Computer users have become increasingly mobile in recent years. Using devices such as laptop computers, cell phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants), mobile computer users can now receive data feeds (or web feeds) and access public and private networks from almost any location. However, mobile users are often engaged in activities that prevent them from interacting effectively with conventional computing devices. For example, a user cannot safely type a message, read an email or browse the Internet while driving a vehicle or walking on a crowded sidewalk. Rather, the mobile user must decide whether to interrupt their current activity by diverting attention to their computing device, or whether to delay their computing activity until a later time.
Typically, audio content can be safely consumed while a mobile user is engaged in activities that would not allow for typing on a keypad or viewing a display screen. For example, it is common for mobile users to listen to music or other audio content while driving, exercising or mowing the lawn. However, such users are typically either not connected to a network at all, or their network access is limited to a dedicated network connection to a single data source. Even if connected to a network, mobile users often experience spotty connectivity to network resources, thereby degrading the user experience. In either case, the mobile users' choice of audio content is usually quite limited (e.g., locally stored and/or portable audio content, radio broadcasts, podcasts).
In addition to user mobility, there are a number of other factors, including accessibility and efficiency, that have contributed to advancements in user interface technologies that do not require a visual display and/or a keypad. For example, audio-to-text interfaces allow users to create text documents in response to voice commands, and text-to-audio applications enable interactive voice response (IVR) units to provide text data to a user in an audio form. Further examples of alternative user selection mechanisms include voice-activated dialing and accelerometer-based gesture recognition devices (e.g., worn on the user's wrist).
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds