WO2008120042A1

WO2008120042A1 - Personalized dictionary management

Info

Publication number: WO2008120042A1
Application number: PCT/IB2007/003571
Authority: WO
Inventors: John Rieman; Minna Hekanaho; Minna Koutonen; Tero Rantonen
Original assignee: Nokia Inc
Current assignee: Nokia Inc
Priority date: 2007-03-29
Filing date: 2007-11-21
Publication date: 2008-10-09
Anticipated expiration: 2009-09-29

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary. The method comprising: selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents, receiving as input a first expression, retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression, providing as output said second expression. The present invention further relates to an apparatus, a system, a user interface and a computer program product for implementation of said method.

Description

PERSONALIZED DICTIONARY MANAGEMENT

Technical Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a method for handling personalized content dictionaries for use in communication terminals . The present invention further relates to an apparatus, a system, a user interface, and a computer program product for implementation of said method.

Background of the Invention

There is a need for providing users of communication terminals with a better tie-in to online social networking pages or people communities. Internet users, especially of younger generations, are making these the centre of their social life.

In order to meet the demands of the connected society of today, there is an increasing need for providing functional and attractive services and solutions to communication terminals, especially with regards to communicative capabilities.

The dictionary, always being available to a user, is a key tool in communications. Among its advantages, a dictionary for instance provides intelligent solutions for efficiently composing messages and for spelling correction. With increased functionality and far-reaching enhancements, it is expected that the dictionary will become a part of a user' s online and messaging personality.

It is therefore a problem to provide an improved dictionary service.

Summary of the Invention An object of the present invention is to wholly or partly overcome the above disadvantages and drawbacks of the prior art. More specifically, it is an object to provide an efficient dictionary-based service to support and enhance communication with communication terminals.

It is also an object of the present invention to provide an efficient service for exchanging personalized dictionary content.

The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a first aspect in accordance with the present invention by a method for retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary, said method comprising: selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents; receiving as input a first expression; retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and providing as output said second expression.

Hence, a user may select a personalized dictionary and provide a first expression as input, whereby, for instance on a graphical user interface such as a display, a second expression from said personalized dictionary content corresponding to said first expression is presented.

An advantage of this is that users may acquire a new style to write in. A local text prediction system of a communication terminal may have a plurality of personalized dictionaries available, and a user can select what style to write in by selection of any one of said dictionaries.

The term "personalized" is to be construed as relating to either an individual's real, own personality or an individual's fictive, borrowed personality. As an advantage, it enables a user to emphasize his or her own personality in terms of language used in communication with others. As a further advantage, it also enables a user to appear or give the impression of being another person, such as a famous actor, a comic or cartoon figure, a hero, an idol, a colleague. It may further relate to a combined personality, one composed of two or more personality styles, such as for instance crossing ones favourite actors to create a unique and fictive own personality.

In one embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises accessing said personalized dictionary content through a website.

Hence, a user can download a personalized dictionary as provided on a website, for instance on a personal home page, an artist's or celebrity's homepage, or a home page of a content provider. As an advantage this makes dictionaries easily accessible, and hence, enables a wide-spread use. A further advantage of this is that it provides a tie-in to popular online social networking pages on the Internet. For many users, this kind of pages have become the center of their social life. As a further advantage, this is an improvement over online network pages because it gives the consumer something that is always available during communication - the dictionary. In a way similar to downloadable music, it can provide a user with a richer visible online and messaging personality.

In an expedient embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, said accessing comprises: requesting access to a personalized dictionary content; verifying access to said personalized directory content; and accessing said personalized dictionary content.

Hereby, a degree of control for access to a dictionary content is provided. An advantage of this is that a provider of a dictionary content may restrict access to avoid misuse or provide secure payment in connection with retrieval of the content .

In a further embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises retrieving said personalized dictionary content .

Hereby, a personalized dictionary content can be retrieved for viewing or editing purposes. An advantage of this is that retrieval of entries from the personalized dictionary content is made more efficient .

In another embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises storing said personalized dictionary content on a communications terminal.

