FORM-2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
(39 of 1970)
& THE PATENTS RULES, 2003
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
(See section 10 and rule 13)


INFORMATION TRANSLATION SYSTEM
TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LIMITED,
an Indian Company of
Nirmal Building, 9th Floor,
Nariman Point, Mumbai - 21,
Maharashtra, India.

The following specification particularly describes the nature of the invention.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. Particularly, the present invention relates to character encoding for information translation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Cellular and mobile telephones are increasingly impacting our daily lives. They have grown from simple, audio, telephonic devices to full scale data, voice and video communication tools which are indispensable for our daily lives. Even the highly advanced 'smart phones' (the term used to define the latest generation phones) are increasingly being used by people across all the walks of the society.
Voice aids are added features of many cell phones. They are introduced mainly to help the visually impaired users. Most smart phones have this feature. These voice aids read out the contents of the screens, emails and messages to the user and also, help the users in navigating across the different screens.
The screen reader voice aids consists of software applications installed on the mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) or any similar communication devices, which allow the blind persons to use the devices even if they cannot view the visual screen. Information displayed on the screen is rendered in synthesized speech output format, generated using text-to-speech (TTS) technology and routed through the device's speaker or through a headphone. Screen contents can also be presented in Braille if the
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device is connected to a Braille device with a refreshable Braille display. Typically Braille devices are costly.
Speech and Braille output can be used at the same time, or independently, to do the following:
• make and receive calls;
• manage contacts and call lists;
• review the numbers entered in the dialer screen and check the caller ID on incoming calls;
• compose and read text messages (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS) and e-mail;
• browse the internet;
• create and read different types of files;
• schedule appointments and tasks and keep track of them using alarms and reminders;
• listen to locally saved media files or internet audio streams;
• configure phone settings, profiles, ring tones, speed dial keys and voice tags;
• use other programs such as the 'Notes' application, calculator, instant messenger and file system browser; and
• share data with other mobile phones and computers.
The screen reader voice aids do not take over the software interface of the communication device and hence the users can access all the built-in functions of the device and applications and also install compatible 3rd-party programs to do more with their device. External hardwares such as Bluetooth, keyboards and headphones are also supported.
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However, the abovementioned voice aids have some drawbacks. To comprehend the meaning and pronunciation of the proper nouns of the languages other than English require highly efficient text to speech converters which require a large amount of computing power and memory. This increases the cost of the mobile phones considerably. Moreover, these screen reader voice aids, when used in public, tend to violate the privacy of the user as they read out the screens and the navigation instructions to the user. They also tend to disturb the people in an environment where silence is required, such as libraries, conference rooms, hospitals and the like. Also, for those people who are both visually and hearing impaired, voice aids prove to be of no use.
Therefore, there is a need for an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to operate mobile phones and other communication devices:
• without increasing the cost of the phones;
• by capitalizing on existing mobile phone functionalities / features
• without disturbing others;
• without violating the users' privacy and with high security;
• in a personalized and customized manner;
• in multiple languages; and
• in both silent and non- silent configurations of the devices.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to operate mobile phones and other communication devices without disturbing others.
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It is another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to receive and transfer information without violating the users' privacy and with high security.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which is operated in a personalized and customized manner.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which is capitalized on the existing mobile phone functionalities / features.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to receive and transfer information without increasing the cost of the phones.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which supports multiple languages.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to operate mobile phones and other communication devices in silent and non-silent configurations of the devices.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an information translation system which supports visually and/or
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hearing impaired users to operate mobile phones and other communication devices, wherein the information translation system comprises:
• an information translator adapted to convert the labels of menu, menu items, sub menu items and the associated information of the selected item to Morse code;
• a sound generator adapted to produce sound signals corresponding to the Morse code translated information; and
• a vibration generator adapted to produce vibration signals corresponding to the Morse code translated information.
Typically, the information translation system is adapted to perform the information exchange in all the languages which support Morse code.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the information translation process comprises the following steps:
• selection of menu and menu items by the user;
• conversion of the labels and details of the selected menu/menu items into Morse code; and
• generation of sound signals and vibration signals corresponding to the Morse code translated information.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Figure 1 illustrates the translation of mobile phone menu labels to Morse code; and
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Figure 2 illustrates the block diagram of a typical information translation system.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The drawings and the description thereto are merely illustrative of an information translation system and only exemplify the invention and in no way limit the scope thereof.
The information translation system in accordance with the present invention is based on Morse code based character translation. Morse code was originally used as an encoding technique for transmission of information in telegraphy. Morse code consists of a combination of two standardized alphabets, i. e. a short alphabet called 'dot' and a long alphabet called 'dash'. When the code is converted into sound, a dot is pronounced as 'dit' and a dash is pronounced as 'dah'. A unique combination of these two alphabets is used to represent a letter, a special character or a digit.
Typically, a message is made up of words having alphabets, digits and special characters. Each letter of each word can be represented by a sequence of the Morse alphabets. Thus, a series of Morse alphabets can be used to represent a message. The two Morse alphabets can also be represented by sounds, imprints, pulses, or by an on-off keying mechanism.
Table I given below shows a list of English alphabets and the corresponding Morse codes.

