Abstract:
Interactive electronic book devices and methods relating thereto are described. One embodiment of an electronic book device relates to a book including a plurality of pages, including printed information relating to a story. The electronic book device also includes a housing including a plurality of user interactive controls positioned thereon. At least one of the user interactive controls is selected from the group consisting of a key, a joystick, and a steering wheel. The book is rigidly coupled to the housing. The electronic book device also includes a controller coupled to the housing, the controller adapted to receive input signals related to the story from the user interactive controls, the controller also adapted to transmit output signals related to the story to a display device spaced a distance away from the housing. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Description:
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
    
    
       [0001]     Embodiments are described by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, wherein:  
         [0002]      FIG. 1  is a view illustrating an interactive electronic book device in accordance certain embodiments of the present invention;  
         [0003]      FIG. 2  is a view illustrating certain aspects of an interactive electronic book device including a speaker, controller, and batteries, in accordance certain embodiments of the present invention;  
         [0004]      FIG. 3  is a view illustrating certain aspects of an interactive electronic book device including features on pages of the book, in accordance certain embodiments of the present invention; and  
         [0005]      FIG. 4  illustrates a computing environment which may be used in accordance with certain embodiments of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0006]      FIG. 1  illustrates an interactive electronic book device  10  that may be connected to a display device  12  in accordance with certain embodiments. The interactive electronic book device  10  includes a story book  20  and a housing  30 . The story book  20  may be a conventional book with words, pictures, and the like on one or more pages, and may include a top cover  22  and bottom cover  24  with the pages bound at a spine  26 . As seen in  FIG. 1 , the top cover  22  of the story book portion  20  is closed.  
         [0007]     The housing  30  may include various electronic components therein and may be sized to extend away from a lower edge  28  of the book portion  20  to provide space for mounting various user interactive controls, including, but not limited to, buttons  32 ,  34 , key  36 , a steering wheel  38 , a joystick/accelerator  40 , and the like. Such interactive controls may act to provide means for performing on-screen actions relating to the story in the story book  20 .  
         [0008]     The housing  30  may be formed from a variety of materials, including, but not limited to, polymers, and may be formed to include one or more openings or hollow portions therein into which various elements such as electronics, interactive controls, and power supply features may be positioned. The housing  30  may also include one or more audio/visual connection jacks  42  for connecting to a device such as the display device  12  illustrated in  FIG. 1 , which may be a computer monitor, television, or other type of display device. The housing  30  may also include a power jack  44  to permit the story book to be plugged into a wall socket or other power supply if desired. In addition, a power on/off switch  85  may be present if desired, and positioned, for example, on the housing  30 . In certain embodiments, the key  36  or one of the buttons  32 ,  34  may act as an on/off switch for various aspects (e.g., power, game start/stop, game reset, etc.) of the device.  
         [0009]      FIG. 2  illustrates a view of the bottom of the interactive electronic book device  10 , in accordance with certain embodiments. The housing  30  includes coverable openings  46 ,  48 , and  50  formed therein. The opening  46  is sized to accept a speaker  52 . The opening  48  is sized to accept electronic components such as controller  54 , which may be coupled to the user interactive controls such as the buttons  32 ,  34 , key  36 , steering wheel  38 , and the joystick/accelerator  40 . The controller  54  may include or be coupled to one or more of a variety of components, including, but not limited to, memory, a sound card, and a microprocessor. The controller  54  may include the necessary hardware and software to implement interactive activities with the user relating to the story and may also include other information relating to implementation of various operations, games, etc. The opening  50  is sized to accept one or more batteries  56 .  
         [0010]     In certain embodiments, the story book  20  may be coupled to the housing  30  using a suitable connector to ensure a rigid connection. Alternatively, a suitable adhesive may be used to couple the story book  20  to the housing  30 .  
         [0011]     In the embodiment illustrated in  FIG. 2 , the housing  30  includes a support portion  58  and a control portion  60 , which are separated in  FIG. 2  by a dotted line. The support portion  58  is adapted to support the story book  20 , and the control portion  60  is adapted to contain the user interactive controls (e.g., buttons  32 ,  34 , key  36 , steering wheel  38 , joystick/accelerator  40 ), the connection jacks  42 , the power jack  44 , the on/off switch  85 , the speaker  52 , the controller  54 , and the batteries  56 . The support portion  58  and control portion  60  of the housing  30  may be formed from a single body or alternatively may be formed from a plurality of bodies coupled together. Alternatively, some of the features shown in the control portion  60  could be moved to different locations in the control portion  60  or even to locations in the support portion  58 , if desired.  
         [0012]      FIG. 3  illustrates the interactive electronic story book  10  with the story book  20  opened to show an example of pages  70 ,  72  in the book. The pages  70 ,  72  may include story artwork  74 ,  76  and story text areas  78 ,  80  positioned in various locations thereon. As illustrated in the embodiment of  FIG. 3 , the various controls (buttons  32 ,  34 , key  36 , steering wheel  38 , joystick/accelerator  40 ) are positioned adjacent to a lower end of the page  72 . Alternatively, the position of the various user interactive controls, relative to the book portion  20 , may be modified, if desired.  
