Patent Publication Number: US-2002000468-A1

Title: System and method for scanning &amp; storing universal resource locator codes

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001] 1. Field of Invention  
       [0002] The present invention relates to a method and system for acquiring and storing Internet uniform resource locator (URL) codes and subsequently uploading the URL codes to an Internet access device terminal.  
       [0003] 2. Description of Related Art  
       [0004] With the rapid expansion of Internet capabilities and Internet users, the number of new web-sites is rapidly expanding. Each web-site has its own unique Uniform Resource Locator (URL) code. URLs are increasingly being used in advertising in newspapers, magazines, on cereal boxes, on the backs of trucks, and the like. People viewing these URLs may want to visit the advertised web-sites; however, they may not be able to write down or remember the URLs long enough to enter them into an Internet access device. Therefore, there is a need for new technology to allow users to recall URLs for use in accessing web-sites.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0005] The present invention provides a URL storage device. The URL storage device includes a scanner for scanning a code to generate a URL, a memory for storing a plurality of URLs, and a transmitter for uploading selected URLs to an Internet access device, whereupon the Internet access device uses the URL to retrieve information. The URLs may be selected from a list of previously stored URLs from a memory by a user.  
       [0006] Additionally, the URLs may be stored with additional information to later aid in identifying and retrieving a particular URL. The additional information may be in either a textual or audio format and may be inputted by a user through an alpha-numeric keypad or microphone, respectfully. 
     
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
     [0007] The invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like elements are referred to with like numbers, and in which:  
     [0008]FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of a system according to the present invention;  
     [0009]FIG. 2 shows an exemplary block diagram of a URL storage device;  
     [0010]FIG. 3 is an exemplary data structure for storing URLs and related information;  
     [0011]FIG. 4 is an exemplary flowchart outlining one method for scanning and storing URLs according to the present invention; and  
     [0012]FIG. 5 is an exemplary flowchart outlining one method for uploading URLs according to the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
     [0013]FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of a system  10  according to the present invention. The system  10  includes a URL storage device  100  having a scanning element  102  for scanning a code  104  which represents a URL  106 , for example, “www.AT&amp;T.com.” The scanned code  104  is used to generate an electronic version of the URL which is stored within the URL storage device  100 . The stored URLs may be uploaded to the Internet access device  118  for use in accessing web-sites associated with the stored URLs.  
     [0014] The URL storage device  100  further may include a display  108 , a keypad  110 , scroll keys  116 , an audio input/output device  112 , and a transmitter  114 . The display  108  can be used to display URLs  104  to a user of the storage device  100 . Additionally, the display  108  can be used in conjunction with keypad  1   10  and scroll keys  116  to display and scroll through previously stored URLs, enter textual messages corresponding to the URLs, and the like. The display may be a liquid crystal display (LCD), light emitting diode (LED) display, or the like. In addition, the keypad  110  and the display  108  can be combined into a touch sensitive display or the like.  
     [0015] The keypad  110  can be an alpha-numeric keypad, or the like. The storage device  100  may also include scroll keys  116  to perform scrolling functions on the stored URLs displayed on display  108 . Additionally, as described in greater detail below, the keypad  110  can be used to enter and store textual comments corresponding to each URL.  
     [0016] The audio input/output device  112  can include a speaker/microphone for playing and recording audio messages to and from the user. As described in greater detail below, the URL storage device  100  can store audio messages corresponding to the stored URLs. The audio messages can later be played back through the audio input/output device  112  if the user chooses to listen to additional information about a stored URL.  
     [0017] The URL storage device  100  uses the transmitter  114  to upload stored URLs to the Internet access device  118  through a corresponding receiver  120 . The transmission can occur in a variety of ways, such as via a cable, infrared (IR) signal, radio frequency (RF) signal, or the like. Once the uploaded URLs are received by the Internet access device  118  via the receiver  120 , they may be stored by a software application running on the Internet access device  118 . The URL may then be used to retrieve information from web-sites corresponding to the uploaded and stored URLs.  
     [0018] As described in greater detail below, the URL storage device  100  can selectively upload URLs to the Internet access device  118  based on a user&#39;s selection. A user may select previously stored URL by scrolling through the list of URLs and “flagging” the URLs which are to be transmitted. The “flagging” of the URLs may be accomplished using the keypad  110  to input flag commands for the displayed URLs. Alternatively, the URLs may be uploaded according to the date on which they were acquired or a grouping in which the URL has been placed by the user.  
     [0019] Internet access device  118  may include any device that is used to gain access to the Internet. For example, Internet access device  118  may include computers, personal digital assistants, smart or computer assisted televisions, or the like.  
