Some random thoughts

Automation translation of SMS/Email/MMS based on location

2012-02-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

On receiver’s mobile by default every SMS or MMS (not the attachments) or Email content of the phone is seen in the language what has been selected by the sender to compose the sms but not in the regional or the default language selected by the receiver. For example: If sender composes and send an SMS in Hindi then the receiver will also receive the SMS in Hindi language even if the default language on his phone setting is English. If the user doesn't understand the language then that particular SMS is spam/junk for him even though if it has any relevant information for the receiver. This may be a loss for the receiver. Other techniques does the translation after message comes to the inbox unlike what we are proposing where translation happens at the network server end even before message comes in inbox.

Rather than that we are proposing that the content (voice or text) of the SMS/MMS/Email should be translated to the default or regional language of the receiver automatically and he should be able to see the translated form of the message. Processing of the message should happen on the network side (before it reaches to the receiver handset and not after receiving the message) and if user wants to see the original message (which was sent by sender without translation) then he/she can see that as well by selecting "show original" kind of option. There are many translation engines like Google translate which can be used for translation. User will have the option to turn the automatic translation ON or OFF through settings based on whether he wants the message to show up in his inbox after translation or show original respectively. User will have 3 options to select:

Automatic translation is ON and do translation based on the regional language
Automatic translation is ON and do translation based on the language chosen by the user say english, hindi, french, german
Automatic translation is OFF - user will get the message as it is as send by the sender

Some use cases:

Say if government want to send a tsunami warning to all the people in certain areas then they can simply send that in english language irrespective of the local language for that area. That way not only the people who know english or who knows hindi,tamil, telugu,french, whosoever is in around that area will get the warning message. If this feature is not there then a english sms won't be relevant for a person who doesn't know english and he might miss the important warning.
2 persons with different language skills can easily communicate using this feature ON.
If translation happens for the voice messages as well then mobile can be used directly as a translator - no need for any extra software to do it.

Technical advantages:

Because the translation happens at the network end and not on the mobile end there won't be much processing overhead on the handset.
User doesn't need to connect to internet for doing translation.

Record & Repeat events

2011-03-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

Problem: Sometimes there's a need to do a particular work again and again on the mobile device or there's a need to do a particular operation on friend's device who is sitting remotely or need to teach someone on how to operate a particular app. For similar situations there is no standalone mobile functionality/application which can record and then playback the same key/touch events, there are PC software to do it (very limited though) but no standalone mobile software which can do it.

Solution: The idea is to record the key press events/touch events (x-y co-ordinate)/motion events/sounds from speaker, or from any sensor on the mobile while doing any operation on the mobile (say launching camera app and doing some settings) and then save the recorded file in particular format (say .rec file) and playback the recorded file as and when needed. When played back the recorded file events will be triggered automatically with the same delay (when it was originally recorded) to redo the same operation. Recording of the events can be done using Queue like abstract data types (ADT) which follow first in first out (FIFO) principle so that once played back the events will be triggered in the sequential manner with first event triggered first followed by others in order. Once the recording of the events is done and saved, the recorded file can be transferred to other mobiles to do that particular operation automatically on that device. The recorded file will also store the mobile's properties like screen size, resolution, OS version, etc. to maintain the cross mobile compatibility so that one can record events on say device1 then it can be played on device2 seamlessly with events calibrated automatically according to device2. Also to maintain the cross device compatibility one can record the API calls and/or Interrupt calls on queue like ADT but that will work only if OS is same across the devices on which the operation is going to be performed. With this functionality in place there won't be any need of Computer based software to simulate the key press events, touch events, etc.

How is it different from other existing methods-

None of the tools takes events from special sensors (like accelerometer/tilt/microphone, etc.) attached to the phone but we are proposing that as well. A use case for this goes like this – Say a game developer company wants to give a demo of their new car racing game on iPhone4 in which car turns when device is tilted (using tilt/accelerometer sensor), they can record it on one of the devices and then distribute that recorded file for a demo and show off the game capabilities.
Also none of the utilities take touch events but we are planning to support that as well. For example on a complete touch screen phone (say iPhone) user want to take a snap of a place with all the different setting available in the camera app, then he can record all those events (say clicking on x1y1; x2y2; x3y3; ..coordinates and so on) and replay those events at different places he visit. That way he can take snaps of all the places in all configurations available on the phone very easily.
All recording and playback should be done on device itself without requiring any PC side tool or external h/w.
No utility takes the hardware and software capabilities of the device into account hence there’s a need of manual porting from device1 to device2 but what we are proposing is to take h/w, s/w capabilities into account and run one recorded file from device1 onto device2 seamlessly.

Multi-purpose button on mobile devices

2011-01-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

What's available today - Even on the most advanced mobile phones, they have a minimum of 3 buttons to operate eg. back button, volume up and down buttons, power button. This is sometimes inconvenient for some of the user and decreases the usability and also it's an overhead on the mobile board to give place for these buttons.

The Idea - Idea is to put multi-purpose button for mobile and use it for different purposes depending upon the time duration for which it is pushed and/or number of times it has been pushed. Mobile manufacturers can make a one button mobile out of it if want to. It will not only increase the user experience as he/she doesn't have to look for buttons all around the mobile but will also reduce the overhead of extra buttons on the mobile board inside. See the example pic below:

As a use case, that single button can be used for different functionalities as mentioned below:

Unlock the phone: Press the button for a short duration (0.5-1 sec) once to unlock the phone.
Go back from the app: Press the button for a short duration (0.5-1 sec) once to go back in the menu/app.
Lock the phone: Press the button twice for a short duration with a short gap in between (0.5-1sec) to lock the phone.
Take picture from camera: Press the button once when the camera app is ON to take the pic or press long or twice to start recording.
Switch OFF/ON the mobile: Press the button once for a long duration (5-10 sec) to switch OFF/ON the phone.
Increase/Decrease volume: If the button is made like a roller then scrolling up/down can increase/decrease he volume or if it has sensor attached to it then moving figure on it up/down will also increase/decrease the volume. Else it can be made like what's there on ipods so that moving figure clockwise/anticlockwise can increase/decrease the volume.
Play games: Press the button for longer duration (greater than what put for switch OFF the mobile, may be close to a min) and use it for gaming purpose.
Launch an app: Can be configured to launch the favorite app say browser or app store or GPS to be launched when pressed thrice. …etc.

Technical Advantages:

Less space to be given on the hardware board of the mobile for many buttons.
More realstate for the UI on the phone, infact whole of the phone can be made as a Touch Screen without having any button in the front.
Increase in usability for some users.

Text search in audio-video file using subtitle file

2010-10-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it happens that when watching movie/video or listening to a long speech/song we are only interested in the part where speaker is talking of some specific context but we have no option to search for that part other than going through the complete audio/video file. For example: A user may be interested only in listening to that part of the Obama's talk where he talks about Foreign policies rather than going through the complete video. If given an option then the user can search for "Foreign policies" as a text in the video and then can jump/seek directly to that particular instance to watch the part.

How to tackle this problem: To search for some specific word/line in an audio/video file either there is need to implement the speech to text algorithm and then search for the text or some complex speech recognition algorithm both which is not reliable to give 100% accurate results. Rather than following these approaches user can search in the subtitles (.srt or may be some other subtitle format) file associated with that audio/video for that word/line and can jump directly to that instance to see that part of the clip. The format of the subtitle file (.srt) is such that it has time stamp in the beginning of each line followed by the line which the speaker is speaking. So if a text is search in that file (like a normal text search in the .txt file) it can give the time stamp corresponding to that particular text field and then the audio-video player can be browsed or can be jumped (seek) to that particular location of interest. If more than one field is return in the search then the player can return all the time stamps of that search and user can select which position he/she wants the video to jump/seek. This feature can be integrated in the existing audio-video players with an ease because already the players know how to read the subtitle (.srt) files and show it on the video.

