Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06V—IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
  • G06V10/00—Arrangements for image or video recognition or understanding
  • G06V10/10—Image acquisition
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
  • H04M1/26—Devices for calling a subscriber
  • H04M1/27—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously
  • H04M1/274—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc
  • H04M1/2745—Devices whereby a plurality of signals may be stored simultaneously with provision for storing more than one subscriber number at a time, e.g. using toothed disc using static electronic memories, e.g. chips
  • H04M1/27467—Methods of retrieving data
  • H04M1/27475—Methods of retrieving data using interactive graphical means or pictorial representations
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06V—IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
  • G06V20/00—Scenes; Scene-specific elements
  • G06V20/60—Type of objects
  • G06V20/62—Text, e.g. of license plates, overlay texts or captions on TV images
  • G06V20/635—Overlay text, e.g. embedded captions in a TV program
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06V—IMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
  • G06V30/00—Character recognition; Recognising digital ink; Document-oriented image-based pattern recognition
  • G06V30/10—Character recognition

Definitions

• This invention relates generally to computers, and in particular embodiments to capturing information from television or computer displays.
• the so-called set top personal computers interact with television receivers to provide advanced programming functions, digital television and other functions normally associated with personal computers, such as internet access and games.
• users of the set top personal computers may have at their disposal both a television capability and the capability normally associated with the personal computer.
• the set top personal computers use the television screen as the display both for the computer system and the television receiver.
• Computers may also display television pictures on a computer display or monitor.
• a tuner card in the computer acts as a television receiver so that a television program may be viewed on a computer monitor.
• Contact information is commonly displayed in television programming, particularly in television advertising. Many viewers have difficulty in recording contact information because, by the time they locate pencil and paper, the information is no longer displayed. Thus, advertisers may lose important opportunities and viewers may miss desirable information.
• contact information may be displayed as a graphical image (ie. in graphics rather than text mode) on an Internet web page. This may be the case where elaborate fonts or graphical displays are desired, for example with trademarks.
• a method for obtaining information from an image signal using a computer includes obtaining a digital representation of a display image. Characters in the image are recognized and the desired content within the image is located.
• Figure 1 illustrates the display screen of a television showing an advertisement
• Figure 2 is a file captured from information on the screen shown in Figure 1 ;
• Figure 3 is a file containing information captured from the screen shown in Figure 1 ;
• Figure 4 is a block diagram showing a computer system for implementing one embodiment of the present invention.
• Figure 5 is a flow chart showing a flow for one embodiment of the present invention.
• Images containing contact information may be captured from a television picture or a computer display and manipulated by a computer system to facilitate contact with the broadcast content provider, which may be the advertiser on a television program.
• the broadcast content provider which may be the advertiser on a television program.
• television advertisers commonly broadcast advertisements like that shown in Figure 1 which display a variety of information about their products.
• These advertisements may also include contact information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers and universal resource locators (URLs) which may be utilized to contact the advertiser or other content provider.
• URLs universal resource locators
• a computer monitor display may also include images that include contact information in an image or graphics mode, for example using bit mapped graphics, rather than a text mode.
• the contact information may be included as part of an Internet web page, for example.
• the signal information that produces the image on the television or computer display 10 is digitally captured.
• the telephone number depicted on the display 10 shown in Figure 1 may be recorded and provided in the form of a digital file 12 as indicated in Figure 2.
• additional information from the screen 10 may be captured and placed in an appropriate field 15 according to the type of contact information.
• Software may use logical heuristics to determine which information constitutes a person's name, which information constitutes a company name, which information constitutes an address, which information is a phone number and which information constitutes an Internet URL. Common characteristics of each of those fields may be stored in a program to determine whether or not a given piece of information belongs in a particular field.
• a set top computer system 15 includes a processor 16 connected to system memory 18 and a north bridge 20.
