Patent ID: 6983250

Claim:
A method of enabling a user to obtain information from a text-based web site in audio form, comprising: A. in a first operation to prepare the text-based web site for delivery in audio form: (i) accessing content of a text-based web site to collect a vocabulary of textual information appearing therein; (ii) analyzing the collected vocabulary to determine a plurality of limited vocabulary domains into which the textual information of the web site can be grouped, the textual information of each limited vocabulary domain sharing a content-based closeness metric; (iii) comparing the limited vocabulary domains with existing recorded audio content to determine whether additional audio content is necessary to deliver the web site in audio form, and if so then obtaining such additional audio content; and (iv) storing formatting configuration information specifying how to deliver the text-based web site in audio format according to the limited vocabulary domains using the existing and additional audio content; and B. in a second operation performed upon a user's request for audio delivery of textual information from the text-based web site: (i) obtaining the requested textual information from the text-based web site and parsing the textual information into phrases; (ii) based on the stored formatting configuration information, mapping the parsed phrases to respective ones of the vocabulary domains and providing each parsed phrase to a corresponding limited vocabulary domain server capable of converting the parsed phrase to an audio component; (iii) receiving audio components from the limited vocabulary domain servers, the audio component resulting from the conversion of the parsed phrases by the limited vocabulary domain servers; and (iv) generating audio to the user based on the audio components received from the limited vocabulary domain servers.