902 results about "Information appliance" patented technology

There is provided a system for supporting interactive operations for inputting user commands to a household electric apparatus such as a television set/monitor and information apparatuses. According to the system for supporting interactive operations applying an animated character called a personified assistant interacting with a user based on speech synthesis and animation, realizing a user-friendly user interface and simultaneously making it possible to meet a demand for complex commands or providing an entry for services. Further, since the system is provided with a command system producing an effect close to human natural language, the user can easily operate the apparatus with a feeling close to ordinary human conversation.

A content control system for limiting access by sensitive users, such as children, or the like, to certain types of content. The content control system provides a user interface for an information handling system, information appliance, content recorder, or the like that provides a single point of user control for parental locks for multiple audio and/or audiovisual devices. In embodiments of the invention, the content control system may employ a method of setting the content rating parameters of a content control system based on content rating of example content. The content control system may also employ a method for modifying the content rating of content received by a content recorder such as a personal video recorder, or the like.

A mail delivery system for facilitating delivery of a plurality of mail pieces sorted into a plurality of containers to a postal service. The mail delivery system includes a mail piece information apparatus for determining information about each of the mail pieces, such as by scanning delivery addresses of the mail pieces. A sorting apparatus associates an identifiers of the containers with mail pieces sorted into the containers. A tracking system tracks the containers through delivery using the container identifiers. Paperless manifests describing the mail pieces in the containers and delivery of the containers to a postal service location are generated by the system by correlating tracking information on the containers with contents information for the containers using the identifier. The mail delivery system is also configured to implement quality control processes and billing using the tracking and manifest information, resulting in time savings and increased billing accuracy.

The design of typable devices, in particular, touch-typable devices embodying ambiguous codes, presents numerous ergonomic problems. Solutions for these problems are herein disclosed. This invention teaches methods for the selection of ambiguous codes from the classes of strongly-touch-typable ambiguous codes and substantially optimal ambiguous codes for touch-typable devices such as computers, telephones, pagers, personal digital assistants, smart cards, television set-top devices and other information appliances, given design constraints such as the size, shape, and computational capacity of the device, the typical uses of the device, and conventional constraints such as respect of alphabetic ordering or Qwerty ordering.

A method, system, and computer program product for asynchronous unconscious retrieval retrieves and presents information to end users without requiring the end users to explicitly request the information. The invention automatically and asynchronously formulates queries and presents relevant information to end users within the context of existing applications, so as to minimize the effort, overhead, and context shifts associated with conventional conscious retrieval.

The remote monitoring and controlling of controllable devices is provided by sending control information to and receiving status information from information appliances over a network. A user is able to monitor the information appliances from a remote location, and control the information appliances from the remote location. The remote monitoring and control can be facilitated by graphical user interfaces. The information appliance can be a home lighting system, a home alarm system, a home entertainment system, a water gardening system, a home heating system, a home cooling system, and a television system having recording capabilities.

An information equipment remote operating system includes an operated-side information equipment and an operating-side information equipment. The operated-side information equipment includes a view region storing unit for storing view information regarding a view region correlated with an window, a screen information processing unit for generating an image to be displayed on an operating-side display unit as an initial state based on the view information, a communication unit, and a control information processing unit for operating an application. The operating-side information equipment includes a communication unit, a view region storing unit for storing the view information, a screen information processing unit for displaying images on multiple display regions in high to low display priority order, and a control information processing unit for transmitting application operating information to the operated-side information equipment.

A digital information appliance comprises a housing having a display disposed on a first surface for displaying information to a user of the digital information appliance and an input device disposed on a second surface opposed to the first surface for imputing information. The input device is oriented with respect to the display so as to be operable by the fingers of the user's hand for input of information while holding the housing so the display is viewable.

A video image display system including an information apparatus and a transmissive head mounted display that allows a user to visually recognize video images distributed from the information apparatus as virtual images is provided. The information apparatus includes a video image distributor that distributes video images corresponding to a specific geographic region to the head mounted display. The head mounted display includes a motion detector that detects motion of the user's head and allows the user to visually recognize, as virtual images, video images selected based on motion information representing the motion.

Multiple electrical appliances are connected to household network. Each appliance informs device control unit of own description information through broadcasting mode. Based description information received, device control unit creates relevant networked virtual information appliances and stores their device description information, and sends the description information in standard format to network server. Based on received device description information, network server creates web page of appliance list and control web page, which are released to user terminal device. Using device list web page in user interface and control web page of information appliance, user sends out command for controlling information appliances. After command is completed, information appliance sends out own newest state to network server through device control unit, letting server update web page.