Hence, a user may for instance download a personalized dictionary content for storing it in connection to a communications terminal. As an advantage, it is not necessary for the communication terminal to be connected to a communications network when accessing the personalized dictionary content.

In yet a further embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises performing a transfer of payment for retrieval of said dictionary content.

Hereby, economic compensation is enabled for a service of providing a personalized dictionary content. An advantage of this is an efficient way of obtaining a revenue is achieved.

In still yet another embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises sharing said personal dictionary.

Hereby, users may exchange personalized dictionary content with each other.

As an advantage, personalized dictionary content is made more accessible to other users. In one embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, said sharing comprises: locating a personalized dictionary content; indicating a recipient; and sending said personalized dictionary content to said recipient . Hereby, an efficient way of sharing a personalized dictionary content is enabled.

An advantage is that personalized dictionary content is conveniently retrieved and distributed.

In a further embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises receiving said personalized dictionary content.

Hereby, a recipient between sharing parties is conveniently provided with the personalized dictionary content . As an advantage, secure delivery of a personalized dictionary content is ensured.

In an expedient embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, said personalized dictionary content is comprised in a message. Hereby, a personalized dictionary content may conveniently be attached to or included with a message being commuted in a communications network.

As an advantage, retrieval of a personalized dictionary content is made convenient. The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a second aspect in accordance with the present invention by a personalized dictionary content for use with a communication terminal, said personalized dictionary content comprising textual entries, and wherein said textual entries are arranged to have one or more associated media clips. Hereby, media clips may be associated to a textual content of a dictionary. In addition, said media clips may be accessed through interaction with a textual entry or a graphical symbol in connection with the textual entry. The graphical symbol may for instance be a line below the textual entry representation, providing a link to the location of the media clip. The wording "media" is to be construed as comprising anything from a group comprising: a sound, an image, a video.

An advantage of this is that dictionaries can be made more interesting and provide more functionality to a user.

In one embodiment according to the first aspect of the present invention, the method further comprises selection of a second personalized dictionary content from said group of available personalized dictionary contents .

Hence, a user may select two or more dictionaries from which a local text prediction system of a communication terminal will present one or more suggestions of second expressions to use that correlate with a provided first expression.

An advantage of this is that a user can create a composition style, comprising expressions from a plurality of dictionary contents. The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a third aspect in accordance with the present invention by an apparatus comprising: a module for receiving a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents; a module for receiving as input a first expression; a module for retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and an output outputting said second expression.

Hence, the method in the first aspect of the invention may be implemented in an apparatus. As an advantage, an efficient and convenient process for adding content to a dictionary is achieved.

The apparatus according to the third aspect may comprise a communication terminal or a server.

Hence, the method according to the first aspect of the present invention may be implemented in a communication terminal or a server. An advantage of implementing the method in a communication terminal is the reduced need for on-line activity towards a server. On the other hand, the use of a server may advantageously be more efficient, for instance enabling more demanding processing of media content.

The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a fourth aspect in accordance with the present invention by a system for retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary, said system comprising a communication terminal, a server, and a communications network connecting said communication terminal and said server, wherein said server comprises: a module for receiving a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents; a module for receiving as input a first expression; a module for retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and an output for outputting said second expression. Hence, a system is provided that provides a convenient solution involving interaction between a communication terminal and a server in a communications network.

As an advantage, the system enables an efficient solution where the components are working nicely together to provide an efficient service for the user of a communication terminal.

The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a fifth aspect in accordance with the present invention by a computer program product, such as a computer-readable medium, comprising software instructions that, when executed in an electronic apparatus, performs the method according to said first aspect of the present invention. Hence, the invention may conveniently and advantageously be provided to data processing apparatus for efficiently implementing the method according to the first aspect of the present invention.

The above objects, together with numerous other objects, advantages and features, which will become evident from the below description, are accomplished according to a sixth aspect in accordance with the invention by a user interface comprising a display, and an input receiver, wherein said user interface is arranged to display a group of available personalized dictionary contents, receive as a first input a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from said group of available personalized dictionary contents, receive as a second input a first expression, and display from said first personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression.

