U.S. patent application number 12/478758 was filed with the patent office on 2009-10-01 for device that reads data encoded as dots.
This patent application is currently assigned to Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd. Invention is credited to Paul Lapstun, Kia Silverbrook, Simon Robert Walmsley.
Application Number | 20090242638 12/478758 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 24783824 |
Filed Date | 2009-10-01 |
United States Patent
Application |
20090242638 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Silverbrook; Kia ; et
al. |
October 1, 2009 |
DEVICE THAT READS DATA ENCODED AS DOTS
Abstract
A system is disclosed for reading data encoded as a series of
invisible dots carried on a substrate. The system has a detector
that detects the dots on the substrate and outputs a first signal;
a decoder interconnected to the detector that decodes the first
signal to produce an output signal; and an output device
interconnected to the processor that receives the output signal and
creates a corresponding human readable output. The dots may be
infrared absorbing and the encoding can include Reed-Solomon
encoding of the prerecorded audio. The system can include a
wand-like arm having a slot through which the photograph is
inserted.
Inventors: |
Silverbrook; Kia; (Balmain,
AU) ; Lapstun; Paul; (Balmain, AU) ; Walmsley;
Simon Robert; (Balmain, AU) |
Correspondence
Address: |
SILVERBROOK RESEARCH PTY LTD
393 DARLING STREET
BALMAIN
2041
AU
|
Assignee: |
Silverbrook Research Pty
Ltd
|
Family ID: |
24783824 |
Appl. No.: |
12/478758 |
Filed: |
June 4, 2009 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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10636219 |
Aug 8, 2003 |
7557829 |
|
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12478758 |
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09693226 |
Oct 20, 2000 |
6943830 |
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10636219 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
235/454 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04N 1/32133 20130101;
H04N 2201/3266 20130101; H04N 2201/3271 20130101; H04N 2201/0081
20130101; H04N 1/00795 20130101; H04N 2201/327 20130101; H04N
2201/0096 20130101; H04N 2201/3273 20130101; H04N 1/00408 20130101;
H04N 1/00347 20130101; H04N 2201/0089 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
235/454 |
International
Class: |
G06K 7/10 20060101
G06K007/10 |
Claims
1. A display device comprising: a slot for receiving a card having
visible content printed thereon, the card further having the dot
data encoded on the surface of the card as an array of dots, the
array of dots being printed on the surface independently of the
visible content printed on the surface; a detector for optically
detecting the array of dots across the surface of the card received
in the slot and for outputting a first signal representative
thereof; a decoder interconnected to said detector for receiving
and decoding said first signal to produce a display signal
corresponding to the first signal; and a display for displaying the
display signal.
2. The device of claim 1 wherein the dots are dots of ink.
3. The device according to claim 2 wherein the ink is substantially
invisible to an average unaided human eye.
4. The device of claim 3 wherein the ink is infrared absorbing ink
with little absorption in the visible spectrum.
5. The device of claim 1 wherein said dot data is encoded using
Reed-Solomon encoding.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application is a Continuation of U.S.
application Ser. No. 10/636,219 filed on Aug. 08, 2003, which is a
Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/693,226 filed on Oct.
20, 2000, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 6,943,830.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates to a user interface system for
recovering digital data printed in infra-red ink in a fault
tolerant encoded form on a print media using an inkjet printing
system. In particular, the data may be encoded on the same surface
as a human readable representation, for example an image which is
related to the data which is encoded thereon.
CO-PENDING APPLICATIONS
[0003] Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the
present invention are disclosed in the following
applications/patents filed by the applicant or assignee of U.S.
application Ser. No. 10/636,219:
[0004] U.S. Patent Application Serial Number/Patent Number [0005]
U.S. Pat. No. 6,476,863 [0006] U.S. Pat. No. 6,459,495 [0007] U.S.
Pat. No. 6,496,654 [0008] U.S. Pat. No. 6,859,225 [0009] U.S. Pat.
No. 6,924,835 [0010] U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,369 [0011] U.S. Pat. No.
7,535,582 [0012] U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,331 [0013] U.S. Pat. No.
6,676,250 [0014] U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,864 [0015] U.S. Pat. No.
6,439,704 [0016] U.S. Pat. No. 6,4257,00 [0017] U.S. Pat. No.
6,588,952
[0018] The disclosures of these applications/patents are
incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF TIE INVENTION
[0019] The applicant has disclosed in pending applications U.S.
Ser. No. 09/113,070 and U.S. Ser. No. 09/112,785 cards called
Artcards in which the information is encoded in black ink on a
white background on the reverse face of the printed card, the front
surface of the card bearing an image. The data that may be recorded
may be the contents of a book recorded in a digital manner with the
front face bearing an image equivalent to the dust jacket of the
book.
[0020] In such prior art, two printheads are required in order to
simultaneously print the image on the front of the card and the
digital data on the rear of the card. To read the card, the card is
passed through an optical scanning means and the fault tolerant
encoded data is reconstructed and decoded and provided to a user as
an audio or visual output.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0021] According to an aspect of the present invention there is
provided a display device comprising: [0022] a slot for receiving a
card having visible content printed thereon, the card further
having the dot data encoded on the surface of the card as an array
of dots, the array of dots being printed on the surface
independently of the visible content printed on the surface; [0023]
a detector for optically detecting the array of dots across the
surface of the card received in the slot and for outputting a first
signal representative thereof, [0024] a decoder interconnected to
said detector for receiving and decoding said first signal to
produce a display signal corresponding to the first signal; and
[0025] a display for displaying the display signal.
