Abstract:
A platform agnostic digital publication format that supports rendered and resizable text, illustrations and graphics, “read to me” features and interactive functionality. The format takes advantage of the alternate renditions feature of the OCF of the EPUB® specification and includes both a ShockWave Flash (SWF) based rendition and a HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Java Script (JS), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) based implementation. In order to avoid duplicating large components (graphics, audio, etc.), files containing those components are not embedded in the SWF files, but are rather externally referenced by both the SWF and the HTML files. A strict and consistent folder structure and file-naming convention improves efficiency and reduces the potential for error.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
       [0001]    This application claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) from U.S. Provisional Patent application No. 61/407,004, filed on Oct. 26, 2010, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for reading electronic publications, and more particularly to electronic publication readers capable of reading electronic publications with interactive features on multiple platforms from a single format eBook file. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0003]    The EPUB® specification is a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents. EPUB® defines a way of representing, packaging and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content, including XHTML, CSS, SVG, images, and other resources, for distribution in a single-file format. EPUB® allows publishers to produce and send a single digital publication file (an ePub file) through distribution and offers consumers interoperability between software/hardware for unencrypted, reflowable digital books and other publications. EPUB® was initially standardized in 2007 as a successor format to the Open eBook Publication Structure or “OEB”, which was originally developed in 1999. 
         [0004]    Two important components of the EPUB® specification are the Open Packaging Format (OPF) and the OEBPS Container Format (OCF). The OPF specification defines the mechanism by which the various components of an electronic publication are tied together and provides additional structure and semantics to the electronic publication. Specifically, OPF describes and references all components of the electronic publication (e.g. markup files, images, navigation structures), provides publication-level metadata, specifies the linear reading-order of the publication, provides fallback information to use when unsupported extensions are employed and provides a mechanism to specify a declarative global navigation structure (the NCX). 
         [0005]    The OCF specification describes a general-purpose container technology in the context of encapsulating ePub publications and optional alternate renditions thereof. As a general container format, OCF collects a related set of files into a single-file container. OCF can be used to collect files in various document formats and for classes of applications. The single-file container enables easy transport of, management of, and random access to, the collection. 
         [0006]    OCF defines the rules for how to represent an abstract collection of files (the “abstract container”) into physical representation within a ZIP archive (the “physical container”). OCF is the required single-file container technology for ePub publications. During the preparation steps in producing an electronic publication, OCF is used as the single-file format when exchanging in-progress publications between different individuals and/or different organizations. When providing an electronic publication from publisher or conversion house (Content Provider) to the distribution or sales channel, OCF is the recommended single-file format to be used as the transport format. When delivering the final publication to an ePub reading system or end-user, OCF is the required format for the single-file container that holds all of the assets that make up the publication. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0007]    The present invention is a digital publication reader that takes advantage of an expanded ePub functionality. The reader provides digital rendering of reflowable text, to support graphical and picture books, interactivity, animation, resizeable text boxes and the ability to zoom in and pan around illustrations. The reader of the present invention can function on multiple platforms including Android and iOS. 
         [0008]    The inventors of the present application have found that readers for the traditional architecture for files for electronic publication are insufficient for digital picture books and graphic books with resizable text and graphics, light motion graphics, narration and sound effects. The present invention is a platform agnostic digital reader that supports rendered and resizable text, illustrations and graphics, read to me features and interactive functionality. The reader takes advantage of an enhanced rendition feature of the OCF of the EPUB® specification and includes both a ShockWave Flash (SWF) based rendition and a HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Java Script (JS), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) based implementation of an ePicture Book. In order to avoid duplicating large components (graphics, audio, etc.), files containing those components are not embedded in the SWF files, but are rather externally referenced by both the SWF and the HTML files. A strict and consistent folder structure and file-naming convention improves efficiency and reduces the potential for error. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0009]    For the purposes of illustrating the present invention, there is shown in the drawings a form which is presently preferred, it being understood however, that the invention is not limited to the precise form shown by the drawing in which: 
