Granted Patent B2

US 8,826,137 · App. 10/710,910 · Granted Sep 2, 2014

Abstract

Claims (18)

1. A screen reader software product resident on a non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising:

a screen reader module communicatively coupled with resident software on a personal computer, the screen reader module adapted to collect both textual and associated non-textual display information generated by the resident software, the non-textual display information is selected from the group consisting of font format, paragraph format, bulleting, numbering, borders, shading, column format, page breaks, section breaks, tab settings, table structure, image data, case settings, comment field locations, hyperlink settings, data entry forms, and graphic user interface configuration;

a broadcast module communicatively coupled to the screen reader module, the broadcast module adapted to communicate the display information collected by the screen reader module to a speech synthesizer; and

an end-user-definable schema module communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, the schema module adapted to send the non-textual display information with the associated textual display information to the output device speech synthesizer in substantially concurrent fashion, whereby the schema module modifies the broadcast of the textual display information to communicate the associated non-textual display information by altering characteristics of the speech synthesizer, the characteristics selected from the group consisting of pitch, speed, volume, emphasis, simulated gender, simulated accent, simulated age, and pronunciation.

2. The software product of claim 1 , further comprising a Braille display communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, the broadcast module communicating the display information collected by the screen reader module to the Braille display.

3. The software product of claim 2 , wherein the end-user-definable schema module modifies the broadcast of the textual display information to communicate the non-textual display information by altering tactile characteristics of the Braille display.

4. The software product of claim 3 , wherein the tactile characteristics of the Braille displayed modified by the schema module are selected from the group consisting of display speed, pin protrusion level, pin retraction level, and pin vibration.

5. The software product of claim 1 , further comprising an array of two Braille displays communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, wherein a first Braille display outputs the textual display information and a second Braille display concurrently outputs the non-textual display information tactilely.

6. The software product of claim 1 , further comprising a vibratory apparatus communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, wherein the vibratory apparatus vibrates at pre-selected frequencies responsive to non-textual display information.

7. A screen reader software product resident on a non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising:

a screen reader module communicatively coupled with resident software on a personal computer, the screen reader module adapted to collect both textual and associated non-textual display information generated by the resident software, the non-textual display information is selected from the group consisting of font format, paragraph format, bulleting, numbering, borders, shading, column format, page breaks, section breaks, tab settings, table structure, image data, case settings, comment field locations, hyperlink settings, data entry forms, and graphic user interface configuration;

a broadcast module communicatively coupled to the screen reader module, the broadcast module adapted to communicate the display information collected by the screen reader module to a speech synthesizer; and

an end-user-definable schema module communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, the schema module adapted to send the non-textual display information with the associated textual display information to the output device speech synthesizer in substantially concurrent fashion whereby the schema module includes an additional audio output layer to the broadcast of the textual display information to audibly communicate the non-textual display information as an end-user definable, pre-selected sound selected from the group consisting of a dynamically generated sound and a prerecorded digital audio in substantially concurrent fashion with the synthesized text.

8. The software product of claim 7 , further comprising a Braille display communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, the broadcast module communicating the display information collected by the screen reader module to the Braille display.

9. The software product of claim 8 , wherein the end-user-definable schema module modifies the broadcast of the textual display information to communicate the non-textual display information by altering tactile characteristics of the Braille display.

10. The software product of claim 9 , wherein the tactile characteristics of the Braille displayed modified by the schema module are selected from the group consisting of display speed, pin protrusion level, pin retraction level, and pin vibration.

11. The software product of claim 7 , further comprising an array of two Braille displays communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, wherein a first Braille display outputs the textual display information and a second Braille display concurrently outputs the non-textual display information tactilely.

12. The software product of claim 7 , further comprising a vibratory apparatus communicatively coupled to the broadcast module, wherein the vibratory apparatus vibrates at pre-selected frequencies responsive to non-textual display information.

Assignments (10)