• the north bridge 20 may conventionally connect to a bus 22 which may in turn be coupled to a display controller 24 which is in turn connected to a television 25.
• the bus 22 may also connect to a south bridge 26.
• the bridge 26 may couple a hard disk drive 28 which may contain one or more programs 30 and 31 which, in the illustrated embodiment could be an optical character recognition (OCR) and a telephone/address directory program.
• OCR optical character recognition
• the south bridge 26 in turn connects to a bus 32 which may connect to a serial input output (SIO) port 34.
• the port 34 may connect to a keyboard 36, a telephone dialer 40 and a modem 38.
• the basic input output system (BIOS) 42 may also be connected to the bus 32.
• BIOS basic input output system
• the computer system 15 initially receives a request for capture services as indicated in block 44. This may be the result of the user clicking on a button on a display screen 24 or by activating a particular hot key on the keyboard 36. This request is interpreted as a request to capture information from the television display.
• the image displayed at the time of the request may be digitally captured as indicated in block 46 through the operation of the processor 16.
• the captured digital image is then subjected to an optical character recognition conversion, as indicated in block 48, using the optical character recognition software 30.
• This software scans the information in the digital image and identifies and associates the image shapes with known characters such as numbers and letters. It then provides a text mode representation of the image or graphics mode data.
• the computer system uses heuristics to locate information which corresponds to contact information styles, as indicated in block 50. For example, numbers followed by letters may be recognized as addresses while pairs of words with capital letters may be recognized as names. Common first names may be stored in a database to help determine that a personal name is involved. Similarly, particular sequences of numbers may be recognized as telephone numbers and certain letter sequences may be recognized as URLs.
• the contact information Once the contact information has been identified, it may be displayed to the user, for example, on the display screen, and the user may check the displayed information to insure that the desired information was captured, as indicated in block 52.
• the user can insert corrections in a corrections window (block 52) and the contact information is revised (block 53). For example, if two telephone numbers are returned, the user can indicate which telephone number is desired.
• the selected contact information may then be stored in memory 18 or on the hard disk drive 28, as indicated in block 54. In some cases, it may be desirable to then make contact, as indicated in block 56, using the contact information.
• the dialer 40 may be automatically activated to call the stored telephone number. Alternatively, where a URL has been identified, the modem 38 may be used to automatically contact an appropriate Internet service provider and to obtain the desired web page.
• Contact information that has been captured off of the television display may then be automatically added to the database of conventional software 31 that compiles contact information, such as software telephone or address directories. Once the information has been identified and placed in the appropriate fields it can be supplied to such software directories for later use, as indicated in block 58. These directories may provide searching and autodialing capabilities and the like.
• the computer system 15 determines whether the telephone number is either a local number or a long distance number by comparing any area code with a predetermined local area code. If the call is a long distance call, a dialing prefix may be added.
• the present system facilitates making contact with information providers who provide content such as advertising over television broadcasts or graphics mode information on web pages. It also facilitates storing such contact information in contact software such as address or telephone directory software.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
• Telephone Function (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Two-Way Televisions, Distribution Of Moving Picture Or The Like (AREA)
• Controls And Circuits For Display Device (AREA)
• Character Discrimination (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=22385113

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (8)

Cited By (1)

Families Citing this family (17)

Family Cites Families (8)

• 1999
  • 1999-05-24 TW TW088108443A patent/TW420946B/zh not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1999-06-17 CN CN99808656A patent/CN1131493C/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1999-06-17 AU AU46932/99A patent/AU4693299A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1999-06-17 CA CA002338398A patent/CA2338398C/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1999-06-17 WO PCT/US1999/013734 patent/WO2000005679A1/en active IP Right Grant
  • 1999-06-17 EP EP99930381A patent/EP1099189A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 1999-06-17 JP JP2000561585A patent/JP2002521759A/ja active Pending
  • 1999-06-17 KR KR10-2001-7000295A patent/KR100448557B1/ko not_active IP Right Cessation
• 2004
  • 2004-11-22 JP JP2004337914A patent/JP2005174320A/ja active Pending

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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