Approximating Electronic Document Last Reading Position
Contents
1. e E ee VALID a lt DISPLAY gt gt TIME 7 g A 114 DETERMINE USER READING SPEED STORE APPROXIMATED POSITION ON CURRENT PAGE 120 FINAL READING POSITION IN E DOCUMENT 122 124 Patent Application Publication Oct 24 2013 Sheet 1 of 6 This is a sample text to demonstrate how repagination can cause the loss of the last reading position of a person reading this document Such a loss of position can be annoying as the person will have to scroll through the document to find the new position This can even cause the person to inadvertently read a part of the electronic document that he or she had not read before which may spoil the user experience even more For instance when reading an e book the person reading the book would want to avoid accidentally reading the outcome of a cliff hanger as this may lead to the user deciding not to read the book any further US 2013 0283145 A1 20 FIG 1 This is a sample text to demonstrate repagination can cause the loss of the last reading position of a reading this document Such a loss of position can be annoying as the person person how Patent Application Publication START MEASURE PAGE DISPLAY TIME USER STOPPED READING YES 108 APPROXIMATE FINAL READING POSITION ON CURRENT PAGE 102 120 Oct 24 2013 Sheet2 of 6 US 2013 0283145 A1 O Na U2. The method may further comprise interrupting the determining of said reading speed in response to said signal and resuming the determining of said reading speed in response to a further signal indicating that the user has resumed reading the electronic document This is particularly advantageous if the signal is sensor generated as it ensures that the statistics from which the reading speed is derived are only collected by the method when the user is actively reading the electronic document thus improving the accuracy and efficiency of the method 0024 Inan embodiment the step of determining a reading speed of a reader of the electronic document comprises deter mining a text unit processing rate wherein determining a text unit processing rate comprises the steps of determining a first reading time it takes the user to read a number of text units and determining the text unit processing rate by dividing said number of text units by said amount of time wherein a text unit is selected from the group comprising a word a line a paragraph and a page 0025 The text unit processing rate of the user is a suitable metric to accurately approximate the final reading position of the user For instance when the approximating step com prises multiplying the display time of the most recently accessed page by a page reading speed the size of the fraction of the page read by the user is accurately approximated such that a pointer may be inserted int
3. Alternatively the reader may for instance detect pages with and without images as pages with images will typically be read at a different speed than pages without images or the reader may for instance detect pages with or without mathematical formulas as the presence of such a formula may for instance be considered likely to contain scientific evidence which again will be read at a different speed by a user than e g a page containing images dialogue or combinations of different types of content 0075 Consequently when determining the approximate final reading position in step 120 as previously explained the method will evaluate the type of content on the most recently displayed page and select the appropriate reading speed for that type of content when approximating the final reading position In case the most recently displayed page contains more than one type of content the method may construct a blended or weighted reading speed using the reading speeds of the types of content detected on the most recently displayed page For instance for a page containing 70 dialogue and 30 description a blended reading speed comprising of 0 7 times the reading speed for dialogue and 0 3 times the reading speed for description may be used as a first approximation 0076 This algorithm may be refined by considering the location of the content on the most recently displayed page For instance if the top of the page contains content of a first t
4. Similarly if the display time falls below a defined lower threshold this may be an indication that the user has skipped at least part of the page As including such statistics in the reading speed evaluation may compromise the accuracy of the evaluation it may therefore be decided that in such a case the page statistics are not included in the deter mination of the reading speed of the user in which case the method may return to step 104 where the display time of the next displayed page is measured 0052 The aforementioned thresholds applied in optional step 114 may be static thresholds 1 e thresholds that are not updated or dynamic thresholds i e thresholds that are updated based on changes in the determined reading speed 0053 In an embodiment each threshold may be set as a percentage or fraction of the time it would take a user to read that page based on the up to date value of the determined user reading speed For instance for a page containing 300 words and a user reading at a speed of 5 words per second the typical time it would take the user to read the page would be 300 5 60 seconds The range of acceptable display times may for instance be defined from 50 200 of this typical time i e 30 120 seconds If the page display time falls outside this range the page statistics e g word count and page display time are not considered in the determination of the user reading speed It should be appreciated that the values i
5. equally feasible and in at least some embodiments preferable that the page display time measure Oct 24 2013 ment of step 104 runs in parallel with sub routine 110 to ensure that the measurement of the page display time is as accurate as possible 0058 The above process flow is repeated until there is an indication that the user has stopped reading as shown in step 108 Such an indication may for instance be a signal gener ated in response to the user giving an explicit command to the computer on which the electronic document is displayed e g by the user may press an appropriate button on the computer may touch the screen in a predefined manner to invoke this command or the computer may comprise a sensor that detects that the user has stopped reading 0059 For instance the computer may comprise a motion sensor and or an orientation sensor that detects that the user has placed the computer in a substantially horizontal orien tation thus indicating that the computer has been put down 0060 Alternatively the computer may comprise a light sensor that detects that the user has covered the display screen of the computer thus again suggesting that the user has stopped reading Other embodiments of suitable sensors will be apparent to the skilled person 0061 Upon the detection of the signal indicating that the user has stopped reading the electronic document the method will proceed to step 120 in which the final reading positio
6. reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim The word comprising does not exclude the presence of elements or steps other than those listed in a claim The word a or an preceding an element does not exclude the presence ofa plurality of such elements The invention can be implemented by means of hardware comprising several dis tinct elements In the device claim enumerating several means several of these means can be embodied by one and the same item of hardware The mere fact that certain mea sures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage 0094 As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system method or computer program product Accordingly aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment an entirely software embodiment in cluding firmware resident software micro code etc or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a circuit mod ule or system Furthermore aspects of the present inven tion may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium s hav ing computer readable program code embodied thereon 0095 Any combination ofone or more computer readable mediu
7. schematically depicts a flow chart of an aspect of another method according to yet another embodi ment of the present invention and 0039 FIG 6 schematically depicts a system according to an embodiment of the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS 0040 It should be understood that the Figures are merely schematic and are not drawn to scale It should also be under stood that the same reference numerals are used throughout the Figures to indicate the same or similar parts 0041 In the context of the present application where embodiments of the present invention constitute a method it should be understood that such a method is a process for execution by a computer i e is a computer implementable method The various steps of the method therefore reflect various parts of a computer program e g various parts of one or more algorithms 0042 The various embodiments of the method of the present invention may be stored on a computer program prod uct comprising a computer readable storage medium The computer readable storage medium may be any medium that can be accessed by a computer for the retrieval of digital data from said medium Non limiting examples of a computer readable storage medium include a CD DVD flash memory card a USB memory stick a random access memory a read only memory a computer hard disk a storage area network a network server an Internet server and so on 0043 In the context o
8. text unit processing rate wherein deter mining a text unit processing rate comprises the steps of determining a first reading time it takes the user to read a number of text units and determining the text unit processing rate by dividing said number of pages by said amount of time wherein said Oct 24 2013 text unit is selected from the group comprising a word a line a paragraph and a page 7 The method of claim 6 wherein the step of determining the first reading time it takes the user to read a number of text units comprises determining a second reading time it takes to read a par ticular page and discarding 114 said second reading time and said page from determining said page processing speed of if the further amount of time exceeds a defined threshold 8 The method of claim 1 wherein the electronic document contains different types of content wherein the step of deter mining the reading speed comprises determining 116 the reading speed of each of said types of content for said user 9 The method of claim 8 wherein the most recently accessed page of the electronic document comprises at least two of said types of content and wherein the step 120 of approximating the final reading position comprises determin ing a weighted reading speed based on the respective reading speeds of said at least two types of content 10 The method of claim 1 wherein said approximating step 120 comprises approximating the
9. the approximated final reading position in metadata of the electronic document 0067 After the electronic document has been updated in step 122 the method ends in step 124 e g by saving the electronic document and closing the application used for displaying the application and or shutting down the com puter 0068 In an embodiment the determined user reading speed may also be saved at this orany other suitable stage of the method shown in FIG 1 For instance the determined speed may be stored ina user file on an electronic repository e g locally on the computer which may be accessed the next time the application for displaying the electronic document is launched at the start 102 This has the advantage that it is not necessary to first evaluate the time it takes the user to read a number of pages before being able to get an accurate approxi mation of the reading speed of the user 0069 Alternatively the user reading speed may also be stored in the electronic document e g in step 122 This is particularly advantageous ifthe speed is expressed in terms of number of words read per time unit as this speed is largely independent of the screen size of the computer on which the electronic document is displayed whereas changes in screen size will typically affect the length of a line or the amount of content e g text on a page such that a reading speed expressed in those terms is not screen size independent 0070 Inan embod
10. this is the case then the method reverts back to step 104 where the display time of the next displayed page is measured 0050 In an embodiment the user reading speed may be periodically updated by the sub routine 110 For instance it may be assumed that if the user reading speed has been based on a defined minimum number of text units words lines paragraphs pages and so on there is a sufficient confidence in the accuracy of the determined user reading speed such that for subsequently displayed pages it is not necessary to update the user reading speed as explained above However the user reading speed may change over time for instance because of loss of concentration interest or because of fatigue such confidence may reduce over time In such a case it may be US 2013 0283145 Al further checked in step 112 or in a separate optional step not shown in FIG 2 how long ago the user reading speed was determined and in case this amount of time exceeds a defined threshold it may be decided to recalculate the user reading speed to capture such changes in reading speed 0051 The sub routine 110 may further comprise an optional step 114 in which it is checked if the measured display time of the displayed page falls within an acceptable range For instance if the display time exceeds a defined upper threshold this may indicate that the reader may have stopped reading the page for at least a part of the time the page was displayed
