Presenting multimodal Web page content on sequential multimode devices

• US 20050131911A1
• Filed: 12/10/2003
• Published: 06/16/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sliwa, James J., Su, Hui, Wilson, Leslie R., Zhao, Shi Wan, Chi, Chang Yan
• Granted Patent: US 7,434,158 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A method of accessing an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page can include the step of receiving a request for an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page from a source that lacks the ability to directly render the Web page. The Web page can be segmented into a multitude of fragments, where each fragment can consist of a single interface category, such as a graphical user interface category or a voice category. These fragments can be used to provide the requesting source with information from the Web page.

Claims

1. A method of accessing an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page from a source that lacks the ability to directly render said Web page;

segmenting said Web page into a plurality of fragments, each fragment consisting of a single interface category, wherein said interface category is selected from the group consisting of a graphical user interface category and a voice category; and

conveying at least one of said fragments to provide the requesting source with information from said Web page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said conveyed fragment belongs to the graphical user interface category,

converting an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language markup specified in said Web page into a markup language that said requesting source is capable of rendering.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said conveyed fragment belongs to the graphical user interface category, said conveying step further comprising the step of conveying the fragment to the requesting source across a data connection.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the conveyed fragment belongs to the voice category, said conveying step further comprising the step of said conveying said fragment to a voice server.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of:

conveying content derived from the voice fragment from said voice server to said requesting source across a voice connection.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of determining a capability of the requesting source, wherein said segmenting step segments the Web page according to said capability so that no fragment exceeds said capability.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

receiving a specification for a particular interface category, wherein the fragment conveyed in said conveying step belongs to the specified interface category.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

determining an order in which said fragments are to be conveyed to said requesting source, wherein said conveying step conveys said fragments in accordance with said order.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

recording at least one link that correlates at least one fragment belonging to said graphical user interface category to at least one fragment belonging to said voice category; and

determining a plurality of fragments to convey to said record source, wherein said fragments belong to different interface categories, and wherein said determination is based at least in part upon said recorded links.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one fragment of said conveying step includes a fragment belonging to said graphical user interface category and a corresponding fragment belonging to said voice category.

11. A system for providing Web content comprising:

a Web server configured to provide at least one Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page;

a sequential multimodal server configured to convert the Web pages of said Web server into at least one voice fragment and at least one graphical user interface fragment, wherein speech content derived from said voice fragment is conveyed across a voice connection, and wherein said graphical user interface fragment is conveyed across a data connection.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said voice connection and said data connection are wireless connections configured for mobile communication devices.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein said sequential multimodal server comprises:

an application session manager configured to determine the present interface mode of a client device, and to manage which voice fragments and graphical user interface fragments are conveyed by the sequential multimodal server.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein said sequential multimodal server comprises:

a publisher configured to manage the specifics of said voice connection and said data connection and to convey each voice fragment and each graphical user interface fragment across an appropriate connection.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein said sequential multimodal server comprises:

a transcoder configured to convert markup from one markup language to a different markup language.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein said sequential multimodal server comprises:

a fragmentation engine configured to segment said Web page into a plurality of fragments, said fragments consisting of at least one voice fragment and at least one graphical user interface fragment.

17. A method for accessing content of multimodal Web pages comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a multimodal markup Web page from a device incapable of directly rendering said multimodal markup page;

generating a voice-only markup page from said multimodal markup Web page;

generating a graphical user interface markup page from said multimodal markup Web page, wherein said graphical user interface markup page does not include voice-enabled markup;

segmenting said voice-only markup page into a plurality of voice fragments;

segmenting said graphical user interface markup page into a plurality of graphical user interface fragments;

correlating said voice fragments to graphical user interface fragments based upon content of the fragments; and

providing content of said Web page to said device using said fragments, wherein said device is configured to selectively switch between a voice mode that renders at least one voice fragment and a graphical user interface mode that renders at least one graphical user interface fragment.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said multimodal markup is an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice markup.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said voice fragment is written in a Voice Extensible Markup Language.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein said graphical user interface fragment is written in a Wireless Markup Language.

33. The machine-readable storage of claim 17, wherein said multimodal markup is an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice markup.

