Systems and Methods Document Narration

• US 20100324902A1
• Filed: 01/14/2010
• Published: 12/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T Play Holdings LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: K-NFB Reading Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Kurzweil, Raymond, Albrecht, Paul, Chapman, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 8,346,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/062 Combinations of audio and printed presentations, e.g. magnetically striped cards, talking books, magnetic tapes with printed texts thereon
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination

Abstract

Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices. In some aspects, systems and methods described herein can include receiving a user-based selection of a first portion of words in a document where the document has a pre-associated first voice model and overwriting the association of the first voice model, by the one or more computers, with a second voice model for the first portion of words.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving a user-based selection of a first portion of words in a document, at least of portion of the document being displayed on a user interface on a display device, the document being pre-associated with a first voice model;

applying, by the one or more computers, in response to the user-based selection of the first portion of words, a first set of indicia to the user-selected first portion of words in the document; and

overwriting the association of the first voice model, by the one or more computers, with a second voice model for the first portion of words.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the words in the first portion of words are narrated using the second voice model and at least some of the other words in the document are narrated using the first voice model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

associating, by the one or more computers, the first voice model with the document, prior to receiving the user-based selection of the first portion of words.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the words in the first portion of words are narrated using the second voice model and remaining words in the document are narrated using the first voice model.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first voice model comprises a default voice model.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying, in response to a user-based selection of a second portion of words in the document, a second highlighting indicium to the user-selected second portion of words in the document; and

associating a third voice model to the second portion of words.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein during reading of document, words in the first portion of words are narrated using the second voice model, words in the second portion of words are narrated using the third voice model and remaining words are narrated using the first voice model.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the selected portion of words.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the at least some portions of the document.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein receiving the user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models comprises receiving the selection in response to a user selecting a voice model from a drop down menu.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by the computer system, an audible output corresponding to the words in the document where the words in the first portion of words are narrated using the first voice model and the remaining words are narrated using one or more other voice models.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

modifying one or both of the first and second voice models by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.

13. A computer program product residing on a computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a processor to:

receive a user-based selection of a first portion of words in a document, at least of portion of the document being displayed on a user interface on a display device, the document being pre-associated with a first voice model;

apply, in response to the user-based selection of the first portion of words, a first set of indicia to the user-selected first portion of words in the document; and

overwrite the association of the first voice model, by the one or more computers, with a second voice model for the first portion of words.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

narrate the words in the first portion of words using the second voice model and

narrate at least some of the other words in the document using the first voice model.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

narrate the words in the first portion of words using the second voice model; and

narrate remaining words in the document using the first voice model.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

Apply, in response to a user-based selection of a second portion of words in the document, a second highlighting indicium to the user-selected second portion of words in the document; and

associate a third voice model to the second portion of words.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

receive a user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the at least some portions of the document.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

modify one or both of the first and second voice models by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.

19. A system comprising:

a memory; and

a computing device configured to;

receive a user-based selection of a first portion of words in a document, at least of portion of the document being displayed on a user interface on a display device, the document being pre-associated with a first voice model;

apply, in response to the user-based selection of the first portion of words, a first set of indicia to the user-selected first portion of words in the document; and

overwrite the association of the first voice model, by the one or more computers, with a second voice model for the first portion of words.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured:

narrate the words in the first portion of words using the second voice model and

narrate at least some of the other words in the document using the first voice model.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

narrate the words in the first portion of words using the second voice model; and

narrate remaining words in the document using the first voice model.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

Apply, in response to a user-based selection of a second portion of words in the document, a second highlighting indicium to the user-selected second portion of words in the document; and

associate a third voice model to the second portion of words.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

receive a user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the at least some portions of the document.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

modify one or both of the first and second voice models by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.