METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR STORING AND RETRIEVING PERSONAL CONTACT INFORMATION

• US 20150139508A1
• Filed: 11/20/2013
• Published: 05/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ULSee Inc.
• Original Assignee: CyWee Group Ltd.
• Inventors: Ye, Zhou
• Granted Patent: US 9,530,067 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/116
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/70 Multimodal biometrics, e.g. combining information from different biometric modalities
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

Method for a wearable device worn by a first user to generate or retrieve a personal contact record when encountering a second user is disclosed. The method of generating the personal contact record includes capturing a facial photograph of the second user and generating a face information; capturing a card photograph of a business card and performing OCR to obtain a card information; retrieving time and location information to obtain an encounter information; and generating the personal contact information. The method of retrieving the personal contact record includes capturing a facial photograph of the second user; searching through a contact database comprising facial images associated with identities of persons, and attempting to match the captured facial photograph with one of the facial images in the contact database to determine the identity of the second user, and providing messages. Wearable devices for performing the above methods are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method for a wearable device worn by a first user to generate a personal contact record when encountering a second user in an encounter session, the wearable device having a camera, the method comprising the steps of:

capturing a facial photograph using the camera, and generating a face information of the second user;

capturing a card photograph of a business card of the second user using the camera;

performing optical character recognition (OCR) to the business card to obtain a card information of the second user, and generating the personal contact record including the face information, the card information, and an encounter information including time information and location information retrieved from the wearable device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a voice recording sample of the second user, generating a voice information, and including the voice information into the personal contact record.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the time information includes a date information or a clock information of the encounter session.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the personal contact record is stored in a contact database stored on the wearable device or on a cloud storage service.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the wearable device performs automatic speech recognition (ASR) to ambient voices for a period of time for extracting a plurality of keywords from the voice recording sample, and then including the keywords into the personal contact record.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the encounter session of the first user and the second user takes place in an in-person encounter or a virtual encounter, and in the case of the virtual encounter, the facial photograph is obtained by capturing a photograph of the second user showing on a display, and the card photograph is obtained by capturing a photograph of the business card also showing on the display.

7. A method for a wearable device worn by a first user to retrieve a personal contact record from a contact database when encountering a second user, the wearable device having a camera, the method comprising the steps of:

capturing a facial photograph of the second user;

searching through the contact database comprising facial images, wherein each of the facial images is associated with a corresponding identity of a person, and the captured facial photograph of the second user is attempted to match with one of the facial images, so as to determine an identity of second user;

providing a first message including at least a full name of identity; and

providing a second message comprising an encounter information including time and location of a previous encounter session.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising receiving a voice recording sample of the second user, and searching through the contact database comprising voice recording files, wherein each voice recording file in the contact database is associated with a corresponding identity of a person, and the received voice recording sample of the second user is attempted to match with one of the voice recording files in the contact database, so as to determine an identity of the second user.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

providing a third message having a status information obtained by accessing a social network on behalf of the first user.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the location information is obtained by using a GPS, Cellular, or Wifi signal to determine location of the wearable device at the previous encounter session, or by searching and identifying a place or a landmark contained in the background of the facial photograph taken in the previous encounter session,

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of searching through the contact database comprising facial images includes performing facial recognition on the captured facial photograph.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the facial recognition comprises identifying of facial features by extracting landmarks, features, visual details of skin of the second user in the captured facial photograph to identify distinctive features of a face.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising performing speaker recognition, and the speaker recognition uses acoustic features of speech comprising anatomy and learned behavioral patterns.

14. A wearable device to be worn by a first user, the wearable device is configured to generate a personal contact record when the first user encounters a second user in an encounter session, the wearable device comprises:

a camera configured to capture a card photograph of a business card and a facial photograph of the second user, the camera is activated by the first user to capture the card photograph and the facial photograph in the encounter session, a face information is generated based on the facial photograph;

an optical character recognition (OCR) module, for performing optical character recognition (OCR) on the card photograph and generating a card information;

a location identifying module for providing a location information identifying location of the wearable device at the encounter session;

a datetime module for providing a time information of the encounter session; and

a record generating module for generating the personal contact record including the face information, the card information, the location information, and the time information.

15. The wearable device of claim 14, further comprising a microphone for receiving a voice recording sample of the second user and generating a voice information, and configured to be capable of receiving a voice command from the first user to activate the wearable device to generate the personal contact record.

16. The wearable device of claim 14, further comprising a voice recognition module, wherein the first user provides a voice memo for the encounter session, and the voice memo is converted into a text memo by the voice recognition module and is included into the personal contact record.

17. A wearable device to be worn by a first user, comprising:

a processor;

a communication module configured for providing internet access;

a camera configured for capturing a facial photograph of a second user, wherein the processor is configured to search through a contact database containing facial images of persons for a match with the captured facial photograph so as to obtain an identity of the second user, and generate a first message including at least a full name and a second message including an encounter information comprising time and location of a previous encounter.

18. The wearable device of claim 17, further comprising generating a third message including a status information obtained by performing a search on a social network for latest status update of the second user.

19. The wearable device of claim 17, wherein the communication module includes a cellular communication unit for connecting to a cellular base station, or includes a local communication module for connecting to a Wifi hotspot or a smart phone.

20. The wearable device of claim 17, further comprising a loudspeaker or a display for providing the first message, the second message, and the third message to the first user.