Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US20070011140?dq=7,117,485
Timestamp: 2015-08-29 13:24:03
Document Index: 613791132

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60']

Patent US20070011140 - Processing techniques for visual capture data from a rendered document - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA facility for navigating an electronic document is described. The facility receives user input selecting a portion of the content of a rendered document that constitutes a sentence fragment. In response to receiving the user input, the facility identifies an electronic document contained in a corpus...http://www.google.com/patents/US20070011140?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US20070011140 - Processing techniques for visual capture data from a rendered documentAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS20070011140 A1Publication typeApplicationApplication numberUS 11/110,353Publication dateJan 11, 2007Filing dateApr 19, 2005Priority dateFeb 15, 2004Also published asEP1747508A2, EP1747508A4, EP1749260A2, EP1749260A4, EP1756704A2, EP1756704A4, EP1756729A2, EP1756729A4, EP1759272A2, EP1759272A4, EP1759273A2, EP1759273A4, EP1759274A2, EP1759274A4, EP1759275A2, EP1759275A4, EP1759276A2, EP1759276A4, EP1759277A2, EP1759277A4, EP1759281A2, EP1759281A4, EP1761841A2, EP1761841A4, EP1763842A2, EP1763842A4, EP1880301A2, EP1880301A4, EP2490152A1, US7421155, US7437023, US7593605, US7596269, US7599580, US7599844, US7606741, US7702624, US7706611, US7707039, US7742953, US7818215, US7831912, US8005720, US8019648, US8064700, US8214387, US8442331, US8447144, US8515816, US8521772, US8619147, US8799303, US8831365, US20050234851, US20060023945, US20060026078, US20060026140, US20060029296, US20060036462, US20060036585, US20060041538, US20060041590, US20060041828, US20060047639, US20060050996, US20060061806, US20060078207, US20060087683, US20060119900, US20060294094, US20100177970, US20100183246, US20110019919, US20110044547, US20110085211, US20110154507, US20120041941, US20120297277, US20130132367, US20130201527, WO2005096750A2, WO2005096750A3, WO2005096755A2, WO2005096755A3, WO2005098596A2, WO2005098596A3, WO2005098597A2, WO2005098597A3, WO2005098598A2, WO2005098598A3, WO2005098599A2, WO2005098599A3, WO2005098600A2, WO2005098600A3, WO2005098601A2, WO2005098601A3, WO2005098602A2, WO2005098602A3, WO2005098603A2, WO2005098603A3, WO2005098604A2, WO2005098604A3, WO2005098605A2, WO2005098605A3, WO2005098606A2, WO2005098606A3, WO2005098607A2, WO2005098607A3, WO2005098610A2, WO2005098610A3, WO2005114380A2, WO2005114380A3Publication number110353, 11110353, US 2007/0011140 A1, US 2007/011140 A1, US 20070011140 A1, US 20070011140A1, US 2007011140 A1, US 2007011140A1, US-A1-20070011140, US-A1-2007011140, US2007/0011140A1, US2007/011140A1, US20070011140 A1, US20070011140A1, US2007011140 A1, US2007011140A1InventorsMartin King, Clifford Kushler, James Stafford-Fraser, Dale GroverOriginal AssigneeKing Martin T, Kushler Clifford A, Stafford-Fraser James Q, Grover Dale LExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManReferenced by (40), Classifications (81), Legal Events (3) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetProcessing techniques for visual capture data from a rendered document
US 20070011140 A1Abstract
A facility for navigating an electronic document is described. The facility receives user input selecting a portion of the content of a rendered document that constitutes a sentence fragment. In response to receiving the user input, the facility identifies an electronic document contained in a corpus of electronic documents, the identified electronic document containing the selected document portion. In response to receiving the user input, the facility further identifies a position within the identified electronic document at which the selected document portion occurs. Images(12) Claims(22)
1. A method in a computing system for navigating an electronic document, comprising: receiving user input selecting a portion of the content of a rendered document, the portion constituting a sentence fragment; and in response to receiving the user input, identifying (1) an electronic document contained in a corpus of electronic documents, the identified electronic document containing the selected document portion, and (2) a position within the identified electronic document at which the selected document portion occurs. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: accessing a markup layer that relates to the identified electronic document; identifying actions defined by the markup layer for the identified position in the identified electronic document; and making the identified actions available to a user who provided the received user input. 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the identified electronic document and the identified position are identified without determining a standard-character-set representation of the selected document portion. 4. The method of claim 3 wherein the identification is performed using an image of the selected document portion. 5. The method of claim 3 wherein the identification is performed using a convolution-encoded representation of text contained by the selected document portion. 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: encoding selected document portions each into a convolution-encoded representation, the two selected document portions containing text of two different natural languages. 7. The method of claim 5, further comprising; encoding data that is independent of textual content of the selected document portion in the convolution-encoded representation, wherein encoding data comprises including an invalid value in the convolution-encoded representation. 