Patent Application
20140047332
With the proliferation of computing and networking technologies, various forms of content are increasingly being provided to users through a multitude of devices and platforms. For example, electronic books are quickly replacing paper books as preferred forms of textual/graphics content dissemination. Different aspects of electronic book consumption result in a variety of types of platforms for delivering electronic book content to users. For example, some electronic book reader devices emphasize outdoor reading with specialized displays, while others emphasize portability with smaller form factors. These specialized devices have corresponding shortcomings such as lack of color, detail, etc.
Furthermore, electronic books are only one type of content. Magazines, newspapers, personal or business documents, and many other forms of content are exchanged every day, but electronic reader devices are typically limited to a subset of those. Platforms that provide some variety of content tend to have limitations on presentation, interaction, and other user experience aspects.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to exclusively identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Embodiments are directed to a rich service infrastructure for identity, storage, protection, commercial exchange, and sharing of content through a set of compatible cross-platform consumption experiences that provide easy access to professional, institutional, collaborative or personal content with auxiliary capabilities such as search, commenting, posting, and similar ones.
These and other features and advantages will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are explanatory and do not restrict aspects as claimed.
As briefly described above, a rich e-reader service infrastructure may be provided for identity, storage, protection, commercial exchange, and sharing of content for easy access to professional, institutional, collaborative or personal content with additional capabilities such as search, commenting, posting, and similar ones.
In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustrations specific embodiments or examples. These aspects may be combined, other aspects may be utilized, and structural changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the present disclosure. The following detailed description is therefore not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
While the embodiments will be described in the general context of program modules that execute in conjunction with an application program that runs on an operating system on a computing device, those skilled in the art will recognize that aspects may also be implemented in combination with other program modules.
Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, and other types of structures that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that embodiments may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and comparable computing devices. Embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
Embodiments may be implemented as a computer-implemented process (method), a computing system, or as an article of manufacture, such as a computer program product or computer readable media. The computer program product may be a computer storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program that comprises instructions for causing a computer or computing system to perform example process(es). The computer-readable storage medium is a computer-readable memory device. The computer-readable storage medium can for example be implemented via one or more of a volatile computer memory, a non-volatile memory, a hard drive, a removable memory device, and a flash drive.
Throughout this specification, the term “platform” may be a combination of software and hardware components for providing e-reader services such as content delivery, security features, user experience elements, and comparable ones. Examples of platforms include, but are not limited to, a hosted service executed over a plurality of servers, an application executed on a single computing device, and comparable systems. The term “server” generally refers to a computing device executing one or more software programs typically in a networked environment. However, a server may also be implemented as a virtual server (software programs) executed on one or more computing devices viewed as a server on the network. More detail on these technologies and example embodiments may be found in the following description.
Diagram 100 shows an example e-reader user interface according to some embodiments displaying book content. In addition to other types of content discussed below, the example content in diagram 100 includes textual content 104 and images 102. The images 102 may have interactive elements or may even be movies or slide shows. Upon selection of a portion of the displayed content 106, an e-reader application may present a command menu 108 with available commands depending on the selection type. For example, for a selection of textual content, the available commands may include “Add Highlight”, “Add Notes”, “Lookup”, “Find”, and “Search.”
An example e-reader architecture may provide a set of compatible cross-platform consumption experiences for a variety of desktop, mobile, and hosted operating platforms. The architecture may also provide easy access to professional, institutional, collaborative, and/or personal content and support for content protection technologies (e.g., digital rights management “DRM”). Furthermore, a rich service infrastructure may be provided for identity, storage (of content and comment), commercial exploitation, content protection, synchronizing, and sharing of content.
An example e-reader according to embodiments may support standardized formats or proprietary formats for different categories. For example, professional content (books and magazines) may use EPUB2, EPUB3, PDF standards; institutional content (academic, trade publications) may use PDF, DOCX standards; collaborative content may use DOCX, PDF standards; and personal content may use DOCX, PDF standards, among others.
EPUB enables packaging of websites in an offline package. The standard includes a compressed (zip) file with XHTML documents, which host the book content, packaging files that contain book metadata and describe the structure of the book, and container files that describe the root pointer to the content and any content protection scheme. EPUB provides for reflowable text that can be read optimally on a variety of reading systems. EPUB3 facilitates creation of books with modern content. The base content format is HTML and supports SVG objects, MathML, CSS3, and scriptable behaviors. With the upgrades in content format, navigation, scripting, styling, media, and character sets, EPUB3 facilitates creation of compelling book content. Thus, EPUB3 naturally lends itself to ‘active reading’.
An e-reader architecture according to some embodiments may enable a user to browse a book store and purchase a book (downloaded to the local machine for offline use); render compliant EPUB2 and EPUB3 content; render modern content found in compliant EPUB3 (HTML5, media, interactive JS objects) with full fidelity; adjust fonts/sizes for enhanced readability (content re-flowing intelligently to suit the font/size/viewing area; create text annotations anchored to specific content; create full page notes (text and ink) anchored to a specific page in the book; markup ‘content of interest’ by highlighting or underlining; call up notes or annotations when the content of interest is in view; and/or synchronize annotations and full page notes across all devices of the user running the reader application.
An e-reader architecture according to other embodiments may enable a user to look up content of interest with web search results shown within the reading experience; search content of the books in the library and notes along with a web search during the lookup process; upload a word processing document and have it converted to EPUB3 or similar standardized format and placed in user library; upload a PDF document and have it converted to EPUB3 and placed in user library; annotate the converted PDF and word processing documents; and/or customize reading experience (page background, line spacing, margin/gutter width, text color). The above-discussed document formats are illustrative examples only, and are not intended to limit embodiments. Indeed, any document format may be processed, presented, and subject to various features of an e-reader as discussed herein. The architecture may allow the e-reader application or service to provide support for various document formats out-of-the-box, through upgrades, or through third party plug-ins.
An e-reader architecture according to further embodiments may enable a user to customize user generated content (ink color and stroke width, eraser width, text color, font, size); lasso-select an area of the book and drag it to the note section; add existing or captured audio/video stream to note; format notes with decorations like bold, italic, colors, font/size changes etc.; export annotations to a note taking application or any other program capable of receiving all annotation content types (ink, text, image, link, audio, video); synchronize annotations to a pre-configured friends' book; conduct a live chat from within the reader experience; share a uniform resource locator (URL) that links to annotation and content of interest thru email or by posting to a social web site; and/or share the screen with real time annotations appearing during the chat session.
The active reading experience provided by the architecture may cover core reading experience, note taking, research and reference, social sharing, and aggregating user content along with professional content. Various visual schemes may be implemented to display available content such as 3D schemes, shading schemes, color schemes, textual scheme, graphical schemes, etc., which may be complemented by audio/video features. A navigation bar may present actual page number of a presented document. An interactive Table of Contents may be updated automatically through a script.
Users may be enabled to add notes, add highlights, add annotations, etc. (through keyboard entry or ink entry), which may be stored locally and/or in the cloud. Provided content may be interactive. For example, users may solve puzzles, take tests, provide comments, etc., which may be sent to the content source or designated destinations (e.g., a textbook may include tests, results of which may be sent to a professor).
Diagram 200 shows an example e-reader user interface, where a book (or magazine) content is displayed with textual and image elements and a search pane displaying search results for selected content on the user interface. For example, the word “Homeostasis” (212) is selected on the displayed content 210. The search results displayed in the search pane 214 may be grouped by category such as results from Wikipedia (216), results from an online dictionary (218), and/or other references (220).
Context based search within the content may be enabled in an e-reader architecture according to embodiments and search capabilities enhanced using the content and user information. For example, a selected word may be searched online and/or through user's domain based on the context of content around that word. Results may be provided in categories such as images, maps, text, scholarly articles, etc. based on the context and/or user preferences.
In yet other embodiments, flat books (non-interactive, static content) may be converted to rich books automatically by the e-reader application using the search engine (e.g., discovered images, audio, video, links may be inserted in suitable places).