11. PPROX FINAL READING POSITION IN CENTER OF DISPLAY SCREEN 406 408 FIG 5 Patent Application Publication Oct 24 2013 Sheet 6 of 6 US 2013 0283145 Al 500 FIG 6 US 2013 0283145 Al APPROXIMATING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT LAST READING POSITION FIELD OF THE INVENTION 0001 The present invention relates to a method for approximating the last reading position in an electronic docu ment such as an e book 0002 The present invention also relates to a method for displaying such a document on a computer 0003 The present invention further relates to a computer program product comprising computer readable program code for implementing at least one of these methods 0004 The present invention yet further relates to a system including this computer program product BACKGROUND 0005 The electronic reading of documents that is read ing documents from a display screen of an electronic device such as an e book reader tablet smart phone laptop or desk top computer and so on has become increasingly common place over the last few years In particular the portability of some of these electronic devices has caused a surge in elec tronic reading on the move e g during commuter journeys using public transport holiday travel and so on 0006 In fact many people now own several electronic devices that are suitable for e reading e g a smart phone a dedicated e reader a laptop and so on and such people may w
12. SER READING SPEED lt KNOWN ur 112 YS Z lt Cal a N se 114 YES gt r VALID DISPLAY TIME DETERMINE USER READING SPEED STORE APPROXIMATED FINAL READING POSITION IN E DOCUMENT 122 END 124 FIG 2 Patent Application Publication START Oct 24 2013 Sheet 3 of 6 STOPPED I I I I I i 102 AES 7 READING xs a SPEED se 1 KNOWN AL MEASURE Re e 112 PAGE DISPLAY N NO TIME Zen l Pad as No e7 VALID ss 104 Le DISPLAY gt N I TIME oe USER i SELAT 114 TURNED i PAGE YES DETERMINE USER NO 106 READING SPEED I USER NO I I READING TEMPORARY STOP 202 APPROXIMATE FINAL READING POSITION ON CURRENT PAGE 120 TO 122 READING SESSION RESUMED 206 HALT 204 FIG 3 US 2013 0283145 A1 Patent Application Publication Oct 24 2013 Sheet 4 of 6 US 2013 0283145 Al FROM 106 READING 1 q SPEED 7 KNOWN 2 112 YS Ln s VALID a DISPLAY gt TIME N Ar 114 YES DETERMINE TYPE S OF CONTENT ON PAGE 302 DETERMINE USER READING SPEED FOR CONTENT en SSE PB SSES kien ee en ES 110 FIG 4 Patent Application Publication Oct 24 2013 Sheet 5 of 6 US 2013 0283145 Al 402 RETRIEVE APPROX FINAL READING POSITION DISPLAY PAGE WITH A
13. US 20130283145A1 a2 Patent Application Publication o Pub No US 2013 0283145 Al as United States Argent 43 Pub Date Oct 24 2013 54 APPROXIMATING ELECTRONIC 52 U S CL DOCUMENT LAST READING POSITION PC Sent G06F 17 241 2013 01 te s lest ARE 715 231 71 Applicant INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION Armonk NY US 57 ABSTRACT 72 Inventor Daniel J Argent Essex GB 21 Appl No 13 859 943 22 Filed Apr 10 2013 30 Foreign Application Priority Data Apr 19 2012 GB mme 1206881 3 Publication Classification 51 Int Cl G06F 17 24 2006 01 Disclosed is a method for approximating the final reading position in an electronic document such as an e book The final reading position is approximated by first establishing a reading speed of the reader of the e book which reading speed is used to approximate the final reading position on the most recently displayed page of the e book for instance by measuring how long the page has been displayed for and using the reading speed and this time period to obtain an approximate final reading position on the most recently dis played page A computer program product containing this method and a system for executing this method are also disclosed MEASURE PAGE DISPLAY TIME USER STOPPED READING APPROXIMATE FINAL READING KA z 7 USER x 2 READING a A lt SPEED o lt KNOWN x 112 Y A z
14. acquisition of the reading statistics is interrupted during such a temporary interruption of a reading session thus further Oct 24 2013 improving the accuracy of the reading speed derived from these statistics and furthermore providing a more power efficient implementation 0072 On the other hand if in step 202 it is concluded that the reading session of the user has ended e g by the user closing down the application or switching off the computer the method will proceed to step 120 and its subsequent steps as explained in the detailed description of FIG 2 0073 Ina further embodiment of the present invention the method of approximating a final reading position in an elec tronic document may determine separate reading speeds for different types of content An aspect of this method is shown in FIG 4 In this embodiment the sub routine 110 is extended with an additional step 302 in which the one or more types of content on the displayed page are determined after which the sub routine proceeds to step 116 to determine the reading speed for those types of content For instance the method may evaluate the information density e g number of words on a page and decide based on this density if the content is likely to be of a particular type For instance dialogue in a fictional work is generally less dense than description in the same work which can lead to different reading speeds for these different types of content 0074
15. an agement system which stores location information indicat ing a location within a content item where a user exited from or last accessed the content item This location information is synchronized or otherwise shared between or among a plu rality of devices associated with the user With this informa tion stored on or accessible to these multiple devices the system enables the user to start from that location when subsequently accessing the content item on any of these devices 0013 For static content such as an e book the last page is stored as the location information Consequently this solu tion also fails to solve the aforementioned problem caused by the change in a layout of the electronic document between devices Moreover this prior art document relies on storing the location information on a server or on the separate devices which requires communication between the devices This furthermore limits this prior art solution to devices that are capable of communicating with each other BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0014 Thepresent invention seeks to provide a method that allows for the storage of a more accurate last reading position in an electronic document 0015 The present invention further seeks to provide a method that allows for a more accurate restoration of an electronic document on a computer 0016 The present invention further seeks to provide a computer program product comprising computer program code w
