Compuserve Incorporated

America Online, Inc.

Aol Inc.

Global Translations, Inc.

Douglas P Chinnock

Mary A Flanagan

Philip Jensen

Jeffrey S Miller

Jeffery S Dalton

Owen J Mortensen

Kent D Stuckey

John Goltz

James Boardman

Jon L Roberts

Jeffrey S Dalton

The present invention allows subscribers to an online information service to participate in real-time conferencing or chat sessions in which a message originating from a subscriber in accordance with a first language is translated to one or more languages before it is broadcast to the other conference areas. Messages in a first language are translated automatically to one or more other languages through language translation capabilities resident at online information service host computers. Access software that subscribers use for participating in conference is integrated with speech recognition and speech generation software such that a subscriber may speak the message he or she would like to share with other participants and may hear the messages from the other participants in the conference. Speech-to-speech translation may be accomplished as a message spoken into a computer microphone in accordance with a first language may be recited by a remote computer in accordance with a second language.

System for automated translation of speech

A system and method is disclosed for translating closed caption data from a source language to a target language during a broadcast. The system and method are fully automated to provide accurate and timely translations of closed caption data. The system and method include a text flow management process and a pre-editing process that may be used in conjunction with any machine translation system. The text flow management process facilitates the input of closed caption data in a source language from a program source to the output of closed caption data in a target language to a program destination. The pre-editing process improves the quality of translation performed by machine translation software by addressing various problems associated with real-time translation of closed caption data.

System and method for closed caption data translation

The present invention allows subscribers to an online information service to participate in real-time conferencing or chat sessions in which a message originating from a subscriber in accordance with a first language is translated to one or more languages before it is broadcast to the other conference areas. Messages in a first language are translated automatically to one or more other languages through languages translation capabilities resident at online information service host computers. Access software that subscribers use for participating in conference is integrated with speech recognition and speech generation software such that a subscriber may speak the message he or she would like to share with other participants and may hear the messages from the other participants in the conference. Speech-to-speech translation may be accomplished as a message spoken into a computer microphone in accordance with a first language may be recited by a remote computer in accordance with a second language.

A data compression method that uses selective encoding is disclosed. A block of data is compressed using a combination of the LZ77 and Huffman coding techniques. Each compressed block consists of a pair of Huffman code trees that describe the representation of the compressed data part and a compressed data part. Compressed data may consist of literal data that has not been detected as duplicated and length/backward pairs indicating the location of a duplicated string. Compressed data is arranged in a deflate format.

Data compression using selective encoding

An electronic discussion group includes interaction with closed captioning from a media program, in substantially real time. Video clips from the program may also be displayed on users' computer terminals.

System for providing closed captioning to an electronic discussion group

A system that facilitates tracking of computer files that have been received from on-line information services, such as CompuServe. Tracking is accomplished by adding a 'handling list' to each file as an obscure part of its archive structure. The actual format and location of this list may vary, depending on whether the file is a picture, program system, or other type of file. Extraction and archive utilities maintain and update the list.

Royalty tracking method and apparatus

An electronic discussion group includes interaction with closed captioning from a media program, in substantially real time. Video clips from the program may also be displayed on users'computer terminals.

A data transmission routing system which allows a terminal user to access an initial host within a computer network, the initial host determines a preferred target host to respond to the user's requests, the initial host communicates with a terminal or gateway node the target host's address, and the terminal or gateway node makes a connection wth the target host. Once the terminal or gateway node is in communication with the target host, the initial host forwards through the terminal or gateway node user profile information to the target host. The initial host is then disconnected and communication then proceeds with the user in contact with the target host through the terminal or gateway node. The entire process may take less than a second or two and the user may never know that a call deflection to a new host has occurred.

Growing community of inventors

Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Douglas P Chinnock