Furthermore, portions of content may be captured, copied, moved, in case of textual context recognized. These “snipped” portions of content may be displayed on a separate view pane and used like a directory (user can navigate to the location of snipped content by clicking on the snippet). Ink entries may be recognized and converted to text, although displayed ink may not be corrected for visual effect.
Diagram 300 shows an example e-reader user interface, where a book (or magazine) content 310 is displayed with textual and image elements and a notes/sharing pane 320 displaying user notes and content to be shared. For example, a user may select a portion of displayed content 312, which may be copied over to the notes/sharing pane 320 and made available for sharing. The user may share the copied portion of displayed content 322 by activating a share control 324 (e.g., clicking on a button), which may result in publication of the portion of displayed content at a social network, for example. In addition, users may be enabled to take notes 326 on the notes/sharing pane 320, which may be publishable as well.
Additionally, content and/or annotations may be shared on social networks, professional network, blogs, etc. through easy controls on the e-reader user interface. Personal and/or organizational document sources may be used to import documents into the user's library in same/similar format as books allowing the user to take advantage of enhanced reader capabilities. For example, PDF documents may be converted to EPUB format. A “send to reader” button on a browser or e-reader UI may enable a user to convert and store any document in their library.
As shown in diagram 400, a system according to embodiments may include three main components: content source 434, reader service 428, and reader platform 432. The different components may interact over one or more networks 430, which may include wired, wireless, enterprise, public, local, wide area, and other networks.
Content source 434 may also be referred to as store, where the user can access a catalog of books or other content available for purchasing and downloading to the local device. An e-reader application (local or hosted) may be provided to the user through the reader platform 432. The reader platform 432 may be a physical platform such as a stationary, handheld, mobile, or wearable computing device with a display (e.g., a tablet). The reader platform 432 may interact with the reader service 428 (backend service) to push/retrieve data. Locally stored data may be updated based on changes at the content source, reader service, and/or user actions.
Physical devices with touch, gesture (optically or otherwise captured), voice, gyroscopic, keyboard, mouse, pen, and comparable input mechanisms may be used as the reader platform 432. Thus, the architecture may accept any of these interaction methods. Furthermore, an e-reader application may be executed on multiple machines. When a user changes their device (e.g., from desktop to slate or from slate to smartphone), settings and content may be preserved (although adjusted based on device capabilities/characteristics). For example, annotations/notes may be anchored such that their relative position to the content is preserved even when display characteristics change (content is reflowed).
Diagram 500 shows an initial view of the e-reader application displaying books/documents/content available to the user through their own library(ies) and/or those available through one or more bookstores (content stores). Alternatively, the bookstore and my library views displaying content available for purchase/downloading and content already in the user's possession may be displayed on separate views. These views may be configurable and displayable based on user preferences.
In the example user interface of diagram 500, available content is grouped in three example categories: store 538, read list 542, and my bookshelf 546. In the store 538 group, a list of available books (or other content) may be displayed in addition to selected book covers 540 to provide the user a visual assistance. The read list 542 group may include a listing and selected book covers 544 of books (or other content) that are selected by the user. These items may be from the bookstore or from the user's local store. The my bookshelf 546 group may include a listing and selected books 548 that are available to the user locally (or through a hosted data store by the reader service), as well as other documents (e.g., document 550). As discussed previously, the e-reader application may enable a user to view and process (through note taking, sharing, annotating, etc.) books, magazines, self-created content, professional documents, and comparable content.
The example user interface also includes controls 552 such as view selection buttons for different views. Following commands may be available in different views of the e-reader application user interface. My Library: for switching the UI to the user local library where purchased books can be downloaded and read. Upload: for bringing up a picker dialog and allowing the user to upload PDF or DOCX files (unprotected). Uploaded files may be converted to reflowable content. Purchase: for exposing when a book is selected and making the book available for download from the library UI. Download: for making a local copy of the book purchased from store in the graphic user interface to visualize a book that has been purchased but not downloaded yet. Delete: for deleting a book from the library. Start: for reading a book or a document by activating it.
