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WO1996035179A1 - Ameliorations concernant des agendas electroniques personnels - Google Patents

Ameliorations concernant des agendas electroniques personnels Download PDF

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Publication number
WO1996035179A1
WO1996035179A1 PCT/GB1996/001064 GB9601064W WO9635179A1 WO 1996035179 A1 WO1996035179 A1 WO 1996035179A1 GB 9601064 W GB9601064 W GB 9601064W WO 9635179 A1 WO9635179 A1 WO 9635179A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
data
electronic
electronic personal
database
personal organiser
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Ceased
Application number
PCT/GB1996/001064
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Steve Mccauley
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Individual
Original Assignee
Individual
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Priority to AU55090/96A priority Critical patent/AU5509096A/en
Publication of WO1996035179A1 publication Critical patent/WO1996035179A1/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Ceased legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F1/00—Details not covered by groups G06F3/00 - G06F13/00 and G06F21/00
    • G06F1/16—Constructional details or arrangements
    • G06F1/1613—Constructional details or arrangements for portable computers
    • G06F1/1633—Constructional details or arrangements of portable computers not specific to the type of enclosures covered by groups G06F1/1615 - G06F1/1626
    • G06F1/1684—Constructional details or arrangements related to integrated I/O peripherals not covered by groups G06F1/1635 - G06F1/1675
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F1/00—Details not covered by groups G06F3/00 - G06F13/00 and G06F21/00
    • G06F1/16—Constructional details or arrangements
    • G06F1/1613—Constructional details or arrangements for portable computers
    • G06F1/1626—Constructional details or arrangements for portable computers with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
    • G06K7/00—Methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers, e.g. for reading patterns
    • G06K7/10—Methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers, e.g. for reading patterns by electromagnetic radiation, e.g. optical sensing; by corpuscular radiation
    • G06K7/10544—Methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers, e.g. for reading patterns by electromagnetic radiation, e.g. optical sensing; by corpuscular radiation by scanning of the records by radiation in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum
    • G06K7/10821—Methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers, e.g. for reading patterns by electromagnetic radiation, e.g. optical sensing; by corpuscular radiation by scanning of the records by radiation in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum further details of bar or optical code scanning devices
    • G06K7/10881—Methods or arrangements for sensing record carriers, e.g. for reading patterns by electromagnetic radiation, e.g. optical sensing; by corpuscular radiation by scanning of the records by radiation in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum further details of bar or optical code scanning devices constructional details of hand-held scanners

