the searches.
[0016] According to another aspect, a scanner includes scan property settings, to cause at least one of an annotation, highlight, or action to be associated with scanned information.
[0017] According to another aspect, a scanner includes physical highlighting capability to produce a physical indication of scan properties on a rendered document.
Figure imgf000008_0001
tq #nc;fo,er aspect, a system includes a scanner, and an associated device, the associated device comprising a cache of documents and/or indexes for documents recently and/or likely scanned by the scanner.
[0019] According to another aspect, a system includes content, markup information for the content, and services associated with the content and accessed via the markup information.
[0020] According to another aspect, a method includes identifying a document from which information was scanned, and including information about the document and/or location within the document from which the information was scanned in stored user information.
[0021] According to another aspect, a method includes scanning information, using the scanned information to search for documents, receiving ambiguous search results, and applying additional scanned information to search again for documents.
[0022] According to another aspect, a method includes scanning text that has special formatting; taking or enabling an action associated with the special formatting.
[0023] According to another aspect, a method includes scanning information, forming an offset representation of the scanned information, and applying the offset representation to search for documents.
[0024] Other system/method/apparatus aspects are described in the text (e.g., detailed description and claims) and drawings forming the present application.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0025] In the drawings, the same reference numbers and acronyms identify elements or acts with the same or similar functionality for ease of understanding and conve ience. To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a reference number refer to the figure number in which that element is first introduced.
[0026] Figure 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. [0,027,] Fjguie ,2Js,„.a„„CQ,mιppnent diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment.
[0028] Figure 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner.
[0029] Figure 4 is a block diagram of a scanning system including markup information and menus.
[0030] Figure 5 is a block diagram of a system for locating and/or authenticating a user of a scanner.
[0031] Figure 6 is a block diagram of a system and method of document- assisted document signature resolution.
[0032] Figure 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanning device.
[0033] Figure 8 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a document interaction system.
[0034] Figure 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner and associated device.
[0035] Figure 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a document interaction system.
[0036] Figure 11 is a flow chart of an embodiment of a method of gathering user information.
[0037] Figure 12 is a flow chart of an embodiment of a method of locating a document as information is scanned.
[0038] Figure 13 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanning arrangement.
[0039] Figure 14 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
[0040] Figure 15 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
[0041] Figure 16 is illustration of an embodiment of a scan environment.
[0042] Figure 14 is illustration of an embodiment of an offset representation of scanned information.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY AND MODES FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION [0043] References to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although they may. [0044] Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout the description and the claims, the words "comprise," "comprising," and the like are to be construed in an inclusive sense as opposed to an exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of "including, but not limited to." Words using the singular or plural number also include the plural or singular number respectively. Additionally, the words "herein," "above," "below" and words of similar import, when used in this application, shall refer to this application as a whole and not to any particular portions of this application. When the claims use the word "or" in reference to a list of two or more items, that word covers all of the following interpretations of the word: any of the items in the list, all of the items in the list and any combination of the items in the list.
[0045] "Logic" refers to signals and/or information that may be applied to affect the operation of a device. Software, hardware, and firmware are examples of logic. Hardware logic may be embodied in circuits. In general, logic may comprise combinations of software, hardware, and/or firmware.
1. Nature of the System
[0001] For every paper document that has an electronic counterpart, there exists a discrete amount of information in the paper document that can identify the electronic counterpart. In some embodiments, the system uses a sample of text captured from a paper document, for example using a handheld scanner, to identify and locate an electronic counterpart of the document. In most cases, the amount of text needed by the facility is very small in that a few words of text from a document can often function as an identifier for the paper document and as a link to its electronic counterpart. In addition, the system may use those few words to identify not only the document, but also a location within the document.
[0002] Thus, paper documents and their digital counterparts can be associated in many useful ways using the system discussed herein. 1.1 A^tμick overview, o,f the future
[0003] Once the system has associated a piece of text in a paper document with a particular digital entity has been established, the system is able to build a huge amount of functionality on that association.
[0004] It is increasingly the case that most paper documents have an electronic counterpart that is accessible on the World Wide Web or from some other online database or document corpus, or can be made accessible, such as in response to the payment of a fee or subscription. At the simplest level, then, when a user scans a few words in a paper document, the system can retrieve that electronic document or some part of it, or display it, email it to somebody, purchase it, print it or post it to a web page. As additional examples, scanning a few words of a book that a person is reading over breakfast could cause the audio-book version in the person's car to begin reading from that point when s/he starts driving to work, or scanning the serial number on a printer cartridge could begin the process of ordering a replacement.
[0005] The system implements these and many other examples of "paper/digital integration" without requiring changes to the current processes of writing, printing and publishing documents, giving such conventional rendered documents a whole new layer of digital functionality.
1.2. Terminology
[0006] A typical use of the system begins with using an optical scanner to scan text from a paper document, but it is important to note that other methods of capture from other types of document are equally applicable. The system is therefore sometimes described as scanning or capturing text from a rendered document, where those terms are defined as follows:
[0007] A rendered document is a printed document or a document shown on a display or monitor. It is a document that is perceptible to a human, whether in permanent form or on a transitory display.
[0008] Scanning or capturing is the process of systematic examination to obtain information from a rendered document. The process may involve optical capture using a scanner or camera (for example a camera in a cellphone), or it may involve reading aloud from the document into an audio pasture ,d,e,v,ice oriv Dinα i,t.,on a keypad or keyboard. For more examples, see section 15. 2. Introduction to the System [0009] This section describes some of the devices, processes and systems that constitute a system for paper/digital integration. In various embodiments, the system builds a wide variety of services and applications on this underlying core that provides the basic functionality.
2.1. The processes [0010] Figure 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. Other embodiments may not use all of the stages or elements illustrated here, while some will use many more. [0011] Text from a rendered document is captured 100, typically in optical form by an optical scanner or audio form by a voice recorder, and this image or sound data is then processed 102, for example to remove artifacts of the capture process or to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. A recognition process 104 such as OCR, speech recognition, or autocorrelation then converts the data into a signature, comprised in some embodiments of text, text offsets, or other symbols. Alternatively, the system performs an alternate form of extracting document signature from the rendered document. The signature represents a set of possible text transcriptions in some embodiments. This process may be influenced by feedback from other stages, for example, if the search process and context analysis 110 have identified some candidate documents from which the capture may originate, thus narrowing the possible interpretations of the original capture. [0012] A post-processing 106 stage may take the output of the recognition process and filter it or perform such other operations upon it as may be useful. Depending upon the embodiment implemented, it may be possible at this stage to deduce some direct actions 107 to be taken immediately without reference to the later stages, such as where a phrase or symbol has been captured which contains sufficient information in itself to convey the user's intent. In these cases no digital counterpart document need be referenced, or even known to the system. [0013] Typically, however, the next stage will be to construct a query 1 08 or a set of queries for use in searching. Some aspects of the query construction may,, depend on,, the„„seaπc process used and so cannot be performed until the next stage, but there will typically be some operations, such as the removal of obviously misrecognized or irrelevant characters, which can be performed in advance.
[0014] The query or queries are then passed to the search and context analysis stage 110. Here, the system optionally attempts to identify the document from which the original data was captured. To do so, the system typically uses search indices and search engines 112, knowledge about the user 114 and knowledge about the user's context or the context in which the capture occurred 116. Search engine 112 may employ and/or index information specifically about rendered documents, about their digital counterpart documents, and about documents that have a web (internet) presence). It may write to, as well as read from, many of these sources and, as has been mentioned, it may feed information into other stages of the process, for example by giving the recognition system 104 information about the language, font, rendering and likely next words based on its knowledge of the candidate documents.
[0015] In some circumstances the next stage will be to retrieve 120 a copy of the document or documents that have been identified. The sources of the documents 124 may be directly accessible, for example from a local filing system or database or a web server, or they may need to be contacted via some access service 122 which might enforce authentication, security or payment or may provide other services such as conversion of the document into a desired format.
[0016] Applications of the system may take advantage of the association of extra functionality or data with part or all of a document. For example, advertising applications discussed in Section 10.4 may use an association of particular advertising messages or subjects with portions of a document. This extra associated functionality or data can be thought of as one or more overlays on the document, and is referred to herein as "markup." The next stage of the process 130, then, is to identify any markup relevant to the captured data. Such markup may be provided by the user, the originator, or publisher of the document, or some other party, and may be directly accessible from some source 132 or may be generated by some service 134. In various embodiments, markup can be associated with, and apply to, a reiηdsce1d„ςlocμπ3eηjt,lan /,pr the digital counterpart to a rendered document, or to groups of either or both of these documents.
[0017] Lastly, as a result of the earlier stages, some actions may be taken 140. These may be default actions such as simply recording the information found, they may be dependent on the data or document, or they may be derived from the markup analysis. Sometimes the action will simply be to pass the data to another system. In some cases the various possible actions appropriate to a capture at a specific point in a rendered document will be presented to the user as a menu on an associated display, for example on a local display 332, on a computer display 212 or a mobile phone or PDA display 216. If the user doesn't respond to the menu, the default actions can be taken.
2.2. The components
[0018] Figure 2 is a component diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment. As illustrated, the operating environment includes one or more optical scanning capture devices 202 or voice capture devices 204. In some embodiments, the same device performs both functions. Each capture device is able to communicate with other parts of the system such as a computer 212 and a mobile station 216 (e.g., a mobile phone or PDA) using either a direct wired or wireless connection, or through the network 220, with which it can communicate using a wired or wireless connection, the latter typically involving a wireless base station 214. In some embodiments, the capture device is integrated in the mobile station, and optionally shares some of the audio and/or optical components used in the device for voice communications and picture-taking.
[0019] Computer 212 may include a memory containing computer executable instructions for processing an ord er from scanning devices 202 and 204. As an example, an order can include an identifier (such as a serial number of the scanning device 202/204 or an identifier that partially or uniquely identifies the user of the scanner), scanning context information (e.g., time of scan, location of scan, etc.) and/or scanned information (such as a text string) that is used to uniquely identify the document being scanned. In alternative embodiments, the operating environment may include more or less components. [OQ2;,03"Aiso»avai|jab.le:;;po, ,the network 220 are search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239. The network 220 may be a corporate intranet, the public Internet, a mobile phone network or some other network, or any interconnection of the above.
[0021] Regardless of the manner by which the devices are coupled to each other, they may all may be operable in accordance with well-known commercial transaction and communication protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol (IP)). In various embodiments, the functions and capabilities of scanning device 202, computer 212, and mobile station 216 may be wholly or partially integrated into one device. Thus, the terms scanning device, computer, and mobile station can refer to the same device? depending upon whether the device incorporates functions or capabilities of the scanning device 202, computer 212 and mobile station 216. In addition, some or all of the functions of the search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239 may be implemented on any of the devices and/or other devices not shown.
2.3. The capture device
[0022] As described above, the capture device may capture text using an optical scanner that captures image data from the rendered document, or using an audio recording device that captures a user's spoken reading of the text, or other methods. Some embodiments of the capture device may also capture images, graphical symbols and icons, etc., including machine readable codes such as barcodes. The device may be exceedingly simple, consisting of little more than the transducer, some storage, and a data interface, relying on other functionality residing elsewhere in the system, or it may be a more full-featured device. For illustration, this section describes a device based around an optical scanner and with a reasonable number of features.
[0023] Scanners are well known devices that capture and digitize images. An offshoot of the photocopier industry, the first scanners were relatively large devices that captured an entire document page at once. Recently, portable optical scanners have been introduced in convenient form factors, such as a pen-shaped handheld device. „[0024]Jrj„. some., e bedments, the portable scanner is used to scan text, graphics, or symbols from rendered documents. The portable scanner has a scanning element that captures text, symbols, graphics, etc, from rendered documents. In addition to documents that have been printed on paper, in some embodiments, rendered documents include documents that have been displayed on a screen such as a CRT monitor or LCD display.
[0025] Figure 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner 302. The scanner 302 comprises an optical scanning head 308 to scan information from rendered documents and convert it to machine-compatible data, and an optical path 306, typically a lens, an aperture or a n image conduit to convey the image from the rendered document to the scanning head. The scanning head 308 may incorporate a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) imaging device, or an optical sensor of another type.
[0026] A microphone 310 and associated circuitry convert the sound of the environment (including spoken words) into machine-compatible signals, and other input facilities exist in the form of buttons, scroll-wheels or other tactile sensors such as touch-pads 314.
[0027] Feedback to the user is possible through a visual display or indicator lights 332, through a loudspeaker or other audio transducer 334 and through a vibrate module 336.
[0028] The scanner 302 comprises logic 326 to interact with the various other components, possibly processing the received signals into different formats and/or interpretations. Logic 326 may be operable to read and write data and program instructions stored in associated storage 330 such as RAM, ROM, flash, or other suitable memory. It may read a time signal from the clock unit 328. The scanner 302 also includes an interface 316 to communicate scanned information and other signals to a network and/or an associated computing device. In some embodiments, the scanner 302 may have an onboard power supply 332. In other embodiments, the scanner 302 may be powered from a tethered connection to another device, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection.
[0029] As an example of one use of scanner 302, a reader may scan some text from a newspaper article with scanner 302. The text is scanned as a bit- mappe ,.image .yia he scanning head 308. Logic 326 causes the bit-mapped image to be stored in memory 330 with an associated time-stam p read from the clock unit 328. Logic 326 may also perform optical character recognition (OCR) or other post-scan processing on the bit-mapped image to convert it to text. Logic 326 may optionally extract a signature from the image, for example by performing a convolution-like process to locate repeating occurrences of characters, symbols or objects, and determine the distance or number of other characters, symbols, or objects between these repeated elements. The reader may then upload the bit-mapped image (or text or other signature, if post-scan processing has been performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 316.
[0030] As an example of another use of scanner 302, a reader may capture some text from an article as an audio file by using microphone 310 as an acoustic capture port. Logic 326 causes audio file to be stored in memory 328. Logic 326 may also perform voice recognition or other post-scan processing on the audio file to convert it to text. As above, the reader may then upload the audio file (or text produced by post-scan processing performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 31Θ.
PART II - OVERVIEW OF THE AREAS OF THE CORE SYSTEM
[0031]As paper-digital integration becomes more common, there are many aspects of existing technologies that can be changed to take better advantage of this integration, or to enable it to be implemented more effectively. This section highlights some of those issues. 3. Search
[0032] Searching a corpus of documents, even so large a corpus as the World Wide Web, has become commonplace for ordinary users, who use a keyboard to construct a search query which is sent to a search engine. This section and the next discuss the aspects of both the construction of a query originated by a capture from a rendered document, and the search engine that handles such a query.
3.1. Scan/Speak/Type as search query
[0033] Use of the described system typically starts with a few wo rds being captured from a rendered document using any of several methods, including those mentioned in Section 1.2 above. Where the input needs some j te/pretatip,n tp,cQ,ny„ertJt..to text, for example in the case of OCR or speech input, there may be end-to-end feedback in the system so that the document corpus can be used to enhance the recognition process. End-to-end feedback can be applied by performing an approximation of the recognition or interpretation, identifying a set of one or more candidate matching documents, and then using information from the possible matches in the candidate documents to further refine or restrict the recognition or interpretation. Candidate documents can be weighted according to their probable relevance (for example, based on then number of other users who have scanned in these documents, or their popularity on the Internet), and these weights can be applied in this iterative recognition process.
3.2. Short Phrase Searching
[0034] Because the selective power of a search query based on a few words is greatly enhanced when the relative positions of these words are known, only a small amount of text need be captured for the system to identify the text's location in a corpus. Most commonly, the input text will be a contiguous sequence of words, such as a short phrase.
3.2.1. Finding document and location in document from short capture [0035] In addition to locating the document from which a phrase originates, the system can identify the location in that document and can take action based on this knowledge.
3.2.2. Other methods of finding location
[0036] The system may also employ other methods of discovering the document and location, such as by using watermarks or other special markings on the rendered document.
3.3. Incorporation of other factors in search query
[0037] In addition to the captured text, other factors (i.e., information about user identity, profile, and context) may form part of the search query, such as the time of the capture, the identity and geographical location of the user, knowledge of the user's habits and recent activities, etc.
[0038] The document identity and other information related to previous captures, especially if they were quite recent, may form part of a search query. {C|ιQ13||9J"Iιte-iden)tit |1 of Aie- user may be determined from a unique identifier associated with a capturing device, and/or biometric or other supplemental information (speech patterns, fingerprints, etc.).
3.4. Knowledge of nature of unreliability in search guery (OCR errors etc) [0040] The search query can be constructed taking into account the types of errors likely to occur in the particular capture method used. One example of this is an indication of suspected errors in the recognition of specific characters; in this instance a search engine may treat these characters as wildcards, or assign them a lower priority.
3.5. Local caching of index for performance/offline use
[0041] Sometimes the capturing device may not be in communication with the search engine or corpus at the time of the data capture. For this reason, information helpful to the offline use of the device may be downloaded to the device in advance, or to some entity with which the device can communicate. In some cases, all or a substantial part of an index associated with a corpus may be downloaded. This topic is discussed further in Section 15.3.
3.6. Queries, in whatever form, may be recorded and acted on later [0042] If there are likely to be delays or cost associated with communicating a query or receiving the results, this pre-loaded information can improve the performance of the local device, reduce communication costs, and provide helpful and timely user feedback.
[0043] In the situation where no communication is available (the local device is "offline"), the queries may be saved and transmitted to the rest of the system at such a time as communication is restored.
[0044] In these cases it may be important to transmit a timestamp with each query. The time of the capture can be a significant factor in the interpretation of the query. For example, Section 13.1 discusses the importance of the time of capture in relation to earlier captures. It is important to note that the time of capture will not always be the same as the time that the query is executed.
3.7. Parallel searching
[0045] For performance reasons, multiple queries may be launched in response to a single capture, either in sequence or in parallel. Several queries may be sent in response to a single capture, for example as new ■wpr.djS, ψ,βιv„.aάdβd tp„ he„, capture, or to query multiple search engines in parallel.
[0046] For example, in some embodiments, the system sends queries to a special index for the current document, to a search engine on a local machine, to a search engine on the corporate network, and to remote search engines on the Internet.
[0047] The results of particular searches may be given higher priority than those from others.
[0048] The response to a given query may indicate that other pending queries are superfluous; these may be cancelled before completion.
4. Paper and Search Engines
[0049] Often it is desirable for a search engine that handles traditional online queries also to handle those originating from rendered documents. Conventional search engines may be enhanced or modified in a number of ways to make them more suitable for use with the described system.
[0050] The search engine and/or other components of the system may create and maintain indices that have different or extra features. The system may modify an incoming paper-originated query or change the way the query is handled in the resulting search, thus distinguishing these paper-originated queries from those coming from queries typed into web browsers and other sources. And the system may take different actions or offer different options when the results are returned by the searches originated from paper as compared to those from other sources. Each of these approaches is discussed below.
4.1. Indexing
[0051] Often, the same index can be searched using either paper-originated or traditional queries, but the index may be enhanced for use in the current system in a variety of ways.
4.1.1. Knowledge about the paper form
[0052] Extra fields can be added to such an index that will help in the case of a paper-based search. ndp^rentry pdi atip ::dQqument availability in paper form [0053] The first example is a field indicating that the document is known to exist or be distributed in paper form. The system may give such documents higher priority if the query comes from paper.
Knowledge of popularity paper form
[0054] In this example statistical data concerning the popularity of paper documents (and, optionally, concerning sub-regions within these documents) - for example the amount of scanning activity, circulation numbers provided by the publisher or other sources, etc - is used to give such documents higher priority, to boost the priority of digital counterpart documents (for example, for browser-based queries or web searches), etc.
Knowledge of rendered format
[0055] Another important example may be recording information about the layout of a specific rendering of a document.
[0056] For a particular edition of a book, for example, the index may include information about where the line breaks and page breaks occur, which fonts were used, any unusual capitalization.
[0057] The index may also include information about the proximity of other items on the page, such as images, text boxes, tables and advertisements.
L se of semantic information in original
[0058] Lastly, semantic information that can be deduced from the source markup but is not apparent in the paper document, such as the fact that a particular piece of text refers to an item offered for sale, or that a certain paragraph contains program code, may also be recorded in the index.
4.1.2. Indexing in the knowledge of the capture method [0059] A second factor that may modify the nature of the index is the knowledge of the type of capture likely to be used. A search initiated by an optical scan may benefit if the index takes into account characters that are easily confused in the OCR process, or includes some knowledge of the fonts used in the document. Similarly, if the query is from speech recognition, an index based on similar-sounding phonemes may be much more efficiently searched. An additional factor that may affect the use of the index in the described model is the importance of iterative feedback during the recognition ,prp„c,es„s ,ILthe„seair„crj,„Iangine is able to provide feedback from the index as the text is being captured, it can greatly increase the accuracy of the capture.
Indexing using offsets
[0060] If the index is likely to be searched using the offset- based/autocorrelation OCR methods described in Section 9, in some embodiments, the system stores the appropriate offset or signature information in an index.
4.1.3. Multiple indices
[0061] Lastly, in the described system, it may be common to conduct searches on many indices. Indices may be maintained on several machines on a corporate network. Partial indices may be downloaded to the capture device, or to a machine close to the capture device. Separate indices may be created for users or groups of users with particular interests, habits or permissions. An index may exist for each filesystem, each directory, even each file on a user's hard disk. Indexes are published and subscribed to by users and by systems. It will be important, then, to construct indices that can be distributed, updated, merged and separated efficiently.
4.2. Handling the queries
4.2.1. Knowing the capture is from paper
[0062] A search engine may take different actions when it recognizes that a search query originated from a paper document. The engine might handle the query in a way that is more tolerant to the types of errors likely to appear in certain capture methods, for example.
[0063] It may be able to deduce this from some indicator included in the query (for example a flag indicating the nature of the capture), or it may deduce this from the query itself (for example, it may recognize errors or uncertainties typical of the OCR process).
[0064] Alternatively, queries from a capture device can reach the engine by a different channel or port or type of connection than those from other sources, and can be distinguished in that way. For example, some embodiments of the system will route queries to the search engine by way of a dedicated gateway. Thus, the search engine knows that all queries passing through the dedicated gateway were originated from a paper document. ■4-2„2ϊ. , s,e of ςon,text ,..„
[0065] Section 13 below describes a variety of different factors which are external to the captured text itself, yet which can be a significant aid in identifying a document. These include such things as the history of recent scans, the longer-term reading habits of a particular user, the geographic location of a user and the user's recent use of particular electronic documents. Such factors are referred to herein as "context."
[0066] Some of the context may be handled by the search engine itself, and be reflected in the search results. For example, the search engine may keep track of a user's scanning history, and may also cross-reference this scanning history to conventional keyboard-based queries. In such cases, the search engine maintains and uses more state information about each individual user than do most conventional search engines, and each interaction with a search engine may be considered to extend over several searches and a longer period of time than is typical today.
[0067] Some of the context may be transmitted to the search engine in the search query (Section 3.3), and may possibly be stored at the engine so as to play a part in future queries. Lastly, some of the context will best be handled elsewhere, and so becomes a filter or secondary search applied to the results from the search engine.
Data-stream input to search
[0068] An important input into the search process is the broader context of how the community of users is interacting with the rendered version of the document - for example, which documents are most widely read and by whom. There are analogies with a web search returning the pages that are most frequently linked to, or those that are most frequently selected from past search results. For further discussion of this topic, see Sections 13.4 and 14.2.
4.2.3. Document sub-regions
[0069] The described system can emit and use not only information about documents as a whole, but also information about sub-regions of documents, even down to individual words. Many existing search engines concentrate simply on locating a document or file that is relevant to a particular query. T qs,e trj ,t,i ,can yyoπ ,1on„s,iiner grain and identify a location within a document will provide a significant benefit for the described system.
4.3. Returning the results
[0070] The search engine may use some of the further information it now maintains to affect the results returned.
[0071] The system may also return certain documents to which the user has access only as a result of being in possession of the paper copy (Section 7.4).
