ANNOTATING E-BOOKS / E-MAGAZINES WITH APPLICATION RESULTS

• US 20120066581A1
• Filed: 09/09/2010
• Published: 03/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Mobile Communications AB (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Spalink, Karin Johanne
• Granted Patent: US 8,700,987 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/232
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A device receives and displays an electronic book or electronic magazine, and receives user selection of a portion of content of the electronic book or electronic magazine. The device executes an application that obtains items of data related to the selected portion of content, receives selection of one or more items of the data, and attaches the one or more items of data to the selected portion of the content in a bookmark fashion to annotate the e-book or e-magazine.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a processing unit of a device, comprising:

receiving and displaying an electronic book (e-book) or electronic magazine (e-magazine);

receiving user selection of a portion of content of the e-book or e-magazine;

executing an application that obtains items of data related to the selected portion of content;

receiving selection of one or more items of the data; and

attaching the one or more items of data to the selected portion of the content in a bookmark fashion to annotate the e-book or e-magazine.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the e-book or e-magazine comprises:

displaying the e-book or e-magazine on a first display of the device having a first touch panel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the device has network connectivity and wherein the device comprises one of:

a cellular radiotelephone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a palmtop computer, a tablet computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an e-reader or an e-book device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein executing the application comprises:

executing at least one of a web searching application, a mapping application, a navigation application, a translation application, a dictionary application, or a user comment entry application.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the application comprises the mapping application and wherein the items of data comprise data, associated with a map, which is related to the selected portion of content.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the application comprises the navigation application and wherein the items of data comprise data, associated with geographic navigation, which is related to the selected portion of content.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the application comprises the translation application and wherein the items of data comprise data associated with translating the selected portion of content from a first language to a second language.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the application comprises the dictionary application and wherein the items of data comprise dictionary definitions related to the selected portion of content.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the application comprises the user comment entry application and wherein the items of data comprise user provided comments related to the selected portion of content.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the web searching application comprises at least one of a text searching application, an image file searching application, a video file searching application, or an audio file searching application.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the application comprises the text searching application and wherein the items of data comprise text search results related to the selected portion of content;

or

wherein the application comprises the image file searching application and wherein the items of data comprise one or more image files related to the selected portion of content;

or

wherein the application comprises the video file searching application and wherein the items of data comprise one or more video files related to the selected portion of content;

or

wherein the application comprises the audio file searching application and wherein the items of data comprise one or more audio files related to the selected portion of content.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving user selection of a portion of content of the e-book or e-magazine further comprises:

receiving input from a user that visually highlights the portion of the content of the e-book or e-magazine on a first display that displays a page of the e-book or e-magazine.

13. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

presenting a menu of applications; and

receiving user selection of the application from the menu of applications to execute the application.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the menu of applications is presented by displaying the menu on a second display of the device having a second touch panel.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

associating an icon with the one or more items of data; and

displaying the icon in a vicinity of the portion of content when displaying a page of the e-book or magazine that includes the portion of the content.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the e-book or e-magazine along with its annotations; and

sending the e-book or e-magazine, along with its annotations, to a server for sharing with other users.

17. A device, comprising:

a first display having a first touch panel;

a second display having a second touch panel, wherein the second display is attached to the first display via a hinge mechanism such that the first and second displays can open and close in a book-like fashion;

a communication interface configured to communicate via an external network;

a processing unit configured to;

display an e-book or e-magazine via the first display,

receive user selection of a portion of content of the e-book or e-magazine via the first touch panel,

display a menu of applications via the second display,

receive user selection of an application from the menu via the second touch panel,

execute the user selected application to send the selected portion of the content and a function request to a server via the communication interface and the external network,

receive items of data related to the selected portion of content from the server via the communication interface,

receive selection of one or more of the items of data, and

attach the selected one or more of the items of data to the selected portion of the content to annotate the e-book or e-magazine.

18. The device of claim 17, wherein, when executing the user selected application, the processing unit is configured to:

execute at least one of a web searching application, a mapping application, a navigation application, a translation application, a dictionary application, or a user comment entry application.

19. The device of claim 17, wherein, when receiving user selection of the portion of content of the e-book or e-magazine via the first touch panel, the processing unit is further configured to:

receive input from a user via the first touch panel that visually highlights the portion of the content of the e-book or e-magazine on the first display.

20. The device of claim 17, wherein the device comprises one of:

a cellular radiotelephone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a palmtop computer, a tablet computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA);

an e-reader or an e-book device.