Looking for gPhone Clues in Google Patents

iced_tea writes "What do Google patents say about the company's possible plans for a Google phone? News.com took a look at some of the related technologies. Just one example: 'This image shows a diagram from a patent filed June 30, 2005 and published October 12, 2006, called "Non-Standard Locality-Based Text Entry." The inventor is listed as Shumeet Baluja, a senior staff research scientist at Google, and the assignee is listed as Google. The invention would allow an English speaker, for example, to use the keypad of any mobile phone to enter Chinese characters, according to Google patent scrutinizer Stephen Arnold.'"

Re:

[psychicsword]

This will fail.

I bet some said the same thing about apple, and look at them now.

what department is that in?

[User 956]

according to Google patent scrutinizer Stephen Arnold.

Is that an actual job title these days, or is that just his hobby?

Re:what department is that in?

[CaptainPatent]

according to Google patent scrutinizer Stephen Arnold.

Is that an actual job title these days, or is that just his hobby?

I thought it just meant he posts on /.

Price for mobile net access?

[Eightyford]

I don't know what the cost of internet access on cellphones is in other countries, but in Canada the rates are beyond ridiculous! Google would almost have to build their own cellular network to really take advantage of their other product lines.

Re:Price for mobile net access?

[Frosty Piss]

Google would almost have to build their own cellular network to really take advantage of their other product lines.

Yes indeed, yes indeed...

Re:

[Troed]

Flat rate, ~$15-30/month, 7.2Mbit/s

Sweden

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

7.2 Mbit/s on your PHONE?

Re:

[Troed]

That was the question, and thus my answer, yes?

Although, I must confess, my phones only do 1.2 and 3.6 Mbit/s atm - but the network is at 7.2.

Speaking of world dominiation...

[Facetious]

Love him or hate him, Cringely is talking about a somewhat related topic today [pbs.org].

Kanji? Really?

[GStyle98]

Kanji and hangul support would be freaking sweet and I'd go so far as to switch mail provider in order to have that on my phone. The trouble is that kanji/hangul support isn't good enough because you need auto-completion and dictionary lookups as well. Essentially, you need something like NJstar [njstar.com] on your phone. Or you need to go the route of the Japanese and have each key represent a sequence of kana (like a-i-u-e-o for 1, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko for 2, etc) that ties in to a dictionary-like lookup.

No idea how to effectively input chinese on a phone, but 10,000 ideograph input on a phone for SMS messages seems complicated without help :)

Re:Kanji? Really?

[hansamurai]

You seem to forget that there's already an entire market of Asian cell phones out there that have already solved this problem.

Chinese input not so bad on the UI side...

[zooblethorpe]

No idea how to effectively input chinese on a phone, but 10,000 ideograph input on a phone for SMS messages seems complicated without help :)

Have a look at Zhùyïn fúhào [wikipedia.org], also known as bopomofo. Makes it pretty easy to input using the basic Latin alphabet, though the software side is pretty complicated I'm sure.

Kanji and hangul support would be freaking sweet and I'd go so far as to switch mail provider in order to have that on my phone. The trouble is that kanji/hangul support isn't good enough because you need auto-completion and dictionary lookups as well. Essentially, you need something like NJstar on your phone. Or you need to go the route of the Japanese and have each key represent a sequence of kana (like a-i-u-e-o for 1, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko for 2, etc) that ties in to a dictionary-like lookup.

Hangul wouldn't need much beyond autocomplete, if you're getting fancy (no Chinese characters used much outside of academia these days). And hey, though Japanese is more complicated, if the folks in Japan can get their phones set up to do this (and they have already, complete with easy switching to Latin alphanumeric input), it shouldn't be too hard for Google or someone else to reproduce that functionality.

Cheers,

Re:

[zombie_striptease]

Chinese input on the mainland is actually even easier than that. You just enter the standard pinyin (minus tones) with the latin alphabet you normally have on American phones and it brings up a row of characters with that pronunciation to choose from. Even more, it offers a list after each character entry of other hanzi that can form common compunds with the preceeding one, which saves you the trouble of typing many things out. It's surprisingly fast and effective overall.

Prior Art.

[arthurpaliden]

If that is truly what the patent is about then there is prior art, entering Jananeese characters via an English keyboard [Bailey Controls (Japan)], for it going back to the early 1980's.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should read the claims and find out?

