Audio output of a document from mobile device

• US 8,121,842 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2008
• Issued: 02/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shih, Sheng-Yao, Kung, Yun-Chiang, Che, Chiwei, Wang, Chih-Chung
• Primary Examiner(s): MCFADDEN, SUSAN IRIS
• Application Number:
  US12/333,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20100153114A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,166 Days
• Field of Search: 704/260
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/02 Methods for producing synthetic speech; Speech synthesisers

Abstract

Architecture for playing a document converted into an audio format to a user of an audio-output capable device. The user can interact with the device to control play of the audio document such as pause, rewind, forward, etc. In more robust implementation, the audio-output capable device is a mobile device (e.g., cell phone) having a microphone for processing voice input. Voice commands can then be input to control play (“reading”) of the document audio file to pause, rewind, read paragraph, read next chapter, fast forward, etc. A communications server (e.g., email, attachments to email, etc.) transcodes text-based document content into an audio format by leveraging a text-to-speech (TTS) engine. The transcoded audio files are then transferred to mobile devices through viable transmission channels. Users can then play the audio-formatted document while freeing hand and eye usage for other tasks.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented data presentation system, comprising:

at least a processor programmed to provide;

a transcoding component for transcoding text of a document into audio signals;

a communications component for communicating the audio signals to a mobile client for audio presentation;

a negotiation component for receiving information associated with capabilities of the mobile client for audio presentation; and

a control component for controlling the presentation of the audio signals based on received commands and the mobile client capabilities.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the transcoding component transcodes the text of the document into the audio signals in response to selection of document information on the mobile client.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the text of the document includes text of a word processing document, a spreadsheet document, a presentation document, email content, email header information, email related information, or email attachment.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications component streams the audio signals to the mobile client, the streaming comprising streaming already transcoded portions of the document while other portions of the document are being transcoded.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the received commands originate from a vehicle-based client.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the received commands are generated from speech input to the mobile client.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the received commands are generated based on tactile interaction with the mobile client.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications component receives the commands and communicates the audio signals to the mobile client via at least one of a cellular carrier or an IP-based communications technology.

9. A computer-implemented data presentation system, comprising:

at least a processor programmed to provide;

a transcoding component for converting text of a document into a speech file in response to request of the document by a mobile client, the speech file including data associated with one or more embedded links in the document;

a communications component for receiving the request and communicating the speech file to the mobile client for audio output, the communication comprising communicating already converted portions of the document while other portions of the document are being converted; and

a control component for controlling the presentation of the speech file based on commands received from the mobile client.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the data associated with one or more embedded links in the document is obtained and transcoded into the audio signals.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the text of the document includes text of a word processing document, a spreadsheet document, a presentation document, email content, email header information, email related information, or email attachment, which are converted into the speech file for audio output at the mobile client.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the communications component streams the speech to the mobile client over an IP-based communications channel in response to commands originated from speech input to the mobile client, the commands facilitating navigation of the document text via navigation of the speech file relative to a starting point and an ending point of the speech file.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the control component receives and processes commands that facilitate navigation of the document text by character, word, sentence, paragraph, page, data type, and document type.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the control component receives a request in response to selection of document information on the mobile client, the transcoding component converts the text of the document into speech in response to the request, and the communications component streams the speech to the mobile client for audio output.

15. A computer-implemented method of presenting data, using at least a processor and a memory operatively coupled to the at least one processor, comprising:

receiving a request for data from a mobile client;

converting the data into a speech file in response to the request;

communicating speech data of the speech file to the mobile client, the communication comprising communicating already converted portions of the speech data while other portions of the data are being converted; and

controlling presentation of the speech data based on commands received from the mobile client.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising streaming the speech file to the mobile client over an IP-based communications channel or a cellular carrier to the mobile client.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

retrieving the data from a data source; and

processing commands that facilitate navigation of the data by at least one of character, word, sentence, paragraph, page, data type, or document type.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the commands are input via speech signals to the mobile client.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising converting the data using a test-to-speech engine.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising navigating through the data, which is a document, via voice commands to the mobile client.