Patent Application
20050102625
Not applicable.
This invention relates in general to audio tags and voice tags, and more particularly to retrieving such tags locally or from a remote server.
More and more users are using hand-held devices such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants, Smart Phones and other devices as their main source of communicating and organizing. As a main source of communicating, many users use these devices to read emails, send SMS messages, read news, and otherwise communicate while they are in transit or out of their traditional offices. For example, many users use these devices in the airport, while riding cabs, trains or buses. Most legacy devices only display text, and this is the main way of communicating between the user and the device. While these handheld devices proliferate, existing communication between the device and user using only a display in many scenarios proves to be inadequate and fails to assist users with reading the contents that are being displayed on the screen.
Embodiments in accordance with the invention illustrate systems and methods of reading any strings or contents that are on a screen without having to look at the screen to read the contents. Instead, such embodiments will read the contents on the screen for the user. In addition, audio or voice tags can be downloaded from a central server for any symbol or new strings or even to support international users. In other words, as long as a device can display a string in any language, a particular embodiment in accordance with the invention will read the string, and if such a voice tag is not available, the device shall download the new voice tag from a server.
In a first embodiment in accordance with the invention, a method of retrieving an audio tag for a communication device can include the steps of retrieving an audio tag representative of an element within the communication device responsive to the selection of the element on a graphical user interface of the communication device and downloading the audio tag from a remote server if the audio tag representative of the element is not found within the communication device. The method can also include the steps of identifying the audio tag representative of the element selected and generating an audio output representative of the audio tag.
In a second embodiment, a communication device capable of retrieving an audio tag can include a transceiver, a display coupled to the transceiver having a graphical user interface, and a processor. The processor can be programmed to retrieve an audio tag representative of an element within the communication device responsive to a selection of the element on the graphical user interface of the communication device and download the audio tag from a remote server if the audio tag representative of the element is not found within the communication device. The processor can be further programmed to identify the audio tag representative of the element selected, to enter a narrator mode and to generate an audio output representative of the audio tag. The communication device can be any number of devices including, but not limited to a cellular phone, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, a laptop computer, a two-way pager, a mobile radio, a household appliance, and an industrial appliance.
In a third embodiment of the present invention, a communication device capable of retrieving an audio tag can include a transceiver, means for selecting an element on a graphical user interface of the communication device, means for retrieving an audio tag representative of the element within the communication device, and means for downloading the audio tag from a remote server if the audio tag representative of the element is not found within the communication device. The communication device can also include a means for identifying the audio tag representative of the element selected.
In another embodiment, a computer program can have a plurality of code sections executable by a machine for causing the machine to retrieve an audio tag representative of an element within the machine responsive to a selection of the element on a graphical user interface of the machine and to download the audio tag from a remote server if the audio tag representative of the element is not found within the machine.
While the specification concludes with claims defining the features of the invention that are regarded as novel, it is believed that the invention will be better understood from a consideration of the following description in conjunction with the drawing figures, in which like reference numerals are carried forward.
Referring to
An example using a J2ME MIDlet is shown below:
Note that myApp.wav and myApp-korean.wav will be included in the myAppjar as a resource.
The Java™ Archive (JAR) file format used above provides the ability to bundle multiple files into a single archive file. Typically a JAR file will contain the class files and auxiliary resources associated with applets and applications. A JAR file can contain Java classes for each MIDlet in a suite, Java classes shared between MIDlets, resource files used by the MIDlets (for example, image files), and a manifest file describing the JAR contents and specifying attributes used by application management software to identify and install the MIDlet suite.
A Java Application Descriptor (JAD) file can contain a predefined set of attributes (denoted by names that begin with “MIDlet-”) that allow application management software to identify, retrieve, and install the MIDlets. All attributes appearing in the JAD file are made available to the MIDlets. A user can define his or her own application-specific attributes and add them to the JAD file.
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In light of the foregoing description of the invention, it should be recognized that the present invention can be realized in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. A method and system for retrieving an audio or voice tag according to an embodiment of the present invention can be realized in a centralized fashion in one computer system or processor, or in a distributed fashion where different elements are spread across several interconnected computer systems or processors (such as a microprocessor and a DSP). Any kind of computer system, or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein, is suited. A typical combination of hardware and software could be a general purpose computer system with a computer program that, when being loaded and executed, controls the computer system such that it carries out the methods described herein.
The present invention can also be embedded in a computer program product, which comprises all the features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein, and which, when loaded in a computer system, is able to carry out these methods. A computer program or application in the present context means any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function either directly or after either or both of the following a) conversion to another language, code or notation; b) reproduction in a different material form.
While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be clear that the invention is not so limited. Numerous modifications, changes, variations, substitutions and equivalents will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.