US2006/0230350 [uspto.gov]

You never know you might learn something before spouting off about something you clearly know nothing about.

Re:

[adnonsense]

Oddly enough the patent [uspto.gov] doesn't mention Chinese characters, though it does mention Chinese restaurants. It does say "Also, the dictionaries are not limited to the English language, but may cover other languages having other characters, and even other types of objects. ", but I can't see how this "would allow an English speaker, for example, to use the keypad of any mobile phone to enter Chinese characters" - what would be the point, unless the English speaker also reads / writes Chinese?

Anyway, the paren

Re:

[rtb61]

Ahh, but was it patented, you do know that google supports patent first, just because it was your idea or you invented it, as far as google is concerned, that gives you no right to it, in the great patent gold rush, the first to the patent office doors with their weasel patent lawyers wins. Lie, cheat and steal, it's all just normal modern corporate practice.

Re:

[ironfrost]

Somebody mod this guy up. The submitter (and most other posters) has completly misinterpreted the patent. It's nothing to do with different language input; it's about changing the weighting of words in the predictive text dictionary depending on the location of the user.

For the chinese symbol for "egg roll"

[Anonymous Coward]

Punch in 4 3 1 5 8 2 3 1 5 6 2 0 1 3 4

Software Development?

[Boa Constrictor]

The invention would allow an English speaker, for example, to use the keypad of any mobile phone to enter Chinese characters

Google has applications which run on 'phones -- I use the java Gmail app on mine. This could just as easily be a software patent for more 3rd party products, rather than their own hardware. Google make software which runs on PCs, but that doesn't mean that they sell them.

Re:

[Jorgandar]

Huh? If anything, this is a good thing. Constantly increased expectations, wanting it faster, cheaper, better. That's called innovation.

You can go have your stone hut and sense of humility, i'll take my iPhone and double-latte.

Your Rights Online?

[SeePage87]

Doesn't seem to fit. Also, wish I had an interobang for the subject :(

Another phone?

[harshmanrob]

Just how many phones can the human race handle!?!?! I mean soon phones will outnumber people and phones will soon realize this, plot, plan, and strike! And then the phones send out 300+ page phone bills, report on your every move and conversation, and with their new built-in tazers, they'll torture the unsuspected for illegal thought and speech!

The phones have been plotting for years! 10 years ago, it was pagers that leashed their electronic slaves, and then the cell phone bricks became the electronic b

Stay away from Google Patent Search

[Chapter80]

No way in hell would I use Google Patent Search for any serious searches when doing real patent work. That's like handing your ideas over to them! They wouldn't monitor popular patent searches to get ideas, now, would they?

The Article that goes with the Image

[PineHall]

Here [news.com] is the article that goes with the image.

Can't you see what they're making?

[blurryrunner]

Google doesn't want to be the infrastructure for information transferral, they want to be the index/gateway/portal to the worlds information...

They're building the hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy device.

br/

An interesting patent

[Kickasso]

Them are smart, them pesky Google engineers. Trying to actually put to good use heaploads of data they have on you. For instance, if you constantly search for Japanese restaurants, Google might populate your T9 dictionary with words like wasabi and okonomiyaki, just in case. And if they know where you are, they might throw in names of local sushi bars.

Useful?

[jrumney]

The invention would allow an English speaker, for example, to use the keypad of any mobile phone to enter Chinese characters

Babelfish must be purchased separately.

allow an English speaker...to enter Chinese chara

[Anonymous Coward]

you can do this very simply by pounding any key, Chinese will come up. Chinese speaker may not understand though.

Shumeet Baluja

[mrjah]

Shumeet Baluja, she's my baby
Shumeet Baluja, I don't mean maybe
Shumeet Baluja, she's my baby
Shumeet Baluja, I don't mean maybe
Shumeet Baluja, she's my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll

That's not the patent

[mattr]

As another poster mentioned, the patent is not what people are saying.

When you input text on a computer in say Japanese, you generally type phonetic spellings (in English letters usually, or maybe using a difficult phonetic keyboard layout if you are very hardcore) which are then converted by a front end processor (FEP) into a list of possible homonyms from which you choose the one you want. Some statistically aware "Artificial Intelligence" subsystem picks good choices for you (which is why the ATOK - prob