Method and apparatus to generate audio versions of web pages

• US 20060111911A1
• Filed: 11/22/2004
• Published: 05/25/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Asapp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Timothy B. Morford
• Inventors: Morford, Timothy B.
• Granted Patent: US 8,838,673 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/270.100
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

Method and apparatus for generating audio files from web pages and for providing the audio files and/or the web pages at client terminals are disclosed. The audio files are generated by filtering a web page to remove characters that are non-audible. The audio files can be generated by a first server that receives a request for a web page or can be generated by a second server operating in cooperation with the first server. Additionally, web pages can be provided with a read me command button or other control object to allow audio versions of the web page to be selectively presented to a client terminal where the user desires to hear an audio version of the web page. Further, servers are disclosed that maintain play lists of web pages, including audio versions thereof if desired. Servers that maintain a preference list of web pages that users would like to hear audio versions of are disclosed.

Claims

1. A server process for providing a web page requested by a client terminal, comprising:

receiving the request and accessing the web page;

generating a text version of the web page by filtering the web page to remove non-audible information;

generating an audio file from the text version of the web page.

2. The server process as claimed in claim 1, further comprising transmitting the audio file from the server to the client terminal over a network.

3. The server process as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of encoding the audio file on the web page.

4. The server process as claimed in claim 3, further comprising finding a selected HTML tag on the web page and replacing the HTML tag with a string that includes a reference to the audio file and the HTML tag.

5. The server process as claimed in claim 1, further comprising determining a connection speed of the client terminal.

6. The server process as claimed in claim 5, wherein the audio file is generated in accordance with the connection speed of the client terminal.

7. The server process as claimed in claim 1, wherein the audio file is generated by a text to speech converter.

8. The server process as claimed in claim 7, further comprising processing the text version of the web page to identify and replace pre-selected words that are known to cause difficulties in the test to speech converter.

9. The server process as claimed in claim 1, wherein the audio file is a .wav file.

10. A server that receives a request for a web page from a client terminal, comprising:

means for receiving the request and accessing the web page;

means for generating a text version of the web page by filtering the web page to remove non-audible information; and

a text to speech generator that generates an audio file from the text version of the web page.

11. The server as claimed in claim 10, further comprising means for transmitting the audio file from the server to the client terminal over a network.

12. The server as claimed in claim 10, further comprising means for encoding the audio file on the web page.

13. The server as claimed in claim 12, further comprising means for finding a selected HTML tag on the web page and replacing the HTML tag with a string that includes a reference to the audio file and the HTML tag.

14. The server as claimed in claim 10, further comprising means for determining a connection speed of the client terminal.

15. The server as claimed in claim 14, wherein the audio file is generated in accordance with the connection speed of the client terminal.

16. The server as claimed in claim 10, further comprising means for processing the text version of the web page to identify and replace pre-selected words that are known to cause difficulties in the test to speech converter.

17. The server process as claimed in claim 10, wherein the audio file is a .wav file.

18. A communication system, comprising:

a client terminal that sends a request for a web page;

a first server that receives the request for the web page and sends a request for an audio version of the web page;

a second server that receives the request for the audio version of the web page;

wherein the web page and an audio version of the web page are generated and sent to the client terminal.

19. The communication system as claimed in claim 18, wherein:

the first server generates the web page and sends it to the client terminal; and

the second server generates the audio version of the web page and sends it to the client terminal.

20. The communication system as claimed in claim 18, wherein the second server generates the web page and the audio version of the web page and sends it to the client terminal.

21. The communication system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the audio version of the web page is encoded in the web page.

22. The communication system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the web page and the audio version of the web page are transmitted separately to the client terminal.

23. The communication system as claimed in claim 18, wherein:

the second server generates the audio version of the web page and sends it to the first server; and

the first server generates the web page and sends the web page and the audio version of the web page to the client terminal.

24. The communication system as claimed in claim 23, wherein the audio version of the web page is encoded in the web page.

25. The communication system as claimed in claim 23, wherein the web page and the audio version of the web page are transmitted separately to the client terminal.

26. A method of communicating via the internet between a client terminal, a first server and a second server, comprising:

the client terminal sending a request for a web page;

the first server receiving the request for the web page and sending a request for an audio version of the web page;

the second server receiving the request for the audio version of the web page;

generating the web page and an audio version of the web page and sending the web page and the audio version of the web page to the client terminal.

27. The method as claimed in claim 26, wherein:

the first server generates the web page and sends it to the client terminal; and

the second server generates the audio version of the web page and sends it to the client terminal.

28. The method as claimed in claim 26, wherein the second server generates the web page and the audio version of the web page and sends it to the client terminal.

29. The method as claimed in claim 28, wherein the audio version of the web page is encoded in the web page.

30. The method as claimed in claim 28, wherein the web page and the audio version of the web page are transmitted separately to the client terminal.

31. The method as claimed in claim 27, wherein:

the second server generates the audio version of the web page and sends it to the first server; and

the first server generates the web page and sends the web page and the audio version of the web page to the client terminal.

32. The method as claimed in claim 31, wherein the audio version of the web page is encoded in the web page.

33. The method as claimed in claim 31, wherein the web page and the audio version of the web page are transmitted separately to the client terminal.

