Electronic book data delivery apparatus, electronic book device and recording medium

• US 6,985,913 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2001
• Issued: 01/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures Holding 81 LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Inventors: Murata, Yoshiyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): GODDARD, BRIAN D
• Application Number:
  US10/023,410
• Publication Number:
  US 20020087555A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,484 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/10, 707/100, 707/101, 707/104.1, 345/901, 345738-739, 715/706, 715/709, 434/178, 434/180, 434/317, 434/318, 434/308, 434/309
• US Class Current: 434/317
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/915 Image
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/916 Audio
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/917 Text
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

An electronic book device receives from an external delivery source book data representing the contents of a book, a reciter images, for example, of famous persons who read aloud the contents of the book based on the received book data, and the corresponding reciter voice data, and then displays the received book data and reciter images on the display. A user views the received book data and reciter images displayed on the display and causes the reciter images to read the book data aloud in voices represented by the reciter voice data.

Claims

1. An electronic book apparatus comprising:

a display;

display control means for causing the display to simultaneously display a plurality of different book titles corresponding respectively to a plurality of books;

book selecting means for selecting a desired one of the plurality of books;

receiving means for requesting an external book delivery system to deliver data electronically to the book apparatus, and for receiving the data from the external book delivery system, said data including a text of the selected desired book which includes a plurality of different characters, and images of a plurality of different readers corresponding to voices for reading out relevant parts of the book text;

display control means for causing the display to display images of the plurality of characters and the images of the plurality of readers;

user-operable allocation means for utilizing the displayed images of the plurality of characters and the displayed images of the plurality of readers to select a reader to correspond to each character of the plurality of characters;

display control means for causing the display to display the received book text and the images of the plurality of characters, after the selection of the reader for each of the plurality of characters; and

read means for reading out relevant parts of the book text corresponding to the plurality of characters displayed with the book text such that a part corresponding to said each character of the plurality of characters is read out in the voice of the reader selected to correspond to the character.

2. The electronic book apparatus of claim 1, wherein the display displays the book text such that a currently-read-out part of the book text is distinguishable from a remainder of the displayed book text.

3. The electronic book apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the readers is a famous person or a voice actor or actress.

4. The electronic book apparatus of claim 1, wherein the book text comprises at least one word and a balloon surrounding the at least one word.

5. An electronic book apparatus comprising:

a display;

display control means for causing the display to display images of a plurality of different characters appearing in respective relevant parts of a test of a book, and images of a plurality of different readers corresponding to voices for reading out the relevant parts of the book text;

user-operable allocation means for utilizing the displayed images of the plurality of characters and the displayed images of the plurality of readers to select a reader to correspond to each character of the plurality of characters;

display control means for causing the display to display the images of the plurality of characters and the book text, after the selection of the reader for each of the plurality of characters; and

read means for reading out the relevant parts of the book text corresponding to the plurality of characters displayed with the book text such that a part corresponding to said each character of the plurality of characters is read out in the voice of the reader selected to correspond to the character.

6. The electronic book apparatus of claim 5, wherein the display displays the book text such that a currently-read-out part of the book text is distinguishable from a remainder of the displayed book text.

7. The electronic book apparatus of claim 5, wherein each of the readers is a famous person or a voice actor or actress.

8. The electronic book apparatus of claim 5, wherein the book text comprises at least one word and a balloon surrounding the at least one word.

9. An electronic book apparatus comprising:

a display;

determination means for determining a type of an electronic book to be read as one of a first type and a second type, said first type of electronic book including book data comprising;

book text, an image of at least one character appearing in the book text, and an image of at least one reader corresponding to a voice for reading out at least one relevant part of the book text corresponding to the at least one character, and said second type of electronic book including book data comprising;

book text, an image of at least one narrator, and an image of at least one reader corresponding to a voice for reading out at least one relevant part of the book text corresponding to the at least one narrator;

read control means for;

(i) when the electronic book is determined to be of the first type, causing the display to temporarily display the image of the at least one character and the image of the at least one reader, and then displaying and reading out the at least one relevant part of the book text corresponding to the at least one character in the voice of the at least one reader; and

(ii) when the electronic book is determined to be of the second type, causing the display to temporarily display the image of the at least one narrator and the image of the at least one reader, and then displaying and reading out the at least one relevant part of the book text corresponding to the at least one narrator in the voice of the at least one reader.

10. The electronic book apparatus of claim 9, further comprising display control means for causing the display to display the relevant part of the book text such that a currently-read-out part of the book text is distinguishable from a remainder of the displayed book text.

11. The electronic book apparatus of claim 9, wherein said at least one reader is a famous person or a voice actor or actress.

12. The electronic book apparatus of claim 9, wherein the book text of the electronic book of the first type comprises at least one word and a balloon surrounding the at least one word.

13. An electronic book apparatus comprising:

a display;

display control means for causing the display to simultaneously display a plurality of different book titles corresponding respectively to a plurality of books;

book selecting means for selecting a desired one of the plurality of books;

receiving means for requesting an external book delivery system to deliver data electronically to the book apparatus, and for receiving the data from the external book delivery system, said data including a text of the selected desired book, an image of a character appearing in the text, and a voice that reads out the text;

storage control means for causing a storage device to store the book text, the image of the character, and the voice;

reading-out control means for (i) causing the display to display a first predetermined part of the book text and the image of the character, and for reading out the first predetermined part of the book text in the voice stored in the storage device after the book text and the image of the character are displayed, and then (ii) acquiring a second predetermined part of the book text from the storage device, causing the display to display the second predetermined part of the book text, and reading out the second predetermined text part of the book text in the voice stored in the storage device.

14. The electronic book apparatus of claim 13, wherein the book text comprises at least one word and a balloon surrounding the at least one word.