           [0010]      FIG. 1  illustrates the structure of the electronic publication employed by the present invention; and 
           [0011]      FIG. 2  depicts an exemplary electronic reader capable of reading the electronic publication. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0012]    The reader of the present invention is appropriate for a wide variety of enhanced ebook content, including for electronic children&#39;s picture books. 
         [0013]    Throughout this document references are made to “pages” for simplicity, understanding that a page of the publication might correspond to a two-page spread of the corresponding physical book. Some of the goals achieved by the electronic publication include a well defined and documented format, optimal multi-platform support with a single zipped file to maintain, ingest, and distribute, and fully supported Digital Rights Management, DRM. 
         [0014]    The reader of the present invention operates on an electronic device as illustrated in  FIG. 2  and serves as a reader for electronic publications in the format described in connection with  FIG. 1 , the ePiB format. The reader is launched automatically by a library application when the user chooses to read an electronic publication in the ePiB format. 
         [0015]    The reader exits either when the users closes the electronic publication which is trigger from within the electronic publication content or presses the Home key on the device  500 . On exiting, the unzipped and unencrypted electronic publication data is purged from the memory and/or disk of the device  500 . This purging can be handled by the reader itself or by the library application. 
         [0016]    The reading experience provided by the present invention is immersive, meaning the electronic publication itself fills the screen with a minimum of visible user interface (UI) elements. Page turns are driven by both swipe gestures and taps in the right and left gutters of the screen of device  500 . Zooming into the page is done with a pinch/spread multi-touch gesture. 
         [0017]    The reader also provides a Heads Up Display, HUD, button on the screen of device  500  that launches further navigation possibilities. Such navigation controls include commands such as “return to the library” or a Thumbnail Navigation Scrubber. 
         [0018]    Text enlargement is triggered by a single or double tap on a text box on a page of the electronic publication being displayed. Clicking anywhere on the screen of device  500  closes the enlarged text box. Some children&#39;s books include narration, which is tied to page turns and to text blocks. Pages themselves, as displayed by the reader, have varying levels of interactivity as defined by the SWF files that make up the electronic publication&#39;s content. SWFs need a mechanism to accept gesture events to control them. 
         [0019]    For children&#39;s books, when a child enters an interactive mode (i.e., launches an activity on a page), the normal page turn gestures are disabled and replaced with specific page-turn icons, to lessen confusion. Additionally, a page turn automatically ends an activity on a page. 
         [0020]    For adult trade books, some ability to save data is desirable. For example, a user of a crossword puzzle book done might want to save work done to date between readings. The reader provides the user with the ability to save the work already performed in the crossword puzzle book. 
         [0021]    The ePiB format specifies a folder  154  for thumbnail images of each page/spread. The reader of the present invention accesses those thumbnails to implement a navigation scrubber. 
         [0022]    ePiBs for children&#39;s books are typically in landscape mode. Adult trade books encoded in the ePiB format can be in either portrait or landscape, and might also adapt to either orientation. The reader of the present invention accommodates an accelerometer in device  500  for orientation detection and also provides for a locked-orientation mode. 
         [0023]    Brightness and volume controls are accessible from within the reader. 
         [0024]    The reader of the present invention supports ePiB, ePub, Digital Rights Managed and non Digital Rights Managed content. As a user selects an electronic publication in a library application, the library application detects the MIME type of the electronic publication and has Adobe RMSDK perform DRM decryption and zip extraction to hidden partition. 
         [0025]    Once the electronic publication has been unzipped and decrypted, the reader of the present invention is pointed to newly extracted folder and looks for the proper ePiB structure, including the TOC, Images, JSON files as further described below. Using the roadmap contained in the electronic publication according to the ePiB format, SWF dynamically creates ‘ePiB’ book based on the assets (audio/images) and the page structure contained with the JSON file. When a user initially opens an electronic publication, the reader will open the publication to the publication&#39;s cover page. 
         [0026]    In reading mode, the current reading page, previous and next reading page are all rendered in memory by the reader. When a user exits the reader while reading an electronic publication, in all cases when the user opens the electronic publication again, the user returns to the same reading location and same overall state. For example. if the user hit the power key or the home key when the contextual menu was up, the user will return to the just read page. If minimal tools have been activated and the user left and returned, they will return with the minimal tools ON. 
         [0027]    The reader of the present invention provides the following reading navigation tools. A user can turn the page by swiping on the touch screen of the device  500 . The user can swipe anywhere on the page to turn to the previous or next page. The user swipes left to right to turn to previous page and swipes right to left to turn to the next page. The user can also turn the page by tapping on the touch screen. In a preferred embodiment, the user can top on the page gutters (20% left and right) to turn to the previous or next page. The reader further provides an animation upon the turning of the page in the form of a curled page on turning. 
