Cooperative processing for portable reading machine

• US 20060015337A1
• Filed: 04/01/2005
• Published: 01/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Federation of the Blind
• Original Assignee: K-NFB Reading Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Gibson, Lucy, Albrecht, Paul, Kurzweil, Raymond C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,036,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/127 with the intervention of an operator
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/141 using multiple overlapping images; Image stitching
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/142 using hand-held instruments; Constructional details of the instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/146 Aligning or centring of the image pick-up or image-field
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/166 Normalisation of pattern dimensions
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

A handheld device includes an image input device capable of acquiring images, circuitry to send a representation of the image to a remote computing system that performs at least one processing function related to processing the image and circuitry to receive from the remote computing system data based on processing the image by the remote system.

Claims

1. A system for reading text to a user comprises:

a handheld device capable of acquiring images and sending a representation of the image to the computing system; and

a computing system capable of communicating with the handheld device and performing at least one processing function related to processing the image.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the handheld device has mobile phone capability.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing function is text-to-speech processing.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to the handheld device.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to the handheld device and wherein the handheld device performs text-to-speech processing on the text file.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to text-to-speech processing in the computing device and produces a speech file that is sent to the handheld device.

8. A handheld device comprises:

an image input device capable of acquiring images;

circuitry to send a representation of the image to a remote computing system that performs at least one processing function related to processing the image; and

circuitry to receive from the remote computing system data based on processing the image by the remote system.

9. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the handheld device has mobile phone capability.

10. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the processing function is text-to-speech processing.

11. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to the handheld device.

12. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to the handheld device and wherein the handheld device performs text-to-speech processing on the text file.

13. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing.

14. The handheld device of claim 8 wherein the processing function is optical character recognition processing that provides a text file which the computing device sends to text-to-speech processing in the computing device and produces a speech file that is sent to the handheld device.