Hence, with a user interface, it is provided a convenient solution for administering a process of correlating expressions. An advantage of this is that a user easily can overview the process and provide required input to the process.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The invention and its many advantages will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings, which for the purpose of illustration show some non-limiting embodiments and in which

Fig. 1 is a flow chart of an embodiment of a method for accessing a personalized dictionary,

Fig. 2 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a method for sharing a personalized dictionary content,

Fig. 3 illustrates schematically a mobile communication terminal, and Fig. 4 illustrates schematically the presentation of content as retrieved from a personalized dictionary.

All the figures are highly schematic, not necessarily to scale, and they show only parts which are necessary in order to elucidate the invention, other parts being omitted or merely suggested.

Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments Dictionaries for use with mobile communication terminals that are available today include pre-installed dictionaries with common words and phrases, downloadable specialized dictionaries such as for translation between languages, and personal dictionaries adapted to learn from a user's commonly used language. Another example is downloadable content dictionaries, for instance film- specific dictionaries comprising phrases from popular films or television series. Furthermore, also for purposes of learning languages, dictionaries can be useful. Dictionaries integrated in communication terminals provide convenient mobile solutions always at hand. However, the full potential of using dictionaries of communication terminals as powerful tools in connection with learning languages yet remains mainly unexploited. Hence, there is also a need for providing attractive solutions to users of communication terminals interested in learning new languages . Figure 1 is a flow chart illustrating a method of an embodiment of the present invention describing the process of retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary 100. The process is initiated by a mobile communication terminal, hereafter referred to as the initiating mobile communication terminal.

In a first selection step 101 a first personalized dictionary content is selected from a group of available personalized dictionary contents. In an input receiving step 102, a first expression is received as an input, whereby in a retrieval step 103, a second expression is retrieved correlated to said first expression is retrieved. The result is provided as an output in output step 104. The process may further comprise an accessing step 105 accessing said personalized dictionary content through a website, and said accessing step may comprise an access request step 106 requesting access to a personalized dictionary content. The request may be transmitted through a mobile communications network to a server, for instance one provided by a content provider. The request may be sent as an internal message of a software installed in the mobile communication terminal, for instance a web browser, or as an SMS, SAM (Short Audio Messaging) message, MMS, e-mail, or any other message type supported by a communication terminal. The process may further comprise an access verification step 107, wherein access to said personalized directory content is verified, and where after in a content accessing step 108, access is gained to said personalized dictionary content.

The process may further comprise a dictionary retrieval step 109 for retrieval of said personalized dictionary content, and a storing step 110, comprising storing said personalized dictionary content in a communications terminal. Payment may for instance be effected by receipt of an SMS ordering site specific credits or with advertisement banners either on the downloading site or with the downloaded content.

The process may further comprise a dictionary sharing step 112, wherein said dictionary content is shared with another user. The sharing step may further comprise a locating step 113, wherein a personalized dictionary content to be shared is located, a recipient indication step 114, wherein a recipient of said dictionary content is indicated, and a sending step 115, wherein said personalized dictionary content is sent to said recipient. As an alternative to having a mobile communication terminal initiating the process, it may also be initiated from for instance a web page. Hereby, a user browsing a page comprising personalized dictionary content, may conveniently select and forward a personalized dictionary content to her or a friends mobile communication terminal .

In addition, according to a particular embodiment of the present invention, a user can list his or her favorite words and/or phrases on a webpage . To the words and phrases it is also possible to have a supplementary media file coupled such as an audio or video clip. Comments from other users may be stored in connection with these words and/or phrases. A user can also download the list of favorite words and/or phrases in the form of a personal dictionary content to make it a part of his or her own dictionary.

The users can be private persons, companies, and even stars or bands having their own words, key phrases, chorus lines or quotes. As a commercial aspect, their personalized dictionary could be offered in exchange of a monetary contribution realized in a way known in the field of web based economic transactions .