         [0028]    User can zoom in/out on the illustrations on a page displayed by the reader by using a pinch or spread gesture on the touch screen. Further, the user can use a touch gesture to pan around in a page. 
         [0029]    The format of the electronic publication used by the reader of the present invention makes use of the Open Packaging Format (OPF) and the OEBPS Container Format (OCF) that are part of the EPUB® specification described above for organizing, specifying, and packaging content data for electronic content. Using these standard specifications provides several benefits. The OPF and OCF specifications are well understood and supported, so reading systems, such as the present invention, that support OPF and OCF can support the format of the present invention with certain modifications and extensions. The DRM in place in readers to handle traditional ePub documents can be used with the enhanced ePub publications of the present invention without modification. 
         [0030]    The reader of the present invention separates the structural description of a publication, its media elements, and its interactivity logic. This architectural separation within the format of an electronic publication provides several benefits. Because the media assets, by far the largest elements of any advanced electronic publication, are separated from the interactivity logic and the structure, multiple renditions of the logic can exist within one document, without the electronic publication growing unreasonably large. 
         [0031]    Because there can be multiple renditions of the interactivity logic, the reader of the present invention can make use of different technologies supported by different devices (e.g., Flash on an Android device, HTML5 and JavaScript on an iOS device). 
         [0032]    One of the important aspects of the present invention is the folder structure utilized by the reader. An example of an enhanced ePub file  100  used by the reader of the present invention is illustrated in  FIG. 1 . Following the OCF format specification, there are two root-level folders, META-INF  105  and OEBPS  110 . As with traditional ePub files, the enhanced ePub container  100  of the present invention includes the mimetype  107 . 
         [0033]    The OEBPS folder  110  serves as the root of both the SWF and the XHTML versions of the publication. The OEBPS folder  110  contains at least the following files: Toc.ncx  115 ; Content.opf  120 ; Book.html  130 ; and Book.swf  140 . Content.opf  120  is a file that contains publication metadata and a manifest of the files that make up the electronic publication. 
         [0034]    Book.swf  140  is the primary SWF file that drives the Flash reader of the electronic publication. This SWF file  140  includes publication-level logic, including page turns, navigation scrubber, reading mode, etc. The primary SWF file  140  loads individual page-level SWF files to allow the reader to render the individual pages of the electronic publication. Using the page-level SWF files, the reader of the present invention can load background and animation images from the IMAGES subdirectory  150  and audio from the AUDIO subdirectory  160  as further described below. 
         [0035]    Book.html  130  is the primary HTML file that drives the HTML/JS reader of the present invention. The HTML Architecture is similar to the Flash rendition architecture. Book.html  130  is essentially an HTML/JavaScript application that operated on the reader and loads and unloads pages according to user navigation, and handles memory in the reader by adding and deleting nodes of the Document Object Model, DOM, tree. All graphic and audio content is referenced from the same directories, e.g. IMAGES  150 , AUDIO  160 , and are the same files as used by the Flash rendition. 
         [0036]    When executed by the reader, both the Book.html  130  and the Book.swf  140  primary files make use of the Book  170 , JS  180  and Book.CSS  190  folders as further described below. 
         [0037]    Additionally, OEBPS folder  110  contains the following subfolders: IMAGES  150 ; AUDIO  160 ; BOOK  170 ; JS  180 ; and CSS  190 . 
         [0038]    IMAGES subfolder  150  contains all of the images  152  used on the pages in the electronic book contained in enhanced ePub file  100 . The images  152  contained in subfolder  150  are preferably in either the PNG or JPG format. IMAGES folder  150  preferably includes a subfolder THUMBNAILS  154 . Electronic books are broken typically into “spreads” (typically facing pages from the print version). Each spread has a thumbnail reference (image), the actual width and height of the image of the spread, an identifier of the image for the spread, and “narration” entries. Subfolder THUMBNAILS  154  contains thumbnail images  156  of each spread (e.g., two facing pages) in the electronic book for use by a book-level navigation scrubber in an electronic reader capable of reading the electronic book. 
         [0039]    AUDIO subfolder  160  contains all the audio files  162 ,  164  associated with the electronic publication contained in the enhanced ePub file  100 . 
         [0040]    BOOK subfolder  170  contains the JSON data files  175  used for the page layout for the electronic publication contained in the enhanced ePub file  100 . The size, position, and contents of each text block on a page is described and associated with each book page. The primary file in BOOK subfolder  170  is book.json  175 . This file contains the structural definition of the publication in the form of JSON data. 
         [0041]    Book.json  175  begins with publication level data, including the following (note that the actual values are provided exemplary purposes only):
       “title”: “The Title of the Publication”,   “author”: “Author&#39;s Name”,   “width”: 1536,   “height”: 768,   “backCoverPromo”: “backcoverpromo”,       
 