16. ant to transfer an electronic document currently being read between suitably programmed electronic devices For instance a person may want to use a smart phone whilst on the move but an e book reader or desktop computer whilst at home or work to read the document 0007 However the portability of the electronic document between such devices is not without problems In particular in order to give the user the best possible reading experience it is desirable that the electronic device to which the electronic document is transferred displays the text in the document where the user previously stopped reading i e displays the last reading position such that the user does not have to scroll through the electronic document to find this position which can be annoying 0008 Several solutions exist that try to meet this require ment For instance the Google Reader tags the top of the last viewed page of an electronic document Amazon Kindle uses a solution called Whispersync M which auto matically synchronizes bookmarks and a reading location among devices registered to the same Amazon com account When opening a Kindle book or archived personal docu ment on another device the user is given the choice to go to the furthest page read if the user is further ahead on the other device 0009 However when porting an electronic document between electronic devices having different screen sizes the view of the electronic document may
17. ccessed page in the electronic document The latter information is of course equally useful if the electronic docu ment is restored on the same computer such that no refor matting such as repagination occurs that can lead to the loss of the actual final reading position in the initial display of the reopened electronic document Therefore embodiments of the method shown in FIG 5 may be extended with a checking step in which it is checked if the electronic document needs reformatting which is indicative of the document being reopened on a computer with a different screen size and only use the approximated final reading position if such reformat ting indeed occurs 0081 Embodiments of the method of the present invention may be made available as a computer program product com prising a computer readable storage medium wherein the various steps of the method are stored on the computer read able storage medium in the form of computer readable pro gram code that when executed on a suitably adapted com puter will cause the computer to execute the steps of such a method 0082 FIG 6 depicts an example system 500 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention The system 500 e g a computer comprises a processor 510 a computer readable storage medium 520 such as a hard disk and or a memory a graphics driver 530 a display screen 540 and an optional network interface 550 The system 500 is adapted to implement the embodime
18. ce with a further embodiment of the present invention there is provided a system comprising a processor and the computer program product of the present invention wherein the processor is adapted to execute said program code This system can enable the more accurate approximation of the final reading position of an electronic document read on the system as explained in more detail for the various embodiments of the corresponding method or in case of the system being the destination system to which the electronic document is transferred provides a system that is more likely to display an initial reading page of the electronic document that contains the final reading position in the elec tronic document on the previous electronic device BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0033 Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the following drawings in which US 2013 0283145 Al 0034 FIG 1 schematically depicts a problem addressed by at least some embodiments of the present invention 0035 FIG 2 schematically depicts a flow chart of a method according to an embodiment of the present invention 0036 FIG 3 schematically depicts a flow chart of an aspect of a method according to another embodiment of the present invention 0037 FIG 4 schematically depicts a flow chart of an aspect of a method according to yet another embodiment of the present invention 0038 FIG 5
19. comprises periodically repeating the step of determining a reading speed to capture changes in said reading speed This has the advantage that the actual reading speed is closely monitored as the reading speed of the user may vary during a single reading session e g through fatigue or a loss of con centration or interest in the content of the electronic docu ment This may therefore further improve the accuracy of the approximation of the final reading position 0030 In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of displaying an elec tronic document having an approximated final reading posi tion associated therewith in accordance with an embodiment of the above method of the present invention comprising displaying the page of the electronic document comprising the approximated final reading position such that the approxi mated final reading position is positioned in a defined region of a display screen of said computer This has the advantage that the chance of the actual final reading position being displayed on the display screen is maximized 0031 In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code when executed on a com puter causing the computer to implement the steps of an embodiment of any of the methods of the present invention 0032 In accordan
20. dable signal medium may be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate propagate or transport a program for use by orin connection with an instruction execution system apparatus or device 0097 Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium including but not limited to wireless wireline optical fiber cable RE etc or any suitable combination of the foregoing 0098 Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages includ ing an object oriented programming language such as Java Smalltalk C or the like and conventional procedural pro gramming languages such as the C programming language or similar programming languages The program code may execute entirely on the user s computer partly on the user s computer as a stand alone software package partly on the user s computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server In the latter scenario the remote computer may be connected to the user s computer through any type of network including a local area network LAN ora wide area network WAN or the connection may be made to an external computer for example through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider 0099 Aspects of the present invention are described below
21. e it takes to read a unit portion of text for instance the number of seconds it takes a user to read a line paragraph or page Any suitable time unit may be used to express time in the reading speed 0045 In the context of the present application an elec tronic repository is a digital storage medium that can be accessed by a computer for retrieving the digitally stored content The electronic repository may be a memory a hard disk a collection of hard disks a storage area network and so on which may be accessible via a network such as a wired or wireless local area network the Internet a mobile communi cation network suchas UMTS 2G 3G 4G 5G and so on The electronic repository may comprise an account of the user for managing e g synchronizing the various computers used for accessing the electronic document in which case the approxi mated final reading position of the electronic document may be stored in the user account 0046 FIG 2 depicts an example embodiment of a method of approximating a final reading position in an electronic document The method starts in step 102 which typically comprises a user opening an electronic document on a com puter The computer may be configured to retrieve the last reading position of the electronic document from an elec tronic repository that contains relevant user information including the last reading position or alternatively from the electronic document itself and use this last r