Various advantages from this:

It can be integrated in the existing audio-video players with an ease because already the players know how to read the subtitle (.srt) files and show it on the video.
It can also support multi language search like Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, etc because a simple text search supports multi language search and the subtitles can be made available in many languages.
To support this feature if subtitle file is being added (coupled) to the existing or new audio/video files then the increase in the file size is not very significant since the file size of the .srt files is in kbs only.
For almost all the big movies and songs, subtitles file is already available. Hence it would be easy to support search in the already existing files.
This idea is not specific to mobile phones only. It can be used for any audio-video player whether it is desktop application or mobile one or it can be separate unit of audio-video player or iPods, etc.
Since it is a simple text search in a files, it will be pretty fast also and easy to implement.
Also this technology can be used in video searches over the internet since most of the searches on internet are made through text fields only. So, to search a video over the internet which all contains some text of interest, user can search for such words/phrases in subtitles file and get the relevant video.

etc...

Avatar based Multifunctional Display in-sync with gadgets

2010-10-18T03:37:00.000-07:00

Car in synchronized with wired/wireless gadgets like mobile/iPod/Body Sensors (ECG/BP/Sugar)/ Car remote/GPS and having a fully interactive Avatar based Artificial Intelligence powered Panel to communicate/talk/take actions and give suggestions to the driver and other folks sitting in the car (the human like faces that you see are named as Avatar). Avatar based panel will make drive full of fun and interactive, you can talk with it, give instructions and can do loads of things with just voice controls. It should be running on a multi-lingual artificial intelligence based algorithm so that even your grand-mother can talk with it. There should be options to change the Avatar as well say for example if I am driving to office then Avatar should resemble my secretary and say if I am going to picnic then it should resemble to some cool funky guy. Apart from Avatar my car should be in sync with my gadgets like Mobile, iPod, etc. so that my Avatar can look for meeting and inform secretary if I will be late for that, load the new song which I have loaded recently to iPod and play as soon as I get in the car, call ambulance or inform relatives in case of any emergency, etc.

Here are some of the things (but not limited to) which my car should do-

If my car is in sync with Body Sensor networks attached to my body then my Avatar can suggest me to go to doctor if my blood pressure (or anything) goes wrong or can call ambulance and take control over the car and pull it on side of the road. Or it can show me/give directions to reach to the hospital.
My car should have sensors (mostly camera) just not inside the car but also outside it to read sign boards on road side, hoardings, look out for something which interests me like McDonald’s or something and tell me that the store is 100m away now. Also it can automatically open/close the door for the car owner when he/she come towards the car by scanning the picture through outer camera and when he unlocks the car using remote. Using outer camera’s it can also turn the headlights appropriately on turning points.
Avatar should listen to conversations and take appropriate action. For example, if my wife say's it's hot in here then Avatar should decrease the AC temperature automatically and inform. If my kid says he is feeling boring then it should start a game/quiz automatically and play with him.
If it is in sync with Mobile/GPS and knows the route which the driver is going to follow then based on the traffic conjunction on the route, it can suggest alternate routes (can be done with the help of Google maps).
It can inform my secretary to delay the meeting or can start the Video Conferencing inside the car if it gets the info from my mobile Outlook calendar that meeting is starting in 5mins.
Should adjust the seat heights and distance from steering depending upon the height of the driver - It can do this easily by scanning the picture taken from various cameras inside.
With the camera's placed inside and the conversation going on in the car, Avatar should determine the mood of the passengers and can take appropriate action like playing a romantic song with it's my anniversary and I bring my wife in the car, controls the light and air inside also, etc.

...etc..

Overall it will open a whole new world of fun and excitement and comfort and convenience and what not if my car has an Artificial Intelligence powered Avatar talking in it and it's in sync with many gadgets that I have. Possibilities are endless.