         [0047]    The width and height values specify the pixel dimensions of the source assets of the electronic publication. An electronic reader displaying the enhanced ePub publication uses these values to scale the displayed version of the publication to the size of the view screen of the electronic reader. For example, on a screen of an electronic reader with dimensions of 1024×600, the publication described above would display at a resolution of 1024×512. 
         [0048]    Following the publication-level metadata in Book.json  175 , is an array of spreads, specified by: 
         [0000]    
       
         
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
           
               
                   
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
                 “spreads”: 
               
               
                   
                 [ 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 ... 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 ] 
               
               
                   
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
         [0049]    Each element of the array of spreads preferably has the following format. Again, the values used herein are exemplary only. 
         [0000]    
       
         
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
               
               
             
           
               
                   
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
                 { 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 “thumbId”: “thumb_11-12_0”, 
               
               
                   
                 “width”: 1536, 
               
               
                   
                 “height”: 768, 
               
               
                   
                 “assets”: 
               
               
                   
                 [ 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 { 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 “itemref”: “spread_11-12_0” 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 } 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 ] 
               
               
                   
                 , 
               
               
                   
                 “narration”: 
               
               
                   
                 [ 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 { 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 “itemref”: “narration_11-12_01”, 
               
               
                   
                 “id”: “narration0”, 
               
               
                   
                 “audio”: “audio_11-12_01”, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-width”: 555, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-height”: 232, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-left”: 111, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-top”: 47, 
               
               
                   
                 “width”: 966, 
               
               
                   
                 “height”: 386, 
               
               
                   
                 “left”: 59, 
               
               
                   
                 “top”: 60 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 } 
               
               
                   
                 , 
               
               
                   
                 { 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 “itemref”: “narration_11-12_02”, 
               
               
                   
                 “id”: “narration1”, 
               
               
                   
                 “audio”: “audio_11-12_02”, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-width”: 502, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-height”: 138, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-left”: 933, 
               
               
                   
                 “initial-top”: 596, 
               
               
                   
                 “width”: 862, 
               
               
                   
                 “height”: 219, 
               
               
                   
                 “left”: 661, 
               
               
                   
                 “top”: 547 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 } 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 ] 
               
               
                   
                 , 
               
               
                   
                 “activity”: 
               
               
                   
                 [ 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 { 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 “itemref”: “”, 
               