22. eading position to determine which part of the electronic document is to be displayed to the user as the initial page of the reading session 0047 Once the initial page is displayed the method pro ceeds to step 104 in which the duration of the time the initial page is displayed is timed This may be implemented in any suitable manner e g by using the system clock of the com puter to obtain the timing information 0048 The timing of the page can be interrupted by two events The first of those events is shown in step 106 which is when the user instructs the computer to jump to the next page This may be achieved by any suitable command For instance the user may press an appropriate button on the computer may touch the screen in a predefined manner to invoke this command may briefly shake or tilt the computer such that a motion sensor of the computer can detect the movement and interpret it as a page turning command and so on 0049 Upon detecting the page jump instruction the method proceeds to a sub routine 110 in which the reading speed of the user is determined The sub routine 110 may comprise an optional step 112 in which it is checked if the user reading speed has already been determined or if there is sufficient confidence in the accuracy of the determined read ing speed e g because a sufficient number of data points for instance a sufficient number of pages has been included in the determination of the reading speed If
23. f the present application an elec tronic document can be any computer readable file that com prises text which may be embedded in an image e g a cartoon and that when opened in a computer program or application on a computer is displayed to a user such that the text can be read by the user In particular the electronic document preferably is an e book although the electronic document may also be a newspaper a work of reference such as an encyclopedia a user manual a body of text generated by auser in a word processing application a web page and so on The electronic document may be in any suitable file format In the context of the present application a computer is an elec tronic device comprising a processor capable of running an application for displaying an electronic document More spe cifically computer may be an electronic book e book reader a smart phone a tablet a personal digital assistant a laptop computer a desktop computer a web server and so on 0044 Inthe context of the present application a user read ing speed is the time it takes a user to read a unit of text Any suitable granularity may be used for defining what constitutes a unit of text For instance the reading speed may be expressed in terms of number of pages per minute number of paragraphs per minute number of lines per minute number of words per minute and so on Alternatively the reading Oct 24 2013 speed may be expressed as the tim
24. final reading position from the reading speed and the display time of the most recently accessed page 11 The method of claim 1 wherein said approximating step 120 comprises determining said final reading position from an initial reading position of the electronic document 12 The method of claim 1 further comprising periodically repeating the step 116 of determining a reading speed to capture changes in said reading speed 13 A method of displaying an electronic document com prising an approximated final reading position associated therewith in accordance with the method of claim 1 compris ing displaying 406 the page of the electronic document com prising the approximated final reading position such that the approximated final reading position is positioned in a defined region of a display screen of said computer 14 A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code when executed on a computer causing the computer to implement the steps of the method of claim 1 15 A system 500 comprising a processor 510 and the computer program product of claim 14 wherein the processor is adapted to execute said program code
25. have to be adjusted or altered to fit the screen of the destination device e g by repagination font size changes and the like 0010 This is schematically depicted in FIG 1 A person user reading an electronic document on a first electronic device 10 may have finished reading at the words cliff hanger highlighted in bold on the screen of the first electronic device 10 such that this word has become the last reading position in this document The electronic document may be tagged with the end point of the page displayed by the first Oct 24 2013 electronic device 10 to allow the most recent view of the electronic document to be restored upon reopening the docu ment This of course works well when the document is reopened on the first electronic device 10 as exactly the same page will be displayed which therefore contains the last reading position 0011 However if the electronic document is loaded onto the second electronic device 20 which has a different here smaller screen size than the first electronic device 10 as indicated by the arrow in FIG 1 the second electronic device 20 will display only a portion of the last page as displayed on the first electronic device 10 which portion may not contain the actual last reading position which has the undesirable consequence that the user will have to scroll through the document to manually find this position therein 0012 U S Pat No 7 870 272 B2 discloses a content m
26. hen executed on a computer causing the computer to implement at least one of the above methods of the present invention 0017 The present invention yet further seeks to provide a system including the above computer program product of the present invention 0018 In accordance with an aspect of the present inven tion there is provided a method of approximating a final reading position in an electronic document comprising deter mining a reading speed of a user reading the electronic docu ment approximating said final reading position on the most recently accessed page of the electronic document using the determined reading speed and digitally storing the approxi mated final reading position for retrieval by a computer adapted to display the electronic document 0019 By determining the reading speed e g a number of text units per time unit e g words lines paragraphs or pages per time unit the final reading position on the last page accessed by the user can be accurately approximated for instance by multiplying the display time of the most recently US 2013 0283145 Al accessed page by said reading speed or by approximating said final reading position from an initial reading position of the electronic document based on the determined reading speed and the elapsed display time The approximated final reading position may for instance be stored in the electronic docu ment or in a separate user file 0020 In an embodiment