34. The machine-readable storage of claim 17, wherein said voice fragment is written in a Voice Extensible Markup Language.

35. The machine-readable storage of claim 17, wherein said graphical user interface fragment is written in a Wireless Markup Language.

21. A machine-readable storage having stored thereon, a computer program having a plurality of code sections, said code sections executable by a machine for causing the machine to perform the steps of:

receiving a request for an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page from a source that lacks the ability to directly render said Web page;

segmenting said Web page into a plurality of fragments, each fragment consisting of a single interface category, wherein said interface category is selected from the group consisting of a graphical user interface category and a voice category; and

conveying at least one of said fragments to provide the requesting source with information from said Web page.

22. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, wherein said conveyed fragment belongs to the graphical user interface category,

converting an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language markup specified in said Web page into a markup language that said requesting source is capable of rendering.

23. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, wherein said conveyed fragment belongs to the graphical user interface category, said conveying step further comprising the step of conveying the fragment to the requesting source across a data connection.

24. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, wherein the conveyed fragment belongs to the voice category, said conveying step further comprising the step of said conveying said fragment to a voice server.

25. The machine-readable storage of claim 24, further comprising the step of:

conveying content derived from the voice fragment from said voice server to said requesting source across a voice connection.

26. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, further comprising the steps of determining a capability of the requesting source, wherein said segmenting step segments the Web page according to said capability so that no fragment exceeds said capability.

27. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, further comprising the step of:

receiving a specification for a particular interface category, wherein the fragment conveyed in said conveying step belongs to the specified interface category.

28. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, further comprising the steps of:

determining an order in which said fragments are to be conveyed to said requesting source, wherein said conveying step conveys said fragments in accordance with said order.

29. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, further comprising the steps of:

recording at least one link that correlates at least one fragment belonging to said graphical user interface category to at least one fragment belonging to said voice category; and

determining a plurality of fragments to convey to said record source, wherein said fragments belong to different interface categories, and wherein said determination is based at least in part upon said recorded links.

30. The machine-readable storage of claim 21, wherein said at least one fragment of said conveying step includes a fragment belonging to said graphical user interface category and a corresponding fragment belonging to said voice category.

31. A system of accessing an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page comprising the steps of:

means for receiving a request for an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Plus Voice Web page from a source that lacks the ability to directly render said Web page;

means for segmenting said Web page into a plurality of fragments, each fragment consisting of a single interface category, wherein said interface category is selected from the group consisting of a graphical user interface category and a voice category; and

means for conveying at least one of said fragments to provide the requesting source with information from said Web page.

32. A machine-readable storage having stored thereon, a computer program having a plurality of code sections, said code sections executable by a machine for causing the machine to perform the steps of:

receiving a request for a multimodal markup Web page from a device incapable of directly rendering said multimodal markup page;

generating a voice-only markup page from said multimodal markup Web page;

generating a graphical user interface markup page from said multimodal markup Web page, wherein said graphical user interface markup page does not include voice-enabled markup;

segmenting said voice-only markup page into a plurality of voice fragments;

segmenting said graphical user interface markup page into a plurality of graphical user interface fragments;

correlating said voice fragments to graphical user interface fragments based upon content of the fragments; and

providing content of said Web page to said device using said fragments, wherein said device is configured to selectively switch between a voice mode that renders at least one voice fragment and a graphical user interface mode that renders at least one graphical user interface fragment.

36. A system for accessing content of multimodal Web pages comprising the steps of:

means for receiving a request for a multimodal markup Web page from a device incapable of directly rendering said multimodal markup page;

means for generating a voice-only markup page from said multimodal markup Web page;

means for generating a graphical user interface markup page from said multimodal markup Web page, wherein said graphical user interface markup page does not include voice-enabled markup;

means for segmenting said voice-only markup page into a plurality of voice fragments;

means for segmenting said graphical user interface markup page into a plurality of graphical user interface fragments;

means for correlating said voice fragments to graphical user interface fragments based upon content of the fragments; and

means for providing content of said Web page to said device using said fragments, wherein said device is configured to selectively switch between a voice mode that renders at least one voice fragment and a graphical user interface mode that renders at least one graphical user interface fragment.