               
                   
                 “autoplay”: false 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 } 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 ] 
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 } 
               
               
                   
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
         [0050]    “thumId,” as used above, references a thumbnail image  156  in IMAGE directory  150  and is used to represent the spread in a “thumbnail scrubber” navigation method. 
         [0051]    “Width” and “height,” as used above, specify the pixel dimensions of the assets in the particular spread being described. Generally, the width and height of a spread corresponds to the book-level width and height dimensions, but can vary depending on the spread. 
         [0052]    “Assets” as used above is an array of references to image, animation, and interactivity assets used in this spread. 
         [0053]    “Narration” is an array of specifications of textboxes on the screen. Each element of that array specifies the image asset used when that textbox is enlarged, the audio file (if any) that accompanies that text box, the bounding box of the unenlarged text box (used as the triggering hotspot to enlarge the box) and the resulting bounding box of the enlarged text box. The narration array is an optional component. 
         [0054]    “Activity” is a specification of the activity that occurs on that spread, as specified in the assets portion of the spread description. It is an optional component. 
         [0055]    Other data can be included in the spread description, allowing the format to extend its functionality. 
         [0056]    CSS subfolder  190  contains all the CSS files  195  pertaining to the electronic publication contained in the enhanced ePub file  100 . These files  195  add styles to the document without having to repeat code in HTML at each individual instance. Using the CSS files  195 , the style need only be applied once. 
         [0057]    JS subfolder  185  contains all JavaScript files  185  pertaining to the electronic publication contained in the enhanced ePub file  100 . JavaScript files  185  add interactivity functionality to pages in the electronic publication, for example, pop up or text boxes. 
         [0058]    As previously described, presently, there are two primary architectures for rendering electronic publications, the Flash Rendition Architecture and the HTML/JS Rendition Architecture. 
         [0059]    The Flash rendition of the electronic publication is driven by a primary SWF file Book.swf  140 . This SWF  140  includes publication-level logic, including page turns, navigation scrubber, reading mode, etc. The primary SWF file  140  loads individual page-level SWF files to render the individual pages of the electronic publication. The page-level SWF files load background and animation images from the IMAGES subdirectory  150 , audio from the AUDIO subdirectory  160 , etc. The page-level SWF files open data files from the BOOK directory  170  to position elements on the page being rendered. In this way, the page-level SWF files are largely similar to one another, unless they include activities. For most electronic publications, the page-level SWF files may be identical except for the data files to which they point. 
         [0060]    The HTML/JS Rendition Architecture is similar to the Flash rendition architecture, where the publication is driven by a book level HTML file, Book.html  130 . Book.html  130  is essentially an HTML/JavaScript application that loads and unloads pages according to user navigation, and handles memory by adding and deleting nodes of the Document Object Model, DOM, tree. All graphic and audio content is referenced from the same directories, e.g. IMAGES  150 , AUDIO  160 , and are the same files as used by the Flash rendition. 
         [0061]    The format of the container  100  of the electronic publication is structurally an ePub file. Everything the reader of the present invention needs to present the content as intended is listed as an &lt;item&gt; in the &lt;manifest&gt; section of the enhanced ePub file  100 . 
         [0062]    However, in contrast to a traditional ePub structure, there is a JSON file  175  contained in the BOOK directory  170  in the enhanced ePub container  100 . This JSON file  175  contains metadata that tells the reader application how the various pieces of the electronic publication should be presented. This structure employed in an electronic reader is not taught or suggested by traditional ePub container structure. 
         [0063]    In operation, when the electronic reader of the present invention loads an electronic publication according to the format described above, the enhanced ePub file  100  is digested and the name/value pairs of IDs and file paths are stored. The JSON file  175 , the roadmap to the electronic publication, is read and converted into an in-memory data structure in the reader. The first spread in the book, as referenced by the JSON file  175 , is drawn or rendered by the reader. 
