Systems and methods for suggesting a pause position within electronic text

• US 9,326,116 B2
• Filed: 05/27/2011
• Issued: 04/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Rhonda Enterprises, LLC (Concert Technology Corporation)
• Inventors: Kandekar, Kunal, Curtis, Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): JUNG, SEUNG WOON
• Application Number:
  US13/117,540
• Publication Number:
  US 20120206472A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,796 Days
• Field of Search: 715/782, 704/9, 704/E15.003, 345/581
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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: G06Q 30/0214 Referral reward systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods for suggesting a pause position within electronic text are disclosed herein. According to an aspect, a method may include receiving identification of a current user position within electronic text residing on an electronic device. For example, a current user position may be a page of an e-book that is currently being displayed to a reader or user. The method may include determining a suggested pause position within the electronic text based on the current user position. For example, the suggested pause position may be determined based on the reader'"'"'s profile, a reading behavior of other readers, metadata, or combinations thereof. The method may also include presenting the suggested pause position on a user interface of the electronic device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving identification of a current user reading position within an electronic text of an electronic book residing on an electronic book reading device for a current reading session;

determining candidate pause positions within the electronic text of the electronic book based on the current user reading position and from among a portion of the electronic text extending from the current user reading position and another reading position following the current user reading position within the electronic text of the electronic book;

selecting a suggested pause position from the determined candidate pause positions based on an available reading time and reading speed associated with a user profile of the current user for the current reading session; and

presenting the suggested pause position on a user interface of the electronic device to indicate where to pause in reading the electronic text of the electronic book for the current reading session.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving identification of the current user reading position comprises determining that the electronic device is presenting on the user interface a portion of the electronic text of the electronic book that corresponds to the current user reading position.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic text of the electronic book comprises metadata including the candidate pause positions, and

wherein determining the candidate pause positions comprises extracting the candidate pause positions from the metadata of the electronic text of the electronic book.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the candidate pause positions from a server via a communications network.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the candidate pause positions comprises determining the candidate pause positions based on reading behavior of a plurality of other readers.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the reading behavior is reading behavior of other readers reading the electronic text of the electronic book.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the candidate pause positions comprises determining the candidate pause positions based on actual pause positions of other readers who have read the electronic text of the electronic book.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the suggested pause position comprises selecting the suggested pause position based on the user profile.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the user profile comprises at least one of an available read time for a user, a calendar of the user, a reading behavior of the user, a current time, a reading speed of the user, an activity of the user;

and

a time constraint for the current reading session.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the candidate pause positions comprises determining the candidate pause positions based on a content of the electronic text of the electronic book.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the candidate pause positions comprises applying semantic analysis to the content of the electronic text of the electronic book.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein applying semantic analysis comprises:

determining a portion of the content of the electronic text of the electronic book relating to at least one of a plot point and subject change; and

assigning a position of the determined portion of the content as a candidate pause position of the candidate pause positions.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein applying semantic analysis comprises:

determining a similarity score between text subgroups within the electronic text of the electronic book;

determining whether the similarity score is less than a predetermined threshold; and

in response to determining that the similarity score is less than the predetermined threshold, assigning a position between the text subgroups as a candidate pause position of the candidate pause positions.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the suggested pause position comprises controlling a display of the electronic book reading device to display a graphic corresponding to the suggested pause position.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the current user reading position is the suggested pause position,

wherein presenting the suggested pause position comprises controlling a speaker of the electronic book reading device to emit a sound in response to determining that the current user reading position is the suggested pause position.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising altering a portion of content of the electronic text of the electronic book at the suggested pause position,

wherein presenting the suggested pause position comprises controlling a display of the electronic book reading device to display the altered portion of content.

17. An electronic book reading device comprising:

a pause position manager configured to;

receive identification of a current user reading position within an electronic text of an electronic book for a current reading session; and

determine candidate pause positions within the electronic text of the electronic book based on the current user reading position and from among a portion of the electronic text extending from the current user reading position and another reading position following the current user reading position;

select a suggested pause position from the determined candidate pause positions based on an available reading time and reading speed associated with a user profile of the current user for the current reading session; and

a user interface configured to present the suggested pause position to indicate where to pause in reading the electronic text of the electronic book for the current reading session.

18. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to determine that the electronic book reading device is presenting a portion of the electronic text of the electronic book that corresponds to the current user reading position.

19. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the electronic text of the electronic book comprises metadata including the candidate pause positions, and

wherein the pause position manager is configured to extract the candidate pause positions from the metadata of the electronic text of the electronic book.

20. The electronic device of claim 17, further comprising a network interface configured to receive the candidate pause positions from a server via a communications network.

21. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to determine the candidate pause positions based on reading behavior of a plurality of other readers.

22. The electronic device of claim 21, wherein the reading behavior is reading behavior of other readers reading the electronic text of the electronic book.

23. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to determine the candidate pause positions based on actual pause positions of other readers who have read the electronic text of the electronic book.

24. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to select the suggested pause position based on the user profile.

25. The electronic device of claim 24, wherein the user profile comprises at least one of an available read time for the user, a calendar of a user, a reading behavior of the user, a current time, a reading speed of the user, an activity of the user;

and

a time constraint for the current reading session.

26. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to determine the candidate pause positions based on a content of the electronic text of the electronic book.

27. The electronic device of claim 26, wherein the pause position manager is configured to apply semantic analysis to the content of the electronic text of the electronic book.

28. The electronic device of claim 27, wherein the pause position manager is configured to:

determine a portion of the content of the electronic text of the electronic book relating to at least one of a plot point and subject change; and

assign a position of the determined portion of the content as a candidate pause position of the candidate pause positions.

29. The electronic device of claim 27, wherein the pause position manager is configured to:

determine a similarity score between text subgroups within the electronic text of the electronic book;

determine whether the similarity score is less than a predetermined threshold; and

in response to determining that the similarity score is less than the predetermined threshold, assign a position between the text subgroups as a candidate pause position of the candidate pause positions.

30. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the user interface includes a display configured to display a graphic corresponding to the suggested pause position for indicating the suggested pause position.

31. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to:

determine that the current user reading position is the suggested pause position; and

control a speaker of the user interface to emit a sound in response to determining that the current user reading position is the suggested pause position.

32. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the pause position manager is configured to alter a portion of content of the electronic text of the electronic book at the suggested pause position,

wherein the pause position manager is configured to control a display of the user interface to display the altered portion of content.

33. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for performing the following steps:

receiving identification of a current user reading position within an electronic text of an electronic book residing on an electronic book reading device for a current reading session;

determining candidate pause positions within the electronic text of the electronic book based on the current user reading position and from among a portion of the electronic text extending from the current user reading position and another reading position following the current user reading position within the electronic text of the electronic book;

selecting a suggested pause position from the determined candidate pause positions based on an available reading time and reading speed associated with a user profile of the current user for the current reading session; and

presenting the suggested pause position on a user interface of the electronic device to indicate where to pause in reading the electronic text of the electronic book for the current reading session.