Patent Application
20190095708
This application relates generally to day planners or calendars used to organize information by day or date. This application relates more particularly to an automated system for transferring information between paper and electronic day planners or calendars.
Calendars have been used for years. A conventional calendar is printed, typically with each month on a separate page wherein each day of each month is provides with an ordered box that can be used to jot notes. A day entry might reflect a time and place for an appointment, or an event like an anniversary or birthday. Boxes can be relatively small and leave room only for an entry or two. A new calendar is typically purchased annually. More recently, day planners came in to use. These are typically in booklet form, such as mounted with a ring binder. Day planners are more compact and conducive to placement on a desk top. Each page may have writing space for one to several days, such that information for only a small number of days appears at once. Unlike calendars wherein an entire month's entries can be viewed at once, day planners require one to turn pages to view other entries for the same month.
More recently, with the advent of computerization, electronic versions of calendars and day planners have come into to use. The look and feel of these electronic counterparts was designed to approximate interaction with their printed predecessors. However, electronic versions had significantly more capability, like an ability to share across different devices, and to allow appointments or notes to be delivered to someone else's electronic calendar.
While electronic calendars and day planners are widely used, there are still a significant number of people who prefer to use the paper versions. They may like to quickly jot notes with a pen or pencil, particularly if they are computer adverse or are inefficient at electronic text entry. Users of manual versions of calendars or day planners are at a disadvantage when they wish to share their notes or appointments with other who use electronic versions. A user of a manual version of a calendar or day planner may also be a user of an electronic version. They would be required to make duplicate entries in both versions which can be time consuming and frustrating.
In accordance with an example embodiment of the subject application, a system and method for digital conversion of schedule data includes schedule data stored in a data format corresponding to a scheduling application. A digital imager to captures a digital image of a calendar page sheet into a memory and a processor extracts character data from it. The processor parses temporal data from the character data and determines a calendar entry date from parsed temporal data. The processor further parses event data from the character data and updates an electronic calendar entry for a determined calendar entry date with the event data.
Various embodiments will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims and accompanying drawings wherein:
The systems and methods disclosed herein are described in detail by way of examples and with reference to the figures. It will be appreciated that modifications to disclosed and described examples, arrangements, configurations, components, elements, apparatuses, devices methods, systems, etc. can suitably be made and may be desired for a specific application. In this disclosure, any identification of specific techniques, arrangements, etc. are either related to a specific example presented or are merely a general description of such a technique, arrangement, etc. Identifications of specific details or examples are not intended to be, and should not be, construed as mandatory or limiting unless specifically designated as such.
Digital imaging devices form a bridge between tangible object and digital renderings. A digital camera can instantly generate an electronic image file of any desired object or scene. Scanners can generate image files for one or more written pages. Today, many scanners are incorporated into document processing devices. Document processing devices include printers, copiers, scanners and e-mail gateways. More recently, devices employing two or more of these functions are found in office environments. These devices are referred to as multifunction peripherals (MFPs) or multifunction devices (MFDs). As used herein, MFPs are understood to comprise printers, alone or in combination with other of the afore-noted functions. It is further understood that any suitable document processing device can be used.
As used herein, the terms calendar and day planner are interchangeable and define any suitable temporally structured information organization system.
In accordance with the subject application,
One or more pages with one or more entries from calendar 104 is digitally imaged by any suitable imaging device such as with a scanner 130 of MFP 132, or a digital camera, such as one embedded in cell phone 140. Captured images are communicated with any suitable wireless or wired network 144, such a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) which can comprise the Internet, or via a cellular connection, alone or in combination. Capture images are communicated to cloud server 150 wherein information from the image is converted to comprise character based information extracted from the image via optical character recognition (OCR). Cloud server 150 parses resultant character information, which may comprise text derived from printed or written characters in a captured image. As will be detailed below, character information is parsed to determine temporal information, such as the date and time of an entry along with and associated user-supplied content. This information is converted to a format compatible with one or more electronic calendar types, and the information automatically added to one or more electronic calendars. A particular calendar or calendars associated with a particular image may be determent in any suitable fashion, such as a known incoming address or a known incoming phone number. Associated calendars may also be determined by user input, or from the captured image itself, such by captured indicia such as name, phone number, bar code, address or the like. Electronic calendar information is then suitably communicated to any desired device, such as cell phone 140, tablet computer 154 or notebook computer 158. Calendar information may also be communicated for storage or distribution by MFP 132, which may also printout a tangible copy to supplement the original paper calendar page or pages.
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Processor 202 is also in data communication with a storage interface 208 for reading or writing to a storage 216, suitably comprised of a hard disk, optical disk, solid-state disk, cloud-based storage, or any other suitable data storage as will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Processor 202 is also in data communication with a network interface 210 which provides an interface to a network interface controller (NIC) 214, which in turn provides a data path to any suitable wired or physical network connection 220, or to a wireless data connection via wireless network interface 218. Example wireless connections include cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, wireless universal serial bus (wireless USB), satellite, and the like. Example wired interfaces include Ethernet, USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), Lightning, telephone line, or the like. Processor 202 is also in data communication with one or more sensors 219 which provide data relative to a state of the device or associated surroundings, such as device temperature, ambient temperature, humidity, device movement and the like. Hardware monitors suitably provide device event data, working in concert with suitable monitoring systems. By way of further example, monitoring systems may include page counters, sensor output, such as consumable level sensors, temperature sensors, power quality sensors, device error sensors, door open sensors, and the like. Data is suitably stored in one or more device logs, such as in storage 216 of
Processor 202 can also be in data communication with any suitable user input/output (I/O) interface 219 which provides data communication with user peripherals, such as displays, keyboards, mice, track balls, touch screens, or the like.
Also in data communication with data bus 212 is a document processor interface 222 suitable for data communication with MFP functional units 250. In the illustrate example, these units include copy hardware 240, scan hardware 242, print hardware 244 and fax hardware 246 which together comprise MFP functional hardware 250. It will be understood that functional units are suitably comprised of intelligent units, including any suitable hardware or software platform.
Controller 201 is suitably provided with an embedded web server system for device configuration and administration. A suitable web interface is comprised of TOPACCESS Controller (sometimes referred to in the subject illustrations as “TA”), available from Toshiba TEC Corporation.
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While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the spirit and scope of the inventions.
