Electronic Book Interface Systems and Methods

Abstract

An electronic book system provides interfaces particularly suited to students' use of textbooks. A finger press on a touch screen produces a contextual menu with user choices that relate to where the finger was pressed or what the user was recently doing with the book. A student provisionally navigates through a book by a specific gesture which, when it stops, returns the user to the previous position in the book. Annotations are displayed and hidden using specific gestures and through selective movement of the reader as sensed by its accelerometer.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Patent Ser. No. 61 / 446,239, filed Feb. 24, 2011, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety as if fully set forth herein.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Technical Field[0003]The invention generally relates to the field of electronic books and, more particularly, to systems and methods for accessing and otherwise working with book information via electronic devices.[0004]2. Background Information[0005]Even as widespread use of the Web reaches its twentieth anniversary, there has been little change in how people make use of textbooks. Students still fill their backpacks with as many of the five-pound books as will fit, and the impact of such paper-based learning is felt not only in students' backs, but in the carbon footprint of all of the infrastructure required to supply, use and dispose of such materials. A change of just a few pages in a textbook may make it obsolete and call for a new version to be...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]An electronic book reader including input recognition, annotation, and collaboration subsystems. Improved interaction methods provide more intuitive use of electronic books for studying. The provided annotation functionality allows a reader (e.g. a student) to make notes as is common with conventional paper books. The collaboration subsystem provides functionality to share these notes with others, enabling group learning on a variety of scales, from small study groups to collaborations with worldwide scope.

[0010]In one aspect, the reader is configured to facilitate navigation through a textbook by providing various user options for provisionally or tentatively moving through the text, for instance to temporarily move to a glossary section before returning to the main text, or temporarily moving from a question page to a portion of the main text relating to the question. By using suitable gestures, the student navigates between these options in a provisional fashion that allows easy return to the main section of interest. In a related aspect, a bookmarking system facilitates easy access to portions the student identifies as important.

Problems solved by technology

Electronic reading devices have not to date provided interfaces to implement some of these subtle yet important features that help students learn from their texts most efficiently.

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