The present invention teaches a variety of methods and systems for providing computer/human interfaces. According to one method, the user interfaces with an electronic device such as a computer system by engaging a sensor with desired regions of an encoded physical medium. The encoded physical medium is preferably chosen to provide intuitive meaning to the user, and is thus an improved metaphor for interfacing with the computer system. Suitable examples of the encoded physical medium include a data-linked book, magazine, globe, or article of clothing. Some or all of the selected regions have had certain information encoded therein, information suitable for interfacing and controlling the computer system. When the user engages the sensor with a region having certain encoded information, the certain encoded information is interpreted and an appropriate action taken. For example, the sensor or the computer system may provide suitable feedback to the user. The encoded physical medium may have text and/or graphic illustrations that draw the user in or provide meaningful clues or instructions perhaps related to the encoded information. The sensor may have at least one identification number (ID) providing information such as user identity, sensor type, access type, or language type. The sensor can transmit the certain decoded information together with the at least one ID to the computer system.

Methods and systems for providing human/computer interfaces

A processor is provided with first and second document images. The first image represents an instance of a reference document to which instance a mark has been added. The second image is selected from among a collection of document images and represents the reference document without the mark. The processor automatically extracts from the first document image a set of pixels representing the mark. This is done by performing a reference-based mark extraction technique in which the second document image serves as a reference image and in which substantially the entirety of the first document image is compared with substantially the entirety of the second document image. Also, the processor is provided with information about a set of active elements of the reference document. The reference document has at least one such active element and each active element is associated with at least one action. The processor interprets the extracted set of pixels representing the mark by determining whether the mark indicates any of the active elements of the reference document. If the mark indicates an active element, the processor facilitates the action with which the indicated active element is associated.

Formless forms and paper web using a reference-based mark extraction technique

Media objects are transformed into active, connected objects via identifiers embedded into them or their containers. In the context of a user's playback experience, a decoding process extracts the identifier from a media object and possibly additional context information and forwards it to a server. The server, in turn, maps the identifier to an action, such as returning metadata, re-directing the request to one or more other servers, requesting information from another server to identify the media object, etc. The linking process applies to broadcast objects as well as objects transmitted over networks in streaming and compressed file formats.

Connected audio and other media objects

A system and method provides universal access to voice-based documents containing information formatted using MIME and HTML standards using customized extensions for voice information access and navigation. These voice documents are linked using HTML hyper-links that are accessible to subscribers using voice commands, touch-tone inputs and other selection means. These voice documents and components in them are addressable using HTML anchors embedding HTML universal resource locators (URLs) rendering them universally accessible over the Internet. This collection of connected documents forms a voice web. The voice web includes subscriber-specific documents including speech training files for speaker dependent speech recognition, voice print files for authenticating the identity of a user and personal preference and attribute files for customizing other aspects of the system in accordance with a specific subscriber.

System and method for providing and using universally accessible voice and speech data files

An identifiable sheet includes an area of sheet medium and, within the area, machine-readable markings that define two or more zones (202). The markings within the zones indicate a sheet identifier (208) identifying the identifiable sheet. The orientation of the sheet is given by an orientation marker (206). The position of the zones are given by markings (210) representing the zones position.

Cross-network functions via linked hardcopy and electronic documents

Machine readable electronic domain definitions of part or all of the electronic domain descriptions of hardcopy documents and/or of part or all of the transforms that are performed to produce and reproduce such hardcopies documents are encoded in codes that are printed on such documents, thereby permitting the electronic domain descriptions of such documents and/or such transforms to be recovered more robustly and reliably when the information carried by such documents is transformed from the hardcopy domain to the electronic domain.

Hardcopy lossless data storage and communications for electronic document processing systems

A method and apparatus for detection of highlighted regions of a document. A document containing highlighted regions is scanned using a gray scale scanner. Morphology and threshold reduction techniques are used to separate highlighted and non-highlighted portions of the document. Having separated the highlighted and non-highlighted portions, optical character recognition (OCR) techniques can then be used to extract text from the highlighted regions.

Detection of highlighted regions

Provision is made in electronic document processing systems for printing unfiltered or filtered machine-readable digital representations of electronic documents, and human-readable renderings of them on the same record medium using the same printing process. The integration of machine-readable digital representations of electronic documents with the human-readable hardcopy renderings of them may be employed, for example, not only to enhance the precision with which the structure and content of such electronic documents can be recovered by scanning such hardcopies into electronic document processing systems, but also as a mechanism for enabling recipients of scanned-in versions of such documents to identify and process annotations that were added to the hardcopies after they were printed and/or for alerting the recipients of the scanned-in documents to alterations that may have been made to the original human-readable content of the hardcopy renderings. In addition to storage of the electronic representation of the document, provision is made for encoding information about the electronic representation of the document itself, such as file name, creation and modification dates, access and security information, printing histories. Provision is also made for encoding information which is computed from the content of the document and other information, for purposes of authentication and verification of document integrity. Provision is also made for the encoding of information which relates to operations which are to be performed depending on handwritten marks made upon a hardcopy rendering of the document; for example, encoding instructions of what action is to be taken when a box on a document is checked. Provision is also made for encoding in the hardcopy another class of information: information about the rendering of the document specific to that hard copy, which can include a numbered copy of that print, the identification of the machine which performed that print, the reproduction characteristics of the printer, the screen frequency and rotation used by the printer in rendering halftones. Provision is also made for encoding information about the digital encoding mechanism itself, such as information given in standard-encoded headers about subsequently compressed or encrypted digital information.

Henry W. Sang

Papers

Hardcopy lossless data storage and communications for electronic document processing systems

Detection of highlighted regions

Electronic document processing systems

Système de traitement de documents électroniques