According to one embodiment, access and retrieval to personalized dictionary content is represented by a consumer or end-user logging into a website with his mobile phone's browser. He selects the dictionary or dictionaries he wants and downloads them to his mobile handset . Furthermore, the dictionaries may be automatically stored in a specific folder or marked with a file attribute that the handset's predictive text system will recognize. Alternatively, the user may need to specify where the dictionaries are stored. Figure 2 is a schematic illustration of a series of screen shots of a display during a process of retrieving an expression from a personalized dictionary. Section a) shows a view of dictionary selection, wherein a group of available dictionaries are represented in a list 201, in which list a selected dictionary has been highlighted and indicated by a check in a box 202. Ordinary words can be replaced with fashionable words and phrases from a selected dictionary. For instance, in section a) a user having selected a "Terminator" dictionary and, in section b), entering "See you later" 203 will be presented "I'll be back" 204 as seen in section c) . To select the suggested expression, the user may press a predetermined key, or depending on the settings, it may be inserted automatically. If multiple expressions are available as suggestions, the user may scroll between these before insertion.

In another example, where two or more dictionaries have been selected, a user can for instance select dictionaries with expressions related to Clint Eastwood and Marlon Brando, resulting in a unique style combination. Hence, when a user requests a phrase, he may receive suggestions from any of the selected personalized dictionaries. Depending on which personalized dictionaries a user have accessible and selected, he or she can write messages and other textual creations in a range of various styles agreeing with his or her mood or attitude at a given occasion.

Optionally, the retrieval of the second expression is provided through word- and phrase-completion. For instance, in section c) and d) of figure 2 it is shown that after a few characters have been entered 210, one or more suggested matches 211 of correlated second expressions are presented to the user, for instance as a list.

Furthermore, the predictive text system of a mobile communication terminal may recognize and use all dictionaries in the folder or with the file attribute used for dictionaries. Alternatively, the predictive text system may prompt the user to find the dictionaries in the file system. In either case, the user may have the option to use or not use, i.e. enable or disable, one or more dictionaries at any time during text-input. Alternatively, an option can be set that will affect all subsequent text input.

When a dictionary is enabled, the predictive text system will use it like any other database of words, in the manner already known in this field. That is, if keys are pressed that match one or more words in the downloaded dictionary, those words are presented to the user as candidates to be used in the text being entered. If word- and phrase-completion is enabled, then the first few characters of a word or phrase will cause the entire phrase from the dictionary to be presented to the user for acceptance. The details of this behavior are know from other systems and are not within the scope of this invention . As an example word- and phrase-completion according to an embodiment of the present invention with a Star Trek Dictionary utilized, typing "Bea" will return the suggestion "Beam me up, Scotty". If having a Clint Eastwood specialized dictionary active typing "Mak" will return the suggestion "Make my day".

Fig 3 schematically shows a mobile communication apparatus 300 according to an embodiment of the present invention. It should be noted that parts not contributing to the core of the invention are left out not to obscure the features of the present invention. The mobile communication apparatus comprises a processor 302, a user interface (UI) 304, a memory 306, a transmitter 312, a receiver 316, a parser 318, and a correlator 320. The memory 306 holds program code for operation of applications of the mobile communication apparatus. The memory 306 also holds data used by the applications. Here, the memory 306 is depicted as a single unit. However, the memory can be two or more units, and/or divided in partitions. Preferably, program code for applications can be downloaded to the memory 306, and the downloaded program code can then be executed by the processor 302.

The user interface (UI) 304 comprises an input 310 and an output 308. The output 308 is arranged to present information to a user, such as text, images, audio, and/or video output related to a personality indicative content, or information related to the operation of extracting and correlating a personality indicative content. The output 308 is furthermore arranged to present an identifier indicative of general characteristics of a person associated with said personality indicative content. The input 310 is arranged to receive input related to personality indicative content parsing requests, selecting among different personality indicative content.

The transmitter 312 is arranged to transmit data and the receiver 316 is arranged to receive data to and from a mobile communications network, respectively. The receiver 316 is further arranged to receive a personality indicative content. The parser 318 is arranged to parse said personality indicative content for indicative expressions, and the correlator 320 is arranged to correlate said indicative expressions with one or more predetermined profiles to find a most probable profile.