         [0064]    Each narration entry associated with a spread contains a “hit zone” that tells the reader where a tap should be interpreted as a request to zoom into the text of a narration, how big the zoomed-in image should be, and whether or not there is an audio clip associated with this narration asset. “Hit zones” for any narration assets are remembered for that page. If a user taps in a hit zone, the narration text for that hit zone is displayed in a zoomed state. 
         [0065]    If there is an audio clip accompanying the narration text, a play button is displayed at the upper-right of the zoomed narration area. Tapping the play button plays the audio clip. The reference to an audio clip in the JSON file  175  is the identifier for the entry  162 ,  164  in the AUDIO directory  160 . 
         [0066]      FIG. 2  illustrates an exemplary device  500 . As appreciated by those skilled the art, the device  500  can take many forms capable of operating the present invention. As previously described, in a preferred embodiment the device  500  is a mobile electronic device, and in an even more preferred embodiment device  500  is an electronic reader device. Electronic device  500  can include control circuitry  500 , storage  510 , memory  520 , input/output (“I/O”) circuitry  530 , communications circuitry  540 , and display  550 . In some embodiments, one or more of the components of electronic device  500  can be combined or omitted, e.g., storage  510  and memory  520  may be combined. As appreciated by those skilled in the art, electronic device  500  can include other components not combined or included in those shown in  FIG. 2 , e.g., a power supply such as a battery, an input mechanism, etc. 
         [0067]    Electronic device  500  can include any suitable type of electronic device. For example, electronic device  500  can include a portable electronic device that the user may hold in his or her hand, such as a digital media player, a personal e-mail device, a personal data assistant (“PDA”), a cellular telephone, a handheld gaming device, a tablet device or an eBook reader. As another example, electronic device  500  can include a larger portable electronic device, such as a laptop computer. As yet another example, electronic device  500  can include a substantially fixed electronic device, such as a desktop computer. 
         [0068]    Control circuitry  500  can include any processing circuitry or processor operative to control the operations and performance of electronic device  500 . For example, control circuitry  500  can be used to run operating system applications, firmware applications, media playback applications, media editing applications, or any other application. Control circuitry  500  can drive the display  550  and process inputs received from a user interface, e.g., the display  550  if it is a touch screen. 
         [0069]    Orientation sensing component  505  includes orientation hardware such as, but not limited to, an accelerometer or a gyroscopic device and the software operable to communicate the sensed orientation to the control circuitry  500 . The orientation sensing component  505  is coupled to control circuitry  500  that controls the various input and output to and from the other various components. The orientation sensing component  505  is configured to sense the current orientation of the portable mobile device  500  as a whole. The orientation data is then fed to the control circuitry  500  which control an orientation sensing application. The orientation sensing application controls the graphical user interface (GUI), which drives the display  550  to present the GUI for the desired mode. 
         [0070]    Storage  510  can include, for example, one or more storage mediums including a hard-drive, solid state drive, flash memory, permanent memory such as ROM, any other suitable type of storage component, or any combination thereof. Storage  510  can store, for example, media content, e.g., eBooks, music and video files, application data, e.g., software for implementing functions on electronic device  500 , firmware, user preference information data, e.g., content preferences, authentication information, e.g., libraries of data associated with authorized users, transaction information data, e.g., information such as credit card information, wireless connection information data, e.g., information that can enable electronic device  500  to establish a wireless connection, subscription information data, e.g., information that keeps track of podcasts or television shows or other media a user subscribes to, contact information data, e.g., telephone numbers and email addresses, calendar information data, and any other suitable data or any combination thereof. 
         [0071]    Memory  520  can include cache memory, semi-permanent memory such as RAM, and/or one or more different types of memory used for temporarily storing data. In some embodiments, memory  520  can also be used for storing data used to operate electronic device applications, or any other type of data that can be stored in storage  510 . In some embodiments, memory  520  and storage  510  can be combined as a single storage medium. 
