Customized E-books

• US 9,430,776 B2
• Filed: 10/25/2012
• Issued: 08/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Puppin, Diego
• Primary Examiner(s): BLOOMQUIST, KEITH D
• Application Number:
  US13/660,136
• Publication Number:
  US 20140122990A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,405 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

An e-book management system receives a request for an e-book from a user client operated by a user. The e-book management system accesses a user profile associated with the user and an e-book profile associated with the e-book. The e-book profile contains content sections referencing portions of the e-book, and containing information describing the characteristics of those portions. Based on the user profile, display settings for the e-book are generated. The display settings contain instructions describing how to transform the e-book based on the content sections. The display settings may be used by the e-book management system to transform the e-book, which can then be sent to the user client. Alternatively, the display settings may be sent to the user client, where they may be used to transform the e-book prior to display.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for displaying a customized version of an e-book on a user client, comprising:

receiving a request for a portion of an e-book from the user client operated by a user, the portion including a plurality of content sections;

accessing a user profile for the user, the user profile describing the reading preferences of the user;

retrieving, from an e-book profile associated with the e-book, content section information describing one or more section attributes of one or more content sections from the plurality of content sections;

determining e-book display settings for the requested portion of the e-book based on the user profile, the e-book display settings comprising instructions indicating how to transform the requested portion of the e-book for the user, wherein determining the e-book display settings comprises;

determining a section transformation, the section transformation describing one or more transformations that may be applied to content;

determining target attributes associated with the section transformation; and

generating instructions indicating to apply a transform described by the determined section transformation to content having the determined target attributes; and

sending the content section information and the e-book display settings to the user client, wherein the user client is adapted to transform the requested portion of the e-book according to the instructions in the display settings to generate a modified version of the requested portion of the e-book by identifying, based on the content section information, a content section from the plurality of content sections that has a section attribute indicated by the determined target attributes and applying the transform described by the determined section transformation to the identified content section of the requested portion of the e-book.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the section transformation further comprises selecting a transformation from the group comprising:

hiding a section of the e-book, highlighting a section of the e-book, substituting a section of the e-book, and scaling a section of the e-book.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a content section from the plurality of content sections based on formatting information in the e-book; and

determining a section attribute of the identified content section by applying one or more of the group comprising natural language processing, machine-learned classification, and sentiment analysis.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending the requested portion of the e-book to the user client.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the one or more section attributes of the one or more content sections based on activities of social connections of the user, the activities associated with the e-book.

6. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions, the instructions executable to perform steps comprising:

receiving a request for a portion of an e-book from the user client operated by a user, the portion including a plurality of content sections;

accessing a user profile for the user, the user profile describing the reading preferences of the user;

retrieving, from an e-book profile associated with the e-book, content section information describing one or more section attributes of one or more content sections from the plurality of content sections;

determining e-book display settings for the requested portion of the e-book based on the user profile, the e-book display settings comprising instructions indicating how to transform the requested portion of the e-book for the user, wherein determining the e-book display settings comprises;

determining a section transformation, the section transformation describing one or more transformations that may be applied to content;

determining target attributes associated with the section transformation; and

generating instructions indicating to apply a transform described by the determined section transformation to content having the determined target attributes; and

sending the content section information and the e-book display settings to the user client, wherein the user client is adapted to transform the requested portion of the e-book according to the instructions in the display settings to generate a modified version of the requested portion of the e-book by identifying, based on the content section information, a content section from the plurality of content sections that has a section attribute indicated by the determined target attributes and applying the transform described by the determined section transformation to the identified content section of the requested portion of the e-book.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the instructions for determining the section transformation further comprise instructions for selecting a transformation from the group comprising:

hiding a section of the e-book, highlighting a section of the e-book, substituting a section of the e-book, and scaling a section of the e-book.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, further comprising instructions for:

identifying a content section from the plurality of content sections based on formatting information in the e-book; and

determining a section attribute of the identified content section by applying one or more of the group comprising natural language processing, machine-learned classification, and sentiment analysis.

9. A system comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions, the instructions executable to perform steps comprising;

receiving a request for a portion of an e-book from the user client operated by a user, the portion including a plurality of content sections;

accessing a user profile for the user, the user profile describing the reading preferences of the user;

retrieving, from an e-book profile associated with the e-book, content section information describing one or more section attributes of one or more content sections from the plurality of content sections;

determining e-book display settings for the requested portion of the e-book based on the user profile, the e-book display settings comprising instructions indicating how to transform the requested portion of the e-book for the user, wherein determining the e-book display settings comprises;

determining a section transformation, the section transformation describing one or more transformations that may be applied to content;

determining target attributes associated with the section transformation; and

generating instructions indicating to apply a transform described by the determined section transformation to content having the determined target attributes; and

sending the content section information and the e-book display settings to the user client, wherein the user client is adapted to transform the requested portion of the e-book according to the instructions in the display settings to generate a modified version of the requested portion of the e-book by identifying, based on the content section information, a content section from the plurality of content sections that has a section attribute indicated by the determined target attributes and applying the transform described by the determined section transformation to the identified content section of the requested portion of the e-book; and

a processor for executing the computer program instructions.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the instructions for determining the section transformation further comprise instructions for selecting a transformation from the group comprising:

hiding a section of the e-book, highlighting a section of the e-book, substituting a section of the e-book, and scaling a section of the e-book.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising instructions for:

identifying a content section from the plurality of content sections based on formatting information in the e-book; and

determining a section attribute of the identified content section by applying one or more of the group comprising natural language processing, machine-learned classification, and sentiment analysis.