34. A method of processing an HTML file, the HTML file including a plurality of pairs of HTML tags, each of the plurality of pairs of HTML tags having a front tag and an associated back tag, comprising:

string searching the HTML file to find matches to any of the front tags of the plurality of pairs of HTML tags;

when any of the of the plurality of pairs known HTML tags is found, (1) replacing the strings in the HTML file representing HTML tags with a null string and (2) analyzing the characters found between the front tag and the associated back tag to determine whether the characters represent text information or non-text information and if the characters represent non-text information, replacing the characters in the HTML file with null characters.

37. The method as claimed in claim 34, wherein the control object is a command button.

35. A method of presenting audio versions of web pages from a server to users on a client terminal, comprising:

generating a web page, the web page having a control object that can be selected by the user of the client terminal;

transmitting a request to the server for an audio version of the web page, when the control object is selected by the user;

generating an audio file that is the audio version of the web page, when the request is received by the server;

transmitting the audio file from the server to the client terminal; and

running the audio file on the client terminal.

36. The method as claimed in claim 35, wherein the audio file is run on the client terminal while the web page is displayed on the client terminal.

38. A server process for presenting audio versions of web pages to a user on a client terminal that has indicated a desire to hear the audio version of web pages, comprising:

generating a web page, the web page having a control object that can be selected by the user of the client terminal to indicate that the user want to hear the audio version of the web page;

receiving a request from the client terminal that indicates that the user wants to hear the audio version of the web page;

generating an audio file that is the audio version of the web page, when the request is received by the server;

transmitting the audio file from the server to the client terminal.

39. The method as claimed in claim 38, wherein the control object is a command button.

40. A server in communication with a plurality of client terminals, comprising:

means for storing a list of a plurality of users and a list of associated URLs for each of the plurality of users;

means for receiving a request from one of the plurality of client terminals, the request identifying one of the plurality of users and requesting receipt of play list of web pages;

means for accessing the list of a plurality of users to identify the one of the plurality of users associated with the request and for identifying the URLs associated with the one of the plurality of users;

means for generating each of the web pages identified by the URLs associated with the one of the plurality of users; and

means for transmitting each of the web pages to the client terminal that sent the request.

41. The server as claimed in claim 40, further comprising means for generating an audio version of each of the web pages and for transmitting the audio version of each of the web pages to the client terminal that sent the request.

42. The server as claimed in claim 41, wherein the audio version of each of the web pages is encoded into the associated web page before transmission to the client terminal that sent the request.

43. The server as claimed in claim 40, further comprising:

a filter that removes non-audible characters from each of the web pages;

a text to speech converter that converts each of filtered web pages to generate an audio file associated with each of the web pages.

44. The server as claimed in claim 43 wherein the means for transmitting transmits the audio file associated with each of the web pages.

45. The server as claimed in claim 44 further comprising means for encoding each of the audio files with the associated web page.

46. A server process in communication with a memory providing a list of a plurality of users and a plurality of URLs associated with each of the plurality of users, the server process also being in communication with a plurality of client terminals, comprising:

receiving a request from one of the plurality of client terminals, the request identifying one of the plurality of users and requesting receipt of play list of web pages;

accessing the list to identify the one of the plurality of users associated with the request and to identify the URL'"'"'s associated with the one of the plurality of users;

generating each of the web pages identified by the URLs associated with the one of the plurality of users; and

transmitting each of the web pages to the client terminal that sent the request.

47. The server process as claimed in claim 46, further comprising:

generating an audio version of each of the web pages; and

transmitting the audio version of each of the web pages to the client terminal that sent the request.

48. The server process as claimed in claim 47, further comprising encoding the audio version of each of the web pages into the associated web page before transmission to the client terminal that sent the request.

49. The server process as claimed in claim 46, further comprising:

filtering each of the web pages that remove non-audible characters from each of the web pages;

converting each of filtered web pages to speech to generate an audio file associated with each of the web pages.

50. The server process as claimed in claim 49 further comprising transmitting transmits the audio file associated with each of the web pages.

51. The server as claimed in claim 49 further comprising encoding each of the audio files with the associated web page.

52. A server in communication with a plurality of client terminals, comprising:

means for storing a list of a plurality of users and a list of associated URLs for each of the plurality of users;

means for receiving a request from one of the plurality of client terminals, the request identifying one of the plurality of users and identifying a URL of a web page;

means for accessing the list of a plurality of users to identify the one of the plurality of users associated with the request and to determine whether the URL is associated with the one of the plurality of users;

means for generating the web page identified by the URL;

means for generating an audio version of the web page identified by the URL; and

means for transmitting the web page and the audio version of the web page to the client terminal that sent the request.

53. The server as claimed in claim 52, wherein the audio version of the web page is encoded into the web page before transmission to the client terminal that sent the request.

54. A server process in communication with a plurality of client terminals, comprising:

storing a list of a plurality of users and a list of associated URLs for each of the plurality of users;

receiving a request from one of the plurality of client terminals, the request identifying one of the plurality of users and identifying a URL of a web page;

accessing the list of a plurality of users to identify the one of the plurality of users associated with the request and to determine whether the URL is associated with the one of the plurality of users;

generating the web page identified by the URL;

generating an audio version of the web page identified by the URL; and

transmitting the web page and the audio version of the web page to the client terminal that sent the request.

55. The server as claimed in claim 54, further comprising encoding the audio version of the web page into the web page before transmission to the client terminal that sent the request.