     [0020] In operation, the URL storage device  100  activates, in response to a user command, the scanner  102  to scan a code  104  representing a URL. The URL storage device may receive the user command through the depression of a scanning activation button. Alternatively, the URL storage device  100  may activate the scanner  102  by using a proximity sensor which activates the scanner  102  when the URL storage device  100  is adjacent to a URL code.  
     [0021] As shown in FIG. 1, scanner  102  may be a barcode scanner, an optical scanner, or the like. When an optical scanner is used, optical character recognition (OCR) algorithms may be used to obtain URLs from the scanner data. When a barcode reader is used, the dimensions of each bar or combination of bars in the barcode may be designated as corresponding to characters, words, symbols, and the like. The correspondence between bars and the characters, words, symbols etc. may be stored in a lookup table in a memory of the URL storage device  100 .  
     [0022] Alternatively, the URL may be directly input through the audio input/output device  112  by using speech recognition to convert a spoken URL into a textual format. This may be accomplished by the user speaking the URL into input/output device  112  whereupon a voice recognition system translates a spoken URL into a textual format. The textual URL may then be saved in a manner similar to a URL which has been scanned in, as described above.  
     [0023] Once a URL has been acquired, either by scanning a barcode or through optical character recognition, the URL storage device  100  stores the URL in memory and displays the URL on display  108 . The URL storage device  100  instructs the display  108  to display a message to the user asking the user whether they wish to store or discard the URL. The URL storage device  100  then waits for the user to determine whether the user wishes to keep or discard the URL in memory. This may be accomplished by visually displaying the query on display  108  or audibly playing the query through the audio input/output device  112 . A user&#39;s response may be input manually by keypad  110  or through voice recognition via the audio input/output device  112 .  
     [0024] If the user decides to store the URL, it is then stored in the memory. The URL storage device  100  may then prompt the user to input further information regarding the URL. For example, in reply to the prompt the user may enter a text message via keypad  110 . Alternatively, a sound recording may be entered through audio input/output device  112  and stored in the memory as a .WAV file, for example. Later, the URL storage device  100  may retrieve the URL and display or play the URL and its corresponding additional information.  
     [0025] When a user wants to upload any of the stored URLs to an Internet access device  118 , the URL storage device  118  retrieves the requested URLs from the memory and uploads them through transmitter  114  to the Internet access device  118 . The URL storage device  100  can upload URLs to the Internet access device  118  by any of a variety of methods. For example, a user could connect transmitter  114  of URL storage device  100  to the receiver  120  of Internet access device  118  by a cable. Alternatively, transmitter  114  could propagate an IR signal, whereupon the URL is transmitted while the user aims the transmitter  114  at the receiver  120 . Additionally, the storage device  100  may be “plugged into” the Internet access device  118  directly. Any other manner of uploading data from the storage device  100  to the Internet access device  118  may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.  
     [0026]FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of the URL storage device  100 . The URL storage device  100  may include a controller  302 , a display device interface  304 , a scanner interface  306 , a transmitter interface  308 , a memory  310 , and an input device interface  312 . The above components may be coupled together via control/data bus  314 . The above architecture is exemplary only. Other architectures of the components may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.  
     [0027] The scanner interface  306  is coupled with a scanner  102  and receives a signal corresponding to a URL code. When a URL code signal is received by the controller  302  via the scanner interface  306 , the controller  302  generates a URL which corresponds to the code. The URL may be generated directly from the code using optical character recognition or the code may be used to look up corresponding URLs in a table stored in memory  310 , as described above.  
     [0028] Once a URL has been acquired, the controller  302  may display the URL via display device interface  304  on the display  108 . By doing so, the controller  302  allows the user to confirm that the correct URL has been captured. The controller  302  may present the user with the option of adding the URL to memory or discarding the URL. The user may then enter a response to the controller  302  through keypad  110 .  
     [0029] If the user decides to add the new URL, the controller  302  will allow the user to enter additional information about the URL to aid the storing, classifying, retrieving, identifying, or transmitting of the URL. As described in greater detail below, additional textual information can be entered by the user through an alpha-numeric keypad  110  via input device interface  312 . Also, audio information may be entered through the microphone  112  via input device interface  312 .  
     [0030] If the user decides to store the URL and any corresponding additional information that has been inputted, the controller  302  stores the URL and corresponding information in memory  310 . The URL and corresponding information are stored in a data structure for retrieval and uploading at a later time.  
     [0031] The above process can be repeated numerous times until the memory  310  becomes full. The user may use keypad  110  to edit and/or delete the URLs and corresponding data. URLs may be grouped together according to a user&#39;s preference, such as grouping all the URLs related to gardening in the same group for ease of retrieval at a later date.  