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to electronic databases, and in particular to electronic databases adapted to store and retrieve personal names, company names, addresses, telephone numbers and other personal information.
  • Such personal organisers invariably include a personal telephone directory and address book facility, in which a user may store details of his or her own personal contacts.
  • This data is hereinafter referred to as directory data.
  • Such directory data is usually obtained either verbally from personal contact or, commonly, by reference to business cards or other business stationery, by reference to printed advertisements or by reference to published telephone directories.
  • Electronic personal organisers offer an attractive number of features such as: the quantity of information which can be conveniently and compactly carried; the speed with which a specified name or address can be retrieved and displayed; the ability to automatically dial retrieved telephone numbers using tone dialling signals; and the ability to search for classes of information to retrieve a set of matching names and addresses.
  • the speed and ease of use is generally excellent once the data is actually loaded, the activity of loading all of one's personal contact names and addresses is tediously slow because it is limited by keyboard entry. Each directory data entry may require of the order of 100 — 150 keystrokes to enter all of the relevant information.
  • voice recognition systems are being developed, they are not yet at a stage when they could readily or economically be incorporated into such electronic personal organisers to reliably and easily read directory data into the personal organiser.
  • the same is generally true of optical character scanners which effectively place a graphics image of the scanned page into memory or attempt to interpret printed characters with limited degree of success.
  • each data item must also be known by the system receiving the directory information in order for it to be usefully installed into the correct fields within a directory database: ie. whether a particular character string being input refers to a name, an address, a geographical area, a telephone number etc. If such structural information is not preserved on data entry, the database cannot usefully be searched. What is required is a small, cheap and convenient method of electronic data entry capable of transferring a limited quantity of information from a printed form to an electronic form while preserving its structure as inferred from the printed form, ie. distinguishing names, addresses, cities, telephone numbers etc. from one another.
  • an electronic personal organiser comprising a database for storing directory data, means for storing directory data within the database, and an opto-electronic data input device adapted to read a printed data pattern which includes directory data in a machine-readable predetermined structured form.
  • a business card or business stationery item has directory data information corresponding to an individual or company printed thereon in a human readable form, and has the directory data information also printed thereon in an opto-electronic, machine readable form having a predetermined structure to delineate name, address and telephone number data fields.
  • Figure 1 shows a pocket-sized, electronic personal organiser in accordance with the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of parts of the electronic personal organiser of figure 1.
  • a pocket-sized electronic personal organiser 10 having a known keyboard input interface 12 and a known display output device 14.
  • the organiser 10 may also include a number of known electronic interfaces such as serial or parallel ports 50 for interconnection with other computer systems, fax / modems and the like.
  • the organiser 10 includes an opto-electronic data input device 20 located on, for example, a suitable corner edge of the organiser.
  • This device preferably comprises a bar code scanner using low power LED technology. Bar code scanners are well known in a number of fields, and will not be discussed in any detail here.
  • the bar code scanner 20 is connected to a memory 40 in the electronic personal organiser via an appropriate storage interface means 30 which decodes the bar codes scanned in accordance with a particular protocol to be described hereinafter.
  • the entry of directory data can be adapted, according to the present invention, to a low density data input operation.
  • bar codes can readily be printed, using known print technology onto paper-based systems at little or no extra cost. It will be understood, however, that the present invention is not restricted to bar codes, but is applicable to any suitable machine readable printed data.
  • the bar code data is structured according to a predetermined protocol to enable the storage interface means 30 to correctly identify the requisite attributes of each item of data stored.
  • the bar code data may also be encoded to allow substantial data compression.
  • the data items which make up an entry 41 in a directory 42 stored in memory 40 are, typically (though not exclusively or exhaustively), personal name, title or job function, company name, address, telephone and/or fax numbers. It is possible to encode such information quite compactly, using bar codes, by applying suitable data compression to the information.
  • UK address can readily be determined simply by reference to all or to part of the postcode.
  • the post town, city or area therein can be uniquely identified simply by reference to the first two, three or four characters of a post code;
  • the street address can be uniquely identified by reference to the entire six or seven character postcode.
  • a limited database of postcode information is stored permanently in the organiser 10 in a coding database 32, and town, city, county information is not stored in the directory database 40.
  • substantial data compression is achieved, and a larger coding database 32 is required to permanently store full postcode data, but this allows considerable compression of the data to be read via optical scanner 20, and allows substantial compression of the data to be stored in directory 42 to approximately 8 to 10 characters per address, partially offsetting the increased memory requirement of coding database 32.
  • Telephone information may similarly be compressed. Once a city or region is known, for example from the post- or ZIP-code, the telephone area dialling code may be inferred. Prefixing a telephone number with its international dialling code would also serve to identify a country with only two digits.
  • Still further data compression is possible by encoding certain other common data strings, and using positional representation within the bar code to infer which set of encoded data strings should be referenced. For example, if the information is to be encoded into the bar code in the sequence of fields SURNAME - FORENAME - POSITION - COMPANY - STREET ADDRESS - POST/ZIP CODE - TEL NO - FAX NO, then a number of predetermined codes can be allocated: for abbreviating common address components, eg.
  • the bar code will be defined according to a standardized protocol, and a null character could be provided for any field where no information is provided to preserve positional integrity of fields. For example, if only name and telephone number are provided, a sequence of null characters would suppress use of any other fields.
  • the individual fields would not be fixed length fields, but variable length, delimited by a suitable delimiter character or bar width (in this case, null characters could be dispensed with, as sequential delimiting characters would have the same effect).
  • a suitable delimiter character or bar width in this case, null characters could be dispensed with, as sequential delimiting characters would have the same effect.
  • structured short, encoded data will result in very small codes, and similarly structured, but longer non-encoded data can still be included at the expense of a slightly greater area of bar code.
  • optical scanner 20 reads a bar code which is passed to a decoder 34.
  • Decoder 34 identifies the relevant fields of the bar code, and passes them into the appropriate fields of an entry 41 in directory database 42. Decoding need not take place at this stage, although in practice, it is preferable that it does so in order for the system to identify whether data has been correctly read and understood by the system.
  • the decoder 34 checks coding database 32 to establish whether the decoded information is available to it, and if desired, displays the decoded information onto display output 14 in order that the user may check it has been received correctly. If it has, the encoded information is stored in a directory database entry 41. Amendments to errors may be entered via keyboard 12.
  • the keyboard input is used in known manner to search directory database for a search string. Before the query is processed, it will be converted, if necessary, by decoder 34 to convert any codable search strings in the search query to their encoded form by reference to coding database 32.
  • Any matching string entries in directory database 42 can be extracted and fully decoded by decoder 34 prior to output on display 14.
  • input / output need not be restricted to keyboard / display, and auxiliary input / output facilities 50 may also be provided, or a telephone tone dialler audio output 60 might be provided.
  • the optical scanner might be provided as a separate stylus or the like, on a flying lead.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
  • Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Electromagnetism (AREA)
  • Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • General Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Toxicology (AREA)
  • Artificial Intelligence (AREA)
  • Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition (AREA)
  • Information Retrieval, Db Structures And Fs Structures Therefor (AREA)

