Patent Application
20120204086
1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to systems for enhancing the reading experience of an e-book, and more specifically, to a system adaptable to create and add multiple layers of content dynamically to an existing e-book and to track a user's progress through the e-book for the purposes of enhancing the user's reading experience.
2. Description of the Related Art
The popularity of electronic books (e-books) has increased tremendously in recent years. E-Books are usually read on devices such as an iPad available through Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. or a Kindle available through Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle, Wash. These and other devices use software generally referred to as an e-reader to interpret the e-books and display content for the user. E-books are published in a number of formats such as plain text (.txt), the Open Standard ePub (.epub), Amazon's Kindle format (.azw) and Portable Document Format (.pdf). Some devices display the e-book in hypertext web pages format (.html).
Book publishers have continuously explored ways to enhance the user's experience with the e-book by offering advantages that are not available in the print version of the original book. One common way to enhance the reading experience is to publish “interactive e-books”. Interactive e-books combine traditional book content, that is, written words and static pictures, with visual or aural effects only available electronically.
There are generally two methods employed for making e-Books interactive. The first method is to use static animated pages while the second method embeds interactive elements. Many animated e-Books currently use the first method. Here, the publisher using text, animations and/or aural effects creates each page of a story in the e-book independently. The pages are static, that is, each page of the e-Book looks the same for every user every time. However, creating an animated static e-Book page is time-consuming. It may be feasible for a children's story that has few words, but it is not desirable for a longer story because of the time it takes to create each page.
Another drawback of the static animated e-books is that because the pages of the animated e-books are static, the user cannot change the font size. This is because a change in the font size could make the page longer than what would fit on a single screen. Providing an option for the user to scroll through a screen too large to fit on one page of e-book display would be an option, however, current e-readers are not capable of this function. Unlike web pages, e-book pages have a fixed width and height. Therefore, changing the font size in the e-book necessarily requires an alteration to the number of pages. In a static animated e-book, this presents a problem because it would require the design of additional animated pages in order to make every page animated. Further, creating static animated pages for every possible font size is time consuming, so the publishers of animated books present the words in one, nonadjustable, font size. In this respect, the animated e-books are more like a series of static images, rather than an actual e-book.
To accomplish the second method, the pages of e-books are embedded with interactive content. Embedding interactive content is accomplished by adding markup languages like HTML or CSS to the text of the e-book. The e-reader reads markup tags in the e-books and displays an embedded video, sound, or flash animation within the text of the e-book. This method looks and performs just like a web page with embedded video, such as youtube.com, with text surrounding a video that will play when the user clicks or touches the play button. This type of embedded video is separate from the text of the story. That is, the animation cannot interact with the text of the e-book.
Some e-books use one of the two methods described above to add a layer of interactivity that requests the user to perform a task. For example, Penguin publishing has released a children's book in which tasks appear on each page. On one page, the reader can tidy up the character's room by dragging the toys and clothes to the character's dresser. This is done using the static animated page method of making an interactive e-book. Another limitation of the static animated page method of creating an interactive e-book is the fact that the pages are inherently static with respect to one another. As a consequence, an interaction or task performed on one page of the e-book does not alter the subsequent pages in the e-book.
Furthermore, performing a task or interaction on a page of an animated e-book does not make additional content available to the user. There is no backend program that keeps track of what tasks or interactions the user has performed in the currently available e-readers. Thus, the pages remain unchanged by the user's interaction.
One prior art device, described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,631,013 issued to Parsons on Dec. 8, 2009 describes a book represented as a set of objects in a relational database schema format called IBF (Interactive Book Format) and the controlling system software. This design provides for viewing books in a manner that coordinates additional information and provides interaction with the original book, while not disturbing the original publication and copyrighted material and even protecting that copyrighted material from piracy by supporting industry standard digital rights management security features. The technique disclosed includes the use of conversion engines, which will aid publishers in converting existing books into IBF format. However, this system has no markup tags to track a user's progress through the e-reader.
Another prior art device, described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,748,634 issued to Zehr on Jul. 6, 2010 describes a handheld electronic book reader device equipped with dual displays. The device includes a first display for presenting visible representations of textual or graphic content related to the electronic book. The device also includes a second display positioned alongside the first display. The second display includes a plurality of graphic elements that correspond to portions of the first display. However, pages of this electronic book reader device do not have interactive elements and hence animations, videos and music cannot be embedded. Further, the e-reader does not record progress of a user through the e-book.