[0072] The search engine may also offer new actions or options appropriate to the described system, beyond simple retrieval of the text.
5. Markup, Annotations and Metadata
[0073] In addition to performing the capture-search-retrieve process, the described system also associates extra functionality with a document, and in particular with specific locations or segments of text within a document. This extra functionality is often, though not exclusively, associated with the rendered document by being associated with its electronic counterpart. As an example, hyperlinks in a web page could have the same functionality when a printout of that web page is scanned. In some cases, the functionality is not defined in the electronic document, but is stored or generated elsewhere.
[0074]This layer of added functionality is referred to herein as "markup."
5.1. Overlays, static and dynamic
[0075] One way to think of the markup is as an "overlay" on the document, which provides further information about — and may specify actions associated with — the document or some portion of it. The markup may include human-readable content, but is often invisible to a user and/or intended for machine use. Examples include options to be displayed in a popup-menu on a nearby display when a user captures text from a particular area in a rendered document, or audio samples that illustrate the pronunciation of a particular phrase.
5.1.1. Several layers, possibly from several sources
[0076]Any document may have multiple overlays simultaneously, and these may be sourced from a variety of locations. Markup data may be created or supplied by the author of the document, or by the user, or by some other party. ,[0,077J.M^r ι uP,' t ilrp^ ,, Lι,β attached to the electronic document or embedded in it. It may be found in a conventional location (for example, in the same place as the document but with a different filename suffix). Markup data may be included in the search results of the query that located the original document, or may be found by a separate query to the same or another search engine. Markup data may be found using the original captured text and other capture information or contextual information, or it may be found using already-deduced information about the document and location of the capture. Markup data may be found in a location specified in the document, even if the markup itself is not included in the document.
[0078] The markup may be largely static and specific to the document, similar to the way links on a traditional html web page are often embedded as static data within the html document, but markup may also be dynamically generated and/or applied to a large number of documents. An example of dynamic markup is information attached to a document that includes the up- to-date share price of companies mentioned in that document. An example of broadly applied markup is translation information that is automatically available on multiple documents or sections of documents in a particular language.
5.1.2. Personal "plug-in" layers
[0079] Users may also install, or subscribe to particular sources of, markup data, thus personalizing the system's response to particular captures.
5.2. Keywords and phrases, trademarks and logos [0080] Some elements in documents may have particular "markup" or functionality associated with them based on their own characteristics rather than their location in a particular document. Examples include special marks that are printed in the document purely for the purpose of being scanned, as well as logos and trademarks that can link the user to further information about the organization concerned. The same applies to "keywords" or "key phrases" in the text. Organizations might register particular phrases with which they are associated, or with which they would like to be associated, and attach certain markup to them that would be available wherever that phrase was scanned. [g.Qa, ].Afly,,A/vQ.rd, phfase,„,etc. may have associated markup. For example, the system may add certain items to a pop-up menu (e.g., a link to an online bookstore) whenever the user captures the word "book," or the title of a book, or a topic related to books. In some embodiments, of the system, digital counterpart documents or indices are consulted to determine whether a capture occurred near the word "book," or the title of a book, or a topic related to books - and the system behavior is modified in accordance with this proximity to keyword elements. In the preceding example, note that markup enables data captured from non-commercial text or documents to trigger a commercial transaction.
5.3. User-supplied content
5.3.1. User comments and annotations, including multimedia
[0082] Annotations are another type of electronic information that may be associated with a document. For example, a user can attach an audio file of his/her thoughts about a particular document for later retrieval as voice annotations. As another example of a multimedia annotation, a user may attach photographs of places referred to in the document. The user generally supplies annotations for the document but the system can associate annotations from other sources (for example, other users in a work group may share annotations).
5.3.2. Notes from proof-reading
[0083] An important example of user-sourced markup is the annotation of paper documents as part of a proofreading, editing or reviewing process.
5.4. Third-party content
[0084] As mentioned earlier, markup data may often be supplied by third parties, such as by other readers of the document. Online discussions and reviews are a good example, as are community-managed information relating to particular works, volunteer-contributed translations and explanations.
[0085] Another example of third-party markup is that provided by advertisers.
5.5. Dynamic markup based on other users' data streams
[0086] By analyzing the data captured from documents by several or all users of the system, markup can be generated based on the activities and interests of a community. An example might be an online bookstore that creates ar qp, ,pj, nηq a,tjp,r|,s,,that tell the user, in effect, "People who enjoyed this book also enjoyed " The markup may be less anonymous, and may tell the user which of the people in his/her contact list have also read this document recently. Other examples of datastream analysis are included in Section 14.
5.6. Markup based on external events and data sources [0087] Markup will often be based on external events and data sources, such as input from a corporate database, information from the public Internet, or statistics gathered by the local operating system.
[0088] Data sources may also be more local, and in particular may; provide information about the user's context - his/her identity, location and activities. For example, the system might communicate with the user's mobile phone and offer a markup layer that gives the user the option to send a document to somebody that the user has recently spoken to on the phone.
6. Authentication, Personalization and Security
[0089] In many situations, the identity of the user will be known. Sometimes this will be an "anonymous identity," where the user is identified only by the serial number of the capture device, for example. Typically, however, it is expected that the system will have a much more detailed knowledge of the user, which can be used for personalizing the system and to allow activities and transactions to be performed in the user's name.
6.1. User history and "Life Library"
[0090] One of the simplest and yet most useful functions that the system can perform is to keep a record for a user of the text that s/he has captured and any further information related to that capture, including the details of any documents found, the location within that document and any actions taken as a result.
[0091] This stored history is beneficial for both the user and the system.
6.1.1 . For the user
[0092] The user can be presented with a "Life Library," a record of everything s/he has read and captured. This may be simply for personal interest, but may be used, for example, in a library by an academic who is gathering material for the bibliography of his next paper. ,£0P93JJ,n,.,,sp,me -cirjςujxisjtances, the user may wish to make the library public, such as by publishing it on the web in a similar manner to a weblog, so that others may see what s/he is reading and finds of interest. [0094] Lastly, in situations where the user captures some text and the system cannot immediately act upon the capture (for example, because an electronic version of the document is not yet available) the capture can be stored in the library and can be processed later, either automatically or in response to a user request. A user can also subscribe to new markup services and apply them to previously captured scans.
6.1 .2. For the system 10095] A record of a user's past captures is also useful for the system. Many aspects of the system operation can be enhanced by knowing the user's reading habits and history. The simplest example is that any scan made by a user is more likely to come from a document that the user has scanned in the recent past, and in particular if the previous scan was within the last few minutes it is very likely to be from the same document. Similarly, it is more likely that a document is being read in start-to-finish order. Thus, for English documents, it is also more likely that later scans will occur farther down in the document. Such factors can help the system establish the location of the capture in cases of ambiguity, and can also reduce the amount of text that needs to be captured.
6.2. Scanner as payment, identity and authentication device £0096] Because the capture process generally begins with a device of some sort, typically an optical scanner or voice recorder, this device may be used as a key that identifies the user and authorizes certain actions.
6.2.1. Associate scanner with phone or other account [0097] The device may be embedded in a mobile phone or in some other way associated with a mobile phone account. For example, a scanner may be associated with a mobile phone account by inserting a SIM card associated with the account into the scanner. Similarly, the device may be embedded in a credit card or other payment card, or have the facility for such a card to be connected to it. The device may therefore be used as a payment token, and financial transactions may be initiated by the capture from the rendered document. 6.2-2,.,, ,,Using.,s.canner.„inp,ut for authentication
[0098] The scanner may also be associated with a particular user or account through the process of scanning some token, symbol or text associated with that user or account. In addition, scanner may be used for biometric identification, for exam ple by scanning the fingerprint of the user. In the case of an audio-based capture device, the system may identify the user by matching the voice pattern of the user or by requiring the user to speak a certain password or ph rase.
[0099] For example, where a user scans a quote from a book and is offered the option to buy the book from an online retailer, the user can select this option, and is then prompted to scan his/her fingerprint to confirm the transaction.
[00100] See also Sections 15.5 and 15.6.
6.2.3. Secure Scanning Device
[00101] When the capture device is used to identify and authenticate the user, and to initiate transactions on behalf of the user, it is important that communications between the device and other parts of the system are secure. It is also important to guard against such situations as another device impersonating a scanner, and so-called "man in the middle" attacks where communications between the device and other components are intercepted.
[00102] Techniques for providing such security are well understood in the art; in various embodiments, the hardware and software in the device and elsewhere in the system are configured to implement such techniques.
7. Publishing Models and Elements
[00103] An advantage of the described system is that there is no need to alter the traditional processes of creating, printing or publishing documents in order to gain many of the system's benefits. There are reasons, though, that the creators or publishers of a document - hereafter simply referred to as the
"publishers" - may wish to create functionality to support the described system.
[00104] This section is primarily concerned with the published documents themselves. For information about other related commercial transactions, such as advertising, see Section 10 entitled "P-Commerce." 7. .,, ,, .,,Elfict:ι:onic,CQ,rp,pgιι^ip.ns to printed documents
[00105] The system allows for printed documents to have an associated electronic presence. Conventionally publishers often ship a CD-ROM with a book that contains further digital information, tutorial movies and other multimedia data, sample code or documents, or further reference materials. In addition, some publishers maintain web sites associated with particular publications which provide such materials, as well as information which may be updated after the time of publishing, such as errata, further comments, updated reference materials, bibliographies and further sources of relevant data, and translations into other languages. Online forums allow readers to contribute their comments about the publication.
[00106] The described system allows such materials to be much more closely tied to the rendered document than ever before, and allows the discovery of and interaction with them to be much easier for the user. By capturing a portion of text from the document, the system can automatically connect the user to digital materials associated with the document, and more particularly associated with that specific part of the document. Similarly, the user can be connected to online communities that discuss that section of the text, or to annotations and commentaries by other readers. In the past, such information wou ld typically need to be found by searching for a particular page number or chapter.
[00107] An example application of this is in the area of academic textbooks (Section 17.5).
7.2. "Subscriptions" to printed documents
[00108] Some publishers may have mailing lists to which readers can subscribe if they wish to be notified of new relevant matter or when a new edition of the book is published. With the described system, the user can register an interest in particular documents or parts of documents more easily, in some cases even before the publisher has considered providing any such functionality. The reader's interest can be fed to the publisher, possibly affecting their decision about when and where to provide updates, further information, new editions or even completely new publications on topics that have proved to be of interest in existing books.
Figure imgf000031_0001
[00109] Many aspects of the system are enabled simply through the use of the text already existing in a document. If the document is produced in the knowledge that it may be used in conjunction with the system, however, extra functionality can be added by printing extra information in the form of special marks, which may be used to identify the text or a required action more closely, or otherwise enhance the document's interaction with the system. The simplest and most important example is an indication to the reader that the document is definitely accessible through the system. A special icon might be used, for example, to indicate that this document has an online discussion forum associated with it.
[00110] Such symbols may be intended purely for the reader, or they may be recognized by the system when scanned and used to initiate some action. Sufficient data may be encoded in the symbol to identify more than just the symbol: it may also store information, for example about the document, edition, and location of the symbol, which could be recognized and read by the system.
7.4. Authorization through possession of the paper document
[00111] There are some situations where possession of or access to the printed document would entitle the user to certain privileges, for example, the access to an electronic copy of the document or to additional materials. With the described system, such privileges could be granted simply as a result of the user capturing portions of text from the document, or scanning specially printed symbols. In cases where the system needed to ensure that the user was in possession of the entire document, it might prompt the user to scan particular items or phrases from particular pages, e.g. "the second line of page 46."
7.5. Documents which expire
[00112] If the printed document is a gateway to extra materials and functionality, access to such features can also be time-limited. After the expiry date, a user may be required to pay a fee or obtain a newer version of the document to access the features again. The paper document will, of course, still be usable, but will lose some of its enhanced electronic functionality. This may be desirable, for example, because there is profit for
2S> the,, pμbl|isher,,io ..recedin fees for access to electronic materials, or in requiring the user to purchase new editions from time to time, or because there are disadvantages associated with outdated versions of the printed document remaining in circulation. Coupons are an example of a type of commercial document that can have an expiration date.
7.6. Popularity analysis and publishing decisions
[00113] Section 10.5 discusses the use of the system's statistics to influence compensation of authors and pricing of advertisements.
[00114] In some embodiments, the system deduces the popularity of a publication from the activity in the electronic community associated with it as well as from the use of the paper document. These factors may help publishers to make decisions about what they will publish in future. If a chapter in an existing book, for example, turns out to be exceedingly popular, it may be worth expanding into a separate publication.
8. Document Access Services
[00115] An important aspect of the described system is the ability to provide to a user who has access to a rendered copy of a document access to an electronic version of that document. In some cases, a document is freely available on a public network or a private network to which the user has access. The system uses the captured text to identify, locate and retrieve the document, in some cases displaying it on the user's screen or depositing it in their email inbox.
[00116] In some cases, a document will be available in electronic form, but for a variety of reasons may not be accessible to the user. There may not be sufficient connectivity to retrieve the document, the user may not be entitled to retrieve it, there may be a cost associated with gaining access to it, or the document may have been withdrawn and possibly replaced by a new version, to name just a few possibilities. The system typically provides feedback to the user about these situations.
[00117] As mentioned in Section 7.4, the degree or nature of the access granted to a particular user may be different if it is known that the user already has access to a printed copy of the document. 8- „ „.Aμf,l e.nti.cgted:,dq.q ment access
[00118] Access to the document may be restricted to specific users, or to those meeting particular criteria, or may only be available in certain circumstances, for example when the user is connected to a secure network. Section 6 describes some of the ways in which the credentials of a user and scanner may be established.
8.2. Document purchase - copyright-owner compe nsation
[00119] Documents that are not freely available to the general public may still be accessible on payment of a fee, often as compensation to the publisher or copyright-holder. The system may im lement payment facilities directly or may make use of other payment methods associated with the user, including those described in Section 6.2.
8.3. Document escrow and proactive retrieval
[00120] Electronic documents are often transient; the digital source version of a rendered document may be available now but inaccessible in future. The system may retrieve and store the existing version on behalf of the user, even if the user has not requested it, thus guaranteeing its availability should the user request it in future. This also makes it available for the system's use, for example for searching as part of the process of identifying future captures.
[00121] In the event that payment is requ ired for access to the document, a trusted "document escrow" service can retrieve the document on behalf of the user, such as upon payment of a modest fee, with the assurance that the copyright holder will be fully compensated in future if the user should ever request the document from the service.
[00122] Variations on this theme can be implemented if the document is not available in electronic form at the time of capture . The user can authorize the service to submit a request for or make a payment for the document on his/her behalf if the electronic document should become available at a later date.
8.4. Association with other subscriptions and accounts
[00123] Sometimes payment may be waived, reduced or satisfied based on the user's existing association with another account or subscription. Sybsprjtøer.s, tp jhe,, -printed version of a newspaper might automatically be entitled to retrieve the electronic version, for example.
[00124] In other cases, the association may not be quite so direct: a user may be granted access based on an account established by their employer, or based on their scanning of a printed copy owned by a friend who is a subscriber.
8.5. Replacing photocopying with scan-and-print
[00125] The process of capturing text from a paper document, i dentifying an electronic original, and printing that original, or some portion of th t original associated with the capture, forms an alternative to traditional photocopying with many advantages:
[00126] • the paper document need not be in the same location as the final printout, and in any case need not be there at the same time
[00127] • the wear and damage caused to documents by the photocopying process, especially to old, fragile and valuable documents, can be avoided
[00128] • the quality of the copy is typically be much higher
[00129] • records may be kept about which documents r portions of documents are the most frequently copied
[00130] • payment may be made to the copyright owner as part of the process
[00131] • unauthorized copying may be prohibited
8.6. Locating valuable originals from photocopies
[00132] When documents are particularly valuable, as in the case of legal instruments or documents that have historical or other particular significance, people may typically work from copies of those documents, often for many years, while the originals are kept in a safe location.
[00133] The described system could be coupled to a database which records the location of an original document, for example in an archiving warehouse, making it easy for somebody with access to a copy to locate the archived original paper document. 9, ::Text::Reccϋgnitip;πι:::irιe:chnologies
[00134] Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies have traditionally focused on images that include a large amount of text, for example from a flat-bed scanner capturing a whole page. OCR technologies often need substantial training and correcting by the user to prod uce useful text. OCR technologies often require substantial processing power on the machine doing the OCR, and, while many systems use a dictionary, they are generally expected to operate on an effectively infinite vocabulary.
[00135] All of the above traditional characteristics may be improved upon in the described system.
[00136] While this section focuses on OCR, many of the issues discussed map directly onto other recognition technologies, in particular speech recognition. As mentioned in Section 3.1 , the process of capturing from paper may be achieved by a user reading the text aloud into a device which captures audio. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that principles discussed here with respect to images, fonts, and text fragments often also apply to audio samples, user speech models and phonemes.
9.1. Optimization for appropriate devices
[00137] A scanning device for use with the described system will often be small, portable, and low power. The scanning device may capture only a few words at a time, and in some implementations does not even capture a whole character at once, but rather a horizontal slice through the text, many such slices being stitched together to form a recognizable signal from which the text may be deduced. The scanning device may also have very limited processing power or storage so, while in some embodiments it may perform all of the OCR process itself, many embodiments will depend on a connection to a more powerful device, possibly at a later time, to convert the captured signals into text. Lastly, it may have very limited facilities for user i interaction, so may need to defer any requests for user input until later, or operate in a "best-guess" mode to a greater degree than is common now.
9.2. "Uncertain" OCR
[00138] The primary new characteristic of OCR within the described system is the fact that it will, in general, examine images of text wlnich exists elsewhere and which may be retrieved in digital form. An exact transcription of the text is therefore not always required from the OCR engine. The OCR system may output a set or a matrix of possible matches, in some cases including probability weightings, which can still be used to search for the digital original.
9.3. Iterative OCR - guess, disambiguate, guess...
[00139] If the device performing the recognition is able to contact the document index at the time of processing, then the OCR process can be informed by the contents of the document corpus as it progresses, potentially offering substantially greater recognition accuracy.
[00140] Such a connection will also allow the device to inform the user when sufficient text has been captured to identify the digital source.
9.4. Using knowledge of likely rendering
[00141] When the system has knowledge of aspects of the likely printed rendering of a document — such as the font typeface used in printing, or the layout of the page, or which sections are in italics — this too can help in the recognition process. (Section 4.1.1 )
9.5. Font caching - determine font on host, download to client
[00142] As candidate source texts in the document corpus are identified, the font, or a rendering of it, may be downloaded to the device to help with the recognition.
9.6. Autocorrelation and character offsets
[00143] While component characters of a text fragment may be the most recognized way to represent a fragment of text that may be used as a document signature, other representations of the text may work sufficiently well that the actual text of a text fragment need not be used when attempting to locate the text fragment in a digital document and/or database, or when disambiguating the representation of a text fragment into a readable form. Other representations of text fragments may provide benefits that actual text representations lack. For example, optical character recognition of text fragments is often prone to errors, unlike other representations of captured text fragments that may be used to search for and/or recreate a text fragment without resorting to optical character recognition for the entire fragment. Such methods may be more aDpropriate for some devices used with the current system.
[00144] Those of ordinary skill in the art and others will appreciate that there are many ways of describing the appearance of text fragments. Such characterizations of text fragments may include, but are not limited to, word lengths, relative word lengths, character heights, character widths, character shapes, character frequencies, token frequencies, and the like. In some embodiments, the offsets between matching text tokens (i.e., the number of intervening tokens plus one) are used to characterize fragments of text.
[00145] Conventional OCR uses knowledge about fonts, letter structure and shape to attempt to determine characters in scanned text. Embodiments of the present invention are different; they employ a variety of methods that use the rendered text itself to assist in the recognition process. These embodiments use characters (or tokens) to "recognize each other." One way to refer to such self-recognition is "template matching," and is similar to "convolution." To perform such self-recognition, the system slides a copy of the text horizontally over itself and notes matching regions of the text images. Prior template matching and convolution techniques encompass a variety of related techniques. These techniques to tokenize and/or recognize characters/tokens will be collectively referred to herein as "autocorrelation," as the text is used to correlate with its own component parts when matching characters/tokens.
[00146] When autocorrelating, complete connected regions that match are of interest. This occurs when characters (or groups of characters) overlay other instances of the same character (or group). Complete connected regions that match automatically provide tokenizing of the text into component tokens. As the two copies of the text are slid past each other, the regions where perfect matching occurs (i.e., all pixels in a vertical slice are matched) are noted. When a character/token matches itself, the horizontal extent of this matching (e.g., the connected matching portion of the text) also matches.
[00147] Note that at this stage there is no need to determine the actual identity of each token (i.e., the particular letter, digit or symbol, or group of these, that corresponds to the token image), only the offset to the next occurrence of the same token in the scanned text. The offset number is the distance (number of tokens) to the next occurrence of the same token. If the to βn, ,s„.,uoiqu,e„wi,tl iβ„tte,.text string, the offset is zero (0). The sequence of token offsets thus generated is a signature that can be used to identify the scanned text.
[00148] In some embodiments, the token offsets determined for a string of scanned tokens are compared to an index that indexes a corpus of electronic documents based upon the token offsets of their contents (Section 4.1 .2). In other embodiments, the token offsets determined for a string of scanned tokens are converted to text, and compared to a more conventional index that indexes a corpus of electronic documents based upon their contents
[00149] As has been noted earlier, a similar token-correlation process may be applied to speech fragments when the capture process consists of audio samples of spoken words.
9.7. Font/character "self-recognition"
[00150] Conventional template-matching OCR compares scanned images to a library of character images. In essence, the alphabet is stored for each font and newly scanned images are compared to the stored images to find matching characters. The process generally has an initial delay until the correct font has been identified. After that, the OCR process is relatively quick because most documents use the same font throughout. Subsequent images can therefore be converted to text by comparison with the most recently identified font library.
[00151] The shapes of characters in most commonly used fonts are related. For example, in most fonts, the letter "c" and the letter "e" are visually related - as are "t" and "f," etc. The OCR process is enhanced by use of this relationship to construct templates for letters that have not been scanned yet. For example, where a reader scans a short string of text from a paper document in a previously unencountered font such that the system does not have a set of image templates with which to compare the scanned images the system can leverage the probable relationship between certain characters to construct the font template library even though it has not yet encountered all of the letters in the alphabet. The system can then use the constructed font template library to recognize subsequent scanned text and to further refine the constructed font library. 9,4 „ , S,..qηd any,thipg„unre.cognized (including graphics) to server
[00152] When images cannot be machine-transcribed into a form suitable for use in a search process, the images themselves can be saved for later use by the user, for possible manual transcription, or for processing at a later date when different resources may be available to the system.
10. P-Commerce
[00153] Many of the actions made possible by the system result in some commercial transaction taking place. The phrase p-commerce is used herein to describe commercial activities initiated from paper via the system.
10.1. Sales of documents from their physical printed copies.
[00154] When a user captures text from a document, the user may be offered that document for purchase either in paper or electronic form. The user may also be offered related documents, such as those quoted or otherwise referred to in the paper document, or those on a similar subject, or those by the same author.
10.2. Sales of anything else initiated or aided by paper
[00155] The capture of text may be linked to other commercial activities in a variety of ways. The captured text may be in a catalog that is explicitly designed to sell items, in which case the text will be associated fairly directly with the purchase of an item (Section 18.2). The text may also be part of an advertisement, in which case a sale of the item being advertised may ensue.
[00156] In other cases, the user captures other text from which their potential interest in a commercial transaction may be deduced. A reader of a novel set in a particular country, for example, might be interested in a holiday there. Someone reading a review of a new car might be considering purchasing it. The user may capture a particular fragment of text knowing that some commercial opportunity will be presented to them as a result, or it may be a side-effect of their capture activities.
10.3. Capture of labels, icons, serial numbers, barcodes on an item resulting in a sale
[00157] Sometimes text or symbols are actually printed on an item or its packaging. An example is the serial number or product id often found on a label on the back or underside of a piece of electronic equipment. The system can offer the user a convenient way to purchase one or more of the sa,φej,tem,s.. by capturing ,t.bat text. They may also be offered manuals, support or repair services.
10.4. Contextual Advertisements
[00158] In addition to the direct capture of text from an advertisement, the system allows for a new kind of advertising which is not necessarily explicitly in the rendered document, but is nonetheless based on what people are reading.