     [0032] Additionally, the controller  302  can edit the URL data to add/delete textual or audio comments related to the URL. This may be accomplished by having the user scroll through a listing of the stored URLs and selecting the URLs for deletion.  
     [0033] When a user decides to upload one or more URLs in memory  310  to an Internet access device  118 , the controller  302  retrieves selected ones of the stored URLs from the memory  310  and sends them to the transmitter  114  via the transmitter interface  308  which transmits/uploads the URL to the Internet access device  118 . Additionally, the corresponding URL information (i.e., grouping, audio/textual comments, date and the like) may be uploaded. Once the Internet access device  118  receives the URLs, the Internet access device  118  may then access information relating to the URL, such as a web-site, using software resident on the Internet access device  118 , such as an Internet browser.  
     [0034] The URL storage device  100  may also be used in a manner similar to a television remote control. For example, a user may be able to assign individual previously stored URLs to individual buttons in the key pad  110 . Later, the user can independently transmit the various URLs to an Internet access device  118  by depressing the corresponding button, whereupon a software application running on the Internet access device  118  will immediately retrieve the information, such as web-page, related to the URL.  
     [0035]FIG. 3 shows an exemplary data structure  400  for storing URLs and related information in memory  310 . Field  406  is the stored URL. For example, the first URL stored in field  406  is “www.uspto.gov”.  
     [0036] Field  402  is the order field for the URLs. As shown in FIG. 4, all of the stored URLs are stored from 1 to 6. The order field  402  can be identical to the order in which the URLs are stored. Alternatively, the order may be based on user ranking of stored URLs, for example, order of importance to the user.  
     [0037] Field  404  contains the grouping codes of the stored URLs. As mentioned above, the individual URLs can be grouped into sets of URLs by giving each URL in a set a common group identifier. For example, as shown in fields  404  and  406  the URL “www.yahoo.com” and “www.excite.com” are both given the common group identifier “C”. In this example, a user has grouped the URLs together because they are both related to Internet search engines. Additionally, the user may group URLs together based on the date the URL was acquired and any other user preference. The group designations in FIG. 3 are only exemplary and any other type of group designation may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.  
     [0038] Field  408  contains the date that the URL was acquired and stored. The date field  408  can be used to group URLs as discussed above, can be used to select and transmit all URLs stored after a particular date and may be used when deleting URLs from the memory  310 . For example, all files acquired before a particular date may be deleted to free space in the memory  310 .  
     [0039] Fields  410  and  412  both contain comments added by the user to further identify the URL. As described above, the user can enter textual comments via keypad  110  and store them with a corresponding URL in field  410 . For example, the URL “www.uspto.gov” has the textual comments “Patent Office”. This field is particularly useful if a URL is not descriptive, such as the URL “www.202178.com”. Here, as shown in field  410 , the textual comments show the user that the URL is “Dave&#39;s Page”.  
     [0040] Audio comments in field  412  can serve the same purpose as the textual comments of field  410 . Field  412  includes a code which corresponds to an audio data file, such as a .WAV file, stored in correspondence with a particular URL. The audio files may be obtained and stored in any known manner, such as by using a voice digitizer (not shown) or the like.  
     [0041] Field  414  is provided to aid in selecting URLs from data structure  400  for transmission to Internet access device  118  via transmitter  114 . As shown, field  414  may be set to either the number 0 or the number 1 to indicate whether the corresponding URL is to be uploaded. A flag value of 1 indicates that the URL is to be uploaded, and a flag value of 0 indicates that the URL is not to be uploaded.  
     [0042] When a user enters a command instructing the controller  302  that he wishes to upload URLs, the controller  302  will query the user to determine which URLs are to be uploaded. The controller  302  may display on display  108  each URL, with corresponding textual comments, play corresponding audio comments, and request that the user input a response through keypad  110  to indicate whether the displayed URL is to be uploaded. If the response is affirmative, then the default 0 in field  414  is replaced by a 1, thereby indicating that the URL is to be uploaded. For example, in field  414  the flags corresponding to “www.aol.com” and “www.202178.com” have been set to 1, thereby indicating that they will be uploaded.  
     [0043] Subsequently, when the user is ready to upload the URLs and once the URL storage device  100  is in proper engagement with internet access device  118 , the controller  302  will search field  414  and upload any of the URLs having a flag set to 1.  
     [0044]FIG. 4 shows an exemplary flowchart outlining one method of scanning and storing URLs according to the invention. As shown in FIG. 4, in step  500 , the controller  302  causes the scanner  102  to scan a URL code  104 . Next, in step  502  the controller generates a URL from the scanned URL code and goes to step  503 . The URL may be obtained through a look-up table or using optical character recognition, for example.  