         [0072]    I/O circuitry  530  can be operative to convert, and encode/decode, if necessary analog signals and other signals into digital data. In some embodiments, I/O circuitry  530  can also convert digital data into any other type of signal, and vice-versa. For example, I/O circuitry  530  can receive and convert physical contact inputs, e.g., from a multi-touch screen, i.e., display  550 , physical movements, e.g., from a mouse or sensor, analog audio signals, e.g., from a microphone, or any other input. The digital data can be provided to and received from control circuitry  500 , storage  510 , and memory  520 , or any other component of electronic device  500 . Although I/O circuitry  530  is illustrated in  FIG. 2  as a single component of electronic device  500 , several instances of I/O circuitry  530  can be included in electronic device  500 . 
         [0073]    Electronic device  500  can include any suitable interface or component for allowing a user to provide inputs to I/O circuitry  530 . For example, electronic device  500  can include any suitable input mechanism, such as a button, keypad, dial, a click wheel, or a touch screen, e.g., display  550 . In some embodiments, electronic device  500  can include a capacitive sensing mechanism, or a multi-touch capacitive sensing mechanism. 
         [0074]    In some embodiments, electronic device  500  can include specialized output circuitry associated with output devices such as, for example, one or more audio outputs. The audio output can include one or more speakers, e.g., mono or stereo speakers, built into electronic device  500 , or an audio component that is remotely coupled to electronic device  500 , e.g., a headset, headphones or earbuds that can be coupled to device  500  with a wire or wirelessly. 
         [0075]    Display  550  includes the display and display circuitry for providing a display visible to the user. For example, the display circuitry can include a screen, e.g., an LCD screen, that is incorporated in electronics device  500 . In some embodiments, the display circuitry can include a coder/decoder (Codec) to convert digital media data into analog signals. For example, the display circuitry or other appropriate circuitry within electronic device  1  can include video Codecs, audio Codecs, or any other suitable type of Codec. 
         [0076]    The display circuitry also can include display driver circuitry, circuitry for driving display drivers, or both. The display circuitry can be operative to display content, e.g., media playback information, application screens for applications implemented on the electronic device  500 , information regarding ongoing communications operations, information regarding incoming communications requests, or device operation screens, under the direction of control circuitry  500 . Alternatively, the display circuitry can be operative to provide instructions to a remote display. 
         [0077]    Communications circuitry  540  can include any suitable communications circuitry operative to connect to a communications network and to transmit communications, e.g., data from electronic device  500  to other devices within the communications network. Communications circuitry  540  can be operative to interface with the communications network using any suitable communications protocol such as, for example, Wi-Fi, e.g., a 802.11 protocol, Bluetooth, radio frequency systems, e.g., 900 MHz, 1.4 GHz, and 5.6 GHz communication systems, infrared, GSM, GSM plus EDGE, CDMA, quadband, and other cellular protocols, VoIP, or any other suitable protocol. 
         [0078]    Electronic device  500  can include one more instances of communications circuitry  540  for simultaneously performing several communications operations using different communications networks, although only one is shown in  FIG. 2  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. For example, electronic device  500  can include a first instance of communications circuitry  540  for communicating over a cellular network, and a second instance of communications circuitry  540  for communicating over Wi-Fi or using Bluetooth. In some embodiments, the same instance of communications circuitry  540  can be operative to provide for communications over several communications networks. 
         [0079]    In some embodiments, electronic device  500  can be coupled to a host device such as digital content control server for data transfers, synching the communications device, software or firmware updates, providing performance information to a remote source, e.g., providing riding characteristics to a remote server, or performing any other suitable operation that can require electronic device  500  to be coupled to a host device. Several electronic devices  500  can be coupled to a single host device using the host device as a server. Alternatively or additionally, electronic device  500  can be coupled to several host devices, e.g., for each of the plurality of the host devices to serve as a backup for data stored in electronic device  500 . 
         [0080]    Although the present invention has been described in relation to particular embodiments thereof, many other variations and other uses will be apparent to those skilled in the art. It is preferred, therefore, that the present invention be limited not by the specific disclosure herein, but only by the gist and scope of the disclosure.