International Business Machines Corporation

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Chieko Asakawa

Hironobu Takagi

Junji Maeda

Kentaro Fukuda

Takashi Itoh

Tohru Ifukube

Shuichi Ino

Hidemasa Muta

Daisuke Sato

Hisashi Miyashita

Tatsuya Ishihara

Hiroshi Nomiyama

Susumu Harada

Shinya Kawanaka

Tarsuya Ishihara

Kentaroh Fukuda

A computer has a display device, a speaker device and an input device, and is capable of identifying problems concerning accessibility in web content displayed on the display device to a visually impaired user of the computer. The web content includes a plurality of structured objects. The computer also has text-to-speech capability such that the web content displayed on the display device is audibly read to the user. The user provides a specification operation input when he or she is uncomfortable with the audible reading. A reporter software module executing on the computer determines which one of the structured objects is causing the discomfort.

Computer, method and program for effectively notifying others of problems concerning accessibility in content

A device, computer program and method for outputting linguistic information. The voice output device, for example, includes an output information acquisition unit acquiring linguistic information and attribute information. Attribute information includes an attribute added to each linguistic element included in the linguistic information. A tactile pattern storage unit stores a predetermined tactile pattern corresponding to each linguistic element. A tactile pattern acquisition unit acquires the tactile pattern from the tactile pattern storage unit. A voice output unit reads aloud the linguistic elements and a tactile pattern output unit outputs, in parallel with reading aloud each linguistic element, the tactile pattern corresponding to the attribute added to the linguistic element, thereby allowing a user to sense the tactile pattern by the sense of touch.

Voice output device, information input device, file selection device, telephone set, and program and recording medium of the same

Provides ability to analyze the readability of an image to be displayed on a screen as a web page, etc., and appropriately modify the image. It includes a rendering section for generating an image by rendering an HTML document; an image processing section for performing image processing on the image generated by the rendering section to simulate and evaluate how the image is viewed under a certain visual characteristic; and a result presentation section for locating an HTML element that needs to be modified in the HTML document to be processed based on the evaluation result of the image processing section and for presenting the HTML element to a web page creator. The result presentation section also retrieves a modification method for the HTML element that needs to be modified from a symptom model storage section. A document modification processing section actually modifies the HTML document.

Data editing for improving readability of a display

A method and apparatus for mapping a moving direction by using sounds for people with visual impairments, in which a moving direction can be expressed multi-dimensionally by using sound information and can effectively assist people with visual impairments and the like in navigation tasks. A moving direction of a person carrying a device configured to output sounds is mapped by using a combination of sounds outputted from the device. A plurality of different sound information pieces are stored in association with three or more predetermined directions, respectively, a current position of the moving target device is identified, and then a moving direction of the device is identified. A sound obtained by combining two sounds in a ratio according to the identified moving direction is outputted on the basis of sound information pieces associated respectively with two adjacent directions sandwiching the identified moving direction among the predetermined directions.

Method, device and computer program for mapping moving direction by sounds

Provides ability to analyze the readability of an image to be displayed on a screen as a web page, etc., and appropriately modify the image. It includes a rendering section for generating an image by rendering an HTML document; an image processing section for performing image processing on the image generated by the rendering section to simulate and evaluate how the image is viewed under a certain visual characteristic; and a result presentation section for locating an HTML element that needs to be modified in the HTML document to be processed based on the evaluation result of the image processing sectionand for presenting the HTML element to a web page creator. The result presentation section also retrieves a modification method for the HTML element that needs to be modified from a symptom model storage section. A document modification processing section actually modifies the HTML document.

The present invention relates to creating a web page and voice browsing of the web page, and more particularly, it improves accessibility for the voice browsing of the web page through a synthetic voice, efficiently with high reliability. A content creation systemof the present invention is used for creating a content which may be viewed through the synthetic voice, the system including: a databasefor storing a structured document; and an information process sectionfor creating a speech node seriesfrom the structured document, and calculating a reaching time from starting voice synthesis of the speech node seriesuntil each node is outputted as the synthetic voice. The information process sectionincludes a support process sectionto determine a graphic display corresponding to the reaching time, and to visually display the reaching time to a predetermined node by the voice synthesis on a screen of a display section

Content creation system, content creation method, computer executable program for executing the same content creation method, computer readable storage medium having stored the same program, graphical user interface system and display control method

A method and apparatus for obtaining accessibility information in content of a rich internet application. The method for obtaining accessibility information includes executing an object of the content displayed on a display screen, estimating a role of the object using reference model information prepared beforehand concerning a plurality of objects, and outputting the estimated role of the object as the accessibility information. Therefore, even when the object does not have accessibility information, the accessibility information can be obtained based on the output during the execution and the internal state. In this way, it is possible for a visually impaired user to operate rich internet applications that are created by Dynamic HTML and Flash&#x2122;.

Method for obtaining accessibility information, computer program and accessibility information device

A user interface through which multiple application programs can be operated in common. An information processing apparatus provides a common input/output interface to multiple application programs. The apparatus includes a section which converts an application-specific document generated by each of the plurality of application programs and represented in a data structure specific to the application program to a common document represented in a common data structure; a section which presents the common document to a user; a section which inputs an operation performed by the user on the common document; an interface adapter which converts an object contained in the common document to an object used in the output section; a section which modifies the common document in accordance with an operation by the user; and a section which reflects modifications to the common document in the application-specific document.

Common input/output interface for application programs

Digest screen display content deciding means selects display elements belonging to respective regions of a document based on display priorities of the display elements, which are obtained by digest screen display priority information creating means, and decides selected display elements as display content of a digest screen under a condition where a total display area does not exceed a required display area. A merging relationship among the regions is set based on layout information for the regions, created by digest screen region layout information creating means. Display content deciding means decides the display content of a detail screen based on the merging relationship among the regions, and creates a digest of the detail screen based on control information created by control information creating means. Moreover, digest screen display content changing means changes the display content of the digest screen in response to an operation of a user.

Information processing for creating a document digest

Content creation, graphical user interface system and display

A device, a control method, and a program to increase the accuracy of voice read-out and text mining by automatically structuring a presentation file. The arrangement and practice of the invention involves an overlap grouping part for extracting overlap information between objects in a presentation file and grouping the objects as a parent-child relationship; a graph dividing grouping part for grouping the objects as a sibling relationship by representing the objects as nodes of a graph and by recursively dividing the graph so that a predefined cost between the nodes is minimized; a distance information grouping part for further grouping the objects as a sibling relationship if distance information between the objects is below a threshold determined by a predefined computation from a distribution histogram of the distance information; and a link information extraction part for extracting arrow graphics that represents a link relationship and generating link information including the link relationship and a link label. The resulting structured data is output as meta-information.

Method, program, and device for analyzing document structure

Target subtree setting means sets a target subtree relating to a content portion. Occurrence mode detecting means collates a target subtree relating to a content with a tree relating to each of past structured/hierarchical contents and detects an occurrence mode of each node of the target subtree. Statistical information generating means generates statistical information concerning an occurrence frequency of the occurrence mode of each node in the target subtree. Classifying means classifies each node of the target subtree based on the statistical information and a result of detecting the occurrence mode. Matching pattern generating means generates the matching pattern for the target content portion based on the classification. The structured/hierarchical contents are identified by use of the matching pattern.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Chieko Asakawa