Abstract

Des noms, des adresses, des numéros de téléphone et d'autres renseignements personnels et professionnels imprimés sur de la papeterie à en-tête commercial, dans de la documentation publicitaire, ainsi que dans des annuaires téléphoniques, sont également imprimés sous une forme lisible par machine, telle qu'un code à barres. On utilise un protocole, afin de déterminer comment ces données lisibles par machine sont comprimées ou codées, de manière à pouvoir les lire et les décoder d'après une forme standard s'introduisant automatiquement dans un agenda électronique personnel. Celui-ci peut se présenter sous la forme d'un petit dispositif de poche ou sous la forme d'un ensemble de programmes d'applications chargé sur un ordinateur portatif d'un autre système informatique et comprend une base de données servant à mémoriser les noms, les adresses, les numéros de téléphone et d'autres renseignements sous forme d'entrées de données de répertoire, des moyens d'introduction des données de répertoire dans la base de données et un dispositif optoélectronique d'entrée de données conçu pour lire la configuration de données imprimées sous une forme structurée, prédéterminée et lisible au moyen d'une machine.
PCT/GB1996/001064 1995-05-05 1996-05-03 Ameliorations concernant des agendas electroniques personnels Ceased WO1996035179A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU55090/96A AU5509096A (en) 1995-05-05 1996-05-03 Improvements in and relating to electronic personal organise rs

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB9509240A GB2300498A (en) 1995-05-05 1995-05-05 Entering data into electronic personal organisers
GB9509240.9 1995-05-05

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO1996035179A1 true WO1996035179A1 (fr) 1996-11-07

Family

ID=10774090

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/GB1996/001064 Ceased WO1996035179A1 (fr) 1995-05-05 1996-05-03 Ameliorations concernant des agendas electroniques personnels

Country Status (3)

Country Link
AU (1) AU5509096A (fr)
GB (1) GB2300498A (fr)
WO (1) WO1996035179A1 (fr)

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2009081154A1 (fr) * 2007-12-21 2009-07-02 Got-A-Gene Ab Administration ciblée de macromolécules

Families Citing this family (10)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7712668B2 (en) 1994-05-25 2010-05-11 Marshall Feature Recognition, Llc Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
US8261993B2 (en) 1994-05-25 2012-09-11 Marshall Feature Recognition, Llc Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
US8910876B2 (en) 1994-05-25 2014-12-16 Marshall Feature Recognition, Llc Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
US6866196B1 (en) * 1994-05-25 2005-03-15 Spencer A. Rathus Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
US6081508A (en) * 1998-02-25 2000-06-27 Indus River Networks, Inc. Remote computer communication
CA2262730A1 (fr) * 1998-03-24 1999-09-24 Symbol Technologies, Inc. Lecteur de code a barres pour ordinateurs personnels
FR2805359B1 (fr) * 2000-02-17 2003-11-28 Thierry Lamouline Systeme et procede de commande dans un environnement informatique
GB2367975B (en) * 2000-06-12 2004-10-27 Ac Properties Bv Mobile commerce
NO20004882L (no) * 2000-09-28 2002-04-02 Mobile Matrix Lab As Fremgangsmåte for overföring av informasjon til terminaler ved hjelp av optisk lesbare koder
GB2425441B (en) * 2005-04-18 2008-02-20 Big Ideas Product Dev Ltd Electronic entertainment device

Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPH0421252A (ja) * 1990-05-16 1992-01-24 Toshiba Corp 音声応答装置
GB2270875A (en) * 1990-03-19 1994-03-30 Arland International Limited Business card information retrieval system.
US5483052A (en) * 1993-12-07 1996-01-09 Smith, Iii; Herbert J. System for reading, storing and using bar-encoded data from a coded business card or other printed material

Family Cites Families (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2063010A (en) * 1979-10-19 1981-05-28 Standard Telephones Cables Ltd Digital transmission for telephone use
GB2101842A (en) * 1981-06-09 1983-01-19 Paul Singh Chimber Telephone dialling device
ATE22639T1 (de) * 1981-07-17 1986-10-15 L H W Auto Telephone Dialers Fernsprechwaehlsystem.
GB8500071D0 (en) * 1985-01-03 1985-02-13 Varley T Telephone equipment
GB2191611A (en) * 1986-05-28 1987-12-16 John Adrian Pickering A man-computer data input technique
GB2246491B (en) * 1990-07-26 1994-09-14 Technophone Ltd Telephone with bar code reader

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2270875A (en) * 1990-03-19 1994-03-30 Arland International Limited Business card information retrieval system.
JPH0421252A (ja) * 1990-05-16 1992-01-24 Toshiba Corp 音声応答装置
US5483052A (en) * 1993-12-07 1996-01-09 Smith, Iii; Herbert J. System for reading, storing and using bar-encoded data from a coded business card or other printed material

Non-Patent Citations (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
PATENT ABSTRACTS OF JAPAN vol. 16, no. 178 (E - 1196) 28 April 1992 (1992-04-28) *

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2009081154A1 (fr) * 2007-12-21 2009-07-02 Got-A-Gene Ab Administration ciblée de macromolécules

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB2300498A (en) 1996-11-06
AU5509096A (en) 1996-11-21
GB9509240D0 (en) 1995-06-28

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Books Type of publication: Conference paper Citation: breuel-accv95a Booktitle: Second Asian Conference on Computer Vision (ACCV'95,',','), Singapore Year: 1995 Month: 12

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