10.4.1 . Advertising based on scan context and history
[00159] In a traditional paper publication, advertisements generally consume a large amount of space relative to the text of a newspaper article, and a limited number of them can be placed around a particular article. In the described system, advertising can be associated with individual words or phrases, and can selected according to the particular interest the user has shown by capturing that text and possibly taking into account their history of past scans.
[00160] With the described system, it is possible for a purchase to be tied to a particular printed document and for an advertiser to get significantly more feedback about the effectiveness of their advertising in particular print publications.
10.4.2. Advertising based on user context and history
[00161] The system may gather a large amount of information about other aspects of a user's context for its own use (Section 13); estimates of the geographical location of the user are a good example. Such data can also be used to tailor the advertising presented to a user of the system.
10.5. Models of compensation
[00162] The system enables some new models of compensation for advertisers and marketers. The publisher of a printed document containing advertisements may receive some income from a purchase that originated from their document. This may be true whether or not the advertisement existed in the original printed form; it may have been added electronically either by the publisher, the advertiser or some third party, and the sources of such advertising may have been subscribed to by the user. 10„5,r %...,,Popularity;;:based:,compensation
[00163] Analysis of the statistics generated by the system can reveal the popularity of certain parts of a publication (Section 14.2). In a newspaper, for example, it might reveal the amount of time readers spend looking at a particular page or article, or the popularity of a particular columnist. In some circumstances, it may be appropriate for an author or publisher to receive compensation based on the activities of the readers rather than on more traditional metrics such as words written or number of copies distributed. An author whose work becomes a frequently read authority on a subject might be considered differently in future contracts from one whose books have sold the same number of copies but are rarely opened. (See also Section 7.6)
10.5.2. Popularity-based advertising
[00164] Decisions about advertising in a document may also be based on statistics about the readership. The advertising space around the most popular columnists may be sold at a premium rate. Advertisers might even be charged or compensated some time after the document is published based on knowledge about how it was received.
10.6. Marketing based on Life Library
[00165] The "Life Library" or scan history described in Sections 6.1 and
16.1 can be an extremely valuable source of information about the interests and habits of a user. Subject to the appropriate consent and privacy issues, such data can inform offers of goods or services to the user. Even in an anonymous form, the statistics gathered can be exceedingly useful.
10.7. Sale/information at later date (when available)
[00166] Advertising and other opportunities for commercial transactions may not be presented to the user immediately at the time of text capture. For example, the opportunity to purchase a sequel to a novel may not be available at the time the user is reading the novel, but the system may present them with that opportunity when the sequel is published.
[00167] A user may capture data that relates to a purchase or other commercial transaction, but may choose not to initiate and/or complete the transaction at the time the capture is made. In some embodiments, data related to captures is stored in a user's Life Library, and these Life Library entries can remain "active" (i.e., capable of subsequent interactions similar to those available at„,the„ tir e the capture was made). Thus a user may review a capture at some later time, and optionally complete a transaction based on that capture. Because the system can keep track of when and where the original capture occurred, all parties involved in the transaction can be properly compensated. For example, the author who wrote the story - and the publisher who published the story - that appeared next to the advertisement from which the user captured data can be compensated when, six months later, the user visits their Life Library, selects that particular capture from the history, and chooses "Purchase this item at Amazon" from the pop-up menu (which can be similar or identical to the menu optionally presented at the time of the capture).
1 1. Operating System and Application Integration
[00168] Modern Operating Systems (OSs) and other software packages have many characteristics that can be advantageously exploited for use with the described system, and may also be modified in various ways to provide an even better platform for its use.
1 1.1. Incorporation of scan and print-related information in metadata and indexing
[00169] New and upcoming file systems and their associated databases often have the ability to store a variety of metadata associated with each file.
Traditionally, this metadata has included such things as the ID of the user who created the file, the dates of creation, last modification, and last use. Newer file systems allow such extra information as keywords, irriage characteristics, document sources and user comments to be stored, and in some systems this metadata can be arbitrarily extended. File systems can therefore be used to store information that would be useful in implementing the current system.
For example, the date when a given document was last printed can be stored by the file system, as can details about which text from it has been captured from paper using the described system, and when and by whom.
[00170] Operating systems are also starting to incorporate search engine facilities that allow users to find local files more easily. These facilities can be advantageously used by the system. It means that many of the search-related concepts discussed in Sections 3 and 4 apply not just to today's Internet-based and similar search engines, but also to every personal computer. [9°Λ7 ,]ι ι, KiSqm. .-cases specific software applications will also include support for the system above and beyond the facilities provided by the OS.
11.2. OS Support for capture devices
[00172] As the use of capture devices such as pen scanners becomes increasingly common, it will become desirable to build support for them into the operating system, in much the same way as support is provided for mice and printers, since the applicability of capture devices extends beyond a single software application. The same will be true for other aspects of the system's operation. Some examples are discussed below. In some embodiments, the entire described system, or the core of it, is provided by the OS. In some embodiments, support for the system is provided by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can be used by other software packages, including those directly implementing aspects of the system.
11.2.1. Support for OCR and other recognition technologies
[00173] Most of the methods of capturing text from a rendered document require some recognition software to interpret the source data, typically a scanned image or some spoken words, as text suitable for use in the system. Some OSs include support for speech or handwriting recognition, though it is less common for OSs to include support for OCR, since in the past the use of OCR has typically been limited to a small range of applications.
[00174] As recognition components become part of the OS, they can take better advantage of other facilities provided by the OS. Many systems include spelling dictionaries, grammar analysis tools, internationalization and localization facilities, for example, all of which can be advantageously employed by the described system for its recognition process, especially since they may have been customized for the particular user to include words and phrases that he/she would commonly encounter.
[00175] If the operating system includes full-text indexing facilities, then these can also be used to inform the recognition process, as described in Section 9.3.
11.2.2. Action to be taken on scans
[00176] If an optical scan or other capture occurs and is presented to the
OS, it may have a default action to be taken under those circumstances in the event that no other subsystem claims ownership of the capture. An example of, ,a„ ,d.e,fauj,t gcjiαq ^..presenting the user with a choice of alternatives, or submitting the captured text to the OS's built-in search facilities.
11.2.3. OS has default action for particular documents or document types [00177] If the digital source of the rendered document is found, the OS may have a standard action that it will take when that particular document, or a document of that class, is scanned. Applications and other subsystems may register with the OS as potential handlers of particular types of capture, in a similar manner to the announcement by applications of their ability to handle certain file types.
[00178] Markup data associated with a rendered document, or with a capture from a document, can include instructions to the operating system to launch specific applications, pass applications arguments, parameters, or data, etc.
11.2.4. Interpretation of gestures and mapping into standard actions
[001 79] In Section 12.1.3 the use of "gestures" is discussed, particularly in the case of optical scanning, where particular movements made with a handheld scanner might represent standard actions such as marking the start and end of a region of text.
[001 80] This is analogous to actions such as pressing the shift key on a keyboard while using the cursor keys to select a region of text, or using the wheel on a mouse to scroll a document. Such actions by the user are sufficiently standard that they are interpreted in a system-wide way by the OS, thus ensuring consistent behavior. The same is desirable for scanner gestures and other scanner-related actions.
11.2.5. Set response to standard (and non-standard) iconic/text printed menu items
[001 81] In a similar way, certain items of text or other symbols may, when scanned, cause standard actions to occur, and the OS may provide a selection of these. An example might be that scanning the text "[print]" in any document would cause the OS to retrieve and print a copy of that document.
The OS may also provide a way to register such actions and associate them with particular scans. „1 j -j3-, „.„.β,u,pp,ort i,π ,syste1m,l:GUI components for typical scan-initiated activities [00182] Most software applications are based substantially on standard
Graphical User Interface components provided by the OS.
[00183] Use of these components by developers helps to ensure consistent behavior across multiple packages, for example that pressing the left-cursor key in any text-editing context should move the cursor to the left, without every programmer having to implement the same functionality independently.
[00184] A similar consistency in these components is desirable when the activities are initiated by text-capture or other aspects of the described system. Some examples are given below.
11.3.1. Interface to find particular text content
[00185] A typical use of the system may be for the user to scan an area of a paper document, and for the system to open the electronic counterpart in a software package that is able to display or edit it, and cause that package to scroll to and highlight the scanned text (Section 12.2.1 ). The first part of this process, finding and opening the electronic document, is typically provided by the OS and is standard across software packages. The second part, however - locating a particular piece of text within a document and causing the package to scroll to it and highlight it - is not yet standardized and is often implemented differently by each package. The availability of a standard API for this functionality could greatly enhance the operation of this aspect of the system.
11.3.2. Text interactions
[00186] Once a piece of text has been located within a document, the system may wish to perform a variety of operations upon that text. As an example, the system may request the surrounding text, so that the user's capture of a few words could result in the system accessing the entire sentence or paragraph containing them. Again, this functionality can be usefully provided by the OS rather than being implemented in every piece of software that handles text.
11.3.3. Contextual (POPUP) menus
[00 87] Some of the operations that are enabled by the system will require user feedback, and this may be optimally requested within the context of the applicatign. handling the data. In some embodiments, the system uses the application pop-up menus traditionally associated with clicking the right mouse button on some text. The system inserts extra options into such menus, and causes them to be displayed as a result of activities such as scanning a paper document.
1 1.4. Web/network interfaces
[00188] In today's increasingly networked world, much of the functionality available on individual machines can also be accessed over a network, and the functionality associated with the described system is no exception. As an example, in an office environment, many paper documents received by a user may have been printed by other users' machines on the same corporate network. The system on one computer, in response to a capture, may be able to query those other machines for documents which may correspond to that capture, subject to the appropriate permission controls.
1 1.5. Printing of document causes saving
[00189] An important factor in the integration of paper and digital documents is maintaining as much information as possible about the transitions between the two. In some embodiments, the OS keeps a simple record of when any document was printed and by whom. In some embodiments, the OS takes one or more further actions that would make it better suited for use with the system. Examples include:
[00190] • Saving the digital rendered version of every document printed along with information about the source from which it was printed
[00191] • Saving a subset of useful information about the printed version - for example, the fonts used and where the line breaks occur - which might aid future scan interpretation
[00192] • Saving the version of the source document associated with any printed copy
[00193] • Indexing the document automatically at the time of printing and storing the results for future searching 11.6. My (Printed/Scanned) Documents
[ό& ff Αrϊ"OS'"6fte'h" maintains certain categories of folders or files that have particular significance. A user's documents may, by convention or design, be found in a "My Documents" folder, for example. Standard file- opening dialogs may automatically include a list of recently opened documents.
[00195] On an OS optimized for use with the described system, such categories may be enhanced or augmented in ways that take into account a user's interaction with paper versions of the stored files. Categories such as "My Printed Documents" or "My Recently-Read Documents" might usefully be identified and incorporated in its operations.
11.7. OS-level markup hierarchies
[00196] Since important aspects of the system are typically provided using the "markup" concepts discussed in Section 5, it would clearly be advantageous to have support for such markup provided by the OS in a way that was accessible to multiple applications as well as to the OS itself. In addition, layers of markup may be provided by the OS, based on its own knowledge of documents under its control and the facilities it is able to provide.
1 1.8. Use of OS DRM facilities
[00197] An increasing number of operating systems support some form of "Digital Rights Management": the ability to control the use of particular data according to the rights granted to a particular user, software entity or machine. It may inhibit unauthorized copying or distribution of a particular document, for example.
12. User Interface
[00198] The user interface of the system may be entirely on a PC, if the capture device is relatively dumb and is connected to it by a cable, or entirely on the device, if it is sophisticated and with significant processing power of its own. In some cases, some functionality resides in each component. Part, or indeed all, of the system's functionality may also be implemented on other devices such as mobile phones or PDAs. [00199] The descriptions in the following sections are therefore iήdϊ' atl'drfs' f wf a may" be desirable in certain implementations, but they are not necessarily appropriate for all and may be modified in several ways.
12.1. On the capture device
[00200] With all capture devices, but particularly in the case of an optical scanner, the user's attention will generally be on the device and the paper at the time of scanning. It is very desirable, then, that any input and feedback needed as part of the process of scanning do not require the user's attention to be elsewhere, for example on the screen of a computer, more than is necessary.
12.1.1. Feedback on scanner
[00201] A handheld scanner may have a variety of ways of providing feedback to the user about particular conditions. The most obvious types are direct visual, where the scanner incorporates indicator lights or even a full display, and auditory, where the scanner can make beeps, clicks or other sounds. Important alternatives include tactile feedback, where the scanner can vibrate, buzz, or otherwise stimulate the user's sense of touch, and projected feedback, where it indicates a status by projecting onto the paper anything from a colored spot of light to a sophisticated display.
[00202] Important immediate feedback that may be provided on the device includes:
[00203] • feedback on the scanning process - user scanning too fast, at too great an angle, or drifting too high or low on a particular line
[00204] • sufficient content - enough has been scanned to be pretty certain of finding a match if one exists - important for disconnected operation
[00205] • context known - a source of the text has been located
[00206] • unique context known - one unique source of the text has been located
[00207] • availability of content - indication of whether the content is freely available to the user, or at a cost [00208] Many of the user interactions normally associated with the later sta,ye"Sl"bf"'t,h"e 's'ys'tem "may also take place on the capture device if it has sufficient abilities, for example, to display part or all of a document.
12.1.2. Controls on scanner
[00209] The device may provide a variety of ways for the user to provide input in addition to basic text capture. Even when the device is in close association with a host machine that has input options such as keyboards and mice, it can be disruptive for the user to switch back and forth between manipulating the scanner and using a mouse, for example.
[00210] The handheld scanner may have buttons, scroll/jog-wheels, touch-sensitive surfaces, and/or accelerometers for detecting the movement of the device. Some of these allow a richer set of interactions while still holding the scanner.
[00211] For example, in response to scanning some text, the system presents the user with a set of several possible matching documents. The user uses a scroll-wheel on the side of the scanner is to select one from the list, and clicks a button to confirm the selection.
12.1.3. Gestures
[00212] The primary reason for moving a scanner across the paper is to capture text, but some movements may be detected by the device and used to indicate other user intentions. Such movements are referred to herein as "gestures."
[00213] As an example, the user can indicate a large region of text by scanning the first few words in conventional left-to-right order, and the last few in reverse order, i.e. right to left. The user can also indicate the vertical extent of the text of interest by moving the scanner down the page over several lines. A backwards scan might indicate cancellation of the previous scan operation.
12.1.4. Online / Offline behavior
[00214] Many aspects of the system may depend on network connectivity, either between components of the system such as a scanner and a host laptop, or with the outside world in the form of a connection to corporate databases and Internet search. This connectivity may not be present all the time, however, and so there will be occasions when part or all of the system may be considered to be "offline." It is desirable to allow the system to continue to function usefully in those circumstances.
[00215] The device may be used to capture text when it is out of contact with other parts of the system. A very simple device may simply be able to store the image or audio data associated with the capture, ideally with a timestamp indicating when it was captured. The various captures may be uploaded to the rest of the system when the device is next in contact with it, and handled then. The device may also upload other data associated with the captures, for example voice annotations associated with optical scans, or location information.
[00216] More sophisticated devices may be able to perform some or all of the system operations themselves despite being disconnected. Various techniques for improving their ability to do so are discussed in Section 15.3. Often it will be the case that some, but not all, of the desired actions can be performed while offline. For example, the text may be recognized, but identification of the source may depend on a connection to an Internet-based search engine. In some embodiments, the device therefore stores sufficient information about how far each operation has progressed for the rest of the system to proceed efficiently when connectivity is restored.
[00217] The operation of the system will, in general, benefit from immediately available connectivity, but there are some situations in which performing several captures and then processing them as a batch can have advantages. For example, as discussed in Section 13 below, the identification of the source of a particular capture may be greatly enhanced by examining other captures made by the user at approximately the same time. In a fully connected system where live feedback is being provided to the user, the system is only able to use past captures when processing the current one. If the capture is one of a batch stored by the device when offline, however, the system will be able to take into account any data available from later captures as well as earlier ones when doing its analysis.
12.2. On a host device
[00218] A scanner will often communicate with some other device, such as a PC, PDA, phone or digital camera to perform many of the functions of the system, including more detailed interactions with the user. 12.2.1. Activities performed in response to a capjijre
[00219]' Whe'nlnrh'o'st device receives a capture, it may initiate a variety of activities. An incomplete list of possible activities performed by the system after locating and electronic counterpart document associated with the capture and a location within that document follows.
[00220] • The details of the capture may be stored in the user's history. (Section 6.1 )
[00221] • The document may be retrieved from local storage or a remote location. (Section 8)
[00222] • The operating system's metadata and other records associated with the document may be updated. (Section 1 1.1 )
[00223] • Markup associated with the document may be examined to determine the next relevant operations. (Section 5)
[00224] • A software application may be started to edit, view or otherwise operate on the document. The choice of application may depend on the source document, or on the contents of the scan, or on some other aspect of the capture. (Section 1 1.2.2, 11.2.3)
[00225] • The application may scroll to, highlight, move the insertion point to, or otherwise indicate the location of the capture. (Section 11.3)
[00226] • The precise bounds of the captured text may be modified, for example to select whole words, sentences or paragraphs around the captured text. (Section 11.3.2)
[00227] • The user may be given the option to copy the capture text to the clipboard or perform other standard operating system or application- specific operations upon it.
[00228] • Annotations may be associated with the document or the captured text. These may come from immediate user input, or may have been captured earlier, for example in the case of voice annotations associated with an optical scan. (Section 19.4)
[00229] • Markup may be examined to determine a set of further possible operations for the user to select. 12.2.2. Contextual popup menus
[0023:0j Sϋmstϊmϋs'lhe appropriate action to be taken by the system will be obvious, but sometimes it will require a choice to be made by the user. One good way to do this is through the use of "popup menus" or, in cases where the content is also being displayed on a screen , with so-called "contextual menus" that appear close to the content. (See Section 1 1.3.3). In some embodiments, the scanner device projects a popup menu onto the paper document. A user may select from such menus using traditional methods such as a keyboard and mouse, or by using controls on the capture device (Section 12.1.2), gestures (Section 12.1.3), or by interacting with the computer display using the scanner (Section 12.2.4). In some embodiments, the popup menus which can appear as a result of a capture include default items representing actions which occur if the user does not respond - for example, if the user ignores the menu and makes another capture.
12.2.3. Feedback on disambiguation
[00231] When a user starts capturing text, there will initially be several documents or other text locations that it could match. As more text is captured, and other factors are taken into account (Section 13), the number of candidate locations will decrease until the actual location is identified, or further disambiguation is not possible without user input. In some embodiments, the system provides a real-time display of the documents or the locations found, for example in list, thumbnail-image or text-segment form, and for the number of elements in that display to reduce in number as capture continues. In some embodiments, the system displays thumbnails of all candidate documents, where the size or position of the thumbnail is dependent on the probability of it being the correct match.
[00232] When a capture is unambiguously identified, this fact may be emphasized to the user, for example using audio feedback.
[00233] Sometimes the text captured will occur in many documents and will be recognized to be a quotation. The system may indicate this on the screen, for example by grouping documents containing a quoted reference around the original source document. 12.2.4. Scanning from screen
[00234] Some optical scanners may be able to capture text displayed on a screen as well as on paper. Accordingly, the term rendered document is used herein to indicate that printing onto paper is not the only form of rendering, and that the capture of text or symbols for use by the system may be equally valuable when that text is displayed on an electronic display-
[00235] The u ser of the described system may be required to interact with a computer screen for a variety of other reasons, such as to select from a list of options. It can be inconvenient for the user to put down the scanner and start using the mouse or keyboard. Other sections have described physical controls on the scanner (Section 12.1.2) or gestures (Section 12.1.3) as methods of input which do not require this change of tool, but using the scanner on the screen itself to scan some text or symbol is an im portant alternative provided by the system.
[00236] In some embodiments, the optics of the scanner allow it to be used in a similar manner to a light-pen, directly sensing its position on the screen without the need for actual scanning of text, possibly with the aid of special hardware or software on the computer.
13. Context Interpretation
[00237] An im ortant aspect of the described system is the use of other factors, beyond the simple capture of a string of text, to help identify the document in use. A capture of a modest amount of text may often identify the document uniquely, but in many situations it will identify a few candidate documents. One solution is to prompt the user to confirm the document being scanned, but a preferable alternative is to make use of other factors to narrow down the possibilities automatically. Such supplemental information can dramatically reduce the amount of text that needs to be captured and/or increase the reliability and speed with which the location in the electronic counterpart can be identified. This extra material is referred to as "context," and it was discussed briefly in Section 4.2.2. We now consider it in more depth.
13.1. System and capture context
[00238] Perhaps the most important example of such information is the user's capture history. [00239] It is highly proba ble that any given capture comes from the same document as the previous one, or from an associated document, especially if the previous capture took place in the last few minutes (Section 6.1.2). Conversely, if the system detects that the font has changed between two scans, it is more likely that they are from different documents.
[00240] Also useful are the user's longer-term capture history and reading habits. These can also be used to develop a model of the user's interests and associations.
13.2. User's real-world context
[00241] Another example of useful context is the user's geographical location. A user in Paris is much more likely to be reading Le Monde than the Seattle Times, for example. The timing, size and geographical distribution of printed versions of the documents can therefore be important, and can to some degree be deduced from the operation of the system.
[00242] The time of day may also be relevant, for example in the case of a user who always reads one type of publication on the way to work, and a different one at lunchtime or on the train going home.
13.3. Related digital context
[00243] The user's recent use of electronic documents, including those searched for or retrieved by more conventional means, can also be a helpful indicator.
[00244] In some cases, such as on a corporate network, other factors may be usefully considered:
[00245] • Which documents have been printed recently?
[00246] • Which documents have been modified recently on the corporate file server?
[00247] • Which documents have been emailed recently?
[00248] All of these examples might suggest that a user was more likely to be reading a paper version of those documents. In contrast, if the repository in which a document resides can affirm that the document has never been printed or sent anywhere where it might have been printed, then it can be safely eliminated in any searches originating from paper. 13.4. ι™ Oπtrhπe™r — st ,a. t „,i,st mi,,c,, s |r„ - A , tuh ,e.ι g .-■lobal context
„ A !i ,., ,ι
[00249] Section 14 covers the analysis of trie data stream resulting from paper-based searches, but it should be noted here that statistics about the popularity of documents with other readers, about the timing of that popularity, and about the parts of documents most frequently scanned are all examples of further factors which can be beneficial in the search process. The system brings the possibility of Google-type page-ranking to the world of paper.
[00250] See also Section 4.2.2 for some other implications of the use of context for search engines.
14. Data-stream Analysis
[00251] The use of the system generates an exceedingly valuable data- stream as a side effect. This stream is a record of what users are reading and when, and is in many cases a record of what they find particularly valuable in the things they read. Such data has never really been available before for paper documents.
[00252] Some ways in which this data can be useful for the system, and for the user of the system, are described in Section 6.1. This section concentrates on its use for others. There are, of course, substantial privacy issues to be considered with any distribution of data about what people are reading, but such issues as preserving the anonymity of data are well known to those of skill in the art.
14.1. Document Tracking
[00253] When the system knows which d ocuments any given user is reading, it can also deduce who is reading any given document. This allows the tracking of a document through an organization, to allow analysis, for example, of who is reading it and when, how widely it was distributed, how long that distribution took, and who has seen current versions while others are still working from out-of-date copies.
[00254] For published documents that have a wider distribution, the tracking of individual copies is more difficult, but the analysis of the distribution of readership is still possible.
14.2. Read Ranking - popularity of documents and sub-regions
[00255] In situations where users are capturing text or other data that is of particular interest to them, the system can deduce the popularity of certain
Figure imgf000056_0001
..Qtfltøitølar sub-regions of those documents. This forms a valuable input to the system itself (Section 4.2.2) and an important source of information for authors, publishers and advertisers (Section 7.6, Section 10.5). This data is also useful when integrated in search engines and search indices - for example, to assist in ranking search results for queries coming from rendered documents, and/or to assist in ranking conventional queries typed into a web browser.
14.3. Analysis of users - building profiles
[00256] Knowledge of what a user is reading enables the system to create a quite detailed model of the user's inte rests and activities. This can be useful on an abstract statistical basis - "35% of users who buy this newspaper also read the latest book by that a uthor" - but it can also allow other interactions with the individual user, as discussed below.
14.3.1 . Social Networking
[00257] One example is connecting one user with others who have related interests. These may be people already known to the user. The system may ask a university professor, "Did you know that your colleague at XYZ University has also just read this paper?" The system may ask a user, "Do you want to be linked up with other people in your neighborhood who are also how reading Jane Eyre?" Such links may be the basis for the automatic formation of book clubs and similar social structures, either in the physical world or online.