Based on content and service infrastructure following features may also be provided: book metadata on thumbnail (read, notes taken, last read, etc.); pivot/group/order titles by metadata elements (recentness of access, custom tags, size, annotation level, social comments); grid/list view; metadata detail window for selected book.
The core reading experience may include navigating content by touching the right or left gray bars, by swiping within the content, or by using the nav-tracker in the command bar; highlighting content of interest and initiate a quick note anchored to the highlighted text; initiating a full page note (by clicking annotate in the command bar or bringing a pen or similar device close to the surface if the device supports it); opening a previously added quick note by clicking on the ‘note’ marker near the content of interest; looking up content of interest by right clicking the content of interest and selecting ‘Lookup’—which pulls in web search results in an inline window; interacting with a modern object within the content, such as a scripted quiz or a video playback control; multiple books open with easy switching (tabs); searching that aggregates results in table of contents, content, own notes, social notes; zooming into a specific object (e.g. image); fuzzy searching (e.g. ‘table on biodiversity’); and/or options to set background, margin/gutter width, font, font size, color.
Specific search results may be explored further from within the results window—while the content of the book or document remains in view. The interactions may be specific to the object type and may include custom behaviors (e.g. advance a slide in a slide-show, or draw an arrow to related content in an image).
Diagram 600 show the content available to the user grouped in a similar manner as in
If a user has no bookshelf items then a teaser or “placeholder” may be presented to act as a draw to pull the user into an experience. The group headings may serve as links to jump into the groups themselves. As discussed above, the individual items shown in each group may contain one large item that is either editorially selected as featured, or is the newest arrival to the group, or the most recently read item. Larger displays may have additional vertical rows when four-small items or two-large items can fit.
Each group may have a “featured item” that is larger representing either editorial placement, or newly arrived to the user collection. User may be able to drill-down and drill-up through these groups with heading taps, clicks, and pinch/zoom. Below the page title may appear a “View by” drop list control acting as a sort. The options may vary as follows:
Diagram 700 shows a bookstore 770 view of the e-reader application user interface. Bookstore 770 is where the user can access a catalog of books (or other content) available for purchasing and downloading to the local device. The list of books may be arranged in categories driven by the metadata entered in the catalog. Categories may include genre such as business 772, comedy 774, and fiction 776. Other categories may be accessible through sliding the current view or switching to another page. Example controls 768 on the bookstore 770 view may include a link to My Library, a control for uploading a book, etc.
In some examples, “NEW” banners may be overlaid on items that are fresh arrivals to a gallery. A “click me” chicklet control may be implemented in galleries so mouse users can perform the pinch & zoom to navigate up through a layer of gallery depth.
Categorization of available content may take many forms such as genre (as shown in diagram 700), availability, content type, etc. Diagram 800 shows another example categorization of My Library 880 view of the e-reader application user interface. Available content (books) 884 are categorized alphabetically. Controls 868 are similar to the controls in other views. This categorization may be implemented similarly in each view or customized for each view.
The example displayed content of an e-reader application in diagram, 900 includes textual content 990, image content 986, and video content 988. In addition to one or more links to other views (e.g., My Library 992), controls may be provided for processing the entire displayed content or portions of it (e.g., selected portions). For example, if a textual portion of the displayed content is selected, control 993 may be provided to adjust text size (for enhanced viewing) on a sliding scale. Similarly controls 994 and 996 may enable the user to adjust text size in steps. Annotation control 998 may enable the user to annotate the displayed content by entering ink or through a keyboard entry. When the user selects another portion of the displayed content, some or all of the controls may be replaced with other controls suitable for the newly selected portion of the displayed content.
Downloaded content may be sandboxed to protect against malicious or unsafe content. Content may be loaded using a web browser through navigation. Since local content is typically more highly trusted than website content, it may be processed differently. Downloaded untrusted content may be programmatically loaded and processed so that references do not cause errors (media, script, styles, etc. may be represented as blob objects).