Char Code Char Code
A ..- N -.
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Table 1
In a modern mobile phone, typically, a main screen which contains a main menu is provided. Typically, labels are assigned to the main menu, to each of the main menu items and to each of the sub menu items. In accordance with the present invention, when the menu is clicked by the user of the mobile phone, the menu's label is translated into a Morse message which is beeped as a sound signal to the user at a low frequency. Also, the same Morse message causes the phone to vibrate. Thus, even if the cell phone is in silent mode, the user can receive messages and can navigate by interpreting the vibrations.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the information translation is done in three steps as given by:
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• selection of menu and menu items by the user;
• conversion of the labels and details of the selected menu/menu items into Morse code; and
• generation of sound signals and vibration signals corresponding to the Morse code translated information.
Figure 1 illustrates the translation of mobile phone menu labels to Morse code. This figure shows how the two labels, 'END' and 'CALL' are translated into Morse codes. The dots are translated to short beeping sounds and the dashes are translated to long beeping sounds.
Figure 2 illustrates the block diagram of an information translation system in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention. The user is represented by a reference numeral 10. 12 is the reference numeral representing the mobile phone or any other communication device such as a PDA, palmtop, desktop, laptop and the like. When the user 10 selects a menu or menu item provided on the mobile phone 12 screen, an information translator 14 converts the label of the menu or menu item into corresponding Morse code.
The information translator 14 also converts the available details associated with each of the menu items to the corresponding Morse code. For instance, if the user 10 selects the menu item 'Contacts' to make a call, the details of the persons in the user's contact list will be converted into Morse code. If the user selects the menu item 'Inbox', the list of the SMS (Short Messaging Service) messages received by the user's mobile phone will be translated to Morse code. On further selection of any of these messages, the complete message text itself will be translated. Thus, the Morse code translated
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information obtained from the information translator 14 has the information related to the label of the selected menu item (used for navigation purpose) and the details associated with the selected menu item (the actual message).
The Morse code translated information is then fed into a sound generator, represented by the reference numeral 16 of Figure 2. The sound generator 16 converts the Morse code translated information into beeping sounds of low frequency by assigning a dot with a short beeping sound and a dash with a long beeping sound. The generated beeping sounds are then communicated to the user 10 through the mobile phone's 12 audio output, typically a speaker, which is represented by the reference numeral 22.
The Morse code translated information is also fed to a vibration generator 18. The vibration generator 18 includes a transducer for transducing the Morse code translated information into short and long vibration signals respectively for dots and dashes. The transduced vibration signals are transferred to the mobile phone's 12 vibrator represented by the reference numeral 20. The vibrator 20 has a small DC motor driving a gear having a small weight attached to it on one side. The motor drives the gear according to the transduced vibration signal which it receives from the vibration generator 18. The actual vibrations are communicated to the user 10 by the vibration of the weight caused by the gear movement.
These vibrations help the hearing impaired / deaf users to understand the information by interpreting the vibrations of the mobile phone 12, even though they cannot sense the sound signals. Moreover, the Morse code translated phone vibrations helps the users to exchange information without disturbing others in an environment where silence is required.
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The Morse code is available for the alphabets of many languages including Russian, Chinese, Korean and the like. This provides an added advantage of information translation from any of the Morse code supporting languages to sound signals or vibrations.
TECHNICAL ADVANCEMENTS
The technical advancements of the present invention include realization of an information translation system which supports visually and/or hearing impaired users to operate mobile phones and other communication devices:
• without increasing the cost of the phones;
• by capitalizing on existing mobile phone functionalities / features
• without disturbing others;
• without violating the users' privacy and with high security;
• in a personalized and customized manner;
• in multiple languages; and
• in both silent and non- silent configurations of the devices.
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While considerable emphasis has been placed herein on the particular features of this invention, it will be appreciated that various modifications can be made, and that many changes can be made in the preferred embodiments without departing from the principles of the invention. These and other modifications in the nature of the invention or the preferred embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the disclosure herein, whereby it is to be distinctly understood that the foregoing descriptive matter is to be interpreted merely as illustrative of the invention and not as a limitation.

MOHAN DEWAN
Of R. K. DEWAN & CO.
APPLICANTS' PATENT ATTORNEY
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