The invention relates to an apparatus and method for data transmitting/receiving between a microwave oven and an information appliance PDA. The apparatus includes a wireless data transmitting/receiving unit for conducting wireless data communication with an external system including an information appliance; a data storage unit for storing transmitted/received data through the wireless data transmitting/receiving unit and/or downloaded data from Internet; a display unit for displaying transmitted data from the wireless data transmitting/receiving unit; a load drive unit for driving a magnetron and/or a heater; and Micom interfaced with the above elements, and interpreting the transmitted data from the wireless data transmitting/receiving unit and/or checking a state of the microwave oven, and controlling the wireless data transmitting/receiving unit to transmit the data on the state of the microwave oven to an information appliance. According to the invention, although the microwave oven does not include built-in networked communication equipment like a modem, it can interface with Internet through an information appliance, a PDA for example, which download data and transmits to the microwave oven. Thus, increase in price of the microwave oven with the modem is minimized and user interface is provided. Also, repair cost of the microwave oven can be minimized by checking the microwave based on the data on the internal state of the microwave being transmitted to the PDA.

A system for providing interactive data services to a home voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) user includes a plurality of broadband information appliances. A host server is in communication with the broadband information appliances via a network. At least one media server is in communication with the host server via the network and fulfills requests for media and services from the plurality of broadband information appliances through the host server.

When a home electric appliance detects and identifies an article to be handled by the home electric appliance, the home electric appliance executes handling of the article in conformity with a control program corresponding to the specified article. When the control program corresponding to the specified article is not present, the home electric appliance downloads the corresponding control program from a program distribution means through a network, and further sends information on the article to home electric appliances having possibility to operate the article. Upon reception of information from the home electric appliance, the home electric appliances download a control program corresponding to the article from the program distribution means through the network if the control program corresponding to the article is not present.

The present invention includes a method and apparatus for automatically assigning a network address to a network device in an electronic communications network carrying inter-device communication packets to and from electronic devices located at assigned network addresses. The network device, also referred to as an appliance, communicates with at least one other network device to collect information from inter-device communication packets, which contain network address assignment information. From the network address assignment information in the communication packets, the appliance determines an available network address. The appliance assumes the available network address. The appliance may access a remote network device to retrieve an available, permanent, network configuration, including IP address.

An Internet-Phone device and system for receiving and outputting digital content. The Internet-Phone device may be an Internet-enabled smart phone with access to the Internet, may include a voice communication functionality and a messaging application, may be a mobile apparatus, and may be a wireless information apparatus. The Internet-Phone system may include one or more of a digital camera for image data acquisition, a digital imaging application for image editing, a touch sensitive screen, a graphical user interface, a document creation or document editing application, an e-mail application, and an Internet browsing application. The Internet-Phone device may include an operating system providing an object model or an application programming interface to facilitate access with an output service. The Internet-Phone device further may include a wireless communication unit that may have a radio frequency controller for establishing radio frequency wireless communication between the Internet-Phone device and a wireless output devices, and an output manager for managing output of the digital content to a selected wireless output device.

The invention relates to an information on-line searching method adopted on information devices such as computer, mobile phone and so on. A text string on a computer screen is transformed into a searching string via mouse searching actions such as moving a mouse pointer or dragging and dropping the mouse and so on. And a mouse searching operation is processed automatically and corresponding immediate on-line searching result is displayed on a mouse searching window. Clicking a special searching key can activate a keyboard searching window and in a course of inputting the searching string, a keyboard immediate on-line searching is processed automatically and corresponding immediate on-line searching result is displayed. Clicking a return key can process to determine on-line searching and then a corresponding searching result web page is displayed in a browser window.

The invention includes an apparatus and method of providing information using an information appliance coupled to a network. The method includes storing text files in a database at a remote location and converting, at the remote location, the text files into speech files. A portion of the speech files requested are downloaded to the information appliance and presented through an audio speaker. The speech files may include audio of electronic program guide (EPG) information, weather information, news information or other information. The method also includes converting the text files into speech files at the remote location using an English text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizer, a Spanish TTS synthesizer, or another language synthesizer. A voice personality may be selected to announce the speech files.

An automatic channel generator and a method for generating a channel based upon the utilization of a device and activities occurring on the device. A device is connected to a local network hub, which may be integral to an information appliance. The information appliance is capable of searching the Internet for data associated with media being delivered by a device on the local network system. The aggregates of content can be collected automatically, and its presentation may be customized by a user.