27. iment the method may be configured to distinguish between a user interrupting a reading session and terminating a reading session This is shown in FIG 3 An interruption of a reading session may for instance be detected by a sensor of the computer e g by noticing that the user has closed the cover of the computer or put down the computer as previously explained To this end the method may comprise an additional step 202 in which it is determined whether or not the termination of the reading session is temporary in the sense that the user is not expected to close down the applica tion but is instead expected to resume the same reading ses sion which for instance may be detected by the generation of such a sensor signal 0071 If it is decided that the user has temporarily inter rupted his reading session the method may move to the halt stage 204 which for instance may invoke a sleep mode of the computer In the halt state 204 the method checks as shown in step 206 if the reader has resumed reading which for instance may be detected by the generation of a further signal of the aforementioned sensors which may signal the removal of the cover or opening of the computer or the computer being in motion thus indicating that the user has picked up the com puter to resume the reading session If such a further signal is detected the method resumes monitoring the display time of the current page in step 104 This has the advantage that the
28. m s may be utilized The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium A computer readable storage medium may be for example but not limited to an elec tronic magnetic optical electromagnetic infrared or semi conductor system apparatus or device or any suitable com bination of the foregoing More specific examples a non exhaustive list of the computer readable storage medium would include the following an electrical connection having one or more wires a portable computer diskette a hard disk a random access memory RAM a read only memory ROM an erasable programmable read only memory EPROM or Flash memory an optical fiber a portable com pact disc read only memory CD ROM an optical storage device a magnetic storage device or any suitable combina tion of the foregoing In the context of this document a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain or store a program for use by orin connection with an instruction execution system apparatus or device 0096 A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein for example in baseband or as part of a carrier wave Such a propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms including but not limited to electro mag netic optical or any suitable combination thereof A com Oct 24 2013 puter rea
29. n of the user is approximated In a preferred embodiment this is achieved by extrapolating the final reading position from the display time of the most recently displayed page and the determined user reading speed For example for a most recently displayed page having been displayed for 30 seconds for a user having an average reading speed of 40 seconds per page or 1 5 pages per minute the final reading position will lie at 30 40 3 4 down the page 0062 At this point it should be appreciated that the appro priate formula for approximating the final reading position will depend of the format in which the reading speed of the user is expressed 0063 For instance in case ofa user reading speed R being expressed as text units time unit e g words sec words min page sec page min and so on the appropriate formula may be A DxR in which A is the approximate final reading posi tion expressed in text units and D is the display time of the most recently displayed page For example for a most recently displayed page containing 300 words having been displayed for 30 seconds and a user reading speed of 3 words per second the approximate final reading position will be 3 30 the 90 word on the page 0064 Alternatively if the reading speed R of a user is expressed in time per text unit the appropriate formula may be A D R For example for a most recently displayed page containing 300 words having been displayed for 30 seconds and a u
30. n the above example are entirely non limiting and that any suitable threshold or range end point of the range may be chosen 0054 In the absence of at least one of optional steps 112 114 or upon determination in these steps that the user reading speed should be determined the method proceeds to step 116 in which the user reading speed is determined This may be done in any suitable way 0055 Inanembodiment the page statistics such as display time and optionally text properties such as the number of words lines and or paragraphs and so on may be stored in a memory of the computer implementing the method of the present invention and may be accumulated in step 116 to obtain an average page reading speed for the user e g by dividing the total number text units such as words lines paragraphs or pages and so on read by the sum of the page display times to obtain this average As it will be immediately apparent to the skilled person how this may be implemented on a computer this will not be explained in further detail for the sake of brevity only 0056 Alternatively the reading speed may be expressed as the time it takes a user to read a unit portion of text e g a defined number of words lines paragraphs pages and so on 0057 At this stage it is noted that although the measuring of the page display time in step 104 is shown to commence upon completion of the sub routine 110 this is shown for the sake of clarity only It is
31. nts of the methods of the present invention in the following manner Oct 24 2013 0083 An electronic document and the application for dis playing the electronic document which may include one or more of the embodiments of the method of the present inven tion may be stored in the computer readable storage medium 520 0084 Alternatively the electronic document and or the application for displaying the electronic document may be stored on a network accessible electronic repository outside the system 500 in which case the processor 510 instructs the network interface 550 to access the electronic repository over the network and to retrieve the electronic document and or the application for displaying the electronic document which subsequently are stored in the computer readable storage medium 520 0085 The processor 510 executes the application for dis playing the electronic document e g by instructing the graphics interface 530 to display the appropriate portion of the electronic document on the display screen 540 0086 In an embodiment the processor 510 instructs the graphics interface 530 to display the appropriate portion of the electronic document on a defined region of the display screen 540 such as a mid center position on the display screen 540 0087 The processor 510 determines the reading speed of the user reading the electronic document At the same time the processor 510 measures the display time of each page