8. The method of claim 3 wherein the selected document portion is unique among the corpus of electronic documents, and a version of the selected document portion from which a single word is deleted is not unique among the corpus of electronic documents. 9. The method of claim 3 wherein the selected document portion is contained by a plurality of electronic documents of the corpus, the method further comprising: identifying a user who provided the received user input; retrieving context information for the identified user; and identifying a document among the plurality of electronic documents most likely to correspond to the rendered document based upon contents of the retrieved context information. 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving user input specifying an annotation relative to the identified position in the identified electronic document; storing the specified annotation together with an indication of the identified electronic document and identified position in a location outside the identified electronic document; in response to a user request for the specified annotation: retrieving at least a portion of the identified electronic document containing the identified position; displaying a region of the identified electronic document containing the identified position; retrieving the specified annotation; and displaying the specified annotation in connection with the displayed document region at a position proximate to the identified position. 11. (canceled) 12. A method in a portable optical text capture device for capturing text from a rendered document, comprising: capturing from the rendered document a first image of text in the rendered document; uploading the captured first image of text to a computer system separate from the portable optical text capture device; receiving from the computer system a mapping of character images in a typeface used in the rendered document to character identities; capturing from the rendered document a second image of text in the rendered document; and using the received mapping to determine the identity of characters whose images occur in the second image of text. 13. (canceled) 14. A method in a portable optical text capture device for capturing text from a rendered document, comprising: capturing from the rendered document an image of text in the rendered document; identifying a distinguished character contained in the captured image whose appearance is not directly associated with its identity in the portable optical text capture device by determining that the distinguished character can be formed by combining a plurality of characters other than the distinguished character whose appearances are directly associated with its identity in the portable optical text capture device in accordance with a character relationship rule stored in the portable optical text capture device. 15. (canceled) 16. A method in a computing system for accessing an electronic copy of a rendered document on behalf of a user, comprising: receiving visual content captured by the user from the rendered document; using the captured content to identify an electronic document corresponding to the rendered document; retrieving a copy of the identified electronic document; and granting the user access to the retrieved copy of the identified electronic document based upon the captured content. 17. The method of claim 16 wherein the captured content is text from the body of the rendered document. 18. The method of claim 16 wherein the captured content is a non-textual symbol contained in the rendered document. 19. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to perform a method for navigating an electronic document, the method comprising: receiving user input selecting a portion of the content of a rendered document, the portion constituting a sentence fragment; and in response to receiving the user input, identifying (1) an electronic document contained in a corpus of electronic documents, the identified electronic document containing the selected document portion, and (2) a position within the identified electronic document at which the selected document portion occurs. 20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, further comprising: receiving user input specifying an annotation relative to the identified position in the identified electronic document; storing the specified annotation together with an indication of the identified electronic document and identified position in a location outside the identified electronic document; in response to a user request for the specified annotation: retrieving at least a portion of the identified electronic document containing the identified position; displaying a region of the identified electronic document containing the identified position; retrieving the specified annotation; and displaying the specified annotation in connection with the displayed document region at a position proximate to the identified position. 21. A portable optical text capture device for capturing text from a rendered document, comprising: a capture component that captures from the rendered document a first image of text in the rendered document and a second image of text in the rendered document; an upload component that uploads the captured first image of text to a computer system separate from the portable optical text capture device; a reception component that receives from the computer system a mapping of character images in a typeface used in the rendered document to character identities; and a determination component that uses the received mapping to determine the identity of characters whose images occur in the second image of text. 22. One or more computer memories collectively containing a data structure, the data structure capable of performing a method of capturing text from a rendered document, the method comprising: receiving an image of text from a portable optical text capture device, the image of text captured from the rendered document; and identifying a distinguished character contained in the received image whose appearance is not directly associated with its identity in the portable optical text capture device by determining that the distinguished character can be formed by combining a plurality of characters other than the distinguished character whose appearances are directly associated with its identity in the portable optical text capture device in accordance with a character relationship rule stored in the portable optical text capture device. Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a Continuation-In-Part of the following, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/004,637 filed on Dec. 3, 2004, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,961, entitled METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR INITIATING APPLICATION PROCESSES BY DATA CAPTURE FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,093, entitled DETERMINING ACTIONS INVOLVING CAPTURED INFORMATION AND ELECTRONIC CONTENT ASSOCIATED WITH RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/098,038, entitled CONTENT ACCESS WITH HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/098,014, entitled SEARCH ENGINES AND SYSTEMS WITH HANDHELD DOCUMENT DATA CAPTURE DEVICES, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,103, entitled TRIGGERING ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO OPTICALLY OR ACOUSTICALLY CAPTURING KEYWORDS FROM A RENDERED DOCUMENT, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/098,043, entitled SEARCHING AND ACCESSING DOCUMENTS ON PRIVATE NETWORKS FOR USE WITH CAPTURES FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,981, entitled INFORMATION GATHERING SYSTEM AND METHOD, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,089, entitled DOCUMENT ENHANCEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,835, entitled PUBLISHING TECHNIQUES FOR ADDING VALUE TO A RENDERED DOCUMENT, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/098,016, entitled ARCHIVE OF TEXT CAPTURES FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,828, entitled ADDING INFORMATION OR FUNCTIONALITY TO A RENDERED DOCUMENT VIA ASSOCIATION WITH AN ELECTRONIC COUNTERPART, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,833, entitled AGGREGATE ANALYSIS OF TEXT CAPTURES PERFORMED BY MULTIPLE USERS FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/097,836, entitled ESTABLISHING AN INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR RENDERED DOCUMENTS, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/098,042. entitled DATA CAPTURE FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS USING HANDHELD DEVICE, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/096,704, entitled CAPTURING TEXT FROM RENDERED DOCUMENTS USING SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION. This application claims priority to, and incorporates by reference in their entirety, the following U.S. Provisional Patent Applications: Application No. 60/563,520 filed on Apr. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/563,485 filed on Apr. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/564,688 filed on Apr. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/564,846 filed on Apr. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/556,667 filed on Apr. 30, 2004, Application No. 60/571,381 filed on May 14, 2004, Application No. 60/571,560 filed on May 14, 2004, Application No. 60/571,715 filed on May 17, 2004, Application No. 60/589,203 filed on Jul. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/589,201 filed on Jul. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/589,202 filed on Jul. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/598,821 filed on Aug. 2, 2004, Application No. 60/602,956 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,925 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,947 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,897 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,896 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,930 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/602,898 filed on Aug. 18, 2004, Application No. 60/603,466 filed on Aug. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/603,082 filed on Aug. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/603,081 filed on Aug. 19, 2004, Application No. 60/603,498 filed on Aug. 20, 2004, Application No. 60/603,358 filed on Aug. 20, 2004, Application No. 60/604,103 filed on Aug. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,098 filed on Aug. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,100 filed on Aug. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/604,102 filed on Aug. 23, 2004, Application No. 60/605,229 filed on Aug. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/605,105 filed on Aug. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,243 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,628 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,632 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,589 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,242 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,602 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,340 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,634 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,461 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,455 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,460 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,400 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,456 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,341 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,361 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,454 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,339 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/613,633 filed on Sep. 27, 2004, Application No. 60/615,378 filed on Oct. 1, 2004, Application No. 60/615,112 filed on Oct. 1, 2004, Application No. 60/615,538 filed on Oct. 1, 2004, Application No. 60/617,122 filed on Oct. 7, 2004, Application No. 60/622,906 filed on Oct. 28, 2004, Application No. 60/633,452 filed on Dec. 