Providing supplemental information for a digital work

• US 8,842,085 B1
• Filed: 09/27/2011
• Issued: 09/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goodspeed, Joshua M., Hamaker, Janna, Iser, Adam J., Killalea, Tom, Patnia, Abhishek, Taborisskaya, Alla, Shankar, Vaibhav
• Primary Examiner(s): LEE, NICHOLAS J
• Application Number:
  US13/246,759
• Time in Patent Office: 1,092 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3328 using graphical result space presentation or visualisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

In some implementations, a digital work provider provides a digital work and supplemental information related to the digital work for delivery to an electronic device. For example, the digital work provider may parse a digital work to identify objects in the digital work. The digital work provider may generate supplemental information for the digital work based on the objects. For example, the supplemental information may include an index identifying locations of occurrences of the objects identified in the digital work. The supplemental information may further include prestored content related to one or more of the objects. For instance, the digital work provider may obtain the prestored content from one or more authoritative network resources. The electronic device may display the supplemental information in response to a user selection of an object in the digital work during display of the digital work.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

a display;

one or more processors;

one or more computer-readable media;

a provider interaction module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to receive, from a computing device of a digital work provider, a digital work and supplemental information corresponding to the digital work, the supplemental information including an index of objects identified in the digital work and prestored content related to at least one of the objects;

a digital work display module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to display the digital work on the display; and

a supplemental information display module maintained on the one or more computer readable media and executed on the one or more processors to display the supplemental information on the display in response to a user selection of an object in the digital work displayed on the display, the supplemental information including a visual representation of a location of one or more occurrences of the object in the digital work.

2. The device as recited in claim 1, wherein the index identifies locations of one or more occurrences of each of the objects in the digital work.

3. The device as recited in claim 1, wherein the supplemental information further includes an identification of alternate names for one or more of the objects in the digital work.

4. The device as recited in claim 1, wherein the supplemental information displayed on the display further includes the prestored content related to the object selected by the user selection, the prestored content including information on the object obtained from an external source by the digital work provider.

5. The device as recited in claim 4, wherein the provider interaction module is further executed to receive updated supplemental information for the digital work, the updated supplemental information including updates to the prestored content obtained from the external source.

6. The device as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

a digital works library maintained on the one or more computer-readable media, the digital works library containing one or more digital works including the digital work; and

a supplemental information library maintained on the one or more computer-readable media, the supplemental information library including separate instances of supplemental information corresponding to the one or more digital works in the digital works library, including the supplemental information corresponding to the digital work.

7. A method comprising:

under control of one or more processors of an electronic device specifically configured with executable instructions,

storing, on the electronic device, a digital work and supplemental information corresponding to the digital work, the supplemental information including supplemental content and an index, wherein the index includes respective locations of occurrences of a plurality of objects designated in the digital work, and the supplemental content is related to one or more of the objects;

presenting the digital work on a display;

receiving a selection of a first object of the plurality of objects in the digital work; and

presenting at least a portion of the supplemental information on the display in response to the selection of the first object.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising prior to storing the digital work,

accessing a digital work catalog on a digital work provider site;

and

receiving the digital work through a transaction with the digital work provider site.

9. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein:

the first object includes at least one word presented in text of the digital work; and

receiving the selection of the first object in the digital work comprises receiving a selection of the at least one word presented in the text of the digital work.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein:

receiving the selection of the first object in the digital work includes receiving a touch input to a touchscreen of the electronic device to select the first object in the digital work.

11. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the object is at least one of:

a character in the digital work;

a person mentioned in the digital work;

a place mentioned in the digital work;

a thing mentioned in the digital work;

an interaction between characters in the digital work;

an organization mentioned in the digital work;

a relationship between characters in the digital work;

a popular highlight in the digital work;

a theme in the digital work;

a scene in the digital work;

an event mentioned in the digital work;

a phrase used in the digital work;

a topic mentioned in the digital work;

a citation provided in the digital work;

or

a time period associated with the digital work.

12. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein presenting at least a portion of the supplemental information on the display in response to the selection of the object comprises presenting a visual representation indicating locations of occurrences of the first object in the digital work.

13. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein storing the digital work and the supplemental information corresponding to the digital work further comprises receiving the digital work and the supplemental information from a digital work provider site through one or more networks in response to a transaction for acquisition of the digital work.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, the method further comprising, prior to storing the digital work and the supplemental information corresponding to the digital work, accessing the digital work provider site to acquire the digital work by selection of the digital work from a catalog of digital works available for acquisition from the digital work provider site.

15. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein storing the digital work and supplemental information corresponding to the digital work comprises storing a plurality of digital works and a plurality of instances of supplemental information, each instance of supplemental information corresponding to a different one of the digital works.

16. The method as recited in claim 15, further comprising storing the plurality of digital works in a digital works library and storing the plurality of instances of supplemental information in a supplemental information library.

17. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the portion of the supplemental information presented on the display includes a link to content stored at a location on a network, the method further comprising:

receiving a selection of the link;

acquiring the content from the location on the network; and

presenting the content on the display.

18. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

one or more computer-readable media;

a supplemental information generation module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to perform operations that include;

parsing a digital work to identify items in the digital work as candidates for designation as objects in the digital work; and

generating supplemental information for the digital work, the supplemental information including an index for the objects identified in the digital work, the index including locations of one or more occurrences of the objects in the digital work; and

a delivery module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to deliver the digital work and the supplemental information for the digital work to an electronic device.

19. The system as recited in claim 18, the operations further comprising:

obtaining, from a network accessible resource, content related to at least one of the objects identified in the digital work; and

including the content as prestored content provided with the supplemental information delivered to the electronic device.

20. The system as recited in claim 18, the operations further comprising:

indentifying, from a network accessible resource, content related to at least one of the objects identified in the digital work; and

including, with the supplemental information delivered to the electronic device, a reference identifier for locating, on a network, the content related to the at least one object.

21. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the generating supplemental information for the digital work further comprises identifying alternate names for the objects by:

accessing one or more network accessible resources to obtain information on the objects; and

identifying the alternate names based, at least in part, on the information on the objects obtained from the one or more network accessible resources.

22. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the generating supplemental information for the digital work further comprises identifying alternate names for the objects, at least in part, by accessing at least one of a file or a database that maintains information on potential alternate names for the objects.

23. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein parsing the digital work to identify items in the digital work to make into objects further comprises:

identifying at least one of proper names, place names, or statistically improbable phrases in the digital work as candidate items to make into the objects; and

identifying objects from the candidate items based, at least in part, on the information on the objects obtained from one or more network accessible resources.

24. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein parsing the digital work to identify items in the digital work to make into objects further comprises:

accessing one or more network accessible resources to obtain information on candidate items to make into the objects; and

identifying objects from the candidate items based, at least in part, on the information on the objects obtained from the one or more network accessible resources.

25. The system as recited in claim 18, further comprising a digital work preparation module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to perform operations that include:

receiving a digital work from a source of digital works; and

formatting the digital work to identify at least one of page numbers or location numbers for textual portions of the digital work for use when displaying the digital work on a device.

26. The system as recited in claim 18, further comprising a digital work store module maintained on the one or more computer-readable media and executed on the one or more processors to perform operations that include:

providing a digital work catalog for access by the device, the catalog including the digital work; and

receiving an acquisition request from the electronic device to acquire the digital work.

27. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein:

the system includes a plurality of computing devices;

a first computing device of the plurality of computing devices executes the supplemental information generation module to generate the supplemental information; and

a second computing device of the plurality of computing devices executes the delivery module to provide the digital work and the supplemental information for the digital work for delivery to the electronic device.

28. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media maintaining instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

sending a digital work to a device; and

sending supplemental information to the device, the supplemental information corresponding to the digital work sent to the device, the supplemental information including information on a location within the digital work of at least one object contained in the digital work and supplemental content obtained from a network resource, wherein the supplemental content is related to the at least one object; and

based at least in part on determining the supplemental content at the network resource has been updated, sending updated supplemental content to the device.

29. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, wherein the device is a second device and the digital work was previously accessible with respect to an account associated with a first device, the operations further comprising:

sending the digital work and the supplemental information to the second device based, at least in part, on user information maintained by a digital work provider.

30. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, the operations further comprising, prior to sending the supplemental information:

parsing the digital work to identify items in the digital work as candidates for designation as objects in the digital work; and

generating the supplemental information for the digital work, the supplemental information including an index for the objects designated in the digital work, the index including locations of one or more occurrences of the objects in the digital work.

31. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, wherein sending the supplemental information to the device further comprises sending supplemental information that includes an index providing information on locations of occurrences of a plurality of objects contained in the digital work.

32. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, further comprising determining that the supplemental content has been updated at the network accessible resource based at least in part on determining whether changes to the supplemental content at the network accessible resource exceed a predetermined threshold to merit sending of updated supplemental information.