WO2011125066A1

WO2011125066A1 - A cost effective communication device

Info

Publication number: WO2011125066A1
Application number: PCT/IN2010/000687
Authority: WO
Inventors: Balajee Rajaram
Original assignee: Balajee Rajaram
Priority date: 2010-04-09
Filing date: 2010-10-21
Publication date: 2011-10-13

Abstract

The present invention relates to a communication device, particularly to an audio and video communication device, with television as the output screen and that can use any mobile/non-mobile internet access medium as an interface for internet based services and yet remain highly portable. Moreover, the present invention brings various services on internet in an audio-visual centric manner onto television screen. Also, the present invention relates to providing a simple, seamless user interface like a remote device using minimal set of keys to avail most services available on internet, so that any user is able to avail the service on television screen, localized to the users of the region. Moreover the present invention relates to bridging the audio-video content generated from mobile devices onto internet and vice-versa.

Description

A COST-EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION DEVICE

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a communication device, particularly to an audio and video communication device, with television as the output screen and that can use any mobile/non- mobile internet access medium as. an interface for internet based services and yet remain highly portable. Moreover the present invention also relates to a portable cost-effective communication device that brings various services on internet in an audio-visual centric manner onto television screen. Moreover the present invention also relates to providing a simple, seamless user interface like a remote device using minimal set of keys to avail most services available on internet, so that any user is able to avail the service on television screen, localized to the users of the region. Moreover the present invention also relates to applications that run on the device which are tuned towards using audio, video, photos based navigation rather than text for most services. Moreover the present invention relates to bridging the audio-video content generated from mobile devices onto internet and vice-versa. DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART

The average home presently includes a variety of entertainment devices that includes television mobile phones, computers, and internet etc, each operated by a separate control. The user often needs to keep track of multiple controls while experiencing audio and/or video content. Viewers have an ever-increasing selection of media content to choose from, such as television programming, movies, videos, and music that is made available from different sources.

Conventional systems include mobile phones, set top boxes, thin-client devices and other portable data computing devices that can be connected for internet access to download the various types of media content for viewing. Mobile phones have their own output interface and use mobile wireless that includes GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G, and LTE etc for accessing internet.

Mobile phones do not provide audio-video chat or conferencing applications between their users and regular PC users. They do not work on non-mobile internet connection to access internet based services. Set top boxes do not bridge the mobile phones and transfer audio and video content from mobile phones to internet and vise versa. The modern video viewing systems like set top boxes have become so complex that they are not portable and enable to view the multimedia contents only through pre determined channels. Thin-Client devices and browser boxes are not focused on using Television as the output screen and do not have Audio- Video Centric applications that provides internet services. They are not focused on providing internet services with simple user interface like a remote device with just minimal set of keys like, UP/DOWN/RIGHT ARROW/LEFT ARRQW/ENTER/MENU/ESC etc, so that any lay user can avail the internet services easily.

US7447741 provides a home network system that enables a user to use her television to conduct an Internet video conference that includes a personal computer that is connected to the Internet and has video conferencing software running thereon, wherein the television is connected to the home network via a TV client module along with the web camera.

US7716283 discloses a television system video conferencing through the content provider headend, which integrates video conferencing architecture within a television viewing model and provides for live video interaction between one or more television viewers. US2009205003 relates to a method and system for accessing media via the Internet and playing the media back via a television, wherein the communication with the computer and playing of audio and video information via the television and/or external audio devices are handled by a set- top box and server. US2001039658 relates to a new type of TV control system which includes an Internet browser and which divides the display into two (or more) display regions which comprises a receiver for receiving broadcast TV signals; a TV display; and a control system for controlling the display of received TV signals on the TV display. US20100017821 provides a client and server software-based plug-and-play remote controlled media processing system and methods of configuring available consumer electronic equipment, which allow the user to access, organize and consume media originating from the Internet in a traditional TV watching environment.

US 2010066805 discloses a system and method for video conferencing through a set-top box or television forwarding device which is configured for access and control by a local or remote user.

US 2010037252 provides system for secured Tele-Micro-browser adapted for television based systems and the like for secured internet browsing favoring TV based internet browsing capabilities on a low cost set top box.

CA2250653 discloses a peripheral device provided for a personal computer enabling the PC to provide the functions of a set-top box for television reception. Communication of television and control signals between the television and PC can be provided over the cable wiring already provided in the subscriber premises.

CA201327624 discloses a computer-television shared system with simple structure, low cost and no additional cost and capable of remotely controlling a computer and browsing internet relevant programs on a television, wherein the computer-television shared system is provided with a computer host connected with a displayer.

CN 2687993 discloses a network browsing and video on demand device based on television display technique, comprising a casing. The users can adopt the interactive manner to get information from Internet by web browser, or to order video programs by the way of interaction by Internet. The network browsing and video on demand device based on television display technique takes TV as a display approach to provide the users with a comfortable watching environment.