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,678 filed on Dec. 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,486 filed on Dec. 6, 2004, Application No. 60/633,453 filed on Dec. 6, 2004, Application No. 60/634,627 filed on Dec. 9, 2004, Application No. 60/634,739 filed on Dec. 9, 2004, Application No. 60/647,684 filed on Jan. 26, 2005, Application No. 60/648,746 filed on Jan. 31, 2005, Application No. 60/653,372 filed on Feb. 15, 2005, Application No. 60/653,663 filed on Feb. 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,669 filed on Feb. 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,899 filed on Feb. 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,679 filed on Feb. 16, 2005, Application No. 60/653,847 filed on Feb. 16, 2005, Application No. 60/654,379 filed on Feb. 17, 2005, Application No. 60/654,368 filed on Feb. 18, 2005, Application No. 60/654,326 filed on Feb. 18, 2005, Application No. 60/654,196 filed on Feb. 18, 2005, Application No. 60/655,279 filed on Feb. 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,280 filed on Feb. 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,987 filed on Feb. 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,697 filed on Feb. 22, 2005, Application No. 60/655,281 filed on Feb. 22, 2005, and Application No. 60/657,309 filed on Feb. 28, 2005.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. FIG. 2 is a component diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the typical environment in which embodiments of the system operate. FIG. 5 is a flow diagram showing steps typically performed by the system to implement bookmarks. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a scanning device that has an integrated highlighter and pen. FIG. 7 is a flow diagram showing steps typically performed by the system to process text capture actions. FIGS. 8A-8D illustrate how two characters of an alphabet often have approximately the same *relative* shape in multiple fonts. FIG. 9 is a diagram that illustrates the approach used by the facility in some embodiments to learn an entirely new set of symbols using self recognition. FIG. 10 is a diagram that shows a subset of the symbols shown in FIG. 9 that self-define their vertical and horizontal extent. FIG. 11 is a diagram that shows relationships between some of the symbols shown in FIG. 9.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview A system for interpreting and interacting with rendered documents (e.g., printed or displayed documents), and related digital “source,” “counterpart,” or “reference” versions of these documents (“the system”) is described. In some embodiments, the system is not directly concerned with recognizing and interpreting characters per se; it does not concern itself with recognizing and understanding printed characters, though it may in some cases perform this function. Rather, the system assumes that a version of the document is already known, that machine-readable (e.g., ASCII or some other machine-readable text) source or reference version document is at hand, or is machine-accessible, or will be made available in the future. The system uses various features (including text) in rendered documents for navigation (i.e., determining location within a document). The location is in turn used to enable a rich set of user functions and interactions, some of which will be described below. The system is based in part on the process of interpreting and deciphering the patterns of marks (e.g., the text and any rendered supplemental informational marks) in documents to determine location information. In various embodiments, this location information is with reference to the document itself—e.g., location within the document, often down to a single paragraph, sentence, word and even single character. However, in cases where the physical lay-out of a specific rendering of a document is also known, the location information can be converted to location on a display screen, a printed page, etc. In discussing various embodiments of the system, the term “printed text” is employed. “Printed” is used in its generic sense to documents rendering in any form that is readable to a human (e.g., on paper, on a display screen, in Braille format, etc.). It should be understood that in many cases various of the features and applications of system apply quite well to non-alphanumeric rendered content—such as punctuation, graphics and images, special marks, etc. Embodiments of the system include these additional uses. Part I—Introduction 1. Nature of the System For every paper document that has an electronic counterpart, there exists a discrete amount of information in the paper document that can identify the electronic counterpart. In some embodiments, the system uses a sample of text captured from a paper document, for example using a handheld scanner, to identify and locate an electronic counterpart of the document. In most cases, the amount of text needed by the facility is very small in that a few words of text from a document can often function as an identifier for the paper document and as a link to its electronic counterpart. In addition, the system may use those few words to identify not only the document, but also a location within the document. Thus, paper documents and their digital counterparts can be associated in many useful ways using the system discussed herein. 