14.3.2. Marketing
[00258] Section 10.6 has already mentioned the idea of offering products and services to an individual user based on their interactions with the system. Current online booksellers, for example, often make recommendations to a user based on their previous interactions with the bookseller. Such recommendations become much more useful when they are based on interactions with the actual books.
14.4. Marketing based on other aspects of the data-stream
[00259] We have discussed some of the ways in which the system may influence those publishing documents, those aidvertising through them, and other sales initiated from paper (Section 10). Some commercial activities may have no direct interaction with the paper docu ments at all and yet may be influenced by them. For example, the knowledge that people in one community spend more time reading the sports section of the newspaper than they do the financial section might be of interest to somebody setting up a health club.
14.5. Types of data that may be captured
[00260] In addition to the statistics discussed, such as who is reading which bits of which documents, and when and where, it can be of interest to examine the actual contents of the text captured, regardless of whether or not the document has been located.
[00261] In many situations, the user will also not just be capturing some text, but will be causing some action to occur as a result. It might be emailing a reference to the document to an acquaintance, for example. Even in the absence of information about the identity of the user or the recipient of the email, the knowledge that somebody considered the document worth emailing is very useful.
[00262] In addition to the various methods discussed for deducing the value of a particular document or piece of text, in some circumstances the user will explicitly indicate the value by assigning it a rating.
[00263] Lastly, when a particular set of users are known to form a group, for example when they are known to be employees of a particular company, the aggregated statistics of that group can be used to deduce the importance of a particular document to that group.
15. Device Features and Functions
[00264] A capture device for use with the system needs little more than a way of capturing text from a rendered version of the document. As described earlier (Section 1.2), this capture may be achieved through a variety of methods including taking a photograph of part of the document or typing some words into a mobile phone keypad. This capture may be achieved using a small hand-held optical scanner capable of recording a line or two of text at a time, or an audio capture device such as a voice-recorder into which the user is reading text from the document. The device used may be a combination of these - an optical scanner which could also record voice annotations, for example - and the capturing functionality may be built into some other device such as a mobile phone, PDA, digital camera or portable music player.
15.1. Input and output
[00265] Many of the possibly beneficial additional input and output facilities for such a device have been described in Section 12.1 . They include buttons, scroll-wheels and touch-pads for input, and displays, indicator lights, audio and tactile transducers for output. Sometimes the device will incorporate many of these, sometimes very few. Sometimes the capture device will be able to communicate with another device that already has them (Section 15.6), for example using a wireless link, and sometimes the capture functionality will be incorporated into such other device (Section 15.7).
15.2. Connectivity
[00266] In some embodiments, the device implements the majority of the system itself. In some embodiments, however, it often communicates with a PC or other computing device and with the wider world using communications facilities.
[00267] Often these communications facilities are in the form of a general-purpose data network such as Ethernet, 802.11 or UWB or a standard peripheral-connecting network such as USB, IEEE-1394 (Firewϊre), Bluetooth™ or infra-red. When a wired connection such as Firewire or USB is used, the device may receive electrical power though the same connection. In some circumstances, the capture device may appear to a connected machine to be a conventional peripheral such as a USB storage device.
[00268] Lastly, the device may in some circumstances "dock" with another device, either to be used in conjunction with that device or for convenient storage.
15.3. Caching and other online/offline functionality
[00269] Sections 3.5 and 12.1.4 have raised the topic of disconnected operation. When a capture device has a limited subset of the total system's functionality, and is not in communication with the other parts of the system, the device can still be useful, though the functionality available will sometimes be reduced. At the simplest level, the device can record the raw image or audio data being captured and this can be processed later. For the user's benefit, however, it can be important to give feedback where possible about whether the data,, captured is likely to be sufficient for the task in hand, whether it can be recognized or is likely to be recognizable, and whether the source of the data can be identified or is likely to be identifiable later. The user will then know whether their capturing activity is worthwhile. Even when all of the above are unknown, the raw data can still be stored so that , at the very least, the user can refer to them later. The user may be presented with the image of a scan, for example, when the scan cannot be recognized by the OCR process.
[00270] To illustrate some of the range of options available, both a rather minimal optical scanning device and then a much more full-featured one are described below. Many devices occupy a middle ground between the two.
15.3.1. The SimpleScanner - a low-end offline example [00271] The SimpleScanner has a scanning head able to read pixels from the page as it is moved along the length of a line of text. It can detect its movement along the page and record the pixels with some information about the movement. It also has a clock, which allows each scan to be time- stamped. The clock is synchronized with a host device when the SimpleScanner has connectivity. The clock may not represent the actual time of day, but relative times may be determined from it so that the host can deduce the actual time of a scan, or at worst the elapsed time between scans.
[00272] The SimpleScanner does not have sufficient processing power to perform any OCR itself, but it does have some basic knowledge about typical word-lengths, word-spacings, and their relationship to font size. It has some basic indicator lights which tell the user whether the scan is likely to be readable, whether the head is being moved too fast, too slowly or too inaccurately across the paper, and when it determines that sufficient words of a given size are likely to have been scanned for the document to be identified.
[00273] The SimpleScanner has a USB connector and can be p lugged into the USB port on a computer, where it will be recharged. To the computer it appears to be a USB storage device on which time-stamped data files have been recorded, and the rest of the system software takes over from this point. 15.3.2. The SuperScanner - a high-end offline example [00274] The "SuperScanner also depends on connectivity for its full operation, but it has a significant amount of on-board storage and processing which can help it make better judgments about the data captured while offline.
[00275] As it moves along the line of text, the captured pixels are stitched together and passed to an OCR engine that attempts to recognize the text. A number of fonts, including those from the user's most-read publications, have been downloaded to it to help perform this task, as has a dictionary that is synchronized with the user's spelling-checker dictionary on their PC and so contains many of the words they frequently encounter. Also stored on the scanner is a list of words and phrases with the typical frequency of their use - this may be combined with the dictionary. The scanner can use the frequency statistics both to help with the recognition process and also to inform its judgment about when a sufficient quantity of text has been captured; more frequently used phrases are less likely to be useful as the basis for a search query.
[00276] In addition, the full index for the articles in the recent issues of the newspapers and periodicals most commonly read by the user are stored on the device, as are the indices for the books the user has recently purchased from an online bookseller, or from which the user has scanned anything within the last few months. Lastly, the titles of several thousand of the most popular publications which have data available for the system are stored so that, in the absence of other information the user can scan the title and have a good idea as to whether or not captures from a particular work are likely to be retrievable in electronic form later.
[00277] During the scanning process, the system informs user that the captured data has been of sufficient quality and of a sufficient nature to make it probable that the electronic copy can be retrieved when connectivity is restored. Often the system indicates to the user that the scan is known to have been successful and that the context has been recognized in one of the on-board indices, or that the publication concerned is known to be making its data available to the system, so the later retrieval ought to be successful.
[00278] The SuperScanner docks in a cradle connected to a PC's
Firewire or USB port, at which point, in addition to the upload of captured data, its various onboard indices and other databases are updated based on recent user actiy,ity„,a,πd...new publications. It also has the facility to connect to wireless public networks or to communicate via Bluetooth to a mobile phone and thence with the public network when such facilities are available.
15.4. Features for optical scanning
[00279] We now consider some of the features that may be particularly desirable in an optical scanner device.
15.4.1 . Flexible positioning and convenient optics
[00280] One of the reasons for the continuing popularity of paper is the ease of its use in a wide variety of situations where a computer, for example,, would be impractical or inconvenient. A device intended to capture a substantial part of a user's interaction with paper should therefore be similarly convenient in use. This has not been the case for scanners in the past; even the smallest hand-held devices have been somewhat unwieldy. Those designed to be in contact with the page have to be held at a precise angle to the paper and moved very carefully along the length of the text to be scanned. This is acceptable when scanning a business report on an office desk, but may be impractical when scanning a phrase from a novel while waiting for a train. Scanners based on camera-type optics that operate at a distance from the paper may similarly be useful in some circumstances.
[00281] Some embodiments of the system use a scanner that scans in contact with the paper, and which, instead of lenses, uses an image conduit a bundle of optical fibers to transmit the image from the page to the optical sensor device. Such a device can be shaped to allow it to be held in a natural position; for example, in some embodiments, the part in contact with the page is wedge-shaped, allowing the user's hand to move more naturally over the page in a movement similar to the use of a highlighter pen. The conduit is either in direct contact with the paper or in close proximity to it, and may have a replaceable transparent tip that can protect the image conduit from possible damage. As has been mentioned in Section 12.2.4, the scanner may be used to scan from a screen as well as from paper, and the material of the tip can be chosen to reduce the likelihood of damage to such displays.
[00282] Lastly, some embodiments of the device will provide feedback to the user during the scanning process which will indicate through the use of light-, „sp,u,n,d, or . tactile.. feedback when the user is scanning too fast, too slow, too unevenly or is drifting too high or low on the scanned line.
15.5. Security, identity, authentication, personalization and billing
[00283] As described in Section 6, the capture device may form an important part of identification and authorization for secure transactions, purchases, and a variety of other operations. It may therefore incorporate, in addition to the circuitry and software required for such a role, various hardware features that can make it more secure, such as a smartcard reader, RFID, or a keypad on which to type a PIN.
[00284] It may also include various biometric sensors to help identify the user. In the case of an optical scanner, for example, the scanning head may also be able to read a fingerprint. For a voice recorder, the voice pattern of the user may be used.
15.6. Device associations
[00285] In some embodiments, the device is able to form an association with other nearby devices to increase either its own or their functionality. In some embodiments, for example, it uses the display of a nearby PC or phone to give more detailed feedback about its operation, or uses their network connectivity. The device may, on the other hand, operate in its role as a security and identification device to authenticate operations performed by the other device. Or it may simply form an association in order to function as a peripheral to that device.
[00286] An interesting aspect of such associations is that they may be initiated and authenticated using the capture facilities of the device. For example, a user wishing to identify themselves securely to a public computer terminal may use the scanning facilities of the device to scan a code or symbol displayed on a particular area of the terminal's screen and so effect a key transfer. An analogous process may be performed using audio signals picked up by a voice-recording device.
15.7. Integration with other devices
[00287] In some embodiments, the functionality of the capture device is integrated into some other device that is already in use. The integrated devices may be able to share a power supply, data capture and storage capabilities, and network interfaces. Such integration may be done simply for convenience, to .reduce,.. cost, or to enable functionality that would not otherwise be available.
[00288] Some examples of devices into which the capture functionality can be integrated include:
[00289] • an existing peripheral such as a mouse, a stylus, a USB
"webcam" camera, a Bluetooth™ headset or a remote control
[00290] • another processing/storage device, such as a PDA, an
MP3 player, a voice recorder, a digital camera or a mobile phone
[00291] • other often-carried items, just for convenience - a watch, a piece of jewelry, a pen, a car key fob
15.7.1. Mobile phone Integration
[00292] As an example of the benefits of integration, we consider the use of a modified mobile phone as the capture device.
[00293] In some embodiments, the phone hardware is not modified to support the system, such as where the text capture can be adequately done through voice recognition, where they can either be processed by the phone itself, or handled by a system at the other end of a telephone call, or stored in the phone's memory for future processing. Many modern phones have the ability to download software that could implement some parts of the system. Such voice capture is likely to be suboptimal in many situations, however, for example when there is substantial background noise, and accurate voice recognition is a difficult task at the best of times. The audio facilities may best be used to capture voice annotations.
[00294] In some embodiments, the camera built into many mobile phones is used to capture an image of the text. The phone display, which would normally act as a viewfinder for the camera, may overlay on the live camera image information about the quality of the image and its suitability for OCR, which segments of text are being captured, and even a transcription of the text if the OCR can be performed on the phone.
[00295] In some embodiments, the phone is modified to add dedicated capture facilities, or to provide such functionality in a clip-on adaptor or a separate Bluetooth-connected peripheral in communication with the phone. Whatever the nature of the capture mechanism, the integration with a modern cellphone has manv other advantages. The phone has connectivity with the wider world, which means that queries can be submitted to remote search engines or other parts of the system, and copies of documents may be retrieved for immediate storage or viewing. A phone typically has sufficient processing power for many of the functions of the system to be performed locally, and sufficient storage to capture a reasonable amount of data. The amount of storage can also often be expanded by the user. Phones have reasonably good displays and audio facilities to provide user feedback, and often a vibrate function for tactile feedback. They also have good power supplies.
[00296] Most significantly of all, they are a device that most users are already carrying.
PART III - EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS OF THE SYSTEM
[00297] This section lists example uses of the system and applications that may be built on it. This list is intended to be purely illustrative and in no sense exhaustive.
16. Personal Applications
16.1. Life Library
[00298] The Life Library (see also Section 6.1.1) is a digital archive of any important documents that the subscriber wishes to save and is a set of embodiments of services of this system. Important books, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, etc., can all be saved in digital form in the Life Library. Additionally, the subscriber's annotations, comments, and notes can be saved with the documents. The Life Library can be accessed via the Internet and World Wide Web.
[00299] The system creates and manages the Life Library document archive for subscribers. The subscriber indicates which documents the subscriber wishes to have saved in his life library by scanning information from the document or by otherwise indicating to the system that the particular document is to be added to the subscriber's Life Library. The scanned information is typically text from the document but can also be a barcode or other code identifying the document. The system accepts the code and uses it to identify the source document. After the document is identified the system can store either a copy, of the document in the user's Life Library or a link to a source where the document may be obtained.
[00300] One embodiment of the Life Library system can check whether the subscriber is authorized to obtain the electronic copy. For example, if a reader scans text or an identifier from a copy of an article in the New York Times (NYT) so that the article will be added to the reader's Life Library, the Life Library system will verify with the NYT whether the reader is subscribed to the online version of the NYT; if so, the reader gets a copy of the article stored in his Life Library account; if not, information identifying the document and how to order it is stored in his Life Library account.
[00301] In some embodiments, the system maintains a subscriber profile for each subscriber that includes access privilege information. Document access information can be compiled in several ways, two of which are: 1 ) the subscriber supplies the document access information to the Life Library system, along with his account names and passwords, etc., or 2) the Life Library service provider queries the publisher with the subscriber's information and the publisher responds by providing access to an electronic copy if the Life Library subscriber is authorized to access the material. If the Life Library subscriber is not authorized to have an electronic copy of the document, the publisher provides a price to the Life Library service provider, which then provides the customer with the option to purchase the electronic document. If so, the Life Library service provider either pays the publisher directly and bills the Life Library customer later or the Life Library service provider immediately bills the customer's credit card for the purchase. The Life Library service provider would get a percentage of the purchase price or a small fixed fee for facilitating the transaction.
[00302] The system can archive the document in the subscriber's personal library and/or any other library to which the subscriber has archival privileges. For example, as a user scans text from a printed document, the Life Library system can identify the rendered document and its electronic counterpart. After the source document is identified, the Life Library system might record information about the source document in the user's personal library and in a group library to which the subscriber has archival privileges. Group libraries are collaborative archives such as a document repository for: a qrouo working togeth.er. n a project, a group of academic researchers, a group web log, etc.
[00303] The life library can be organized in many ways: chronologically, by topic, by level of the subscriber's interest, by type of publication (newspaper, book, magazine, technical paper, etc.), where read, when read, by ISBN or by Dewey decimal, etc. In one alternative, the system can learn classifications based on how other subscribers have classified the same document. The system can suggest classifications to the user or automatically classify the document for the user.
[00304] In various embodiments, annotations may be inserted directly into the document or may be maintained in a separate file. For example, when a subscriber scans text from a newspaper article, the article is archived in his Life Library with the scanned text highlighted. Alternatively, the article is archived in his Life Library along with an associated annotation file (thus leaving the archived document unmodified). Embodiments of the system can keep a copy of the source document in each subscriber's library, a copy in a master library that many subscribers can access, or link to a copy held by the publisher.
[00305] In some embodiments, the Life Library stores only the user's modifications to the document (e.g., highlights, etc.) and a link to an online version of the document (stored elsewhere). The system or the subscriber merges the changes with the document when the subscriber subsequently retrieves the document.
[00306] If the annotations are kept in a separate file, the source document and the annotation file are provided to the subscriber and the subscriber combines them to create a modified document. Alternatively, the system combines the two files prior to presenting them to the subscriber. In another alternative, the annotation file is an overlay to the document file and can be overlaid on the document by software in the subscriber's computer.
[00307] Subscribers to the Life Library service pay a monthly fee to have the system maintain the subscriber's archive. Alternatively, the subscriber pays a small amount (e.g., a micro-payment) for each document stored in the archive. Alternatively, the subscriber pays to access the subscriber's archive on a per-access fee. Alternatively, subscribers can compile libraries and allow others to access the materials/annotations on a revenue share model with 'tlie life Library service provider and copyright holders. Alternatively, the Life Library service provider receives a payment from the publisher when the Life Library subscriber orders a document (a revenue share model with the publisher, where the Life Library service provider gets a share of the publisher's revenue).
[00308] In some embodiments, the Life Library service provider acts as an intermediary between the subscriber and the copyright holder (or copyright holder's agent, such as the Copyright Clearance Center, a.k.a. CCC) to facilitate billing and payment for copyrighted materials. The Life Library service provider uses the subscriber's billing information and other user account information to provide this intermediation service. Essentially, the Life Library service provider leverages the pre-existing relationship with the subscriber to enable purchase of copyrighted materials on behalf of the subscriber.
[003O9] In some embodiments, the Life Library system can store excerpts from documents. For example, when a subscriber scans text from a paper document, the regions around the scanned text are excerpted and placed in the Life Library, rather than the entire document being archived in the life library. This is especially advantageous when the document is long because preserving the circumstances of the original scan prevents the subscriber from re-reading the document to find the interesting portions. Of course, a hyperlink to the entire electronic counterpart of the paper document can be included with the excerpt materials.
[00310] In some embodiments, the system also stores information about the document in the Life Library, such as author, publication title, publication date, publisher, copyright holder (or copyright holder's licensing agent), ISBN, links to public annotations of the document, readrank, etc. Some of this additional information about the document is a form of paper document metadata. Third parties may create public annotation files for access by persons other than themselves, such the general public. Linking to a third party's commentary on a document is advantageous because reading annotation files of other users enhances the subscriber's understanding of the document. XPO,^!], In, s^r .OT,b„pdiments, t e system archives materials by class. This feature allows a Life Library subscriber to quickly store electronic counterparts to an entire class of paper documents without access to each paper document. For example, when the subscriber scans some text from a copy of National Geographic magazine, the system provides the subscriber with the option to archive all back issues of the National Geographic. If the subscriber elects to archive all back issues, the Life Library service provider would then verify with the National Geographic Society whether the subscriber is authorized to do so. If not, the Life Library service provider can mediate the purchase of the right to archive the National Geographic magazine collection.
16.2. Life Saver
[00312] A variation on, or enhancement of, the Life Library concept is the "Life Saver," where the system uses the text captured by a user to deduce more about their other activities. The scanning of a menu from a particular restaurant, a program from a particular theater performance, a timetable at a particular railway station, or an article from a local newspaper allows the system to make deductions about the user's location and social activities, and could construct an automatic diary for them, for example as a website. The user would be able to edit and modify the diary, add additional materials such as photographs and, of course, look again at the items scanned.
17. Academic Applications
[00313] Portable scanners supported by the described system have many compelling uses in the academic setting. They can enhance student/teacher interaction and augment the learning experience. Among other uses, students can annotate study materials to suit their unique needs; teachers can monitor classroom performance; and teachers can automatically verify source materials cited in student assignments.
17.1. Children's books
[00314] A child's interaction with a paper document, such as a book, is monitored by a literacy acquisition system that employs a specific set of embodiments of this system. The child uses a portable scanner that communicates with other elements of the literacy acquisition system. In addition to the portable scanner, the literacy acquisition system includes a computer having a display and speakers, and a database accessible by the „porj p,μ,te , he. spanp,er $„„coupled with the computer (hardwired, short range RF, etc.). When the child sees an unknown word in the book, the child scans it with the scanner. In one embodiment, the literacy acquisition system compares the scanned text with the resources in its database to identify the word. The database includes a dictionary, thesaurus, and/or multimedia files (e.g., sound , graphics, etc.). After the word has been identified, the system uses the computer speakers to pronounce the word and its definition to the child. In another embodiment, the word and its definition are displayed by the literacy acquisition system on the computer's monitor. Multimedia files about the scanned word can also be played through the computer's monitor and speakers. For example, if a child reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" scanned the word "bear," the system might pronounce the word "bear" and play a short video about bears on the computer's monitor. In this way, the child learns to pronounce the written word and is visually taught what the word means via the multimedia presentation.
[00315] The literacy acquisition system provides immediate auditory and/or visual information to enhance the learning process. The child uses this supplementary information to quickly acquire a deeper understanding of the written material. The system can be used to teach beginning readers to read, to help child ren acquire a larger vocabulary, etc. This system provides the child with information about words with which the child is unfamiliar or about which the child wants more information.
17.2. Literacy acquisition
[00316] In some embodiments, the system compiles personal dictionaries. If the reader sees a word that is new, interesting, or particularly useful or troublesome, the reader saves it (along with its definition) to a computer file. This computer file becomes the reader's personalized dictionary. This dictionary is generally smaller in size than a general dictionary so can be downloaded to a mobile station or associated device and thus be available even when the system isn't immediately accessible. In some embodiments, the personal dictionary entries include audio files to assist with proper word pronunciation and information identifying the paper document from which the word was scanned.
[00317] In some embodiments, the system creates customized spelling and vocabulary tests for students. For example, as a student reads an assignment,,,,th,e,ιlstud,βrιi ,!O.ay scan unfamiliar words with the portable scanner. The system stores a list of all the words that the student has scanned. Later, the system administers a customized spelling/vocabulary test to the student on an associated monitor (or prints such a test on an associated printer).
17.3. Music teaching
[00318] The arrangement of notes on a musical staff is similar to the arrangement of letters in a line of text. The same scanning device discussed for capturing text in this system can be used to capture music notation, and an analogous process of constructing a search against databases of known musical pieces would allow the piece from which the capture occurred to be identified which can then be retrieved, played, or be the basis for some further action.
17.4. Detecting plagiarism
[00319] Teachers can use the system to detect plagiarism or to verify sources by scanning text from student papers and submitting the scanned text to the system. For example, a teacher who wishes to verify that a quote in a student paper came from the source that the student cited can scan a portion of the quote and compare the title of the document identified by the system with the title of the document cited by the student. Likewise, the system can use scans of text from assignments submitted as the student's original work to reveal if the text was instead copied.
17.5. Enhanced textbook
[00320] In some embodiments, capturing text from an academic textbook links students or staff to more detailed explanations, further exercises, student and staff discussions about the material, related example past exam questions, further reading on the subject, recordings of the lectures on the subject, and so forth. (See also Section 7.1.)
17.6. Language learning
[00321] In some embodiments, the system is used to teach foreign languages. Scanning a Spanish word, for example, might cause the word to be read aloud in Spanish along with its definition in English.
[00322] The system provides immediate auditory and/or visual information to enhance the new language acquisition process. The reader .uses this supplerπeptary information to acquire quickly a deeper understanding of the material. The system can be used to teach beginning students to read foreign languages, to help students acquire a larger vocabulary, etc. The system provides information about foreign words with which the reader is unfamiliar or for which the reader wants more information.
[00323] Reader interaction with a paper document, such as a newspaper or book, is monitored by a language skills system. The reader has a portable scanner that communicates with the language skills system. In some embodiments, the language skills system includes a computer having a display and speakers, and a database accessible by the computer. The scanner communicates with the computer (hardwired, short range RF, etc.). When the reader sees an unknown word in an article, the reader scans it with the scanner. The database includes a foreign language dictionary, thesaurus, and/or multimedia files (sound, graphics, etc.). In one embodiment, the system compares the scanned text with the resources in its database to identify the scanned word. After the word has been identified, the system uses the computer speakers to pronounce the word and its definition to the reader. In some embodiments, the word and its definition are both displayed on the computer's monitor. Multimedia files about grammar tips related to the scanned word can also be played through the computer's monitor and speakers. For example, if the words "to speak" are scanned, the system might pronounce the word "hablar," play a short audio clip that demonstrates the proper Spanish pronunciation, and display a complete list of the various conjugations of "hablar." In this way, the student learns to pronounce the written word, is visually taught the spelling of the word via the multimedia presentation, and learns how to conjugate the verb. The system can also present grammar tips about the proper usage of "hablar" along with common phrases.