         [0013]     In certain embodiments, the interactive electronic book device  10  and the display device  12 , in combination, may be used for entertainment or educational purposes. Games may include, but are not limited to, coloring, driving, puzzle solving, building scenes, and the like. Such games are preferably related to the story in the story book  20 . The interactive electronic story book  10  may in certain embodiments be coupled to the display device  12  through audio/visual connection jacks  42 . Alternatively, some other suitable type of connection to a display may be utilized, including, but not limited to, a suitable wireless connection. The housing  30  includes the controller  54  and the various interactive controls, such as buttons  32 ,  34 , steering wheel  38 , joy stick  40 , and the like, which can be manipulated by the user to control on-screen images and sounds. In one embodiment, one of the buttons  32 ,  34  may be used to control the playback of the text on the pages of the story book  20 . For example, the user may use one of the interactive controls, such as the joystick  40 , to direct an on-screen cursor on the display device  12  to a location and then press one of the buttons  32 ,  34  to notify the controller  54  that a manual page turn has taken place. In another aspect of certain embodiments, the user may be prompted to turn the page of the story book  20  by an audible sound or by a visual cue on the display device  12 .  
         [0014]     In another example illustrating the use of the interactive controls, the story in the story book  20  may include a scene of driving a car along a road. When the steering wheel  38  is turned by the user, the controller  54  receives an input signal and then generates an output signal that is transmitted to the display  12 , that shows a car driving along a road in the direction the user turns the steering wheel  38 .  
         [0015]     In certain embodiments, the controller  54  transmits a signal to the display  12  that provides a representation of the physical controls on the housing  30  on the display device  12 , thus providing an intuitive user interface for interacting with the story in the story book  20 . In addition, the same interactive controls may be used for different actions. For example, a steering wheel may be for driving a car in relation to one aspect of the story and for riding a horse along a country trail in relation to another aspect of the story.  
         [0016]     In another embodiment, one or more of the electronic components, including, but not limited to the speaker  52 , and one or more of the buttons  32 ,  34 , may be powered while the book is not connected to the display device  12 , enabling the user to listen to the story while turning the pages of the story book  20 .  
         [0017]      FIG. 4  illustrates one example of a computing environment which may be used with the described embodiments. In this embodiment, the controller  54  may comprise a computer  102  which includes a processor  104  (such as one or more central processing units (CPU)), a basic input/output system (BIOS)  106  including code executed by the processor  104  to initialize and control various computer  102  components (e.g., input sensor circuits, and music and speech synthesizer output circuits) during a boot sequence. Other suitable computer components may also be included in various embodiments. The computer  102  includes a memory  108 , comprising one or more volatile memory devices, such as volatile random access memory (RAM), in which an operating system  110 , an application  111 , and one or more drivers  112 , such as a device driver interfacing with an attached device  114   a ,  114   b  . . .  114   n , may be loaded into the memory  108  implementing a runtime environment. In some applications, the memory  108  may further include nonvolatile memory (e.g., a flash memory, Electronically Erasable Programmable Memory (EEPROM), optical disk drives, magnetic disk drives etc.) for storing data including, but not limited to, application data, story part data, speech data, music data, and game data.  
         [0018]     Each device  114   a ,  114   b , . . .  114   n  may comprise any type of Input/Output (I/O) device, such as music and speech synthesizer circuits, etc. In other embodiments, the devices  114   a ,  114   b , . . .  114   n  may comprise a hard disk drive, or a video chipset, for example, which may be integrated on the computer  102  motherboard or on an expansion card inserted in an expansion slot on the computer  102  motherboard. The BIOS  106  may be implemented in firmware in a non-volatile memory device on the computer  102  motherboard, such as a Flash memory, Read Only Memory (ROM), Programmable ROM (PROM), etc. The BIOS  106  code indicates the sequence of the boot operations. The operating system  110  may comprise a suitable operating system, such as a Microsoft® Windows® operating system, Linux™, Apple® Macintosh®, etc. (Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., and Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds). It is appreciated that the controller  54  may comprise a variety of computing devices known in the art, and any suitable CPU or processor  104  or operating system may be used.  
         [0019]     The described operations may be implemented as a method, apparatus or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein refers to code or logic implemented in a tangible medium, where such tangible medium may comprise hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.) or a computer readable medium, such as magnetic storage medium, volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, firmware, programmable logic, etc.). Code in the computer readable medium may be accessed and executed by a processor. The tangible medium in which the code or logic is encoded may also comprise transmission signals propagating through space or a transmission media, such as an optical fiber, copper wire, etc. The transmission signal in which the code or logic is encoded may further comprise a wireless signal. Additionally, the “article of manufacture” may comprise a combination of hardware and software components in which the code is embodied, processed, and executed. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications, additions, and deletions may be made to these configurations without departing from the scope of the present description, and that the article of manufacture may comprise any suitable information bearing medium.  
         [0020]     While certain exemplary embodiments have been described above and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative and not restrictive. A variety of modifications, additions, and deletions may be made to the above embodiments. For example, the size and shape of the housing  30  may be modified. While the housing  30  described above and illustrated in  FIGS. 1-3  is sized to have an area that permits the entire bottom surface of the story book  20  to be on the housing  30 , in certain alternative embodiments, the housing may be shaped so that only a portion of the story book  20  is on the housing. In addition, other types of suitable interactive controls may be present (for example, a trackball), and the interactive controls may take different shapes and configurations than those illustrated in the figures. Other changes may also be made by those having ordinary skill in the art.