1.1. A Quick Overview of the Future Once the system has associated a piece of text in a paper document with a particular digital entity has been established, the system is able to build a huge amount of functionality on that association. It is increasingly the case that most paper documents have an electronic counterpart that is accessible on the World Wide Web or from some other online database or document corpus, or can be made accessible, such as in response to the payment of a fee or subscription. At the simplest level, then, when a user scans a few words in a paper document, the system can retrieve that electronic document or some part of it, or display it, email it to somebody, purchase it, print it or post it to a web page. As additional examples, scanning a few words of a book that a person is reading over breakfast could cause the audio-book version in the person's car to begin reading from that point when s/he starts driving to work, or scanning the serial number on a printer cartridge could begin the process of ordering a replacement. The system implements these and many other examples of “paper/digital integration” without requiring changes to the current processes of writing, printing and publishing documents, giving such conventional rendered documents a whole new layer of digital functionality. 1.2. Terminology A typical use of the system begins with using an optical scanner to scan text from a paper document, but it is important to note that other methods of capture from other types of document are equally applicable. The system is therefore sometimes described as scanning or capturing text from a rendered document, where those terms are defined as follows: A rendered document is a printed document or a document shown on a display or monitor. It is a document that is perceptible to a human, whether in permanent form or on a transitory display. Scanning or capturing is the process of systematic examination to obtain information from a rendered document. The process may involve optical capture using a scanner or camera (for example a camera in a cellphone), or it may involve reading aloud from the document into an audio capture device or typing it on a keypad or keyboard. For more examples, see Section 15. 2. Introduction to the System This section describes some of the devices, processes and systems that constitute a system for paper/digital integration. In various embodiments, the system builds a wide variety of services and applications on this underlying core that provides the basic functionality. 2.1. The Processes FIG. 1 is a data flow diagram that illustrates the flow of information in one embodiment of the core system. Other embodiments may not use all of the stages or elements illustrated here, while some will use many more. Text from a rendered document is captured 100, typically in optical form by an optical scanner or audio form by a voice recorder, and this image or sound data is then processed 102, for example to remove artifacts of the capture process or to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. A recognition process 104 such as OCR, speech recognition, or autocorrelation then converts the data into a signature, comprised in some embodiments of text, text offsets, or other symbols. Alternatively, the system performs an alternate form of extracting document signature from the rendered document. The signature represents a set of possible text transcriptions in some embodiments. This process may be influenced by feedback from other stages, for example, if the search process and context analysis 110 have identified some candidate documents from which the capture may originate, thus narrowing the possible interpretations of the original capture. A post-processing 106 stage may take the output of the recognition process and filter it or perform such other operations upon it as may be useful. Depending upon the embodiment implemented, it may be possible at this stage to deduce some direct actions 107 to be taken immediately without reference to the later stages, such as where a phrase or symbol has been captured which contains sufficient information in itself to convey the user's intent. In these cases no digital counterpart document need be referenced, or even known to the system. Typically, however, the next stage will be to construct a query 108 or a set of queries for use in searching. Some aspects of the query construction may depend on the search process used and so cannot be performed until the next stage, but there will typically be some operations, such as the removal of obviously misrecognized or irrelevant characters, which can be performed in advance. The query or queries are then passed to the search and context analysis stage 110. Here, the system optionally attempts to identify the document from which the original data was captured. To do so, the system typically uses search indices and search engines 112, knowledge about the user 114 and knowledge about the user's context or the context in which the capture occurred 116. Search engine 112 may employ and/or index information specifically about rendered documents, about their digital counterpart documents, and about documents that have a web (internet) presence). It may write to, as well as read from, many of these sources and, as has been mentioned, it may feed information into other stages of the process, for example by giving the recognition system 104 information about the