METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INPUTTING CONTACT INFORMATION

• US 20120163664A1
• Filed: 08/20/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intsig Information Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Intsig Information Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Zhu, Lin
• Application Number:
  US13/391,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20120163664A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• 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 3/0489 using dedicated keyboard keys or combinations thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/262 using context analysis, e.g. lexical, syntactic or semantic context
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2755 by optical scanning
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/56 Arrangements for indicating or recording the called number at the calling subscriber's set
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724 User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72436 for text messaging, e.g. short messaging services [SMS] or e-mails
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/52 including functional features of a camera constructional features concerning the integration of cameras in portable phones H04M1/0264
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/70 methods for entering alphabetical characters, e.g. multi-tap or dictionary disambiguation methods for entering alphabetical characters per se G06F3/0237

Abstract

A method and a system for inputting contact information are provided. The method includes: acquiring a content attribute of a current edit box; starting up a camera device, and entering a shoot preview interface of the camera device; placing a text content of contact information to be input in the shoot preview interface of the camera device, and shooting the text content of the contact information; analyzing and recognizing the text content located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in an image through an optical character recognition technology, and extracting a contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box; and inputting a recognition result character string into the current edit box.

Through the method and system, a user does not need to input the text content word by word through a keyboard input method or a touch screen, thereby saving the input time for the user. Moreover, since the system knows what type of character string is required in the current edit box during recognition, high accuracy of the recognition result character string can be ensured.

Claims

1. A method for inputting contact information, comprising:

A;

acquiring a content attribute of a current edit box;

B;

starting up a camera device, entering a shoot preview interface of the camera device, placing a text content of contact information to be input near a positioning identifier of the shoot preview interface of the camera device, and shooting the text content of the contact information;

C;

analyzing and recognizing the text content located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in an image through an optical character recognition technology, and extracting a contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box, wherein

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a telephone number, a character string, only comprising figures or further comprising a symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number, in the recognized contact information character strings is selected, wherein the symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number comprises;

“

+”

, “

−

”

, “

(”

, “

)”

, “

*”

, “

×

”

, and “

ext.”

;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an email, a character string, comprising “

@”

, in the recognized contact information character strings is selected;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a character string, comprising “

www”

, “

http”

, multiple “

.”

, or multiple “

/”

, in the recognized contact information character strings is selected; and

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an address, a character string, comprising Chinese characters or English characters or further comprising figures, in the recognized contact information character strings is selected; and

D;

inputting a recognition result character string into the current edit box.

2. A method for inputting contact information, comprising:

A;

acquiring a content attribute of a current edit box;

B;

starting up a camera device, entering a shoot preview interface of the camera device, placing a text content of contact information to be input in the shoot preview interface of the camera device, and shooting the text content of the contact information;

C;

analyzing and recognizing the text content located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in an image through an optical character recognition technology, and extracting a contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box; and

D;

inputting a recognition result character string into the current edit box.

3. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 2, wherein in Step C, the extracting the contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box comprises:

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a telephone number, selecting a character string, only comprising figures or further comprising a symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number, in the recognized contact information character strings, wherein the symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number comprises;

“

+”

, “

−

”

, “

(”

, “

)”

, “

*”

, “

×

”

, and “

ext.”

;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an email, selecting a character string, comprising “

@”

, in the recognized contact information character strings;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), selecting a character string, comprising “

www”

, “

http”

, multiple “

.”

, or multiple “

/”

, in the recognized contact information character strings; and

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an address, selecting a character string, comprising Chinese characters or English characters or further comprising figures, in the recognized contact information character strings.

4. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 2, wherein

in Step C, if no contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box is capable of being extracted from the text content located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in the image, or the text located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in the image is incapable of being recognized, a null character string is returned, and in this case, no character is input into the current edit box in Step D.

5. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 2, wherein

in Step B, the positioning identifier is set in the shoot preview interface of the camera device and is used for specifying contact information to be shot.

6. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 5, wherein

the positioning identifier is a positioning box, a line, or a symbol marking starting and ending locations.

7. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 5, wherein

Step B further comprises a step of adjusting a shape of the positioning identifier through a positioning identifier adjustment module;

and

a user adjusts a location or/and the shape of the positioning identifier through the positioning identifier adjustment module according to a range of a text to be input.

8. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 7, wherein

a display unit of the shoot preview interface is a touch display unit;

the user inputs the location or/and the shape of the positioning identifier by initiating a touch action on the touch display unit according to the range of the text to be input; and

the positioning identifier adjustment module acquires the touch action and sets the location or/and the shape of the positioning identifier according to the touch action.

9. A method for inputting contact information, comprising:

Step 410;

acquiring a content attribute of a current edit box to prepare for inputting a character for a current application program;

Step 420;

starting up a built-in camera of a smart apparatus and entering a shoot preview interface of the camera;

Step 430;

placing a text content of contact information to be input near a positioning identifier of the shoot preview interface and shooting an image;

Step 440;

analyzing the image, analyzing and recognizing the text content located near the positioning identifier in the preview interface in the image through an optical character recognition technology, and extracting a contact information character string conforming to the content attribute of the current edit box;

Step 450;

inputting a recognition result character string into the current edit box; and

Step 460;

ending the current camera input operation.

10. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 9, wherein

in Step 420, the built-in camera of the smart apparatus is started up in an input method in one of the following manners:

Manner 1;

in an input method popup menu, selecting a camera recognition input method to start up the built-in camera of the smart apparatus, that is, starting up the built-in camera of the smart apparatus immediately when starting up an optical character recognition input method, so as to enter the shooting preview interface of the camera;

Manner 2;

pressing a specific key to start up the built-in camera of the smart apparatus and enter the shoot preview interface of the camera;

Manner 3;

in an input method other than the camera input method, clicking a specific icon to start up the built-in camera of the smart apparatus and enter the shoot preview interface of the camera; and

Manner 4;

placing a camera icon beside the edit box of the application program, and clicking the icon to start up the built-in camera.

11. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 9, wherein

in Step 420, the shoot preview interface of the camera is displayed in one of the following manners:

Manner 1;

filling a display screen of the smart apparatus with a shoot preview image; and

Manner 2;

displaying the shoot preview image in only a certain local region of the screen of the smart apparatus.

12. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 9, wherein

in Step 430, a locator of the contact information is displayed in the shoot preview interface of the camera in one of the following manners:

Manner 1;

displaying a text prompt to instruct a user to place a text of the contact information in a specific location of the preview interface; and

Manner 2;

displaying a graph to instruct the user to place the text of the contact information in a specific location of the preview interface.

13. The method for inputting contact information as in claim 9, wherein prompt information is displayed in the shoot preview interface of the camera to inform a user of an attribute of a text content to be input in the edit box of the current application program.

14. A system for inputting contact information, disposed in an electronic apparatus and used for inputting set contact information, wherein

the electronic apparatus comprises:

a camera device, for acquiring image information of contact information; and

a display unit, for displaying information;

the system for inputting contact information comprising;

an optical character recognition module, for recognizing the contact information in the image information acquired by the camera device as a character text;

a content attribute recognition module, for recognizing a content attribute of each contact information character string; and

a content attribute selection module, for selecting a character string conforming to a content attribute of a current edit box as an input content according to the content attribute of the current edit box.

15. The system for inputting contact information as in claim 14, wherein

the content attribute recognition module recognizes the content attribute of each contact information character string in the following manner:

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a telephone number, selecting a character string, only comprising figures or further comprising a symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number, in the recognized contact information character strings, wherein the symbol possibly comprised in the telephone number comprises;

“

+”

, “

−

”

, “

(”

, “

)”

, “

*”

, “

×

”

, and “

ext.”

;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an email, selecting a character string, comprising “

@”

, in the recognized contact information character strings;

if the content attribute of the current edit box is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), selecting a character string, comprising “

www”

, “

http”

, multiple “

.”

, or multiple “

/”

, in the recognized contact information character strings; and

if the content attribute of the current edit box is an address, selecting a character string, comprising Chinese characters or English characters or further comprising figures, in the recognized contact information character strings.