     [0045] In step  503 , the controller  302  displays a message on display  108  asking the user if he wishes to store the URL. If the user wishes to store the URL in memory  310 , the controller  302  continues to step  504 ; otherwise, the controller  302  goes to step  510 .  
     [0046] In step  504 , the controller queries the user whether the user wishes to store any additional textual or audio comments with the URL. The user may respond via keypad  110 . If the user wishes to store additional information, the controller  302  continues to step  506 ; otherwise, the controller goes to step  510  and stores the URL in memory  310 .  
     [0047] In step  506  the controller prompts the user to input additional information corresponding to the URL in either a textual or audio format. The user may enter textual comments through alpha-numeric keypad  110  and audio comments through audio input/output device  114 . Furthermore, in step  506  the user may input information regarding the grouping of the URL with other previously stored URLs.  
     [0048] Once the comments are complete, the controller  302  goes to step  508  and stores the corresponding additional information in memory  310  in accordance with data structure  400 . The controller  302  proceeds to step  510  where, if the user wishes to continue scanning and storing URLs, the controller  302  returns to step  500  to repeat the above process. Otherwise, the controller  302  goes to step  512  where the scanning and storing process is terminated.  
     [0049]FIG. 5 shows an exemplary flowchart outlining one method of uploading URLs according to the invention. As shown in FIG. 5, in step  600 , the controller  302  prompts a user to select a URL or set of URLs from the URLs stored in memory  310 . As described above, this can be accomplished by controller  302  displaying on display  108  the stored URLs in order for a user to respond and set a flag in field  414  of Table  400  indicating that a particular URL is to be uploaded.  
     [0050] Next, in step  610  controller  302  accesses memory  310  to retrieve a URL corresponding to the flagged URLs. In addition, any or all of the information in fields  304  through  314  may also be retrieved for uploading to the Internet access device  118 .  
     [0051] Once the URLs and corresponding information have been retrieved, in step  620  the controller  302  transmits the data corresponding to the URLs to the Internet access device  118  where it will be received by software residing on the Internet access device  118 . After the transmission is complete, the controller  302  will proceed to step  630 , whereupon the uploading process is terminated.  
     [0052] In an example of an embodiment of this invention, consider a user, who is reading a magazine. While flipping through the pages, this individual comes across an advertisement for a particular automobile that he is currently in the market to buy. Contained within the advertisement, he notices a URL code. Since he is unlikely to remember the rather lengthy URL code until a time when he has access to an Internet access device  118 , he aligns a scanner  102  of his URL storage device  100  with the URL code and scans the URL. The URL storage device  100  then displays the URL code on display  108  and asks the user whether or not he wants to save or discard the URL. The user may then decide to save the URL by depressing an appropriate key on the keypad  110 .  
     [0053] Next, the URL storage device  100  asks the user whether he wishes to store any additional comments with the URL he has just acquired. The user decides that he wants to store audio comments which will later remind him why he has stored the URL. While depressing a record key, the user speaks the word “car advertisement” into the microphone  112 .  
     [0054] At a later time when the user has access to an Internet access device  118 , he decides that he would now like to visit the car advertisement web-site. Steve uses his URL storage device  100  to scroll through a list of previously stored URLs; however, he cannot determine or remember which URL is the correct one. Therefore, he plays the audio messages through speaker  112  for each URL until he hears the phrase “car advertisement”, which identifies the URL as the one which he is searching for.  
     [0055] Upon determining which URL to upload, the user then flags the URL for uploading by displaying the URL and pressing an appropriate key in the keypad  110 . The user then points the infrared transmitter  114  of the URL storage device  100  at his Internet access device  118  and initiates a transmission by depressing a transmission button. The Internet access device  118  receives the transmission through receiver  120  and, via software applications running thereon, recognizes the URL transmission and subsequently retrieves information contained at the web-site corresponding to the URL. In this manner, the user is able to store URLs in the URL storage device  100  for later use when accessing the Internet.  
     [0056] As shown in FIG. 2, the method of this invention is preferably implemented on a programmed processor. However, the URL storage device  100  can also be implemented on a general purpose or special purpose computer, a programmed microprocessor or microcontroller and peripheral integrated circuit elements, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or other integrated circuit, a hardware electronic or logic circuit such as a discrete element circuit, a programmable logic device such as a PLD, PLA, FPGA or PAL, or the like. In general, any device on which a finite state machine capable of implementing the flowchart shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 can be used to implement the URL storage device  100  functions of this invention.  
     [0057] While this invention has been described in conjunction with the specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, preferred embodiments of the invention as set forth herein are intended to be illustrative not limiting. There are changes that may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.