32. o the electronic document that points towards the end point of this fraction 0026 Advantageously the step of determining the amount of time it takes the user to read a number of text units com prises determining a second reading time it takes to read a particular number of text units and discarding said second Oct 24 2013 reading time and said page from determining said text unit processing speed of if the further amount of time exceeds a defined threshold 0027 Incase the electronic document contains different types of content the step of determining the reading speed may comprise determining the reading speed of each of said types of content for said user This for instance may be used to more accurately approximate the final reading position on the most recently accessed page of the electronic document by determining the type of content on the most recently accessed page and approximating the final reading position using the reading speed of the user for that content 0028 Ina further embodiment in case the most recently accessed page of the electronic document comprises at least two of said types of content the step of approximating the reading position may comprise determining a weighted read ing speed based on the respective reading speeds for said at least two types of content This may further improve the accuracy of the approximation of the final reading position 0029 In yet another embodiment the method further
33. of the electronic document on the display screen 540 0088 The processor 510 subsequently approximates the final reading position of the user in response to a signal indicating that the user has stopped reading This signal may be generated by a power button not shown on the system 500 a sensor not shown indicating that the system 500 is no longer in use or any other suitable source for such a signal 0089 The processor 510 subsequently instructs the stor age of the approximated final reading position e g by updat ing a metadata field in the electronic document or by updating the user file and storing the updated electronic document or user file in the computer readable storage medium 520 or by instructing the network interface 550 to store the updated electronic document or user file on the network accessible electronic repository 0090 Although the various elements of the system 500 are shown as discrete elements it will be understood by the skilled person that at least some of the elements may be integrated into a single component For instance it is equally feasible that the graphics driver 530 forms part of the proces sor 510 and or that at least part of the computer readable storage medium 520 resides on the processor 510 0091 The computer readable storage medium 520 com prises computer program code for implementing one or more embodiments of the methods shown in FIG 2 5 by execution of this program code on the proces
34. ory or hard disk 0078 In step 404 the approximated final reading position is extracted from the location where it is stored e g from a user file on the electronic repository or from the electronic document which is used in step 406 to display a portion e g a page of the electronic document including the approxi mated final reading position The approximated final reading position is typically displayed in a defined region of the display screen Preferably the defined region is the mid center of the display screen as this maximizes the amount of text before and after the approximated final reading position that is in this initial view of the electronic document thus minimizing the chance that the actual final reading position of the user in the previous reading session falls outside the initially displayed text of the electronic document in this new reading session It should however be understood that it is equally feasible to place the approximated final reading posi tion at a different defined region of the display screen e g the top or the bottom of this screen 0079 After the electronic document has been opened and displayed in this manner the method terminates in step 408 0080 At this stage it is noted that the use of the approxi mated final reading position to restore an electronic document to a previous view may be combined with approaches that are already known such as storing information of the most recently a
35. rmed on the computer other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer imple mented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide pro cesses for implementing the functions acts specified in the flowchart and or block diagram block or blocks 0102 The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture functionality and operation of pos sible implementations of systems methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention In this regard each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module segment or por US 2013 0283145 Al tion of code which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function s It should also be noted that in some alternative imple mentations the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures For example two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concur rently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order depending upon the functionality involved It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and or flow chart illustration and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and or flowchart illustration can be implemented by special purpose hardware based systems that perform the specified functions or acts or combinations of
36. said digitally storing step com prises storing the approximated final reading position on an electronic repository that can be accessed by said computer over a network Such an electronic repository may for instance be an Internet accessible server and or a server accessible over a mobile phone network e g a UMTS 2G 3G 4G or 5G network in which case the approximated final reading position may for instance be stored ina user file on the server The electronic repository may for instance comprise a server on which the application for displaying the electronic document can be accessed 0021 In an embodiment the approximating step is trig gered by a signal indicating that the user has interrupted reading the electronic document This ensures that the approximating step is only executed when necessary thus improving the efficiency of the method On battery powered devices such an improved efficiency translates to a prolonged battery lifetime Such a signal may for instance be generated when the user engages a control such as the power button or a close document menu option of the electronic device 0022 Alternatively or additionally said signal is gener ated by a sensor of an electronic device on which the docu ment is displayed such as a motion sensor which has the advantage that the final reading position is approximated even without the user actively terminating the application display ing the electronic document 0023