[00324] In some embodiments, the user scans a word or short phrase from a rendered document in a language other than the user's native language (or some other language that the user knows reasonably well). In some embodiments, the system maintains a prioritized list of the user's "preferred" languages. The system identifies the electronic counterpart of the rendered document, and determines the location of the scan within the document. The system also identifies a second electronic counterpart of the document that has been translated into one of the user's preferred languages, and determines the location in the translated document corresponding to the location of the scan in the original document. When the corresponding location is not known precisely, the system identifies a small region (e.g., a paragraph) that includes the corresponding location of the scanned location. The corresponding translated location is then presented to the user. This provides the user with a precise translation of the particular usage at the scanned location, including any slang or other idiomatic usage that is often difficult to accurately translate on a word-by-word basis.
17.7. Gathering research materials
[00325] A user researching a particular topic may encounter all sorts of material, both in print and on screen, which they might wish to record as relevant to the topic in some personal archive. The system would enable this process to be automatic as a result of scanning a short phrase in any piece of material, and could also create a bibliography suitable for insertion into a publication on the subject.
18. Commercial Applications
[00326] Obviously, commercial activities could be made out of almost any process discussed in this document, but here we concentrate on a few obvious revenue streams.
18.1. Fee-based searching and indexing
[00327] Conventional Internet search engines typically provide free search of electronic documents, and also make no charge to the content providers for including their content in the index. In some embodiments, the system provides for charges to users and/or payments to search engines and/or content providers in connection with the operation and use of the system.
[00328] In some embodiments, subscribers to the system's services pay a fee for searches originating from scans of paper documents. For example, a stockbroker may be reading a Wall Street Journal article about a new product offered by Company X. By scanning the Company X name from the paper document and agreeing to pay the necessary fees, the stockbroker uses the system to search special or proprietary databases to obtain premium information about the company, such as analyst's reports. The system can also make arrangements to have priority indexing of the documents most likely to be read in paper form, for example by making sure all of the newspapers published on a particular day are indexed and available by the time they hit the streets.
[00329] Content providers may pay a fee to be associated with certain terms in search queries submitted from paper documents. For example, in one embodiment, the system chooses a most preferred content provider based on additional context about the provider (the context being, in this case, that the content provider has paid a fee to be moved up the results list). In essence, the search provider is adjusting paper document search results based on pre-existing financial arrangements with a content provider. See also the description of keywords and key phrases in Section 5.2.
[00330] Where access to particular content is to be restricted to certain groups of people (such as clients or employees), such content may be protected by a firewall and thus not generally indexable by third parties. The content provider may nonetheless wish to provide an index to the protected content. In such a case, the content provider can pay a service provider to provide the content provider's index to system subscribers. For example, a law firm may index all of a client's documents. The documents are stored behind the law firm's firewall. However, the law firm wants its employees and the client to have access to the documents through the portable scanner so it provides the index (or a pointer to the index) to the service provider, which in turn searches the law firm's index when employees or clients of the law firm submit paper-scanned search terms via their portable scanners. The law firm can provide a list of employees and/or clients to the service provider's system to enable this function or the system can verify access rights by querying the law firm prior to searching the law firm's index. Note that in the preceding example, the index provided by the law firm is only of that client's documents, not an index of all documents at the law firm. Thus, the service provider can only grant the law firm's clients access to the documents that the law firm indexed for the client.
[00331] There are at least two separate revenue streams that can result from searches originating from paper documents: one revenue stream from the search function, and another from the content delivery function. The search function revenue can be generated from paid subscriptions from the scanner users,, .put, „c,ajχ ajso be generated on a per-search charge. The content delivery revenue can be shared with the content provider or copyright holder (the service provider can take a percentage of the sale or a fixed fee, such as a micropayment, for each delivery), but also can be generated by a "referral" model in which the system gets a fee or percentage for every item that the subscriber orders from the online catalog and that the system has delivered or contributed to, regardless of whether the service provider intermediates the transaction. In some embodiments, the system service provider receives revenue for all purchases that the subscriber made from the content provider, either for some predetermined period of time or at any subsequent time when a purchase of an identified product is made.
18.2. Catalogs
[00332] Consumers may use the portable scanner to make purchases from paper catalogs. The subscriber scans information from the catalog that identifies the catalog. This information is text from the catalog, a bar code, or another identifier of the catalog. The subscriber scans information identifying the products that s/he wishes to purchase. The catalog mailing label may contain a customer identification number that identifies the customer to the catalog vendor. If so, the subscriber can also scan this customer identification number. The system acts as an intermediary between the subscriber and the vendor to facilitate the catalog purchase by providing the customer's selection and customer identification number to the vendor.
18.3. Coupons
[00333] A consumer scans paper coupons and saves an electronic copy of the coupon in the scanner, or in a remote device such as a computer, for later retrieval and use. An advantage of electronic storage is that the consumer is freed from the burden of carrying paper coupons. A further advantage is that the electronic coupons may be retrieved from any location. In some embodiments, the system can track coupon expiration dates, alert the consumer about coupons that will expire soon, and/or delete expired coupons from storage. An advantage for the issuer of the coupons is the possibility of receiving more feedback about who is using the coupons and when and where they are captured and used.
Figure imgf000075_0001
19.1. Forms
[00334] The system may be used to auto-populate an electronic document that corresponds to a paper form. A user scans in some text or a barcode that uniquely identifies the paper form. The scanner communicates the identity of the form and information identifying the user to a nearby computer. The nearby computer has an Internet connection. The nearby computer can access a first database of forms and a second database having information about the user of the scanner (such as a service provider's subscriber information database). The nearby computer accesses an electronic version of the paper form from the first database and auto- populates the fields of the form from the user's information obtained from the second database. The nearby computer then emails the completed form to the intended recipient. Alternatively, the computer could print the completed form on a nearby printer.
[00335] Rather than access an external database, in some embodiments, the system has a portable scanner that contains the user's information, such as in an identity module, SIM, or security card. The scanner provides information identifying the form to the nearby PC. The nearby PC accesses the electronic form and queries the scanner for any necessary information to fill out the form.
19.2. Business Cards
[00336] The system can be used to automatically populate electronic address books or other contact lists from paper documents. For example, upon receiving a new acquaintance's business card, a user can capture an image of the card with his/her cellular phone. The system will locate an electronic copy of the card, which can be used to update the cellular phone's onboard address book with the new acquaintance's contact information. The electronic copy may contain more information about the new acquaintance than can be squeezed onto a business card. Further, the onboard address book may also store a link to the electronic copy such that any changes to the electronic copy will be automatically updated in the cell phone's address book. In this example, the business card optionally includes a symbol or text that indicates the existence of an electronic copy. If no electronic copy exists, the cellular,, phppe,, can,, „use„ „OCR and knowledge of standard business card formats to fill out an entry in the address book for the new acquaintance. Symbols may also aid in the process of extracting information directly from the image. For example, a phone icon next to the phone number on the business card can be recognized to determine the location of the phone number.
19.3. Proofreading/Editing
[00337] The system can enhance the proofreading and editing process.
One way the system can enhance the editing process is by linking the editor's interactions with a paper document to its electronic counterpart. As an editor reads a paper document and scans various parts of the document, the system will make the appropriate annotations or edits to an electronic counterpart of the paper document. For example, if the editor scans a portion of text and makes the "new paragraph" control gesture with the scanner, a computer in communication with the scanner would insert a "new paragraph" break at the location of the scanned text in the electronic copy of the document.
19.4. Voice Annotation
[00338] A user can make voice annotations to a document by scanning a portion of text from the document and then making a voice recording that is associated with the scanned text. In some embodiments, the scanner has a microphone to record the user's verbal annotations. After the verbal annotations are recorded, the system identifies the document from which the text was scanned, locates the scanned text within the document, and attaches the voice annotation at that point. In some embodiments, the system converts the speech to text and attaches the annotation as a textual comment.
[00339] In some embodiments, the system keeps annotations separate from the document, with only a reference to the annotation kept with the document. The annotations then become an annotation markup layer to the document for a specific subscriber or group of users.
[00340] In some embodiments, for each capture and associated annotation, the system identifies the document, opens it using a software package, scrolls to the location of the scan and plays the voice annotation. The user can then interact with a document while referring to voice annotations, suggested changes or other comments recorded either by themselves or by somebody else. 19-5. Help In Text
[OO ϊf The described system can be used to enhance paper documents with electronic help menus. In some embodiments, a markup layer associated with a paper document contains help menu information for the document. For example, when a user scans text from a certain portion of the document, the system checks the markup associated with the document and presents a help menu to the user. The help menu is presented on a display on the scanner or on an associated nearby display.
19.6. Use with displays
[00342] In some situations, it is advantageous to be able to scan information from a television, computer monitor, or other similar display. In some embodiments, the portable scanner is used to scan information from computer monitors and televisions. In some embodiments, the portable optical scanner has an illumination sensor that is optimized to work with traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) display techniques such as rasterizing, screen blanking, etc.
[00343] A voice capture device which operates by capturing audio of the user reading text from a document will typically work regardless of whether that document is on paper, on a display, or on some other medium.
19.6.1. Public Kiosks and Dynamic Session IDs
[00344] One use of the direct scanning of displays is the association of devices as described in Section 15.6. For example, in some embodiments, a public kiosk displays a dynamic session ID on its monitor. The kiosk is connected to a communication network such as the Internet or a corporate intranet. The session ID changes periodically but at least every time that the kiosk is used so that a new session ID is displayed to every user. To use the kiosk, the subscriber scans in the session ID displayed on the kiosk; by scanning the session ID, the user tells the system that he wishes to temporarily associate the kiosk with his scanner for the delivery of content resulting from scans of printed documents or from the kiosk screen itself. The scanner may communicate the Session ID and other information authenticating the scanner (such as a serial number, account number, or other identifying information) directly to the system. For example, the scanner can communicate directly (where "directly" means without passing the messaqe through the kiosk) with the system by sending the session initiation message through the user's cell phone (which is paired with the user's scanner via Bluetooth™). Alternatively, the scanner can establish a wireless link with the kiosk and use the kiosk's communication link by transferring the session initiation information to the kiosk (perhaps via short range RF such as Bluetooth™, etc.); in response, the kiosk sends the session initiation information to the system via its Internet connection.
[00345] The system can prevent others from using a device that is already associated with a scanner during the period (or session) in which the device is associated with the scanner. This feature is useful to prevent others from u sing a public kiosk before another person's session has ended. As an example of this concept related to use of a computer at an Internet cafe, the user scans a barcode on a monitor of a PC which s/he desires to use; in response, the system sends a session ID to the monitor that it displays; the user initiates the session by scanning the session ID from the monitor (or entering it via a keypad or touch screen or microphone on the portable scanner); and the system associates in its databases the session ID with the serial number (or other identifier that uniquely identifies the user's scanner) of his/her scanner so another scanner cannot scan the session ID and use the monitor during his/her session. The scanner is in communication (through wireless link such as Bluetooth™, a hardwired link such as a docking station, etc.) with a PC associated with the monitor or is in direct (i.e., w/o going through the PC) communication with the system via another means such as a cellular phone, etc.
PART IV - SYSTEM DETAILS IVlarkup and Paper Commerce
[0001] A menu 412 of available actions/options associated with a document, and/or portion thereof, is provided on a display 406. The display 406 may be part of the scanner 404, or provided by an associated device. The menu 412 may be associated with a specific point and/or area 409 of a document 402. The menu 412 may also be responsive to context such that its content varies (in other words, is not static), depending on a variety of factors. [0002] The markup 411 includes a mapping from the document and/or portions thereof to the menu items. The markup 41 1 may vary, at least in part, according to the. -ιseςapd,„scanning context. The markup 411 , or portions thereof, may apply to several or all areas of the document. [0003] An example of markup information would be the following "If an item is referenced in the document portion (such as 409) associated with this markup or within some s ecified logical distance (such as number of sentences or physical placement on paper) for which our system knows of a selling opportunity, present the selling opportunity as an item of the menu 412." For example, scanning text in a magazine near an advertisement for WXY Florist could bring up a menu which included the option, "Order WXY Flowers Now." [0004] Contents of menus 412 may be based, at least in part, on attributes of the user and/or attributes of a demographic to which the user belongs. Contents of menu 412 may be based on prior individual or group behaviors. A simple example would be a user who it is determined to be re-reading a passage they are known to have read earlier, and whom provided annotations to that passage (e.g. voice notes, or written or electronic markings). A menu item which might be generated for a re-reading of a portion of content 409 might include "See earlier markings".
[0005] In some embodiments, menus may be presented audibly. In the prior example of re-reading, the menu item provided might include an item such as "Listen to earlier voice annotations". Items may be presented audibly in addition to presentation on a display. Items presented audibly may vary somewhat from items presented on a display, due to differences in the medium.
[0006] Menu ite s 412 may vary, at least in part, according to scan context, such as the location of the user, the date, and/or the time of day. The document portion 409, date, and user characteristics, and/or many other possible influenci ng factors, may be combined in determining contents of menus. An advertiser might, for instance, purchase the right to appear in a menu between April 1st and April 15th for text scanned from pages 3 through 17 of a magazine , when the user has recorded purchases of $50 or more in the last 30 days.
[0007] Markup instructions 411 and/or other factors may also determine the position of items in the menu, e.g. what appears at or near the top of the menu. Markup instructions 411 and/or other factors may determine which item or items are default selections for a menu, or which are highlighted or made special in some other way. χoqθ8] ,|,"P- pm,m,er,c,β"j§,,,fi,pancial activity based on electronic or dynamic interactions with paper (or otherwise rendered) documents. A special symbol may be provided in a rendered document, representing that a P-commerce activity (generally a purchase) is available. Scanning such a mark may indicate a decision to make the purchase. Scanning something multiple times may indicate multiple purchases. Scanning in the opposite direction (right to left) may undo a purchase selection. Orders may be confirmed via an associated display, via phone, or via email.
[0009] One way help insure that the user actually intended to make the purchase is to have a separate action which the user performs to complete the purchase. This action might be, for example, to operate a control on the scanning device 404, speak a certain word or phrase, or to scan a special symbol or phrase printed in the document (for example, a statement like "I agree to purchase").
[0010] In many cases the content presented in a rendered document will be supplemented by additional material. In some cases this additional material will be "premium content," i.e., it will only be available for an additional charge, or to customers who have the proper privileges and access - generally by maintaining a special account/relationship with the content vendor or service provider. The availability of premium content can be indicated by one or more special symbols or marks - which might further be specific as to the type of content, its cost, etc. Setting User Location and Associated Displays [0011] In some embodiments of the system, information about the location of the user is determined and maintained. This may be useful, for example, when the user has access to a display device 504 (for example via a kiosk 502) and wants content delivered there.
[0012] A label or other scanner-readable indicator 506 maybe available to the user. A scanner 404 may scan the label 506. The indicator 506 may enable identification of the specific display device 504 and/or other environmental or context information. In some embodiments, scanning the indicator 506 may enable identification of the user's location. In some embodiments, the indicator 506 may be unique to a particular device 502 and/or display device 504.
[0013] The identifying label 508 may be uniquely generated and displayed on the display device 504. The generated label 508 may contain information about the devige„„5Q,2,„aQ.d/.Q,r display 504, and/or other information such as a session identification (e.g. browser session id).
[0014] Generally, only the user physically at the display device 504 may be able to scan the generated label 508, so some level of security is thus provided.
[0015] User information 514 including location/associated device information for the scan may be retained by the system for use in other contexts. [0016] The user may identify themself to the system by scanning a special code or mark 512 which maybe printed on a card 510 and carried in the user's wallet. If the coded information on the carcJ 510 is not easily duplicated or copied, a level of trusted authentication may be achieved. For example, in some embodiments, the card 510 may contain logic. For example, the card 510 may be a "smart card". In some embodiments, such as when the card 510 comprises logic, the information on the card may vary over time. Context and Resolving Ambiguity [0017] Short fragments of scanned text which are potentially ambiguous. A short phrase may occur in multiple documents, and at multiple locations within a document. Errors introduced in the capture process have larger impact when only a small amount of material is ca ptured. [0018] When information from the scanning process is combined with additional information within the described system, errors may be reduced. An example of using additional information cornes from the field of speech recognition. Taken out of context, arbitrary spoken phrases are extremely difficult to decipher with high accuracy. However, by restricting the context and/or limiting the vocabulary, remarkable accuracy may be achieved. Recently directory assistance and other phone services have been offered where the user accesses the system purely by voice input. What makes this possible is the restricted domain of a limited, known vocabulary. For example, when calling 1-800 information in the US, the system may determine the user's request with great accuracy. This is done by limiting the possible interpretations of the speech to the names of companies having 1-800 numbers, and by further prioritizing the results according to popularity (which equates to probability).
[0019] Another example of a similar process comes from text input on mobile phones. A technology called T-9 allows use rs to input text from the mobile phone keypad with just one key-press per letter - even though each key-press is„qgit .ambig ous,, (,bq,cause each key repres nts 3 or 4 different letters). The trick in the T-9 system is reference to an internal dictionary of possible words, including the relative frequencies (probability) of each word. Although multiple words may match a particular key sequence in T-9, usually one of these words is by far the most probable choice.
[0020] By accessing information in addition to ttiat contained within a capture, a previously ambiguous document capture, or one with error(s), can be resolved into a better or acceptable document signature that identifies the document from which the capture was made, a nd optionally the location of the capture within that document. One source of additional information is an index or archive of information about the digital counterparts (or "source" documents) corresponding to rendered documents, generally including the one being scanned. Thus information that is un certain or even partially incorrect is made useful by reference to the potential source document. As illustrated in Figure 4, a scanner 404 scans information off of a rendered document 402. The document 402 may be rendered in print or electronically. OCR 604 may optionally be applied to form a document signature 602. In some embodiments, the signature formation process does not encompass full OCR. It may encompass any method of developing a document signature, such as determining offset-based signatures from fragments of text, tokenization, template matching, and other techniques described here or known in the field of document imaging and retrieval. [0021] The document signature generated 602 may be incomplete, partially resolved, or comprise ambiguities and/or error(s). The document signature 602 may be used to locate candidate electronic documents 606-608, one or more of which may correspond to the rendered document. The candidate documents 606-608 are applied to the signature generation process 604 to further resolve the document signature 602. The analysis performed may extract information from the candidate documents 606-608, such as dictionaries, font information, language and other context data, and use this additional information to develop a better document signature 602. In some embodiments, the additional information may comprise a dictionary of words or phrases limited to the candidate documents S06-608. The improved document signature 602 may in turn refine and resolve the candidate document set. In some cases, the resolved (disambiguated) search results may comprise, idqntifj cation of one actual document from the original candidate document set 606-608. Capture Device Embodiments [0022] Figure 7 is an embodiment illustrating elements of a scanner 404. The scanner may be part of a more general purpose device, e.g . a cell phone (for example making use of some of the existing components fo r phone-based cameras and audio components), or it may be a stand alone device. Stand alone devices may employ Bluetooth or other short range wireless communications to communicate to and from a server or host device or network in real time. One means for accomplishing this is for the scanning device to automatically detect and communicate with a user's mobile phone when the user is traveling, and to their desktop or laptop computer when these are available. The specific connection employed optionally provides information about user context; this information is in turn used to interpret captures, determine appropriate menu presentations to the user, etc. In some embodiments this context data is associated with and recorded for individual captures or groups of captures that occurred in that context. [0023] The capture device may be built into a small device which communicates via USB. This has the advantage that the power source may be recharged whenever the capture device is plugged into tine USB communications port.
[0024] The scan element 712 may be moved across an image comprising printed or otherwise rendered data (not shown), capturing pixels. The slice detector 714 signals that a slice of the data has been captured. The data slice is provided to the latch bank 704. The latch bank 704, using a memory clock 703, clocks the slice into memory 706. The result is stored image fragment 708. Additional image fragments 709 710 may also stored in memory 706. [0025] In many cases the user may benefit from direct and immediate feedback from the scanning device. This feedback might include signals that the scan is likely to be satisfactory and may be completed. The scanner may determine that a large enough quantity of text or data has been scanned or that the pattern of scan slices is likely to produce unique and thus satisfactory results for future processing. Alternatively, the scanner may determine (or receive information confirming) that the document was located, that the data captured is unique or ambiguous (optionally including number of candidate matches), etc. Logic 720 monitors scanned data and signals using LED 716 or tone, ,ge,neratρr,,,7 ,8, ,W.hen sufficient data has been captured to identify the document, e.g. to form a unique or likely-unique signature for the document. Similarly, the logic 720 may use the LED 716 or tone generator 718 to indicate to the user that the scan has or may likely produce ambiguous or unsatisfactory results.
[0026] In some embodiments the capture device includes an additional visual signal (e.g., LED similar to 716, or different color displayed by LED 716) or auditory signal (e.g., via tone generator 718) to indicate that the location of a capture within the document is recognized/known by the capture device or by the system. Thus in some embodiments the capture device indicates separately that the document is known/recognized and that the capture location within the document is known/recognized. [0027] In some embodiments the scanner 404 processes captured data in real-time, e.g. as it is received from the optical or acoustic sensors in the device. Thus the initial data from a capture may be used to query for matching documents and/or locations within a document, even while the scan is still in progress. Such queries can be transmitted to a search engine or index associated with other elements of the system, or, in some embodiments, they may be handled by a document index and/or other data stored on the scanner 404. The logic 720 may report to a user that the scan is complete because the associated source document has been found or the capture location within a document has been recognized. In some embodiments this indication is by means of LED 716 and/or tone generator 718.
[0028] In some embodiments, the scanner may also work in an "off-line" mode. Fragments 708-710 can be stored in the scanner memory 706 until the scanner 404 or device comprising the scanner 404 is connected to a PC , wireless or Ethernet network, cellular network, etc. [0029] In some instances it may be desirable or necessary for the capture device to capture raw image data, postponing the actual signature processing for a later time. In some embodiments the scanning device 404 includes flash memory 706 to store images from an optical sensor 712. In some embodiments the data from the sensor 712 may clock itself into the flash memory - that is, transitions/changes in the image data received by the sensor may be logically combined such that when any pixel (or a minimii m number of pixels,) .p aηgβ.state, a clock signal is generated by 714 as a line or slice of the image is captured.
[0030] If this self-clocking is further enhanced by a time source 703 (e.g., a crystal oscillator), the actual time of each clock pulse may be captured as well. Assuming the scan device 404 is moved smoothly across the document, the real-time clock data may be used to adjust for the rather uncertain clocking that comes from image/pixel transitions. The clock data can be used in image reconstruction by assuming approximately constant velocity of the optical scanner, and therefore spacing data slices according to the elapsed time between them.
[0031] It is also possible to combine the pixel clocking and the real time clock using ordinary digital logic (e.g. one or more latches or flip-flops 704) so that image/pixel transitions gate the clock signal from the real time clock 703. The result is that data is collected at regular intervals when there are transitions occurring at the input, but the device is idle otherwise. [0032] One advantage to capturing and storing image data is that the capture device doesn't necessarily need to be able to process and interpret the data. Another advantage occurs if the document from which a capture is taken is not indexed, or errors prevent it from being located. In these cases the stored image of the text may be retrieved and presented to the user for manual recognition and/or action. In some embodiments searches for the relevant content may be continued over time (e.g., automatically at fixed intervals by a service provider in the described system); when and if the document becomes available, the user can be notified. Similar notifications may be sent to users when documents change (i.e., those documents from which the users have made captures).
[0033] When the user is using the described system away from their home and/or office, a wireless connection to the index and/or other services of the described system may be useful. Scan data may be sent to a server in the described system, and feedback may be returned to the user. One means for accomplishing this is via SMS messages, or other well-know wireless messaging techniques. Anonymous Services and Billing [0034] Figure 8 may be a block diagram of a document interaction system. A scanner 404 performs a scan of an area of a rendered document 402. The scanned information may be shown as flowing to a billing function 808, an pp io aJ..anon,yn(pi-iip§;:fMniRJ:ion 807 which precedes a search function 813, and a function which incorporates user information 811 and associated demographics 810 (in some embodiments, this includes or communicates with the user's Life Library), to provide user targeted features in addition to document retrieval. It may be appreciated that there may be many information flows and process flows between the elements illustrated in the system. The arrows presented in the diagram do not imply direct flow of information. Additionally, some system elements of the described system may not be shown n Figure 8, but information may flow between them and the elements shown.
[0035] In some embodiments, users of the described system may be assured privacy and security for their personal data. The anonymizer 807 may strip out internet protocol (IP), and other address info and personal information as required. Use of the anonymizer can insure that personal or identifying information not necessary to perform a particular function is withheld. In some embodiments searches, index queries, etc. are performed without access to the user's actual identity to insure privacy. In some embodiments the systems described may be published for "public audit" to insure that user privacy is being maintained.