A system architecture for managing a system 400 according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown in Fig. 4. A Home Location Register (HLR) 402 contains a database (not shown) including relevant subscriber information for provision of telecommunication service. A CCITT specified network 404 interconnects the individual parts of the system 400. A Dictionary gateway 406 is a switching unit routing a dictionary content to a mobile communication apparatus 408-412. A Dictionary Service Center 414 (DSC) and the Dictionary gateway 406 handles and routes the personalized dictionary content between the DSC 414 and the network 404. From the network 404, the personalized dictionary content is routed to the mobile communication apparatuses 408-412 via a Mobile

Switching Center (MSC) 416 to a Base Station Controller

(BSC) 417 and a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) 420, 421, or a Radio Network Controller (RNC) 418 and a Node B 422. Alternatively, the personalized dictionary content is routed to the mobile communication apparatuses 408-412 via a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 426, 428 to the BSC 417 and the BTS 420, 421, or the RNC 418 and the Node B 422, respectively. The BTS 420, 421 or the Node B 422 establish the air connection to the mobile communication apparatuses 408-412.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a network operator or other third party company handling a dictionary content server 424 could offer a service for parsing, correlating and extracting expressions from a personalized dictionary content provided by for instance a mobile communication terminal. For example a network operator may have a content server 424 supporting a feature where the user may send a dictionary content request from his mobile communication apparatus 408-412 to the dictionary content server 424 by using a special phone number. This content server 424 automatically processes request including parsing, extracting, and correlation of expressions from the personalized dictionary content. The content server 424 is responsible for returning a result to the communication terminal after processing the provided content.

The personalized dictionaries may be created and uploaded to a public website. The form of the web pages is not relevant to this invention, although personalized dictionaries are advantageously be associated with social networking web pages that are already used to distribute and comment on other material, such as music and films. The dictionaries may further be crafted by professionals that extract data from popular films, music, politicians, and literature upon which they are made available on a commercial website or portal.

In addition, words and phrases of the dictionaries may further be extracted automatically from popular films, music, etc. and made available on a website or portal .

Advantageously, artists, musicians, film writer/producers, etc. may create their dictionaries, and make those available on the website of the artist or of the main artistic work, e.g. the film's website containing a dictionary for that film.

Although the invention above has been described in connection with preferred embodiments of the invention, it will be evident for a person skilled in the art that several modifications are conceivable without departing from the invention as defined by the following claims.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary, said method comprising:

- selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents;

- receiving as input a first expression;

- retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and

- providing as output said second expression.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising accessing said personalized dictionary content through a website .

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein said accessing comprises :

- requesting access to a personalized dictionary content;

- verifying access to said personalized directory content; and - accessing said personalized dictionary content.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising retrieving said personalized dictionary content.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing said personalized dictionary content on a communications terminal.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising performing a transfer of payment for retrieval of said dictionary content.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising sharing said personal dictionary.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein said sharing comprises :

- locating a personalized dictionary content;

- indicating a recipient; and - sending said personalized dictionary content to said recipient .

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising receiving said personalized dictionary content.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein said , personalized dictionary content is comprised in a message .

11. A personalized dictionary content for use with a communication terminal, said personalized dictionary content comprising textual entries, and wherein said textual entries are arranged to have one or more associated media clips.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising selection of a second personalized dictionary content from said group of available personalized dictionary contents.

13. An apparatus comprising:

- a module for receiving a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents; - a module for receiving as input a first expression;

- a module for retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and

- an output outputting said second expression.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein said apparatus is a communication terminal or a server.

15. A system for retrieving expressions from of a personalized dictionary, said system comprising a communication terminal, a server, and a communications network connecting said communication terminal and said server, wherein said server comprises:

- a module for receiving a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from a group of available personalized dictionary contents;

- a module for receiving as input a first expression; - a module for retrieving from said personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression; and

- an output for outputting said second expression.

16. A computer program product, such as a computer- readable medium, comprising software instructions that, when executed in an electronic apparatus, performs the method according to claim 1.

17. A user interface comprising

- a display, and - an input receiver, wherein said user interface is arranged to display a group of available personalized dictionary contents, receive as a first input a selection of a first personalized dictionary content from said group of available personalized dictionary contents, receive as a second input a first expression, and display from said first personalized dictionary content a second expression correlated to said first expression.