In contrast to the static realm of the e-books, video game content is very dynamic. In a video game, feats and achievements performed by the user are often tracked throughout the game by the game console. When the user satisfies certain requirements (collecting enough money, slaying a certain number of opposing players, etc.) the user is given access to more content (new parts of the virtual world or new characters are made accessible). In this way, the user's achievements in the video game are used to trigger the availability of previously unavailable media or content. Similarly, some content in the video game is only made available if the user performs a certain task in order to “unlock” the content.
For example, WIPO patent application No. WO/2010/105088 (attached) published to Jamie Vann describes a wagering game system and its operations. In certain embodiments, the operations can include tracking progress of a wagering game player account for a persistent-state game. The player account can fulfill progression requirements for the persistent-state game, such as by performing wagering game activities. Operations can mark the progress by presenting progress markers on a progress chart available to the player account. The progress chart can be based on an episodic theme. Even so, this system is not dynamic and no interactive elements are embedded.
Hence, it can be seen, that there is a need for a system for adding tasks and animations within the e-book that interact with the text and enhance the user's reading experience. Further, the needed device would include markup tags to track the user's progress through the e-book.
To minimize the limitations found in the prior art, and to minimize other limitations that will be apparent upon the reading of the specification, the present invention provides a system for enhancing the reading experience of an e-book. The system comprises an application program configured to be installed in an electronic device, a plurality of markup tags to display information stored in the e-book and a processing engine adaptable to read the plurality of markup tags. The system is adaptable to create at least one page of the e-book dynamically and the plurality of markup tags is adaptable to indicate the existence of a triggering event such as an animation, ancillary content, a video, a website and an audio effect. The at least one page may created new or adapted from an existing e-book. The plurality of markup tags indicates when certain content stored in the e-book shall be displayed or otherwise executed. The processing engine records the progress of a user through the e-book and the plurality of markup tags reached by the user. The system is adaptable to compile the at least one page at run-time.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method in accordance with the invention is described for enhancing the reading experience of the e-book. In this method, the application program is installed on the electronic device. The user launches the application program in the electronic device and a screen displaying a main menu for selecting the at least one feature and the at least one reading mode may be displayed. The at least one page is compiled at run-time and the processing engine reads the plurality of markup tags to display the information stored in the e-book.
One objective of the invention is to provide a system adaptable to include animations, tasks, ancillary content, videos, websites and audio effects in the e-book without creating static pages.
A second objective of the invention is to provide a plurality of markup tags for use by a processing engine to execute a triggering event stored in the e-book.
A third objective of the invention is to provide a processing engine to record progress of a user through the e-book and the plurality of markup tags interacted with by the user.
A fourth objective of the present invention is to provide a system and method to create at least one page of an e-book dynamically at run time.
These and other advantages and features of the present invention are described with specificity so as to make the present invention understandable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
In order to enhance their clarity and improve understanding of the various elements and embodiments of the invention, these elements in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. Furthermore, in order to provide a clear view of the various embodiments of the invention, elements that are known to be common and well understood to those in the industry are not depicted. The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of the invention will become more readily appreciated and better understood by referencing the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
In the following discussion that addresses a number of embodiments and applications of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
Various inventive features are described below that can each be used independently of one another or in combination with other features. However, any single inventive feature may not address any of the problems discussed above or only address one of the problems discussed above. Further, one or more of the problems discussed above may not be fully addressed by any of the features described below.
The e-book according to the preferred embodiment contains information, some of which is locked information, that is, not initially (or ever) available to the user. The plurality of markup tags indicates to the system to execute triggering events stored in the e-book. The processing engine records data regarding the progress of a user through the e-book and the plurality of markup tags reached by the user. The system 10 compiles the at least one page at run-time, utilizing the data recorded in the process. The plurality of markup tags is adaptable to indicate existence of a triggering event such as an animation, ancillary content, video, a link to a website and/or audio effects. The system is adaptable to include such triggering events without necessarily requiring the use of static pages, as is commonplace to other e-books with similar effects. The electronic device may in a preferred embodiment be an e-reader capable of obtaining touch data from a user in response to touch events by the user on a screen, and in a more preferred embodiment selected from a group consisting of a mobile phone, an iPhone, iPad, and an Android device. The at least one reading mode 18 of the e-reader in exemplary embodiment is chosen from one of a reading mode 120, a reading mode 222 and a reading mode 324.