None of the above devices provide internet services to end-users in an audio-visual centric manner. Nor any of them extend existing AV chat services onto Television with a web-cam and are operable in a pure audio-visual manner, even by layman users with minimal text entry. They do not have voice recognition mechanisms that allow end-users to operate services with just voice input. They do not send and receive mails in a pure audio-video manner so that even illiterate people can use them. They do not have the ability to work on wire line as well as wireless technologies. They do not have automatic building features that make the device store vital information that it receives in mails locally automatically. There is a need to provide a cost-effective communication device that acts as a 'window' to various Services from internet in an audio-visual centric manner on Television (either as a standalone device or integrated with Television) and that could be used to avail most of the internet services through simplistic user interface such as a remote device with minimal set of input keys like UP/DOWN/RIGHT ARROW/LEFT ARROW/ENTER/MENU/ESC etc. There is a need to provide audio-visual interface to operate internet applications with no text inputs required.

Examples of internet applications for which the device can act as a 'window' and that are operable with an audio-visual interface are

a) audio and video chat service that can be made available on Television screen from Internet (between the device users as well as device users and PC users as well device users and mobile users)

b) audio and video content available on internet that could be played- on television like internet videos, internet radio, photo albums etc.

c) internet Services like ticket reservations, searching content, browsing

Also the audio and video content generated from mobile devices can be easily transferred onto internet and internet audio-video content can be transferred onto mobile phones, using this device, without using a Personal Computer.

The above purposes are achieved, in accordance with the invention and it has been proposed heretofore to a portable and cost-effective communication device.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

1. One or more of the problems of the conventional prior art may be overcome by various embodiments of the present invention. It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication device, wherein a combination of hardware and software platform is used to perform the functionalities of the present invention. The primary object of the present invention is directed to provide an internationally portable and cost-effective communication device that can provide video-phone services on 3G/4G/xDSL based internet access using TV for Audio-video output. It is another object of the present invention to provide a communication device which is engineered for Video phone service based on internet based Audio-Video Chat/Conferencing services (likes of Linphone, Yahoo messenger, MSN, any other future Internet based Audio- Video Chat service) between its device users, device users and regular PC users, device users and mobile phone users. It is another object of the present invention to provide all the services mentioned above and mentioned below with a Remote device operated on IR/Bluetooth/FM and other wireless technologies, the wireless Remote devices being any hand-held Remote device. It is another object of the present invention to provide touch-screen inputs with a touch screen-panel placed on the television and the panel connected to our said device, so that the user can operate the services on regular TV using touch screen. It is another object of the present invention to provide the user interface of various applications running in the device in an audio-visual way to help the device being disable-friendly and illiterate-friendly. It is another object of the present invention to enable any illiterate user to speak into the device and avail services from internet by providing a voice recognition service at the device, for any language, by which the users can speak and it gets converted to text with a voice recognition server located at a central place and the device communicating with the voice recognition server. It is another object of the present invention to enable any semi-literate user to spell character by character and the device converts the spelled characters into text on its own without a voice recognition server, for any language and uses it as input for services provided by the device. It is another object of the present invention to deploy the applications mentioned in point 7 and 8 as software independent of the device and bundled with any other application. It is another object of the present invention to have a phonebook application from which audio is received from user and sent as mail, mails are received from standard mail servers and read out to user and AV chat service is invoked , all the above operable in an audio-visual manner. It is another object of the present invention to capture information meant for user automatically (like html, video, audio links) and store it locally in the device in a categorized manner so that they can be accessed by user, later, always, easily. It is another, object of the present invention to enable users to store the content received on the device on USB storage or print it on USB printer.. It is another object of the present invention to provide peer-peer applications, client- server applications as well as services from internet on TV operable in an audio-visual manner.

It is another object of the present invention to provide USB based storage and printing of content received on the device. It is another object of the present invention to provide a Bluetooth/FM based headset to send/receive audio wirelessly.

It is another object of the present invention to provide easy customization of device to be operated in low bit rate networks by allowing modification of various parameters through simple remote device. It is another object of the present invention to have a device that runs independently or can be integrated into Television or any other device. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Thus according to the basic aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device that provide internet services which uses TV as the output device comprising:

Audio/video interface;

Ethernet interface;

USB interfaces;

Wireless interface for remote access;

Remote control;

Web-cam;

Remote headset; and

Body housing,

wherein the components (except remote control and remote headset) are housed inside the body housing,

wherein the web-cam can be housed either inside or outside the body housing,

wherein the communication medium between the device and the remote medium is based on wireless technology,

wherein the communication medium between the device and the television is based on video and audio interfaces,

wherein the remote device is used to provide user input to the communication device, wherein the communication device can be connected to any internet access network,

wherein the communication device acts as an interface to transfer audio/video content from any mobile device to the internet and vice-versa, and

wherein the communication device acts as an interface to receive inputs from a touch-screen panel.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device, wherein the web-cam enables video-phone service between the device users, device users and computer users, device users and mobile phone users. In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device, wherein the device is enabled with speech synthesizer means to read out text output and receive text input.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device, wherein the input and output is made using graphical visual keypad appearing on television screen or using the touch-screen panel.