[0026] Other aspects are also disclosed.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0027] Notwithstanding any other form which may fall within the
scale of the present invention, preferred forms of the invention
will now be described by way of example only with reference to the
accompanying drawing of FIG. 1 which illustrates the card reading
arrangement of the preferred embodiment.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED AND OTHER EMBODIMENTS
[0028] The preferred embodiment is preferably implemented through
suitable programming of a hand held device such as that described
in the applicant's applications U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,471, U.S. Ser.
No. 09/693,083 and U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,134 filed concurrently
herewith by the present applicant the content of which is hereby
specifically incorporated by reference. These applications make
reference to the applicant's prior applications U.S. Ser. No.
09/113,070 and U.S. Ser. No. 09/112,785.
[0029] The aforementioned patent specifications disclose an
apparatus including a camera system, hereinafter known as an
"Artcam" type camera system, wherein sensed images can be directly
printed out by the camera unit using an inkjet pagewidth printhead
having at least four separate inkjet nozzles for printing a color
image and an infra-red image simultaneously on a print media. A
pagewidth printhead of this type was described by the applicant in
co-pending applications U.S. Ser. No. 09/608,308, U.S. Ser. No.
09/608,779, U.S. Ser. No. 09/607,987, U.S. Ser. No. 09/608,776,
U.S. Ser. No. 09/607,250, and U.S. Ser. No. 09/607,991 and the
descriptions thereof are hereby specifically incorporated by
reference.
[0030] In the above referenced patent specifications, namely U.S.
Ser. No. 09/693,471, U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,083 and U.S. Ser. No.
09/693,134, data in a fault tolerant encoded form is printed in
infra-red ink over a color image. The data which was described in
each of these specifications related respectively to storing a
fault tolerant encoded digital form of the image itself, a fault
tolerant encoded digital form of the image itself along with an
image processing program script which enabled the image to be
processed to produce a given effect thereon, and a copy of the
image itself and of a transformed copy of that image, the
transformation being achieved by a program which could be
separately loaded into the camera system.
[0031] In the present application, the invention resides in
recording digital data on an image, the digital data relating to
other than the image itself or any manipulation thereof. For
example, as described in the applicant's prior art of U.S. Ser. No.
09/113,070 a card may be printed using a fault tolerant digitally
encoded form comprising a book on one surface of a print media
while on the other face of the print media an image is recorded,
for example in this case the dust jacket of the book. The cards
that were described were of the size of a credit card of
approximately 85 mm.times.55 mm size. The card was printed on both
faces. In the present invention the card needs only to be printed
on one face with the data being recorded in infra red ink and thus
invisible to a human reader. As described in the applicant's
co-pending applications U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,471, U.S. Ser. No.
09/693,083 and U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,134, a card of approximate size
4''.times.6'' (102 mm.times.152 mm) can contain approximately 3-4
megabytes of data depending on how the data is encoded and
distributed across the surface of the card. The data in those
applications is distributed in such a way that full recovery of the
data there encoded, namely an image, can be recovered even if up to
30% damage has occurred to the surface of the card. To store an
average page of text requires approximately 2 Kbytes of digital
data for text only, hence 3 megabytes of data would record
approximately 1.5 thousand pages of written text. An average book
contains between 250-550 pages and such a book is readily
accommodated by the format of the present disclosure. In addition,
images may be interspersed with the text as thumbnail (reduced
sized) images in a suitable file format for example jpeg, gif,
tiff, bmp to name a few.
[0032] The preferred embodiment provides an adaptation of the
particular technology as disclosed in the aforementioned patent
specifications U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,471, U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,083
and U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,134. In this adaptation, the camera system
and the printing system is dispensed with and replaced with a large
screen reader. The cards according to the preferred embodiment are
then provided having an indicator of the information which is
recorded on the card. The information in a fault tolerant encoded
form is printed in infra-red ink over that indicator. For example
the card could include a book's content or a newspaper content. An
example of such a system is as illustrated in FIG. 1 wherein the
card 10 includes a book title on the card with data printed thereon
in infra-red ink as shown by arrow 11. The card 10 is inserted in
the reader 12 which includes a flexible display 13 which allows for
the folding up of the card reader 12. The card reader includes
display controls 14 which allow for paging forward and back and
other controls of the card reader 12.
[0033] It can therefore be seen that the arrangement of FIG. 1
provides for an efficient distribution of information in the form
of books, newspapers, magazines, technical manuals, and so
forth.
[0034] Various inkjet technologies can be used for printing of the
card according to the current disclosure, for example an inkjet
pagewidth printhead such as disclosed in the applicant's co-pending
applications U.S. Ser. No. 09/608,308, U.S. Ser. No. 09/608,779,
U.S. Ser. No. 09/607,987, U.S. Ser. No. 09/608,776, U.S. Ser. No.
09/607,250, and U.S. Ser. No. N 09/607,991 may be used. Suitable
infra-red ink is disclosed in the applicant's co-pending
applications, Australian provisional patent applications PQ9412 and
PQ9376 filed on Aug. 14, 2000 and applicant's applications PQ9509
filed on Aug. 18, 2000, and PQ9571, and PQ9561 filed on Aug. 21,
2000. Data may be encoded in a manner or using a format as
disclosed in applicant's U.S. Ser. No. 09/113,070 and U.S. Ser. No.
09/112,785, or U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,471, U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,083
and U.S. Ser. No. 09/693,134, for example the Artcard format or the
alternative Artcard format. Other formats may be used.
[0035] It would be appreciated by a person skilled in the art that
numerous variations and/or modifications may be made to the present
invention as shown in the specific embodiment without departing
from the spirit or scope of the invention as broadly described. The
present invention is, therefore, to be considered in all respects
to be illustrative and not restrictive.
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