37. ser reading speed of 13 of a second per word the approximate final reading position will be 30 divided by the 90 word on the page 0065 Many possible variations will be immediately apparent to the skilled person For instance as it is unlikely that a user will stop reading mid sentence step 120 may further comprise finding the nearest full stop to the approxi mated final reading position and adjusting the approximated final reading position to the nearest full stop to improve the accuracy of the approximation As another example the mea sured display time of the most recently displayed page may be reduced by a fixed amount to factor in the likely delay between the user stopping reading and the user signaling the computer accordingly US 2013 0283145 Al 0066 After the final reading position has been determined in step 120 the method proceeds to step 122 in which the approximated final reading position is stored on an electronic repository e g in a user file or by tagging the electronic document with the approximated final reading position prior to saving the electronic document such that it upon reopening the document a page including this approximated final read ing position can be displayed The approximated final reading position may be stored in any suitable format and any suitable file e g auser profile a user file and so on When storedin the electronic document this may be done in any suitable man ner e g by storing
38. sor 510 In order to obtain the timing information required e g in step 104 the system 500 may further comprise a system clock not shown which for instance may reside on the processor 510 or on another part of the system The system 500 may further comprise one or more sensors not shown such as a motion sensor an orientation sensor a light sensor and so on for detecting the temporary interruption of a reading session of a user of the system 500 as previously explained 0092 Insummary disclosed is a computer implemented method for approximating the final reading position in an electronic document such as an e book The final reading position is approximated by first establishing a reading speed US 2013 0283145 Al of the reader of the e book which reading speed is used to approximate the final reading position on the most recently displayed page of the e book for instance by measuring how long the page has been displayed for and using the reading speed and this time period to obtain an approximate final reading position on the most recently displayed page A com puter program product containing this method and a system for executing this method are also disclosed 0093 It should be noted that the above mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the invention and that those skilled in the art will be able to design many alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims In the claims any
39. special pur pose hardware and computer instructions 1 A method ofapproximating a final reading position in an electronic document comprising determining 116 a reading speed of a user reading the electronic document approximating 120 said final reading position on the most recently accessed page of the electronic document using the determined reading speed and digitally storing 122 the approximated final reading posi tion for retrieval by a computer adapted to display the electronic document 2 The method of claim 1 wherein said digitally storing step comprises storing the approximated final reading posi tion on an electronic repository that can be accessed by said computer over a network 3 The method of claim 1 wherein the approximating step 122 is triggered by a signal indicating that the user has interrupted reading 202 the electronic document 4 The method of claim 3 wherein said signal is generated by a sensor of the electronic device on which the electronic document is displayed 5 The method of claim 3 further comprising interrupting 204 the determining of said reading speed in response to said signal and resuming the determining 116 of said reading speed in response to a further signal indicating that the user has resumed reading the electronic document 6 The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining a reading speed of a reader of the electronic document com prises determining a
40. with reference to flowchart illustrations and or block diagrams of methods apparatus systems and computer pro gram products according to embodiments of the invention It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustra tions and or block diagrams and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and or block diagrams can be implemented by computer program instructions These com puter program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer special purpose computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine such that the instructions which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data pro cessing apparatus create means for implementing the func tions acts specified in the flowchart and or block diagram block or blocks 0100 These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable medium that can direct a com puter other programmable data processing apparatus or other devices to function in a particular manner such that the instructions stored in the computer readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which imple ment the function act specified in the flowchart and or block diagram block or blocks 0101 The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer other programmable data processing apparatus or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be perfo
41. ype e g dialogue and the remainder of the page contains content of a second type e g description the method may first approximate the final reading position using only the reading speed for the first content type and only if the final reading position is approximated to lie within the content of the second type is the approximation repeated for using a blended reading speed This may be further refined if it can be determined how long it would have taken the user to read the whole of the first content which amount of time may be deducted from the total display time of the most recently displayed page to yield a reduced total display time used to approximate the final reading position starting from the end of the first type of content on the most recently displayed page Further refinements or alternatives will be apparent to the skilled person US 2013 0283145 Al 0077 Upon reopening the electronic document on the same or a different computer the application for displaying the electronic document will retrieve the approximated final reading position from the electronic repository e g by accessing the appropriate user file or from the electronic document An example embodiment of such a method is shown in FIG 5 In step 402 the application for displaying the electronic document is launched on a computer which may include retrieving the electronic document from an elec tronic repository e g a computer readable medium such as a mem
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search