It is another aspect of the present invention, wherein the remote device is a mobile phone. . It is another aspect of the present invention, wherein the voice synthesizer links to a centralized voice-text conversion server for text and/or language conversion.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device, wherein the device does the voice-text conversion using voice-text conversion software embedded in the device.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device, wherein the device automatically identifies and categorizes the information to be stored/bookmarked and stores it in the device.

■

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device capable of receiving and sending data from mobile devices to Internet.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an internationally portable communication device capable of receiving and sending data from internet to mobile devices.

It is another aspect of the present invention, wherein the device can be integrated into any television and operable through the remote device of television. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 : Illustrates the communication device according to the present invention

Figure 2: Illustrates the communication mode using PCs and mobile phone through the present invention. Figures 3, 4 and 5: Illustrates the conversion of audio contents to text using voice recognition server according to the present invention.

Figure 6: Illustrates the phone book application of the present invention.

Figure 7: Illustrates displaying of mail on TV according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION WITH REFERENCE TO THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

1. The device is connected to Television on Audio- video interface, connected to web-cam on USB, connected to 3G/4G/xDSL on USB or Ethernet and a Remote on IR and a mobile phone on Bluetooth or IR as shown in the figure 1.

2. The device acts as a 'window' to internet based Audio- Video Chat (Video phone) services like Linphone, Skype, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and any other future internet Audio- Video service Chat/Conference service..

3. The device provides audio-video chat service between device to device, devices to PCs as well device to mobile phones as shown in the figure 2.

4. All the services that the device provides are available with minimal use of keys, primarily using UP, Down, Left arrow, Right arrow, Enter, Escape, Menu and Home key etc using a Virtual keypad mechanism displayed on TV in which the keyboard is displayed and users pick the characters for text entry.

5. The device can be connected to a touch screen panel that can be placed over the Television display. Users can touch the touch-screen panel and avail the internet services being displayed on television.

6. The device provides a complete audio-visual interface for taking inputs as well as output. For eg., when the cursor is positioned on any icon on the TV (by using UP/DN RIGHT ARR/LEFT ARROW/ENTER/MENU ESC keys), the function of the icon or name of the icon is spelled loud. All icons will contain a pictorial description of the icon and/or alpha-numeric identity. All icons are tuned to display on Television.

The device runs an application that receives the Voice of the user on the device and send it to a Voice Recognition Server, located centrally, which converts the audio content to text and sends the converted text back to the application running on the device in a suitable way.

The converted voice input of user, received as text at the device, from Voice recognition server, in any language, is used for providing text input for any internet services offered through the device, as shown in figure 3.

On the alternative, the centrally located Voice Recognition Server can convert the audio content to text and uses the text to execute an internet application at the server and return the result of that internet application to the device, and the device uses the result returned by Voice Recognition Server for further operations. The internet application executed at the server could be a 'Search of the given text', a FTP operation, a HTTP based operation etc. The returned result could be an html link, audio or video content that needs to be played at the device, as shown in the figure 4.

The device is also capable of running a mini Voice Recognition Software with a limited vocabulary in the box that is limited to all the keys in a typical QWERTY keyboard. Hence the user can spell a character and it is converted to that character on screen and used as input for services provided by the device.

The application running on the device that is capable of receiving the voice input from user and uses a central voice recognition server to convert the voice input to text as mentioned in points 8 and 9 can also be deployed as software independent of the device and used to provide the same feature to any application, as shown in figure 5. The features mentioned in points 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 enable various internet services available on the device operable with minimal use of keys in an audio- visual manner. The phonebook application running on the device from which mails could be sent or Audio-video chat could be done, operable in the way as in point 12, that is tuned to display on TV consists of the following:

A. Display every contact in the form of name icon (Contact Id) which contains

i. Photo of the Person

ii. Alpha-numeric description of the Person

iii. When cursor is placed on the icon, it speaks out loud the name of the person to whom a mail has to be sent or with whom an AV chat needs to be established

B. Have facility to add* for every contact the following information (including but not limited to)

i. Name of the Person

ii. Photo of the Person

iii. Audio Recording that needs to be played when cursor is positioned on the icon

iv. Email Id of the Person

C. Have facility to create contacts in the phone-book operable as explained in points 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

D. When a key is pressed on a particular name icon, have facility to take the voice with or without video of the user as input and send it as a mail, through mail servers including, but not limited to, Yahoo, google etc to that person associated with name icon. (Video to help hearing impaired to communicate through sign language), as shown in figure 6.

