SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATICALLY ANNOTATING INFORMATION

• US 20090138490A1
• Filed: 11/04/2005
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Buil, Vincent P., Hollemans, Gerrit, Ten Kate, Warner
• Application Number:
  US11/718,623
• Publication Number:
  US 20090138490A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

Systems (1) such as photo organizer systems for automatically annotating information such as electronic images in dependence of relationship data (111,112) with respect to a first user (101) and a second user (102) and a subject such as another user (103) are provided with first means (11) such as a first table/database for, from points of view of the respective users (101,102), linking the subject such as the other user (103) and respective annotations (42,45) and with second means (12) such as a second table/database for linking the information and the subject such as the other user (103) and with third means (13) such as a user device for annotating the information with the first annotation (42) on behalf of the first user (101) and for annotating the information with the second annotation (45) on behalf of the second user (102). Fourth means (14) such as a third table/database store relationship data with respect to users and provide the first and second annotations (42,45) in dependence of relationship data, to increase the storage efficiency of the system (1).

Claims

1. System (1) for annotating information with a subject having a subject identifier, comprising

first means for, for a first user (101), linking the subject identifier and a first annotation (42), and/or for, for a second user (102), linking the subject identifier and a second annotation (45),

second means (12) for linking the information and the subject identifier, and

third means (13) for annotating the information with the first annotation (42) on behalf of the first user (101) and/or for annotating the information with the second annotation (45) on behalf of the second user (102).

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the subject is the first user, the second user, or a personal object of the first user or the second user.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the third means are configured for annotating the information in dependence of relationship data (111,112) with respect to the first user (101), the second user (102) and the subject, which first and second users (101-102) are different users.

4. System (1) according to claim 3, the system (1) further comprising

fourth means (14) for storing at least two relationship data of at least three relationship data (111-113) comprising first relationship data (111) with respect to the first user (101) and the subject and second relationship data (112) with respect to the second user (102) and the subject and third relationship data (113) with respect to the first user (101) and the second user (102) and for providing the first and second annotations (42,45) in dependence of at least one relationship data of the stored relationship data.

5. System (1) according to claim 3, wherein the subject is a third user (103).

6. System (1) according to claim 3, the system (1) comprising a photo organizer system, the information comprising an electronic image photo, the relationship data (111-115) defining family relationships, and the annotations (40-46) comprising nomenclatures.

7. System (1) according to claim 1, the first means (11) forming at least a part of a first database, the second means (12) forming at least a part of a second database and the third means (13) forming at least a part of a user device arranged to communicate with at least a part of the first and second means (11,12).

8. System (1) according to claim 4, the fourth means (14) forming at least a part of a third database arranged to communicate with at least a part of the first and second means (11,12).

9. Database for use in a system (1) as defined in claim 7.

10. User device for use in a system (1) as defined in claim 7.

11. Method for annotating information related to a subject having a subject identifier, the method comprising the steps of

for a first user (101), linking the subject identifier and a first annotation (42) and/or, for a second user (102), linking the subject identifier and a second annotation (45),

linking the information and the subject identifier, and

annotating the information with the first annotation (42) on behalf of the first user (101) and/or annotating the information with the second annotation (45) on behalf of the second user (102).

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the information is annotated in dependence of relationship data (111,112) with respect to a first user (101) and a second user (102) and a subject, which first and second users (101-102) are different users.

13. A computer program product including code means adapted to implement, when executed on a computing device, the steps of the method as claimed in claim 11.

14. Medium comprising the computer program product as defined in claim 13.