[0036] The billing system 808 may be presented information by the various other system functions. Such information may include information about which documents were the subject of the searches (the search came from magazine X).
[0037] Credit and debit transactions may also be performed using the capture device 404. In many cases the user of the capture device 404 may maintain an account with the a scan service provider in the described system - that may optionally provide searching services, document retrievals, document archiving, copyright purchases, etc. The financial and accounting arrangements for this relationship may also be used to support P-commerce purchases. The customer may have their credit card on file with the service provider or vendor, or, in some embodiments, the vendor itself offers credit for the customer's transactions. In other embodiments, the billing function 808 may retain user credit card other financial information. In yet other embodiments, billing may be provided by an Internet service or by a telephone company. In some embodiments, the scan device itself may contain "stored value". Pppu me Ranking
[0038] The index/search function 813 retrieves data (including, optionally, markup data) related to one or more electronic documents 802-804 from the network, or from the content repository 805 or other archive. In some embodiments the described system rates or ranks or determines the importance of a document or portion of a document by tracking and analyzing data associated with captures. Factors considered include how long users spend reading the documents and the order in which documents, or parts of documents, are read (for example which articles on the front page of a newspaper are read first, whether users bother to turn to the continuation of the article, etc.). Additional factors considered can include how many marks and other actions (e.g., underlining, highlighting, bookmarking, annotating, forwarding, following URLS) are made by users, the types and content of marks, the demographics of the users who are marking or taking other actions, etc.
[0039] Information about the user, such as their profile, previous scanning history, etc., is used in some embodiments to determine the relative importance (and, optionally, the order of presentation) of candidate documents returned by capture-related queries.
[0040] Some embodiments of the described system can provide information about which print documents are most widely read, which documents are getting the most attention (e.g., measured by the amount of highlighting, underlining, link-following, annotating, commercial transactions, information requests, forwarding, etc). In some embodiments publishers receive realtime, accurate data about how their publications are being read. Advertisers can accurately determine whether potential customers are paying attention to the material near to (or in) their advertisements. In some embodiments, advertisers can dynamically interact with customers who are reading printed ads - for example, by having items appear in menus associated with captures, by deriving purchase transactions from captures made in rendered documents, by allowing customers to ask for additional information related to printed advertisements, etc.)
[0041] User actions with respect to the system embodied, including user scanning behavior (e.g., what does a user show interest in by scanning) may be recorded in user data 811. Similar information may be aggregated for users having at least one common characteristic (such as race, age range, educatipnfl ncotine.i! ye,b. @pographic area, etc.) by demographics 810. The user data and demographic data, along with the scan information, may be used, among other things, to select targeted ads from ad server 812. In some embodiments, marketing and promotional materials are delivered (e.g., via email or web browser) to users based on their past capture activities. For example, the group comprised of all users who captured material from automotive magazines might receive an announcement when Ford Motor Corporation announces its new models. Marketing Based on Capture Data [0042] It has been observed that when advertising is sufficiently focused, it becomes interesting content. A user read with interest the advertising Amazon.com because those Amazon.com maintains enough knowledge about the user's reading, musical interest or purchasing habits and interests to make truly interesting and valuable recommendations. The described system allows this kind of valuable, highly-targeted communications between buyers and sellers, advertisers and customers - but base on users' interactions with rendered documents. Social Networking [0043] In some embodiments the described system and data is used to help people locate others who have similar interests. The user data 81 1 , demographics 810, and scan information may be used to match the user with other users of similar interests, using the matching service 809. The data stream from the capture device (the scan information) may be rich in indicators about personal interests, behaviors, etc. If sufficient safeguards are deployed to insure privacy, this data may be used for the benefit of the capture device user. For example, the capture device user might choose to publish or expose certain aspects of their data (for example, what books and magazines they like to read, what they purchase) to others. In some embodiments users publish capture-related data, for example excerpts from rendered documents, to their web logs. In some embodiments, a provider of the described services connects two parties who have similar interests, without exposing any personal data to either party, by using statistical and data analysis techniques to identify people having certain attributes. Digital Rights Management [0044] In some embodiments, a Digital Rights Management (DRM) 806 feature of the described system involves manages digital rights for both content/copyright owners and for capture device 402 users. For example, if the capture device 402 user bookmarks and highlights items in a web based document, they might want to be informed if that document has been or may be about to be removed from the owner's web site. Capture Properties and States [0045] Figure 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a system whereby a user may set properties to associate with a scan. Properties may comprise annotations, e.g associate highlighting, underline, bold, italics, etc with this scanned information Other types of properties may define actions to take on the scanned info, e g shipping address for purchases, credit card information for purchases, user email address, etc
[0046] Some properties, such as highlighting, may physically manifest For example, setting blue highlighting may cause a blue LED to come on and make text being scanned look blue Optical elements 905 may be used to physically manifest scan properties (for example, red, green and blue colored LED illumination).
[0047] Property settings 907 are stored in scanner memory 706, and/or in associated device 910, or in the other system components or network. In some embodiments, when scan info is sent to associated device 910 or network for processing, the properties 922 associated with the scan image information 913 are attached (associated) thereto. Optionally these properties may be retrieved from storage not located on the scanner. [0048] Some properties may manifest themselves at the time the document (e g., from which a capture is made) is processed and/or displayed. For example, a property indicating "make the scanned text bold" may manifest itself in the displayed document as a block of bold text, where the original scanned text was not bold.
[0049] Scan properties may be set using scanner controls 906, from associated device 910, or via profile loaded from the network or other system components.
[0050] Capture devices such as 404 may optionally have the ability to physically write and mark For example, a capture device might have a retractable tip - when extended, this tip dispenses ink or highlighter to physically mark the same text that is being scanned.
[0051] The capture device 404 may be capable of entering into several states, of providing the user with varying types of feedback and other data, and of yaryinιg„b,ehaviors depending on the user's context, the material being scanned, etc.
[0052] In some embodiments any abstract property or collection of properties ight be set. For example, the user might wish to highlight in yellow, and also underline in blue, and also associate each marked passage with the category "Points of Interest", and also associate the action "forward to my email account" - all of these properties being chosen by the user and associated with the passages being scanned.
[0O53] The state of the capture device 404 may be set by local input means (switches, buttons, rotation of part of the body of the device, etc.), but in some embodiments it may also be possible to set these and other attributes and parameters via an interactive user interface, for example via a web-based user account accessed via a standard browser on the associated device display 909 or elsewhere.
[0O54] The capture device 404 communicates using a communications interface 716 from time to time with the digital world. This connection might be to the user's PDA, mobile phone, desktop computer, wireless network, etc. The connection might be a physical wire, or a wireless (e.g., Bluetooth or 802.1 1 ), or the capture device 404 might be "docked" from time to time by plugging it directly into a USB port, or dropping it into a custom cradle. In either of these last circumstances, in some embodiments, the capture device 404 may be recharged at the same time it is uploading or downloading data. [0O55] The current state of the capture device 404 may be indicated in various ways. For example, LEDs or a liquid crystal display on the capture device 404 itself may show the color of the current highlighting, whether the phrase being scanned is recognized (and, if so, whether it is unique). Auditory signals may also perform this function - for example, one tone might be emitted to tell the user that they have scanned enough text to have a high probability of uniqueness (using an internal algorithm based on word lengths, number of characters, etc.), and another tone might be emitted to indicate that the phrase scanned was actually found in the corpus index (or collection of corpora and/or indices being searched).
[0O56] In one embodiment the capture device 404 uses optical elements near its tip to scan information in documents. Some embodiments provide additional local illumination (beyond what ambient light might be available) to assist the photo sensors. [0,0,5/1 iΛsαm -emta J' e ts this illumination, or other illumination also directed towards the document surface, may also serve as a visual feedback means for the user. The illumination on the surface may indicate by its extent what region of the document is being scanned (e.g., by how wide the illuminated region is). The color of this illumination may also be used to convey information, for example about ambiguity/uniqueness, state of the device, virtual underlining or highlighting ink color, etc. In this way the capture device communicates with the user by providing visual data and feedback at the user's point of gaze in the document, rather than require the user to pay attention to the capture device itself.
[0058] When a capture device 404 is connected to a host machine or network it may upload and download information and data about documents scanned. However, it may also upload and/or download (send and/or receive) additional data, such as user preferences, the device state, etc. [0059] Recently used content, or content determined to be of likely interest, may be moved off the network and to some local cache 914 of associated device, or even onto the scanner 404. For example, when a user scans from one page of a magazine, an electronic version of that page, and all other pages of magazine, may be copied by the described system to a local cache near the user, because it's likely there will soon be scanning from other pages of same magazine. The local cache reduces latency, minimizes communication bandwidth and associated charges, etc. [0060] In some embodiments a cache of index/document data that might assist the capture device 404 in scanning is kept on or near to the capture device 404. In many cases the digital version of the document currently being scanned, as well as the document index (if it exists), and associated markup data, resides on a host machine far from the user. To know whether information scanned in a document is matched, and, further, whether this information is unique, and what actions to take in response to a capture, it may be necessary to query the remote data repository. This query may require time and resources. Thus, once the described system has enough information to identify which document (or group of documents) a user is likely scanning; a copy of the document and/or its index may be moved closer to the user's location. For example it may be moved to the user's corporate server, to their local desktop or laptop computer, to their PDA or mobile phone, or even downloaded directly onto the capture device. In this way latency and ne,twpπk r,affic are..rainimized - and the user's capture device may respond to the user even when a connection to the original document/index store is not available. Supplemental Publishing [0061] Figure 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a system where document information is enhanced by material and capabilities provided in addition to the document. Some or all of the additional material and features may be provided by organizations distinct from the publisher 1003. [0062] In some cases a user may acquire documents with accompanying digital representations appropriate for use with the described system. An example might be a college textbook, with the digital version on a CD-ROM included with the book. Or the digital version might be purchased separately by the user. One may view this additional; digital information as supplemental data, which allows the described system to be used. The data provided might comprise the text of the document (including, perhaps, formatting); indices which assist in the searching process - e.g., word or offset-based indices; the table of contents, index, etc; and/or further supplemental data not appearing in the rendered version of the document, such as additional material about various topics, help screens, a bibliography, a glossary, special commercial offers to the user.
[0063] In some embodiments the supplemental materials provided for a document may not come from the document's publisher. In many cases these additional materials add to the utility and value of a document, without infringing on the rights of the document owner or copyright holder. Thus, a third party might develop a rich supplemental environment for a particular work (for example, materials for the new or old Testament), and provide these materials to the user separately from the original document. [0064] By this means a third party may provide added value to a published document, and may in some cases be compensated by the user for this service. In some embodiments, the supplemental materials might be independently copyrighted or otherwise protected. [0065] The scan device 404 scans all or a portion of a rendered document 402. The document content 1002 was published by content publisher 1003. A markup 1004 for this document 402 1002 has been created by some person or organization, and is made available by the markup provider 1005. Based at least in part on the markup 1004, additional information and/or other services such as P-Comme-rce ..transactions may be made available to the user performing the scan.
[0066] Besides providing auxiliary content, the services provided may include highlighting, attachment of notes to the document, shopping opportunities, forwarding the document or a portion thereof in e-mail to others, and so on. All such actions may be taken with consideration of any document DRM requirements. The scan service provider (not illustrated), markup provider 1005 and/or additional service providers 1007 may, in some embodiments, be separate unrelated organizations from the content provider. Any combination thereof or all such organizations may have compensation relationships with each other as appropriate. Capture Data and Signatures [0067] Data captured by the capture device may be in the form of an image of the optically-scanned region of the document. From this image data the system may extract features (such as character offsets, word shape and length, etc) which can then be used to establish the context (which document) and location (point in document). The image data may be saved, even after features have been extracted. Some embodiments provide this image data to the user - for example, when no matching document can be found. [0068] In Figure 1 1 one embodiment of this process is shown. At 1102 an image is captured from a rendered document. In some embodiments this is an audio capture of a user's voice reading text or other data from the document - e.g., it is an audio "image" of the user's voice. At 1104 the image is optionally stored for subsequent retrieval and/or subsequent processing. In some embodiments data compression is applied at 1104 to reduce the size of the stored data.
[0069] At 1 106 one or more signatures are determined from the captured image. In some embodiments a signature is the result of performing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the image of the document. In some embodiments a signature is the result of template matching - finding symbols which repeat in the image and recording their order and/or relative position. [0070] At 1108 a query is formed from the signature(s) of 1106 and a search for matching material is undertaken. In some embodiments the query is formed by putting ASCII text which resulted from an OCR process into quotes and submitting this "exact phrase" query to a conventional search engine. In some embodiments.the.formed query comprises or includes the relative position of repeated symbols within some or all of the image.
[0071] At 1 108 the search identifies zero or more documents matching the submitted query.
[0072] At 1 110 the matching location of the query within the document(s) is optionally determined. In some embodiments these locations are returned with the document search results of 1108. In some embodiments a further lookup in the index of a document, or a search within a digital version of the document itself is required to determine the location or locations that match the signature(s).
[0073] In optional act 1112 the identified document(s) and location(s) are included in the user's context (e.g., history) data. Thus, for subsequent captures by this user the matching document(s) and location(s) of this capture can optionally be used to limit the materials searched, prioritize search order
(for example, by searching first in documents already matched, and/or near locations already matched), prioritize how subsequent matches and captures are presented, etc.
[0074] Subsequent captures which match material in documents, or near locations, of previous captures can be considered more like likely than matches in documents not having received previous captures from this user.
Furthermore, the elapsed time between these captures is also used in some embodiments of the system to prioritize and classify results. Iterative Searching [0075] One method of feature or signature extraction and searching is iterative. A first set of features is extracted and used in a query. In the case of multiple results from the query, the system can compare these alternative results to determine what specific features distinguish them. The described system may then return to the original data and specifically locate these distinguishing features.
[0076] In some cases the additional data to distinguish among choices will require additional scanning. The user can be notified that additional information is required.
[0077] Feature extraction may happen on the local capture device (which saves bandwidth, since only the feature data needs to be transmitted), or the raw data can be transmitted. One model is for the capture device to extract and send initial features to a host device or server. If the host determines that additional inform a,ti,qn, is,, required the host may ask for additional features to be sent - including, if desired, the raw data.
[0078] A related model involves parallel processing. The system may extract and begin processing based on some features (e.g., begin a query based on these first features) while at the same time additional or qualifying data is being gathered, transmitted, or pre-processed. If the first query is successful, the additional processing/data may be considered optional. Or it may be used to further confirm the results of the original query.
[O079] In the cases where the original query is ambiguous, the subsequent data may help to resolve the ambiguity. With this model some of the query work can be done in parallel with data collection and data pre-processing steps - so the task can be completed early in many cases, with only the minimum of required data collected and processed , or so that an early signal can be provided to the user indicating that the context and location within the document is known/recognized. I some cases this parallel and/or incremental approach will save communication and processing bandwidth, since data which is found to be unnecessary doesn't need to be transmitted or rocessed. It also allows the described system to notify the user (and the capture device) as early as possible when sufficient data to identify a context/location has been received.
[O080] Figure 12 illustrates one embodiment of iterative searching and parallel p rocessing. At step 1202 the user is beginning to capture the phrase "capture device embodiments" from a document. They are scanning from left-to-right, a nd at this point they captured the word "capture". At 1204 OCR is applied to the word "capture" and at 1206 a query is initiated (while the user continues to scan).
[O081] At 1208 the results of search are evaluated. In some cases these results sufficiently the users location (for example, because only one document in the corpus contains the word "capture," or because one occurrence of the word in the corpus is very likely the correct match - e.g., it exceeds a threshold of certainty). In this case at 1212 the user is optionally given an indication that the capture is sufficient. And optionally at 1214 the matched document can be fetched for the user, opened on a nearby display, scrolled to the user's capture location, and the (still-continuing) capture by the user can be shown on the display - for example, as highlighting which moves ,acrqs,&th,P,.word,s "capture,, device embodiments" as the user continues to scan them.
[0082] If the captured information is insufficient, and the search does not identify a single corresponding document, then additional input may be awaited at 1210. The word "receive" is captured at 1216, and at 1218 another search is performed, for "capture device". The scope of this search is either the full search scope applied before, or the set of documents returned from the search for "capture". At 1220 the process concludes. [0083] In Figure 13 the user is continuing to capture the phrase "capture device embodiments" 1310 from a rendered document. The capture is from left-to-right, and the phrase "capture device" has been imaged. As a result of analysis and search based on this initial data, a probable digital counterpart 1320 of the rendered phrase has been located and is concurrently displayed to the user. The words scanned so far have been highlighted 1330, and the highlighting is continuing to be applied as the user continues to scan. Handling Noisy Environments [0084] In some circumstances the capture device will need to deal with noisy input data - e.g., because of bad ambient lighting, poor quality rendering of documents, erratic motion by the user, etc. Some embodiments allow the user to take repeated scans over a desired portion of the image, e.g., by moving the capture device back and forth several times or by scanning left-to-right multiple times over the same region. These multiple scans can then be aligned and averaged to improve the quality of the signal. A similar approach is employed in systems where voice input is accepted. A user can optionally repeat a spoken capture and the system can use this redundant data to overcome background noise, etc. Overlapping or Temporally Adjacent Captures [0085] A larger extent of the document (e.g., wider than the scanning area of the capture device) can be indicated or input by scanning overlapping or neighboring strips of contiguous data - e.g. lines of text. [0086] When these strips overlap it is possible for the described system to identify shifted features from the previous scan(s) as a means of reference for joining and aligning subsequent scans.
[0087] Figure 14 shows overlapping captures. At 1410 a first capture occurs. At 1420 a second capture occurs. The first capture includes elements that also appear in the second capture - in this case, the tops of each of the letters in„t P,p r,as.e,„"the,1diesp,ribed system can." Thus, on receipt of the second scan 1420 the system can recognize that these scans are adjacent by identifying their overlapping features.
[0088] If the images don't actually overlap, the temporal nature of the scans (e.g., close together, similar lengths) and such clues as having the same font, line width and margins, etc., can be used to infer that a contiguous region is being scanned. In Figure 14, if the two captures occurred only 5 seconds apart the system can conclude that the scans are close to each other without actually com paring or analyzing the images themselves. [0089] When the described system determines that captures are close together this information can be used in forming and/or analyzing search queries. In some embodiments the system submits a constrained query representing "locate the phrase 'may do this intentionally' near the phrase 'the described system can.' Supplemental Marks [0090] Various supplemental marks and markings may be used with the described system. These may be visible or invisible to the uses. [0091] Any point in a document may have associated with it many possible actions. Similarly, any region or extent in a document may have associated with it many possible actions. These actions may be thought of as (and in some embod iments, actually appear as) a menu of choices available to the user. One or more of these actions may be "active" or the "default" choice - i.e., what the user's current interactions with the document represent or cause to happen. These actions may be set by the user, and/or they may be enabled by default. An example would be that the default actions in the body of a book are to underline each passage indicated by the user (e.g., when the user scans across that passage), and to create a bookmark pointing to that passage (which bookmark might be delivered to the user's on-line account, or to the user via email), and to mark the entire book as having one or more bookmarks set, and check whether other readers of this book have left voice or text annotations associated with this passage. On the other hand , the default actions associated with content in the index of a book might be to note the indicated topic is of interest, and to bring up on an auxiliary display (if available) all references in the book which are associated with this item in the index, and to underline all related content when showing this book via a dynamic display (or when the user next prints any portion of the bo k). [0092] In rnany ca e.s, the available actions and menu items are dynamically determined by such contextual data and inputs as the user's location, the stored user profile, recently scanned items, etc. It can be useful to have indications of what kinds of actions are available at any point in a rendered document. For example, printed text can be underlined or printed in a special color or accompanied by a symbol printed in the margin to indicate that this text is a hyperlin k to digital content. Thus in some embodiments there is a special marking in the text itself, or associated with the text, indicating that a particular passage is hyper-linked, that is, that scanning this passage will send the user's browser to a location on the web - or will save the link for future reference (even thought the text of the passage itself is not a URL, does not itesef indicate that it is a link).
[0093] In some embodiments the capture device may have the optional ability to read such supplemental markings, along with the ability to scan text. Or the supplemental markings can be optically scanned and sent to a server or host device for interpretation - for example as a raw image. In the case of an underlined hyper-link, the interpretation of the mark may be as simple as recognizing that it is underlined - but it could extend to recognizing complex symbols, colors, watermarks (e.g., slight variations in the text or image which identify (or help to identify) the text and the actions with which it is associated. [0094] Margin markings or markings elsewhere in the document can tell the user that there is supplemental content associated with this item, that there is ah opportunity to make a purchase, or get additional information about a product, or that help is available on this topic, or there is an audio annotation at this point in the text, or that a special discount is available to users who scan this item.
[0095] There can be a more general mark associated with a document indicating that it is known to the described system, possibly including which index or archive it is located in. This might appear on the front or back cover of a periodical, for instance, to notify the user that they can use the capture device with this document. Figure 15 illustrates a document 1510 with a mark 1520 indicating that this document is (or will be in future) indexed or recognized by the system.
[0096] In some cases special content can be indicated by a special font, or a variation of the font in which a documented is printed. This tells the user that the indicated (e.g. , italicized or bold) item is scannable. Different fonts may indicate. different kin ds.pr.. classes of actions or data (italicized items might indicate that further information, for example a definition of this term, is available here). The extent of the special font may be used to indicate the extent which needs to be scanned
[0097] Since these specially marked regions are more limited that the entire text of the document, and since they are known when the document is published/rendered, the described system can be prepared to handle them in special ways. If only a limited portion of a document is so indicated, then these portions are less ambiguous - and smaller segments need to be scanned. The capture device or the larger system can also have specific knowledge about the particular characteristics (e.g., font) of these marked regions, and thus be prepared to give them special handling. An example might be that for these regions the capture device saves the entire image of the scanned region and forwards this for special processing - e.g., for recognition by more complex means than is available at the capture device. [0098] In some embodiments some of the special marks may be specifically recognizable to the described system. That is, the system recognizes these special marks directly (e.g., by comparing them to stored examples or templates for each mark). In Some embodiments these marks are also distinguishable by the user - i.e., they are both machine and human readable. [0099] In Figure 16 d ocument 1610 contains ordinary text 1620 and 1640, and text with supplemental marking 1630. Capturing a fragment of the marked text 1630 will cause the entire marked text to be captured. Furthermore, in this example the marking (underlining) is also associated with an action - capturing this underlined text will cause the underlined paragraph to be posted to the user's web log. In some embodiments the capture device or other system components specifically recognize the underlining. In other embodiments, only the text is recognized - the grouping of the text into a "cohesive" block, and the associated action of posting to a web log, are determined in markup data associated with the rendered document. [00100] In an embodiment where the underlining or other supplemental marking is recognized by the system, the presence of this marking in the capture serves to further disambiguate the captured data. In Figure 16, the word "captured" occurs in document 1610 both inside the marked text 1630 and outside this text at paragraph 1620. These two occurrences of the same wpr jcjaixbe distinαuistaed. by determining whether the capture includes underlining.
[00101] Some embodiments include one or more general purpose supplemental marks which indicate that there is special content to be scanned at a specific location in a document - even though the system has never before encountered the document or accompanying content associated with the marks. An example is a mark, known to the system, which indicates that the accompanying/neighboring/nearby content is to be scanned and transmitted to the host as an exact image, rather than for the described system to try and interpret or decode it. By this means special symbols and content embedded in documents can be forwarded to applications which are meant to handle them, even though the described system doesn't recognize them, or have knowledge of the application. This is analogous to forwarding an attachment in email.
[00102] One such type of associated content would be the logo, name, or trademark of a company. An accompanying mark or symbol (in some embodiments, similar to - or identical to - the trademark ["tm"] or registered [r- in-a-circle] marks in common use) can be recognized and can tell the system to transmit the accompanying content extant to the host or server. The described system optionally then provides special subsequent processing, or the data is optionally passed to another application (for example comparison software that recognizes and matches the input data from a directory of corporate logos and trademarks)