language, font, rendering and likely next words based on its knowledge of the candidate documents. In some circumstances the next stage will be to retrieve 120 a copy of the document or documents that have been identified. The sources of the documents 124 may be directly accessible, for example from a local filing system or database or a web server, or they may need to be contacted via some access service 122 which might enforce authentication, security or payment or may provide other services such as conversion of the document into a desired format. Applications of the system may take advantage of the association of extra functionality or data with part or all of a document. For example, advertising applications discussed in Section 10.4 may use an association of particular advertising messages or subjects with portions of a document. This extra associated functionality or data can be thought of as one or more overlays on the document, and is referred to herein as “markup.” The next stage of the process 130, then, is to identify any markup relevant to the captured data. Such markup may be provided by the user, the originator, or publisher of the document, or some other party, and may be directly accessible from some source 132 or may be generated by some service 134. In various embodiments, markup can be associated with, and apply to, a rendered document and/or the digital counterpart to a rendered document, or to groups of either or both of these documents. Lastly, as a result of the earlier stages, some actions may be taken 140. These may be default actions such as simply recording the information found, they may be dependent on the data or document, or they may be derived from the markup analysis. Sometimes the action will simply be to pass the data to another system. In some cases the various possible actions appropriate to a capture at a specific point in a rendered document will be presented to the user as a menu on an associated display, for example on a local display 332, on a computer display 212 or a mobile phone or PDA display 216. If the user doesn't respond to the menu, the default actions can be taken. 2.2. The Components FIG. 2 is a component diagram of components included in a typical implementation of the system in the context of a typical operating environment. As illustrated, the operating environment includes one or more optical scanning capture devices 202 or voice capture devices 204. In some embodiments, the same device performs both functions. Each capture device is able to communicate with other parts of the system such as a computer 212 and a mobile station 216 (e.g., a mobile phone or PDA) using either a direct wired or wireless connection, or through the network 220, with which it can communicate using a wired or wireless connection, the latter typically involving a wireless base station 214. In some embodiments, the capture device is integrated in the mobile station, and optionally shares some of the audio and/or optical components used in the device for voice communications and picture-taking. Computer 212 may include a memory containing computer executable instructions for processing an order from scanning devices 202 and 204. As an example, an order can include an identifier (such as a serial number of the scanning device 202/204 or an identifier that partially or uniquely identifies the user of the scanner), scanning context information (e.g., time of scan, location of scan, etc.) and/or scanned information (such as a text string) that is used to uniquely identify the document being scanned. In alternative embodiments, the operating environment may include more or less components. Also available on the network 220 are search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239. The network 220 may be a corporate intranet, the public Internet, a mobile phone network or some other network, or any interconnection of the above. Regardless of the manner by which the devices are coupled to each other, they may all may be operable in accordance with well-known commercial transaction and communication protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol (IP)). In various embodiments, the functions and capabilities of scanning device 202, computer 212, and mobile station 216 may be wholly or partially integrated into one device. Thus, the terms scanning device, computer, and mobile station can refer to the same device depending upon whether the device incorporates functions or capabilities of the scanning device 202, computer 212 and mobile station 216. In addition, some or all of the functions of the search engines 232, document sources 234, user account services 236, markup services 238 and other network services 239 may be implemented on any of the devices and/or other devices not shown. 2.3. The Capture Device As described above, the capture device may capture text using an optical scanner that captures image data from the rendered document, or using an audio recording device that captures a user's spoken reading of the text, or other methods. Some embodiments of the capture device may also capture images, graphical symbols and icons, etc., including machine readable codes such as barcodes. The device may be exceedingly simple, consisting of little more than the transducer, some storage, and a data interface, relying on other functionality residing elsewhere in the system, or it may be a more full-featured device. For illustration, this section describes a device based around an optical scanner and with a reasonable number of features. Scanners are well known devices that capture and digitize images. An offshoot of the photocopier industry, the first scanners were relatively large devices that captured an entire document page at once. Recently, portable optical scanners have been introduced in convenient form factors, such as a pen-shaped handheld device. In some embodiments, the portable scanner is used to scan text, graphics, or symbols from rendered documents. The portable scanner has a scanning element that captures text, symbols, graphics, etc, from rendered documents. In addition to documents that have been printed on paper, in some embodiments, rendered documents include documents that have been displayed on a screen such as a CRT monitor or LCD display. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a scanner 302. The scanner 302 comprises an optical scanning head 308 to scan information from rendered documents and convert it to machine-compatible data, and an optical path 306, typically a lens, an aperture or an image conduit to convey the image from the rendered document to the scanning head. The scanning head 308 may incorporate a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) imaging device, or an optical sensor of another type. A microphone 310 and associated circuitry convert the sound of the environment (including spoken words) into machine-compatible signals, and other input facilities exist in the form of buttons, scroll-wheels or other tactile sensors such as touch-pads 314. Feedback to the user is possible through a visual display or indicator lights 332, through a loudspeaker or other audio transducer 334 and through a vibrate module 336. The scanner 302 comprises logic 326 to interact with the various other components, possibly processing the received signals into different formats and/or interpretations. Logic 326 may be operable to read and write data and program instructions stored in associated storage 330 such as RAM, ROM, flash, or other suitable memory. It may read a time signal from the clock unit 328. The scanner 302 also includes an interface 316 to communicate scanned information and other signals to a network and/or an associated computing device. In some embodiments, the scanner 302 may have an on-board power supply 332. In other embodiments, the scanner 302 may be powered from a tethered connection to another device, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection. As an example of one use of scanner 302, a reader may scan some text from a newspaper article with scanner 302. The text is scanned as a bit-mapped image via the scanning head 308. Logic 326 causes the bit-mapped image to be stored in memory 330 with an associated time-stamp read from the clock unit 328. Logic 326 may also perform optical character recognition (OCR) or other post-scan processing on the bit-mapped image to convert it to text. Logic 326 may optionally extract a signature from the image, for example by performing a convolution-like process to locate repeating occurrences of characters, symbols or objects, and determine the distance or number of other characters, symbols, or objects between these repeated elements. The reader may then upload the bit-mapped image (or text or other signature, if post-scan processing has been performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 316. As an example of another use of scanner 302, a reader may capture some text from an article as an audio file by using microphone 310 as an acoustic capture port. Logic 326 causes audio file to be stored in memory 328. Logic 326 may also perform voice recognition or other post-scan processing on the audio file to convert it to text. As above, the reader may then upload the audio file (or text produced by post-scan processing performed by logic 326) to an associated computer via interface 316. Part II—Overview of the Areas of the Core System As paper-digital integration becomes more common, there are many aspects of existing technologies that can be changed to take better advantage of this integration, or to enable it to be implemented more effectively. This section highlights some of those issues. 3. Search Searching a corpus of documents, even so large a corpus as the World Wide Web, has become commonplace for ordinary users, who use a keyboard to construct a search query which is sent to a search engine. This section and the next discuss the aspects of both the construction of a query originated by a capture from a rendered document, and the search engine that handles such a query. 3.1. Scan/Speak/Type as Search Query Use of the described system typically starts with a few words being captured from a rendered document using any of several methods, including those mentioned in Section 1.2 above. Where the input needs some interpretation to convert it to text, for example in the case of OCR or speech input, there may be end-to-end feedback in the system so that the document corpus can be used to enhance the recognition process. End-to-end feedback can be applied by performing an approximation of the recognition or interpretation, identifying a set of one or more candidate matching documents, and then using information from the possible matches in the candidate documents to further refine or restrict the recognition or interpretation. Candidate documents can be weighted according to their probable relevance (for example, based on then number of other users who have scanned in these documents, or their popularity on the Internet), and these weights can be applied in this iterative recognition process. 3.2. Short Phrase Searching Because the selective power of a search query based on a few words is greatly enhanced when the relative positions of these words are known, only a small amount of text need be captured for the system to identify the text's location in a corpus. Most commonly, the input text will be a contiguous sequence of words, such as a short phrase. 3.2.1. Finding Document and Location in Document fr