Conversational portal for providing conversational browsing and multimedia broadcast on demand
First Claim
1. A conversational portal system, comprising:
- a computing system comprising a conversational browser to provide a user interface that adapts an interaction dialog between the conversational portal system and a client according to one more modalities supported by the client, and wherein the conversational browser can retrieve one or more pages from an information source in response to a request from the client and serve or present the retrieved pages to the client in at least one format that is compatible with the one or more modalities supported by the client,an audio indexing system for segmenting and indexing audio and multimedia data obtained from an information source of a registered subscriber; and
a multimedia database for storing the indexed audio and multimedia data,wherein the conversational portal maintains, for the registered subscriber, a program comprising multimedia segments in the multimedia database searchable by the client via a direct query of the indexed audio and multimedia data in the multimedia database.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for providing conversational (multi-modal) access to information over a communications network from any location, at any time, utilizing any type of client/access, through a conversational (multi-modal) portal. In one aspect, a conversational portal comprises a conversational (multi-modal) browser that is capable of conducting multi-modal dialog with client/access devices having varying input/output (I/O) modalities. The conversational browser retrieves information (such as content pages, applications) from an information source (e.g., content server) in response to a request from a requesting client/access device and then serves the retrieved information to the requesting client/access device in a format that is compatible with the I/O modalities of the requesting client/access device. In another aspect, the conversational portal provides multimedia access on demand. The conversational portal comprises an audio indexing system for segmenting and indexing audio and multimedia data obtained from an information source, as well as a multi-media database for storing the indexed audio and multi-media data. A subscribing user can compose and maintain a broadcast program wherein the user specifies which types, and in what order, different segments (news, radio, etc.) stored in the database are played back/broadcasted to the user.
-
Citations
32 Claims
-
1. A conversational portal system, comprising:
-
a computing system comprising a conversational browser to provide a user interface that adapts an interaction dialog between the conversational portal system and a client according to one more modalities supported by the client, and wherein the conversational browser can retrieve one or more pages from an information source in response to a request from the client and serve or present the retrieved pages to the client in at least one format that is compatible with the one or more modalities supported by the client, an audio indexing system for segmenting and indexing audio and multimedia data obtained from an information source of a registered subscriber; and a multimedia database for storing the indexed audio and multimedia data, wherein the conversational portal maintains, for the registered subscriber, a program comprising multimedia segments in the multimedia database searchable by the client via a direct query of the indexed audio and multimedia data in the multimedia database. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A system for accessing information, comprising:
-
an access device; a content server; and a conversational portal system comprising; a conversational browser that provides a conversational user interface to access the conversational portal system, wherein the conversational browser adapts an interaction dialog with the access device according to one or more modalities supported by the access device, and wherein the conversational browser can retrieve one or more pages from the content server in response to a request communicated from the access device and serve or present the retrieved pages to the access device in at least one format that is compatible with the one or more modalities supported by the access device; an audio indexing system for segmenting and indexing audio and multimedia data obtained from an information source according to a program specified by a user; and a multimedia database for storing the indexed audio and multimedia data, wherein the conversational portal maintains, for the user the program, wherein the program comprises portions of the indexed audio and multimedia data in the multimedia database in a predetermined order specified in the program by the user. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
-
-
30. A method for providing access to information over a communications network, comprising the steps of:
-
establishing communication with a conversational portal using an access device having at least one modality associated therewith; the conversational portal adapting an interaction dialog with the access device based on the at least one modality of the access device, wherein adapting the interaction dialog includes adapting the interaction dialog to an audio modality and a non-audio modality; maintaining, in a multimedia database of the conversational portal, indexed audio and multimedia data corresponding to a content page of a registered subscriber; retrieving, by the conversational portal, the indexed audio and multimedia data of the content page from the multimedia database according to a user specified program specifying an order in which portions of the indexed audio and multimedia data are played; and presenting or serving, by the conversational portal, the content page to the user in at least one format that is compatible with the at least one modality of the access device, wherein the at least one format comprises a multi-modal format that can be rendered in two or more synchronized modalities. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32)
-
Specification