As shown in
The preferred embodiment includes a method for enhancing the reading experience of the e-book utilizing the system 10. In the method, the application program is installed on an electronic device capable of displaying e-books. The user launches the application program in the electronic device and the screen 14 displaying the cover page of the corresponding e-book may be displayed. The main menu 16 for selecting the at least one feature 26 and the at least one reading mode 18 may be displayed. The at least one page is compiled at the run-time and the processing engine reads the plurality of markup tags to display the information stored in the e-book. The processing engine records statistical data regarding the display of pages of the e-book, as described below.
The plurality of markup tags indicates among other things a certain task that the user may be prompted to perform. The processing engine examines the markup tags and displays a relevant page of the e-book with the appropriate additional content. A tag may only indicate a certain point in a section of the e-book, for instance a story. The processing engine records the information about the user, such as which tasks the user has performed and whether or not the user chose to view ancillary content such as media content. This information may be used to unlock additional content in the e-book, or to block information that the user is not yet meant to see. For example, when the processing engine detects that the user has reached a point in the e-book that contains a specific tag, a certain number of tags or a certain combination of tags, additional content may become available. If the content is unavailable, it will not be triggered or available to the reader. It is not necessary that all additional content be unavailable to the user when the user first launches the e-book. Some content may be unavailable to the user when the user first purchases the e-book, but the user may access the content by reaching the tags within the e-book or by completing other tasks tracked by the processing engine. In this way, the experience of the e-book may be enhanced with an additional layer of content. The system 10 may utilize a server to track the user's progress and the server may be local to the device or remote, i.e. accessed via the Internet.
In one embodiment of the present invention, when the user indicates that he wishes to view the next page of the e-book, the processing engine determines the words to be displayed and, based on the markup tags associated with those words, takes appropriate actions such as displaying animated effects or other additional content. Though the words of the story are static, each page is created dynamically. When the processing engine creates a page, it checks the text to be displayed on that page for the markup tags and prepares the appropriate page. For example, if the tag indicates that a word links to an ancillary content, then that fact may be made known to the user by for instance the system displaying the tag text in a different color or font. The processing engine also creates an appropriate data ink so that if the user clicks or touches that text, the ancillary content is loaded. The processing engine records the fact that the user chose to view the ancillary content, or chose not to view the ancillary content.
The present invention comprises a timing system for triggering certain content based on the user's determined reading speed. That is, the timing system comprises a means to trigger content to play or otherwise execute based on a dynamic calculation of a user's reading rate based on actual user reading patterns. The user's reading rate and other reading rates used by the system may be stored electronically as a user reading rate value. Using this system, a trigger event on a given page indicates that a certain effect or action should occur, and the system may precisely time that effect or action to occur at a logical place in the e-book text based on the user's reading speed. As an example, a page in an e-book may have tag associated with the word “shatter” indicating an effect that will cause a window shatter animation. This effect can be timed based on word or character count combined with the user's reading speed, so that as the user reads the word “shatter”, the shatter animation happens. The invention calculates the user's reading rate by collecting metrics in the background as the user reads the book so that it can accurately time things based on a user's individual reading speed.
In the preferred embodiment of this timing system there is a default or present reading rate value based on a researched average reading rate, preferably the average reading rate of the intended audience for the e-book in question. The system may utilize this preset reading rate value in place of the user's reading rate value until the user's reading rate value is determined. The system will continuously collect metrics in the background. After the system has collected metrics from a representational sample of pages displayed, e.g. ten pages, the system may either replace the preset reading rate value with the user's reading rate value, or may make an adjustment to the preset reading rate value using the user's reading rate value. When an adjustment is made, the system may then proceed using the adjusted reading rate value. The adjusted reading rate value may either be updated once, or may be updated multiple times and ongoing statistical data is collected. The system may also employ a high/low pass filter to remove outlying statistical data. That is to say that any reading speed metric collected for a displayed page that is too short (e.g. the user was flipping through pages) or too long (e.g. the user left the book activated but walked away) may be discarded and not used to calculate the user's reading rate value. These high/low pass filters will improve the accuracy of the calculated reading speed and thus the accuracy of the timing system.