[00103] Another special mark might be used to indicate a phone number - this would tell the described system that the associated data is a phone number, and the described system might forward it to a number-recognizing routine, and invoke applications for storing in an address book and/or dialing the number on the user's phone.
[00104] Some embodiments implement a form of special processing for small objects (including small pieces of text) which the user scans, but which have no special supplemental marking. An example is a system wherein certain words or phrases (for example, the word "Microsoft") are intended to receive special treatment. Processing and Transmitting Image Data [00105] In some embodiments, when the system encounters a word with special meaning (but no special marking) it handles it as ordinary text. An example of this behavior would be to forward the character offsets included in the special word.
[00106] One of two cases generally prevail when a capture device transmits scanned data to a host server - either there was enough data to fully identify the scanned object (perhaps in conjunction with additional data scanned before or afterwards) - or there was insufficient data available to distinguish ("disambiguate") the selection, so the host or server is unable to exactly determine the material being indicated by the capture. [00107] In the first case (sufficient data, selection identified) the server or host, by reference to the source document or its index, markup data, or related materials, can determine that the special word occurs in the selection, and so can invoke any appropriate action (e.g., send the user's browser to the Microsoft website, notify Microsoft that a user has scanned their name in the passage, etc).
[00108] In the second case (insufficient data, selection unrecognized) the server or host can request that the capture device transmit additional data - perhaps by requesting the user to scan enough additional material to identify the selection, or by transmitting the actual raw image of the short phrase or object captured. In some embodiments, when a scanned image is transmitted the server or host invokes special routines (e.g., conventional OCR algorithms), which recognize that the transmitted selection contains the word "Microsoft" - and the server takes the appropriate action for this object. [00109] In either case an imbedded word - which might be scanned in a short, ambiguous selection - is identified for special handling. In some embodiments the specific handling is potentially be qualified by, and/or depends on, many additional factors. In this example the user might only be taken to the Microsoft web site if the user is at home, and near their PC (for example, as determined by a Blue Tooth wireless connection of the capture device to the user's PC). And this might only occur if the user is capturing the word in a certain issue of a certain magazine (e.g., as deterimined by context data, and the user has never scanned the word before, etc. [00110] The dynamic behavior described here is associated with a passive, printed document (e.g., on paper) by connecting that document to markup data, or a digital source document associated with the rendered document. By recognizing the context in which a user is working with the capture device, powerful new models of interaction are made possible. Capturing a word or phrase in a..pri.nted dpquro,pnt can send a user's browser to an internet site. A company can connect to and communicate with customers using words that were printed even before the described system was developed. And the specific behavior of various interactions with the described system can be changed dynamically and programatically (e.g., certain actions for certain users when interacting with certain contexts) - even though the triggers for those interactions are passive, printed words. Offset-Based Signatures [00111] In some situations the capture device extracts features of scanned text, but does not actually interpret these features. For example, the capture device can use techniques known in the art of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), including the technique of "template matching," to identify distinct symbols by using earlier occurrences of these same symbol s (in the same font) as templates. The captured symbols could be letters of the alphabet, but they could also be numbers, punctuation, etc. In one embodiment, the capture device doesn't necessarily interpret the symbols as characters in an alphabet, e.g., doesn't know that a particular symbol occurring in the rendered document corresponds to the letter "a". Rather, the capture device only forwards the ordering / sequencing / relative offsets of these symbols to the host, not the actual meaning of the symbols. For example, the capture device can determine that a specific symbol is repeated at positions 1 , 12, 17, etc. - but the capture device doesn't necessarily know what the symbol actually represents).
[00112] In Figure 17 the phrase "capture pattern" 1710 is shown. This phrase has been segmented into distinct symbols at 1720 - as can be done using connected region analysis and other techniques from the field of OCR. In the described process of converting a captured image to offset representation, each symbol is compared to every other symbol to determine if they have the same - or nearly the same - shape. The number of character positions separating repeating symbols (those with the same shape) is then counted. These offset numbers 1730 are used as one representation of the imaged symbols.
[00113] In the phrase "captured pattern" 1720 the first character, "c" does not match any other symbols - it is assigned an offset of "0". The second character, the "a" in "captured," matches the "a" i n "pattern." The number of character positions separating these "a"s is 9 (counting the space) - so the secρ,αd„Qffset, .",9„",is,..encαded 1730. The third symbol, "p", repeats after 7 character positions and is assigned an offset of 7 - and so forth. [00114] Because the phrase considered in figure 8 is only 2 words long (as would occur if a user only captured 2 words) th e offsets of the trailing characters ("tern") are unknown. In this example they are assigned an offset of zero.
[00115] The final encoding is "09780970 00100O0". In one embodiment this offset data is transmitted from the capture device (or used locally on the device) to act as a signature. In some embodiments documents are indexed by their character offsets - for example by scan ning the ASCII text in a digital counterpart and determining the character positions between repeating occurrences of ASCII codes. In such an index, the described offset-based signature can be located.
[00116] Because the characters in a longer docu ment would typically repeat - unlike the short 2-word example in figure 8 - most characters would not have offsets of "0" (zero) - but rather they would be followed by another occurrence of themselves. Thus, in the code "09780970 0010000" from figure 8, the zeros can be treated as "wildcards" when searching a n index of offsets - these positions are matched by any offset value.
[00117] In some embodiments the offset-creation process can be extended - and the offset signature can be converted into actual text (i.e., the "meaning" of each of the symbols can be associated with a letter of the alphabet.) This is accomplished by consulting a dictionary of known words in the language of the document. The dictionary can alternatively contain known n-grams, or a combination of words and n-grams.
[00118] To convert from offset representation to letters and words, the captured phrase is considered as a group of unknown wo ds, some or all of which are subject to constraints. These constraints are imposed both by the internal structure of each word (each word's own pattern of repeating and nonrepeating characters), and by the combined structure of the phrase (e.g., a symbol at position i in word j which must be the same as the symbol at position k in word I - for all possible words and positions) [00119] In the phrase "captured pattern" the constraints are: [00120] --word 1 must have 8 characters [00121] -word 1 must contain no repeating characters [00122] --word 2 must have 7 characters [00123] -letters 3 and.4„„qf„word 2 ("t") - must match
[00124] -no other letters of word 2 may match
[00125] -letter 2 of word 1 must match letter 2 of word 2 ("a") - and must not match any other letters in the phrase
[00126] -letter 3 of word 1 must match letter 1 of word 2 ("P") - and must not match any other letters in the phrase
[00127] -etc.
[00128] Applying the full set of constraints to the words in a 50 ,000 word
English dictionary yields the following matches:
[00129] [captures][pattern]
[00130] [subtonic][butting]
[00131] [harmonic][ramming]
[00132] [garfield][rafflesj
[00133] [barfield][raffles]
[00134] [publican][bullace]
[00135] In some embodiments the described dictionary includes frequency data
(e.g., how often each entry occurs in a specified corpus). For processing efficiency, the most probable entries in the dictionary can be considered early in the process when searching for a match to an offset-encoded signature. In some embodiments, the frequency of objects in the dictionary is also used to rank or weight multiple matches - giving higher scores or priorities to more probable matches.
[00136] Adding additional words to a phrase - for example by capturing additional material - adds additional constraints and narrows the results. If the phrase "captures pattern data" is searched in the above-mentioned dictionary, the only possible construction from the 50,000 word dictionary is the exact correct phrase "captures pattern data."
[00137] In the described system no knowledge of character shape was employed. The steps used were matching symbols to themselves when they repeat, recording the offsets associated with these repeats, applying the offsets as constraints to a dictionary of known objects - these steps led to accurate character recognition, without information about a specific font, specific character shapes, etc.
[00138] The above-mentioned dictionary can optionally include n-grams (letter groups), individual words, word-grams (phrases comprised of multiple words). Any or all of these can be employed, and each may optionally include frequency data.
[00139] In some embodiments the described dictionary is derived directly from a specific corpus. Each n-gram, word, phrase etc., is optionally included
(optionally with frequency data) in the dictionary. When such a dictionary is used to decode offsets derived from documents within the corpus, every word and phrase in the corpus will be represented.
[00140] In some embodiments a dictionary as described is created for a sin gle document, or for a small set of documents. In one example, the dictionary for the document a user is currently capturing from is created and optionally downloaded to the capture device itself. In some embodiments the capture device is then potentially capable of recognizing almost every phrase in tho document.
[00141] In one embodiment the algorithm for converting an offset-based signature to text is:
[00142] for each word of length "L" in the offsets signature (note 1 )
[00143] for each word in the dictionary having length "L" (note 2)
[00144] if the dictionary word meets all constraints
[00145] found candidate match: (1 ) if this was last word in signature i. record matching phrase (2) else i. add word to candidate phrase, do next word in signature [00146] else [00147] not a candidate word, do next word in dictionary
(1 ) do longest words first for efficiency (2) do most frequent words first for efficiency
[00148] This process can be applied to n-grams, phrases, or a combination of these objects.
[00149] When multiple candidate phrases match an offset-based signature, grammar checking can be used to identify the more probable candidates. [00150] In generating offset-based signatures no font or character-shape knowledge is required. And, as described above, the process of encoding offsets does not itself assign a meaning to the symbols encountered. However, once one or more signatures have been converted to text - for exa ple,, b„v the,,ab,q,y,a,-described dictionary look-up process - the mapping between symbol shapes and characters is known. In some embodiments this mapping is then used for subsequent captures in the same font to convert directly from symbols to characters. In one embodiment the steps are:
[00151] -capture image of text
[00152] -optionally segment using connected region analysis
[00153] -locate any symbols recognized from previous captures
[00154] -determine offsets of unknown symbols
[00155] -add newly recognized symbols to set of recognized symbols. Symbol Templates [00156] Symbol/character templates in the described system can be used to identify and match new objects. In some embodiments these templates a re derived from earlier scanned objects by storing an image - or a compressed version of the image - taken from a capture. In some cases objects in the template represent connected regions of printed/rendered material - e.g., a single (optionally, a connected) character, an icon or trademark, etc. Multiple occurrences of the same or similar objects can be combined or averaged to improve and refine the template.
[00157] In some embodiments symbol templates can be stored for use botri within a document and as the user encounters other documents. One such use is to identify when the user has changed contexts, e.g., begun capturing in another document. This can be accomplished by determining that the font being captured has changed from a previous capture. Another use is to provide clues to help recognize documents which the user has scanned in the past - for example, by determining that the captured font is the one employed in a specific document. In many cases different documents have different fonts and different font sizes.
[00158] When using character offsets as signatures in the described system there are several useful enhancements that are applied in some embodiments. One approach makes use of a dictionary of common terms, including most frequently used words. It is useful if this dictionary includes misspellings, slang and other objects likely to occur in rendered documents. It further helps if likely errors which can occur in the scanning and/or interpretation process are anticipated. Known possible errors can be entered in the dictionary, or in the index to a particular corpus, or handled in the caDture device pr,„syst;pm„.software - such that these errors are correctly mapped to the appropriate document and location. [00159] In some embodiments, the dictionary contains word frequency data. The most frequently used words in English (and in many other languages) comprise only a small subset of the entire vocabulary. Word frequency, which is approximately proportional to the probability that a particular word will occur at some location in a document, greatly assists in the disambiguation and/or feature interpretation process.
[00160] Additionally, some embodiments have available word n-gram frequencies and letter n-gram frequencies for a language or specific corpus. [ooi6i]The described dictionary can also be empirically derived from a corpus being indexed. That is, since the corpus is known in advance (e.g., is in the process of being indexed for subsequent search queries), in some embodiments the described system includes in the dictionary every term which the corpus contains - whether a misspelling, object of punctuation, arbitrary grouping of symbols, etc. Thus every object the user is likely to scan with the capture device will be recognized by the system. [00162] Dictionary and n-gram data is used in some embodiments to select the most probable interpretation from among those which match a given piece of input data. And this data is also used to guide the searching and processing steps, such that highest probability trial solutions are evaluated first, leading to correct solutions sooner and saving processing time and resources. [00163] As described above, an improvement comes from first searching for the longest and/or most structured elements in the offsets-based signature (e.g., words having the largest number of internal repeating characters). These word positions can, generally, only be occupied by a few candidates, and, once selected, their constituent letters greatly constrain the search for remaining words (whose constituent letters must agree, according to the character offset pattern scanned). And words can be considered in descending frequency order - thus giving us the best probability of encountering the desired word early.
[00164] But in many cases the system won't be scanning long, completely determined phrases. In these cases, even though there is enough information to uniquely identify certain words (often including the longest words), there will be some words which remain uncertain - i.e., these word positions could be filled by several candidate words. In these cases it can be helpful to consider the various candidate ..words in frequency order. In some embodiments, grammar checking is also employed to screen for the most grammatical constructs among a group of candidate phrases. [00165] An important observation is that, even when a phrase has word positions matched by several candidates, there is often only one combination of certain key words (i.e., not stop-words). Thus, while there are sometimes many permutations of candidate matching phrases, some of the word positions are known with certainty. Thus the system can search (for example an index or via a search engine) using these known words - for example with wild-cards in the other (ambiguous) word positions.
[00166] Some embodiments of the described system determine the aggregate probability of the entire candidate matching phrase in considering which combinations to consider first. This can be determined from the frequencies of each word or group of words in the phrase. Some embodiments consider the most probable aggregate phrases first.
[00167] Knowledge of grammar can also be used as a discriminate in the described system. While it isn't guaranteed that text will be grammatical, this is often the most probable case, so it is useful to test (i.e., query an index or search engine with) grammatical constructs first.
[00168] One representation of grammar is as word n-grams - the frequency with which various combinations of words (e.g., phrases) occur together. In some cases the occurrence of stop-words may be excluded in calculating/recording these word n-grams and their frequencies of occurrence in a corpus. Document Repository Association [00169] The described system optionally includes several ways to insure that the user can be sure that a particular rendered document is available, or will be available, in the indexed corpus or corpora known to the system. In some embodiments the described system is associated with a known corpus that users recognize and understand. For example, the described system can be directly associated with a well-known search engine on the Internet. Users thus understand that the documents indexed and available in the described system are those indexed and available in the associated search engine. Users have a clear model of what to expect, based on their experience with a related corpus of indexed documents on the Internet. This conceptual association with a known corpus can be a useful part of the described system. [00170] In ,s,prηe„emb.od,iraents documents that are indexed in the described system carry a distinguishing mark which the user can recognize. In some embodiments this brand or mark is also associated with a known repository of source materials. Documents are marked with the brand to inform the user of the availability of the document in the system's index - e.g., that this is an "interactive" document. Intranet Environments [00171] In some embodiments employed in business environments some or all documents used in the conduct of a business are indexed and archived such that an employee with a capture device can scan rendered documents with some confidence. Some embodiments deploy a server providing some or all of the described system functions on the corporate network. This server on the corporate network handles queries from capture devices (in some cases relayed through intermediate devices such as the user's desktop computer), and returns acknowledgment that the scanned information is matched, and/or returns the document itself (or a portion thereof). In many ways this server is analogous to a conventional search engine server - but it adds the unique function of accepting short signatures derived from information scanned directly from rendered documents. This server may also have the capability of extending the user's query to additional servers (or passing them to conventional search engines), including the ability to pass a query to one or more repositories/search engines/indices/servers which are outside the corporate intranet. The server may add additional levels of encryption and/or security to the query. It may host and manage the user's profile, manage security in communications with the user's capture device, allow user's to access the corporate repository and/or index from outside the corporate network, allow various kinds of access for queries coming from outside the corporate network (e.g., from employees who are traveling, from customers, etc.) Dynamic Display Interactions [00172] Because in some embodiments the capture device is also capable of reading data directly off a dynamic display for example, a CRT or flat-panel or LCD display), many new kinds of interactions between the paper and digital worlds are possible. One behavior (in some embodiments a default behavior), is that, when a display is available, any passage scanned by the user brings up on the display the scanned information, shown in it's broader context, and any virtual actions being performed by the user, such as underlining or highlighting, actually occur on the version rendered on the display.
[00173] Also visible on the dynamic display are symbols and marks to indicate where, for example, an audio annotation was added, marks showing where other readers have left comments or annotations (and, if desired, what those annotations were), recent changes or updates to the document which occurred since the rendered version was published. If the user is making changes to the document by marking in the rendered version, these changes optionally appear in the dynamically displayed version. Example Processing Steps [00174] In one embodiment of the described system, processing steps include: [00175] -the user scans a region of text with an optical scanning device [00176] -the scanned data (i.e. "image") is captured and some or all of it is stored in memory
[00177] -the image is correlated/compared horizontally to identify tokens that match (e.g., the system slides the image horizontally over itself, noting when regions/characters/tokens match
[00178] -alternatively, conventional OCR is used to interpret the specific characters in the image
[00179] -the character offsets (or, if OCR is used, the characters themselves) are used as a signature
[00180] -a corpus of digital source documents (e.g., from ascii source, or optically-scanned images of the text) is searched for the signature. Or, if an index is available, that is queried with the offset-based or OCR-based signature
[00i8i]-if the signature is ambiguous, the user may have an opportunity to choose, resolving the ambiguity - or the default (highest probability hit) may be assumed
[00182] -the user's location in the rendered document is taken to be the location of the signature in the digital source document [00183] -actions made by the user at this location in the rendered version are mirrored or in some way reflected in the digital version Deferring Ambiguity [00184] In some cases, ambiguity is most easily resolved at a later time. An example is a user who scans a small portion of text in a rendered document with g„ ca ture devjce,„where the user is intending to underline that text. If this portion of text is ambiguous - that is, the signature is found in multiple documents, or at more than one place in the current document - in many cases this ambiguity will automatically resolve itself. For example, if the user subsequently marks other passages in the same document, the system combines the signatures for each scanned passage - while each signature may independently be ambiguous, in many cases their combination is unique - that is, there will only be one document containing both. Fiber Optic Ribbon Scanner [00185] A simple capture device can be constructed using a ribbon of inexpensive fiber-optic strands. These strands terminate in the wand held by the user, with optics and illumination (if required) such that images are transmitted up the fiber optic pipes as the wand is moved across a surface. At the other end of the ribbon are photodetectors which detect the image and present the data to an electronic interface, for example as data being input to flash memory or static ram, or as input being input to a processor for processing. In one embodiment, the photo-detecting elements and electronic elements are housed in a unit which connects to USB - perhaps in the same shell which contains the USB connector. Position Sensing [00186] When the input/marking device senses actual position, then no interpretation of the text or content image is required, having available the user's position on the display (or tablet, etc), plus knowing where/how the document is rendered, (or the relative position of the document with respect to the position sensing frame of reference), the system can determine what text or content the user is near - and so interpret their motions, gestures, etc as they relate to the appropriate content.
[00187] An example is when the user is intending to highlight text on a printed page placed on top of a digitizing pad, or of a rendered image on a display. And the system knows the location of the capture device on the pad or display. Thus the system calculates which actual words/text/content the user is indicating for underlining/highlighting - even though the input device itself isn't actually "seeing" or interpreting the content. Sensor Referencing [00188] In some embodiments, neighboring optical sensor elements can optionally be used reference each other. That is, the signal seen by one element is compelled ΪQ..its neighbor(s), and this difference is used as part or all of the data stream. This has the advantage of correcting for local variations in background, illumination, etc. In the simplest case the system is looking for state changes when sensor signal i becomes greater than sensor signal j - or v. v.. But the system can also do higher resolution measurements of the relative signals in neighboring sensors. Feedback [00189] In many cases the system indicates to the user how much information to scan. For example, if the capture device doesn't yet fully know its context, this is indicated (e.g., by an led). The indication changes when the context is determined.
[00190] In some cases the capture device doesn't have a communication channel to the source document or markup materials or index. However it can still make a good guess at how much information is required to uniquely identify a document, and and/or a sub-region within a document. For example, the system knows that multiple long words do much to uniquely identify a document. The system empirically / statistically determines how many words of various lengths are generally needed to insure uniqueness to a particular level of probability / certainty. In a very simple case the system employs a rule such as, "at least three words each of at least length 10". In practice the system can use more sophisticated rules. These can involve word lengths, word structure (especially repeating characters if character offsets are being used), total number of scanned characters, number of unique characters, noisiness of the scanned data, how much overlap there is in word structures (e.g., whether words have same prefixes, stems, or suffixes/endings). These rules can then be used to determine (and optionally to inform the user) when enough data has been scanned to recognize the context. Associated Display [00191] Many uses of the capture device are enabled when there is an auxiliary display device and/or computer available. If the capture device has a communication channel to the display or computer, actions and messages can be shown on the display. One simple example would be that items the user is marking in a printed document are shown sequentially on the display. Or if the user is marking the document (e.g., underlining), that specific region of the document can automatically appear on the display (for example no centered around the position of the capture device), and the user's marks can appear in the displayed version.
[00192] In the case where the display is showing a list of excerpts or marked objects, these objects can be active - i.e., by clicking on them or using the capture device directly on the display to indicate them, they can lead to a view of their specific context - e.g., the user first sees on the display a list of the various things which have been highlighted. Clicking one of these items launches a view of the item in its original context (i.e., shown with surrounding text).
Conclusion
[00346] It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the above- described system may be straightforwardly adapted or extended in various ways. While the foregoing description makes reference to particular embodiments, the scope of the invention is defined solely by the claims that following and the elements recited therein.
[0001] Those having skill in the art will appreciate that there are various vehicles by which processes and/or systems described herein can be effected
(e.g., hardware, software, and/or firmware), and that the preferred vehicle will vary with the context in which the processes are deployed. For example, if an implementer determines that speed and accuracy are paramount, the implementer may opt for a hardware and/or firmware vehicle; alternatively, if flexibility is paramount, the implementer may opt for a solely software implementation; or, yet again alternatively, the implementer may opt for some combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware. Hence, there are several possible vehicles by which the processes described herein may be effected, none of which is inherently superior to the other in that any vehicle to be utilized is a choice dependent upon the context in which the vehicle will be deployed and the specific concerns (e.g., speed, flexibility, or predictability) of the implementer, any of which may vary. Those skilled in the art will recognize that optical aspects of implementations will require optically-oriented hardware, software, and or firmware.
[0002] The foregoing detailed description has set forth various embodiments of the devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples. Insofar as such block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be understood as notorious by those within the art that each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. Several portions of the subject matter subject matter described herein may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs), or other integrated formats. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that some aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in standard integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running on one or more processors (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more microprocessors), as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and/or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of this disclosure. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms of the subject matter described herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative embodiment of the subject matter described herein applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of a signal bearing media include, but are not limited to, the following: recordable type media such as floppy disks, hard disk drives, CD ROMs, digital tape, and computer memory; and transmission type media such as digital and analog communication links using TDM or IP based communication links (e.g., packet links).
[0003] In a general sense, those skilled in the art will recognize that the various aspects described herein which can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof can be viewed as being composed of various types of "electrical circuitry." Consequently, as used herein "electrical circuitry" includes, but is not limited to, electrical circuitry having at least one discrete electrical circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one integrated circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one application specific integrated circuit, electrical circuitry forming a general purpose computing device configured by a computer program (e.g., a general purpose computer configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein, or a microprocessor configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein), electrical circuitry forming a memory device (e.g., forms of random access memory), and/or electrical circuitry forming a communications device (e.g., a modem, communications switch, or optical-electrical equipment).
[0004] Those skilled in the art will recognize that it is common within the art to describe devices and/or processes in the fashion set forth herein, and thereafter use standard engineering practices to integrate such described devices and/or processes into larger systems. That is, at least a portion of the devices and/or processes described herein can be integrated into a network processing system via a reasonable amount of experimentation. [0005] The foregoing described aspects depict different components contained within, or connected with, different other components. It is to be understood that such depicted architectures are merely exemplary, and that in fact many other architectures can be implemented which achieve the same functionality. In a conceptual sense, any arrangement of components to achieve the same functionality is effectively "associated" such that the desired functionality is achieved. Hence, any two components herein combined to achieve a particular functionality can be seen as "associated with" each other such that the desired functionality is achieved, irrespective of architectures or intermedial components. Likewise, any two components so associated can also be viewed as being "operably connected", or "operably coupled", to each other to achieve the desired functionality.