E. When a key is pressed on a particular name icon, have facility to invoke a audio- video chat (Video phone) with that person associated with name icon.

F. Have facility to add multiple people into that Audio-Video chat so that Audio- video conferencing is possible. G. Have facility to migrate to other applications from this application. Have facility to display the name of application as another contact and pronounce the name of the application when the cursor is positioned on that application icon.

H. Have facilities to be disabled and illiterate friendly by providing all information in audio-visual way. The application running on the device that receives mail from any standard mail service (for eg. gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc) operable in the ways as defined in 4, 5,6,7,8,9 and 10 that is tuned to display on TV and reads out the mail apart from displaying them on TV, as shown in the figure 7, consists of the following:

A. Display every mail in the form of name icon (Contact Id) which contains

i. Photo of the Person

ii. Alpha-numeric description of the Person

iii. When cursor is palced on the icon, it speaks out loud the name of the person from whom the mail is received along with date and time of mail.

B. When a particular icon is selected, reads out the mail in a particular order starting from "From, To, Cc, Subject, Body of the Message, Date and time of the Sent mail".

C. Have facility to automatically create contacts in the phone-book application when mails are received in this application and correlate the contact information in phone-book application for use in this mailing application.

D. Have facility to use the Voice Recognition and Text conversion features as mentioned in points 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

E. Have facility to migrate to other applications from this application. Have facility to display the name of application as another contact and pronounce the name of the application when the cursor is positioned on that application icon.

F. Have facilities to be disabled and illiterate friendly by providing all information in audio-visual way. The application running on the device automatically captures the audio, video, photo album links in the mail and stores them locally in the device with individual and unique naming, so that this content could be accessed easily later by the user, when required, from the device. The device has the capability to allow users to store the received content from Internet or mobile devices onto a standard USB disk or print the content onto a USB Printer. The device also has applications for various internet services including but not limited to Search, Browsing, Ticket Booking, Online Payment, Reservations etc operable as defined in points 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 The device has peer-peer applications and client-server applications that provide various services including, but not limited to Retail Shopping, Education, Agriculture, Health, ticket-booking services on TV operable as defined in ways of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 in pure audio- visual manner.

The audio-video and other content generated on mobile devices can be transferred to the device from where they can be stored, printed or transferred to a server on internet. Similarly the content on USB storage or internet servers can be transferred to mobile devices through this device. The device can be connected to a standard Bluetooth/FM head-set, so that users can speak and hear from the Bluetooth FM headset remotely and wirelessly.

The device can be carried over to any place internationally and connected to TV and be used on any internet access.

The device can be customized to run audio- video services on low bit rate networks by enabling end-users to modify several parameters including but not limited to codec, encoding rate, resolution, display screen size, frames per second with single key strokes on the Remote device for stepping up/down each parameter, even during the course of a Video phone service or any other internet service. The hardware and/or software of the device can be integrated with the Television itself and is operable as defined in points 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 by the Remote of the Television itself, providing all the services. The hardware and/or software of the device can be integrated with any other device which would enable the existing devices, to provide internet services operable as defined in points 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Claims

I CLAIM:

1. An internationally portable communication device that provide internet services which uses TV as the output device comprising:

Audio/video interface;

Ethernet interface;

USB interfaces;

Wireless interface for remote access;

Remote control;

Web-cam;

Remote headset; and

Body housing,

wherein the web-cam can be housed either inside or outside the body housing, wherein the communication medium between the device and the remote medium is based on wireless technology,

wherein the remote device is used to provide user input to the communication device,

wherein the communication device can be connected to any internet access network,

wherein the communication device acts as an interface to transfer audio/video content from any mobile device to the internet and vice- versa, and wherein the communication device acts as an interface to receive inputs from a touch-screen panel.

2. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the web-cam enables videophone service between the device users, device users and computer users, device users and mobile phone users.

3. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the device is enabled with speech synthesizer means to read out text output and receive text input.

4. The communication device as claimed in claim 3, wherein the input and output is made using graphical visual keypad appearing on television screen or using the touch-screen panel.

5. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the remote device is a mobile phone.

6. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the voice synthesizer links to a centralized voice-text conversion server for text and/or language conversion.

7. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the device does the voice-text conversion using voice-text conversion software embedded in the device.

8. The communication device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the device automatically identifies and categorizes the information to be stored/bookmarked and stores it in the device.

9. The communication device as claimed in claim 1 is capable of receiving and sending data from mobile devices to Internet.

10. The communication device as claimed in claim 1 is capable of receiving and sending data from internet to mobile devices.

11. The communication device as claimed in claim 1 can be integrated into any television and operable through the remote device of television.