The reading rate values may be calculated in any of the following exemplary units: sentences per unit time, words per unit time, characters per unit time, pages per unit time, unit time per page, unit time per word, unit time per character, and unit time per sentence. The reading rate value stored may be stored in the units in which it was calculated or first be further converted. It is to be recognized that this list of possible units does not exclude other such metric units known in the art. Optionally, the system may show the user his or her average reading rate. Any or all of the above-described statistical data is recorded by the processing engine. The processing engine may record this data for calculation of the user's reading rate by recording how long each page is displayed on the screen.
The present invention also provides a means for adding an additional layer of content to a pre-existing e-book. Using this method, a publisher of an existing e-book may easily add markup tags to an existing story, bringing new life to the story and creating an interactive experience for the user. The words of the story are not necessarily altered at all, and custom pages may not necessarily be created. However, the publisher may add tags to the text in order to enhance the story. For example, the publisher might add a “shatter” tag to the section of the story in which a window is shattered. When the processing engine compiles the page of the story that contains the shatter tag, an animation may be triggered and presented to the user. The animation may show the entire page, including all words currently displayed, shattering like the window in order to enhance the story. The shattering animation may be shown by the processing engine on whatever page the tag is encountered, regardless of the font-size or screen size.
As will be readily appreciated, this system enables a publisher to quickly, easily, and cheaply enhance a user's experience of an e-book. The process of adding markup tags to an existing e-book allows a publisher to add additional content and interactive features to an e-book without expensive and time consuming processes, and without reformatting the entire e-book.
In reading mode 120, the user reads the e-book without any of the enhancements provided by the present invention. In another embodiment of the present invention, markup tags indicate that a certain task may be performed at a certain place in the e-book. When the processing engine creates the page that contains the markup tags for presentation to the user, the processing engine will display the task. For example, a task may prompt the user to answer a question, or select some text or animated object. The user may choose to complete the task, or the user may choose to ignore the task. The engine will record the fact that the task was presented to the user and will record whether or not the user performed the task. The processing engine may unlock content based on the user's action and the information stored in the e-book. For example, in the case of a mystery book, the task may be a question about a clue uncovered by the reader in the story. The question might ask the user to make a conclusion based on that clue, such as the identity of who committed the murder in the story. If the user answers correctly, a video of the murder may be made available to the user. If the user answers incorrectly, the user may be given a hint or sent back to a previous stage of the e-book where content previously displayed is presented again with more detail or highlighting of certain text. Additional features limiting the number or frequency of guesses may be implemented. For instance, in one embodiment the user is only provided the question as to the identity of the murderer once per day.
The markup tags may further indicate that certain text is a hint to a task that will be presented to the user. The processing engine may highlight that text when it is presented to the user, or may choose to highlight that text only the second time it is presented to the user, such as is described in the preceding paragraph. In one embodiment of the present invention, a computing means interprets the tags and takes an appropriate action based on the tags, such as displaying the animation, playing the sound effect, unlocking additional content, or presenting the task to the user.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the titles of certain ancillary content may be shown to the user in the table of contents, but not made available. As the user progresses through the story, the ancillary content may be unlocked when the user reaches the appropriate triggering tag. For example, the table of contents may contain links to biographies for several characters, but those links are not live when the user first launches the e-book. The markup tags are added to the story to indicate when a character is first introduced to the user. When the processing engine determines that the user has encountered the appropriate markup tag, a biography associated with that character is unlocked and the link on the dashboard 66 becomes live so the user may click on it and read the character's biography. The user may be notified that he or she has unlocked ancillary content when the triggering tag is reached.
The user of the e-book may also be given the opportunity to perform a task related to a particular passage of the e-book. Upon completion of the task, an animation, video, or sound effect is loaded on the screen providing additional content related to the passage of the e-book that the user is currently reading. The user may continue reading the e-book regardless of whether the user completes the task or not. If the user does not complete the task, the user's experience may be the same as a user who has purchased the e-book without utilizing the features of the system 10. However, if the task is completed, the user experience will be enhanced by the addition of ancillary content or an alteration of the presentation of the existing content.
The foregoing description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been presented for the purpose of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings. It is intended that the scope of the present invention not be limited by this detailed description, but by the claims and the equivalents to the claims appended hereto.
This application is related to two U.S. patent applications filed on an even date herewith: “IMPROVED E-READER WITH LOCKED AND UNLOCKED CONTENT AND READER TRACKING CAPABILITY” filed as a U.S. Application (Attorney Docket No. 370.01), and “IMPROVED E-READER GENERATING ANCILLARY CONTENT FROM MARKUP TAGS” filed as a U.S. Application (Attorney Docket No. 370.03).