Claims

CLAIMSWhat is claimed is:
1. A system comprising: a scanner; and at least one display and/or speaker to provide a jser of the scanner an indication of actions available for a portion of a document from vhich scanned information is obtained, the indications obtained via markup data for the locument.
!. A system comprising: a scanner; a device comprising a scan-able identification; and Dgic to associate the user of the scanner with the device when the scan-able identification 3 scanned.
. A method comprising: scanning information from a document; forming a document ignature from the scanned information; locating a plurality of candidate electronic ocuments that may correspond to the document from which the information was canned; and applying information about or content of at least one of the electronic ocuments to reform the document signature.
A scanner comprising: logic to self-clock scan data into a memory; and logic to 3termine when sufficient scan data is obtained to likely identify the document from which e data was scanned.
A system comprising: a scanner; user data; a matching service to match users of the 'stem according to user data obtained from scanning rendered documents.
A system comprising: logic to receive scanned information and to charge a user for rvices associated with the scanned information.
7. A system comprising: logic to convert scanned information into document searches; and logic to anonymize the searches.
3. A scanner comprising: scan property settings, to cause at least one of an annotation, lighlight, or action to be associated with scanned information.
3. A scanner comprising: physical highlighting capability to produce a physical indication .if scan properties on a rendered document.
10. A system comprising: a scanner; and an associated device, the associated device x)mprising a cache of documents and/or indexes for documents recently and/or likely scanned by the scanner.
1. A system comprising: content; markup information for the content; and services issociated with the content and accessed via the markup information.
2. A method comprising: identifying a document from which information was scanned; md including information about the document and/or location within the document from /hich the information was scanned in stored user information.
3. A method comprising: scanning information; using the scanned information to search -yϊ documents; receiving ambiguous search results; and applying additional scanned iformation to search again for documents.
4. A method comprising: scanning text that has special formatting; taking or enabling an ction associated with the special formatting.
5. A method comprising: scanning information; forming an offset representation of the canned information; and applying the offset representation to search for documents.
PCT/US2005/013586 2004-04-06 2005-04-06 Scanning apparatus and related techniques WO2005101193A2 (en)

Priority Applications (18)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US11/547,835 US8713418B2 (en) 2004-04-12 2005-04-12 Adding value to a rendered document
KR1020077009691A KR101212929B1 (en) 2004-09-27 2005-09-27 Secure data gathering from rendered documents
PCT/US2005/034319 WO2006036853A2 (en) 2004-09-27 2005-09-27 Handheld device for capturing
PCT/US2005/034734 WO2006037011A2 (en) 2004-09-27 2005-09-27 Secure data gathering from rendered documents
EP05800941.6A EP1810496A4 (en) 2004-09-27 2005-09-27 Secure data gathering from rendered documents
US11/365,983 US7990556B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2006-02-28 Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
PCT/US2006/007108 WO2006093971A2 (en) 2005-02-28 2006-02-28 Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US11/672,014 US8081849B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2007-02-06 Portable scanning and memory device
US12/859,736 US8261094B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2010-08-19 Secure data gathering from rendered documents
US13/195,193 US8531710B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2011-08-01 Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US13/966,236 US9811728B2 (en) 2004-04-12 2013-08-13 Adding value to a rendered document
US13/966,002 US9030699B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2013-08-13 Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US14/080,305 US9460346B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2013-11-14 Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US14/252,395 US9319555B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2014-04-14 Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US15/281,732 US9773167B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2016-09-30 Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US15/679,237 US20170364746A1 (en) 2004-09-27 2017-08-17 Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US15/716,414 US20180096203A1 (en) 2004-04-12 2017-09-26 Adding value to a rendered document
US16/133,654 US10769431B2 (en) 2004-09-27 2018-09-17 Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device

Applications Claiming Priority (160)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US55976604P 2004-04-06 2004-04-06
US60/559,766 2004-04-06
US56176804P 2004-04-12 2004-04-12
US60/561,768 2004-04-12
US56348504P 2004-04-19 2004-04-19
US56352004P 2004-04-19 2004-04-19
US60/563,520 2004-04-19
US60/563,485 2004-04-19
US56484604P 2004-04-23 2004-04-23
US56468804P 2004-04-23 2004-04-23
US60/564,688 2004-04-23
US60/564,846 2004-04-23
US56666704P 2004-04-30 2004-04-30
US60/556,667 2004-04-30
US57156004P 2004-05-14 2004-05-14
US57138104P 2004-05-14 2004-05-14
US60/571,381 2004-05-14
US60/571,560 2004-05-14
US57171504P 2004-05-17 2004-05-17
US60/571,715 2004-05-17
US58920204P 2004-07-19 2004-07-19
US58920104P 2004-07-19 2004-07-19
US58920304P 2004-07-19 2004-07-19
US60/589,203 2004-07-19
US60/589,201 2004-07-19
US60/589,202 2004-07-19
US59882104P 2004-08-02 2004-08-02
US60/598,821 2004-08-02
US60295604P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60289604P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60289704P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60289804P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60294704P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60292504P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60293004P 2004-08-18 2004-08-18
US60/602,925 2004-08-18
US60/602,930 2004-08-18
US60/602,897 2004-08-18
US60/602,956 2004-08-18
US60/602,896 2004-08-18
US60/602,947 2004-08-18
US60/602,898 2004-08-18
US60308204P 2004-08-19 2004-08-19
US60308104P 2004-08-19 2004-08-19
US60346604P 2004-08-19 2004-08-19
US60/603,466 2004-08-19
US60/603,081 2004-08-19
US60/603,082 2004-08-19
US60349804P 2004-08-20 2004-08-20
US60335804P 2004-08-20 2004-08-20
US60/603,498 2004-08-20
US60/603,358 2004-08-20
US60410004P 2004-08-23 2004-08-23
US60410204P 2004-08-23 2004-08-23
US60410304P 2004-08-23 2004-08-23
US60409804P 2004-08-23 2004-08-23
US60/604,102 2004-08-23
US60/604,103 2004-08-23
US60/604,100 2004-08-23
US60/604,098 2004-08-23
US60522904P 2004-08-27 2004-08-27
US60510504P 2004-08-27 2004-08-27
US60/605,105 2004-08-27
US60/605,229 2004-08-27
US61346104P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61363404P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61334004P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61345504P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61345604P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61336104P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61362804P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61324304P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61363204P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61360204P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61333904P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61346004P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61324204P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61345404P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61363304P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61358904P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61334104P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US61340004P 2004-09-27 2004-09-27
US60/613,361 2004-09-27
US60/613,460 2004-09-27
US60/613,633 2004-09-27
US60/613,632 2004-09-27
US60/613,589 2004-09-27
US60/613,243 2004-09-27
US60/613,454 2004-09-27
US60/613,634 2004-09-27
US60/613,456 2004-09-27
US60/613,455 2004-09-27
US60/613,340 2004-09-27
US60/613,628 2004-09-27
US60/613,341 2004-09-27
US60/613,461 2004-09-27
US60/613,242 2004-09-27
US60/613,400 2004-09-27
US60/613,339 2004-09-27
US60/613,602 2004-09-27
US61511204P 2004-10-01 2004-10-01
US61537804P 2004-10-01 2004-10-01
US61553804P 2004-10-01 2004-10-01
US60/615,538 2004-10-01
US60/615,112 2004-10-01
US60/615,378 2004-10-01
US61712204P 2004-10-07 2004-10-07
US60/617,122 2004-10-07
US62290604P 2004-10-28 2004-10-28
US60/622,906 2004-10-28
US11/004,637 US7707039B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2004-12-03 Automatic modification of web pages
US11/004,637 2004-12-03
US63348604P 2004-12-06 2004-12-06
US63345304P 2004-12-06 2004-12-06
US63367804P 2004-12-06 2004-12-06
US63345204P 2004-12-06 2004-12-06
US60/633,678 2004-12-06
US60/633,486 2004-12-06
US60/633,453 2004-12-06
US60/633,452 2004-12-06
US63473904P 2004-12-09 2004-12-09
US63462704P 2004-12-09 2004-12-09
US60/634,627 2004-12-09
US60/634,739 2004-12-09
US64768405P 2005-01-26 2005-01-26
US60/647,684 2005-01-26
US64874605P 2005-01-31 2005-01-31
US60/648,746 2005-01-31
US65337205P 2005-02-15 2005-02-15
US60/653,372 2005-02-15
US65389905P 2005-02-16 2005-02-16
US65384705P 2005-02-16 2005-02-16
US65367905P 2005-02-16 2005-02-16
US65366305P 2005-02-16 2005-02-16
US65366905P 2005-02-16 2005-02-16
US60/653,679 2005-02-16
US60/653,847 2005-02-16
US60/653,663 2005-02-16
US60/653,669 2005-02-16
US60/653,899 2005-02-16
US65437905P 2005-02-17 2005-02-17
US60/654,379 2005-02-17
US65436805P 2005-02-18 2005-02-18
US65419605P 2005-02-18 2005-02-18
US65432605P 2005-02-18 2005-02-18
US60/654,196 2005-02-18
US60/654,368 2005-02-18
US60/654,326 2005-02-18
US65598705P 2005-02-22 2005-02-22
US65569705P 2005-02-22 2005-02-22
US65527905P 2005-02-22 2005-02-22
US65528005P 2005-02-22 2005-02-22
US65528105P 2005-02-22 2005-02-22
US60/655,279 2005-02-22
US60/655,987 2005-02-22
US60/655,281 2005-02-22
US60/655,697 2005-02-22
US60/655,280 2005-02-22
US65730905P 2005-02-28 2005-02-28
US60/657,309 2005-02-28

Related Parent Applications (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US65569705P Substitution 2004-01-26 2005-02-22
PCT/US2005/012510 Continuation-In-Part WO2005106643A2 (en) 2004-04-12 2005-04-12 Adding value to a rendered document

Related Child Applications (3)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2005/011533 Continuation-In-Part WO2005098609A2 (en) 2004-04-01 2005-04-01 A method and system for character recognition
US11/365,983 Continuation-In-Part US7990556B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2006-02-28 Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US43273106A Continuation-In-Part 2004-04-01 2006-05-11

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2005101193A2 true WO2005101193A2 (en) 2005-10-27
WO2005101193A3 WO2005101193A3 (en) 2010-06-10

Family

ID=35457357

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2005/013586 WO2005101193A2 (en) 2004-04-06 2005-04-06 Scanning apparatus and related techniques

Country Status (1)

Country Link
WO (1) WO2005101193A2 (en)

Cited By (31)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7990556B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2011-08-02 Google Inc. Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US8019648B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2011-09-13 Google Inc. Search engines and systems with handheld document data capture devices
EP2383970A1 (en) * 2010-04-30 2011-11-02 beyo GmbH Camera based method for text input and keyword detection
US8146156B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2012-03-27 Google Inc. Archive of text captures from rendered documents
US8179563B2 (en) 2004-08-23 2012-05-15 Google Inc. Portable scanning device
US8418055B2 (en) 2009-02-18 2013-04-09 Google Inc. Identifying a document by performing spectral analysis on the contents of the document
US8447066B2 (en) 2009-03-12 2013-05-21 Google Inc. Performing actions based on capturing information from rendered documents, such as documents under copyright
US8447111B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-05-21 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US8489624B2 (en) 2004-05-17 2013-07-16 Google, Inc. Processing techniques for text capture from a rendered document
US8600196B2 (en) 2006-09-08 2013-12-03 Google Inc. Optical scanners, such as hand-held optical scanners
US8621349B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Publishing techniques for adding value to a rendered document
US8619147B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US8620083B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Method and system for character recognition
US8620760B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Methods and systems for initiating application processes by data capture from rendered documents
US8713418B2 (en) 2004-04-12 2014-04-29 Google Inc. Adding value to a rendered document
US8793162B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2014-07-29 Google Inc. Adding information or functionality to a rendered document via association with an electronic counterpart
US8799303B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2014-08-05 Google Inc. Establishing an interactive environment for rendered documents
US8831365B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2014-09-09 Google Inc. Capturing text from rendered documents using supplement information
US8874504B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2014-10-28 Google Inc. Processing techniques for visual capture data from a rendered document
US8903759B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2014-12-02 Google Inc. Determining actions involving captured information and electronic content associated with rendered documents
US8990235B2 (en) 2009-03-12 2015-03-24 Google Inc. Automatically providing content associated with captured information, such as information captured in real-time
US9081799B2 (en) 2009-12-04 2015-07-14 Google Inc. Using gestalt information to identify locations in printed information
US9116890B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2015-08-25 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US9269273B1 (en) 2012-07-30 2016-02-23 Weongozi Inc. Systems, methods and computer program products for building a database associating n-grams with cognitive motivation orientations
US9268852B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2016-02-23 Google Inc. Search engines and systems with handheld document data capture devices
US9275051B2 (en) 2004-07-19 2016-03-01 Google Inc. Automatic modification of web pages
US9323784B2 (en) 2009-12-09 2016-04-26 Google Inc. Image search using text-based elements within the contents of images
US9454764B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2016-09-27 Google Inc. Contextual dynamic advertising based upon captured rendered text
US9811171B2 (en) 2012-03-06 2017-11-07 Nuance Communications, Inc. Multimodal text input by a keyboard/camera text input module replacing a conventional keyboard text input module on a mobile device
US10769431B2 (en) 2004-09-27 2020-09-08 Google Llc Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
CN113468119A (en) * 2021-05-31 2021-10-01 北京明朝万达科技股份有限公司 File scanning method and device

Families Citing this family (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US9143638B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2015-09-22 Google Inc. Data capture from rendered documents using handheld device
US8081849B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2011-12-20 Google Inc. Portable scanning and memory device
US20060098900A1 (en) 2004-09-27 2006-05-11 King Martin T Secure data gathering from rendered documents

Citations (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20060212361A1 (en) * 1996-10-25 2006-09-21 Perkowski Thomas J Method of and system for accessing consumer product related information at points of consumer presence on the World Wide Web(WWW) at which UPN-encoded java-applets are embedded within HTML-encoded documents

Patent Citations (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20060212361A1 (en) * 1996-10-25 2006-09-21 Perkowski Thomas J Method of and system for accessing consumer product related information at points of consumer presence on the World Wide Web(WWW) at which UPN-encoded java-applets are embedded within HTML-encoded documents

Cited By (47)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US8515816B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2013-08-20 Google Inc. Aggregate analysis of text captures performed by multiple users from rendered documents
US8019648B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2011-09-13 Google Inc. Search engines and systems with handheld document data capture devices
US9268852B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2016-02-23 Google Inc. Search engines and systems with handheld document data capture devices
US8831365B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2014-09-09 Google Inc. Capturing text from rendered documents using supplement information
US8799303B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2014-08-05 Google Inc. Establishing an interactive environment for rendered documents
US8214387B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2012-07-03 Google Inc. Document enhancement system and method
US8619147B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US8447144B2 (en) 2004-02-15 2013-05-21 Google Inc. Data capture from rendered documents using handheld device
US8793162B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2014-07-29 Google Inc. Adding information or functionality to a rendered document via association with an electronic counterpart
US8620760B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Methods and systems for initiating application processes by data capture from rendered documents
US8146156B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2012-03-27 Google Inc. Archive of text captures from rendered documents
US8505090B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-08-06 Google Inc. Archive of text captures from rendered documents
US8781228B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2014-07-15 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US9633013B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2017-04-25 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US8621349B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Publishing techniques for adding value to a rendered document
US9454764B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2016-09-27 Google Inc. Contextual dynamic advertising based upon captured rendered text
US9116890B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2015-08-25 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US8447111B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-05-21 Google Inc. Triggering actions in response to optically or acoustically capturing keywords from a rendered document
US8619287B2 (en) 2004-04-01 2013-12-31 Google Inc. System and method for information gathering utilizing form identifiers
US8713418B2 (en) 2004-04-12 2014-04-29 Google Inc. Adding value to a rendered document
US9030699B2 (en) 2004-04-19 2015-05-12 Google Inc. Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US8799099B2 (en) 2004-05-17 2014-08-05 Google Inc. Processing techniques for text capture from a rendered document
US8489624B2 (en) 2004-05-17 2013-07-16 Google, Inc. Processing techniques for text capture from a rendered document
US9275051B2 (en) 2004-07-19 2016-03-01 Google Inc. Automatic modification of web pages
US8179563B2 (en) 2004-08-23 2012-05-15 Google Inc. Portable scanning device
US10769431B2 (en) 2004-09-27 2020-09-08 Google Llc Handheld device for capturing text from both a document printed on paper and a document displayed on a dynamic display device
US8903759B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2014-12-02 Google Inc. Determining actions involving captured information and electronic content associated with rendered documents
US8620083B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2013-12-31 Google Inc. Method and system for character recognition
US7990556B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2011-08-02 Google Inc. Association of a portable scanner with input/output and storage devices
US8874504B2 (en) 2004-12-03 2014-10-28 Google Inc. Processing techniques for visual capture data from a rendered document
US8600196B2 (en) 2006-09-08 2013-12-03 Google Inc. Optical scanners, such as hand-held optical scanners
US8638363B2 (en) 2009-02-18 2014-01-28 Google Inc. Automatically capturing information, such as capturing information using a document-aware device
US8418055B2 (en) 2009-02-18 2013-04-09 Google Inc. Identifying a document by performing spectral analysis on the contents of the document
US8990235B2 (en) 2009-03-12 2015-03-24 Google Inc. Automatically providing content associated with captured information, such as information captured in real-time
US8447066B2 (en) 2009-03-12 2013-05-21 Google Inc. Performing actions based on capturing information from rendered documents, such as documents under copyright
US9075779B2 (en) 2009-03-12 2015-07-07 Google Inc. Performing actions based on capturing information from rendered documents, such as documents under copyright
US9081799B2 (en) 2009-12-04 2015-07-14 Google Inc. Using gestalt information to identify locations in printed information
US9323784B2 (en) 2009-12-09 2016-04-26 Google Inc. Image search using text-based elements within the contents of images
EP2383970A1 (en) * 2010-04-30 2011-11-02 beyo GmbH Camera based method for text input and keyword detection
US9589198B2 (en) 2010-04-30 2017-03-07 Nuance Communications, Inc. Camera based method for text input and keyword detection
US8988543B2 (en) 2010-04-30 2015-03-24 Nuance Communications, Inc. Camera based method for text input and keyword detection
US9811171B2 (en) 2012-03-06 2017-11-07 Nuance Communications, Inc. Multimodal text input by a keyboard/camera text input module replacing a conventional keyboard text input module on a mobile device
US10078376B2 (en) 2012-03-06 2018-09-18 Cüneyt Göktekin Multimodel text input by a keyboard/camera text input module replacing a conventional keyboard text input module on a mobile device
US9268765B1 (en) 2012-07-30 2016-02-23 Weongozi Inc. Systems, methods and computer program products for neurolinguistic text analysis
US9269273B1 (en) 2012-07-30 2016-02-23 Weongozi Inc. Systems, methods and computer program products for building a database associating n-grams with cognitive motivation orientations
US10133734B2 (en) 2012-07-30 2018-11-20 Weongozi Inc. Systems, methods and computer program products for building a database associating N-grams with cognitive motivation orientations
CN113468119A (en) * 2021-05-31 2021-10-01 北京明朝万达科技股份有限公司 File scanning method and device

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
WO2005101193A3 (en) 2010-06-10

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
US10438251B2 (en) Content access with handheld document data capture devices
US8214387B2 (en) Document enhancement system and method
US9268852B2 (en) Search engines and systems with handheld document data capture devices
US8621349B2 (en) Publishing techniques for adding value to a rendered document
US8620760B2 (en) Methods and systems for initiating application processes by data capture from rendered documents
US9919209B2 (en) Document enhancement system and method
WO2005101193A2 (en) Scanning apparatus and related techniques
US8521772B2 (en) Document enhancement system and method
US20130332464A1 (en) Adding Information or Functionality to a Rendered Document via Association with an Electronic Counterpart
US20100185538A1 (en) Content access with handheld document data capture devices
US20110153653A1 (en) Image search using text-based elements within the contents of images
US20110029504A1 (en) Searching and accessing documents on private networks for use with captures from rendered documents
US20060136629A1 (en) Scanner having connected and unconnected operational behaviors
US20140236978A1 (en) Publishing techniques for adding value to a rendered document
WO2006023717A2 (en) Scanner having connected and unconnected operational behaviors

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
AK Designated states

Kind code of ref document: A2

Designated state(s): AE AG AL AM AT AU AZ BA BB BG BR BW BY BZ CA CH CN CO CR CU CZ DE DK DM DZ EC EE EG ES FI GB GD GE GH GM HR HU ID IL IN IS JP KE KG KM KP KR KZ LC LK LR LS LT LU LV MA MD MG MK MN MW MX MZ NA NI NO NZ OM PG PH PL PT RO RU SC SD SE SG SK SL SM SY TJ TM TN TR TT TZ UA UG US UZ VC VN YU ZA ZM ZW

AL Designated countries for regional patents

Kind code of ref document: A2

Designated state(s): BW GH GM KE LS MW MZ NA SD SL SZ TZ UG ZM ZW AM AZ BY KG KZ MD RU TJ TM AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HU IE IS IT LT LU MC NL PL PT RO SE SI SK TR BF BJ CF CG CI CM GA GN GQ GW ML MR NE SN TD TG

121 Ep: the epo has been informed by wipo that ep was designated in this application
WWE Wipo information: entry into national phase

Ref document number: 11365983

Country of ref document: US

DPEN Request for preliminary examination filed prior to expiration of 19th month from priority date (pct application filed from 20040101)
NENP Non-entry into the national phase

Ref country code: DE

WWW Wipo information: withdrawn in national office

Country of ref document: DE

WWP Wipo information: published in national office

Ref document number: 11365983

Country of ref document: US

122 Ep: pct application non-entry in european phase
DPE1 Request for preliminary examination filed after expiration of 19th month from priority date (pct application filed from 20040101)