Diagram 1000 shows the conceptual processing of the content 1002 in three example operations. First, scripts and style lists may be retrieved and inlined with the book HTML. For images, the reference may be marked as image (similar for audio/video objects). Next, local context 1010 may retrieve the inlined HTML, scan and find all instances of images and create a blob for each. Lastly, local context 1002 may replace the image references in the inlined HTML from the blob at the web context 1008. As discussed above, the downloaded content may be sandboxed (1006) providing separation (1004) from the original one.
The example systems in
Client applications executed on any of the client devices 1111-1114 may facilitate communications via application(s) executed by servers 1115 or on individual server 1116. An application executed on one of the servers may facilitate storage, protection, commercial exchange, and sharing of content through a set of compatible cross-platform consumption experiences that provide easy access to professional, institutional, collaborative or personal content with auxiliary capabilities such as search, commenting, posting, and similar ones. The application may store user and content date in data store(s) 1119 directly or through database server 1118.
Network(s) 1110 may comprise any topology of servers, clients, Internet service providers, and communication media. A system according to embodiments may have a static or dynamic topology. Network(s) 1110 may include secure networks such as an enterprise network, an unsecure network such as a wireless open network, or the Internet. Network(s) 1110 may also coordinate communication over other networks such as Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or cellular networks. Furthermore, network(s) 1110 may include short range wireless networks such as Bluetooth or similar ones. Network(s) 1110 provide communication between the nodes described herein. By way of example, and not limitation, network(s) 1110 may include wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.
Many other configurations of computing devices, applications, data sources, and data distribution systems may be employed to provide an e-reader architecture with rich service infrastructure. Furthermore, the networked environments discussed in
E-reader application 1222 may facilitate downloading, storage, display, sharing, and annotation of content such a books, documents, etc. In some embodiments, e-reader application 1222 in coordination with the content management module 1224 may download content from one or more stores and/or an e-reader service, display according to user preferences, and provide various views and control to enhance user experience. UC&C application 1222 and control module 1224 may be separate applications or integrated modules of a hosted service. This basic configuration is illustrated in
Computing device 1200 may have additional features or functionality. For example, the computing device 1200 may also include additional data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, for example, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in
Computing device 1200 may also contain communication connections 1216 that allow the device to communicate with other devices 1218, such as over a wired or wireless network in a distributed computing environment, a satellite link, a cellular link, a short range network, and comparable mechanisms. Other devices 1218 may include computer device(s) that execute communication applications, web servers, and comparable devices. Communication connection(s) 1216 is one example of communication media. Communication media can include therein computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.
Example embodiments also include methods. These methods can be implemented in any number of ways, including the structures described in this document. One such way is by machine operations, of devices of the type described in this document.
Another optional way is for one or more of the individual operations of the methods to be performed in conjunction with one or more human operators performing some. These human operators need not be collocated with each other, but each can be only with a machine that performs a portion of the program.
Process 1300 begins with operation 1310, where one or more content sources (e.g., a bookstore) to provide content directly or through a cloud-based reader service to an e-reader application. At operation 1320, at least a portion of the content associated with the e-reader application may be stored at a data store managed by the cloud-based reader service. The content may include one or more of electronic books, magazines, articles, professional content, institutional content, personal content, and collaborative content.
At operation 730, a rich service infrastructure may be provided by the cloud-based reader service for identity, storage, protection, commercial exchange, and sharing of the content through a set of compatible cross-platform consumption experiences. The consumption experiences may include one or more of a core reading experience, a note taking experience, a research experience, a reference experience, a social sharing experience, and an aggregation experience for user created content with the professional content.
The operations included in process 1300 are for illustration purposes. Providing an e-reader service may be implemented by similar processes with fewer or additional steps, as well as in different order of operations using the principles described herein.
The above specification, examples and data provide a complete description of the manufacture and use of the composition of the embodiments. Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims and embodiments.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/681,094 filed on Aug. 8, 2012. The disclosures of the provisional patent application are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61681094 | Aug 2012 | US |
