Sound Generating Book

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to sound generating and talking books, catalogues and the like where audible speech and melodic sounds are associated with sections of written textural materials. More particularly, the invention relates to the automatic activation of such sounds when the reader of the materials reads the associated sections without requiring the reader to activate the sounds.

2. Description of the Prior Art

With the advent of electronically synthesized speech and music which today may be provided inexpensively with integrated circuits often referred to as voice chips, such circuits are presently being provided in many novelty and toy devices. A number of talking books and even musical and/or talking greeting cards are available. The triggering mechanism of these items, however, requires the user to press a button in order to hear the speech or music. The triggering mechanism cannot discern among multiple pages but rather relies upon proper user selection of the buttons for triggering the sounds.

Accordingly, widely available books and the like which utilize sound generation require some form of manual intervention to activate the sounds. As such, the required activation, in addition to turning pages and reading a book, is distracting to the user. Thus, it would be desirable to provide a talking book or sound generating book in which the turning of pages alone provides activation of generated sounds.

It is an object of the present invention to overcome the triggering problems of prior art sound generating books, cards, catalogues and the like.

It is an object of the invention to provide a sensor which may be disposed upon various pages of a book for sensing the opening and closing of pages.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a book having particularized stored sounds for generation upon the opening of particular pages during the use of the book.

Another object of the invention is to provide a method of detecting the opening of particular pages within a book and concealing the triggering of sound generation so as to make operation of the sound generating book transparent to the user.

Briefly, the present invention relates to a sound generating book in which various talking sections are provided such that the opening of particular pages within the book triggers sound generation which may include voice and melodic signals. A plurality of sensors, including transmitters and receivers, are positioned at various sections of the book for triggering sound generation. In an embodiment of the invention the sensor is a capacitive sensor wherein the transmitter and receiver are capacitive plates allowing electrical signals to be capacitively coupled therebetween when the pages are in a closed position. The strobing or scanning of the plurality of sensors allows the book, under computer control, to determine the page to which the book is opened and accordingly trigger particularized sounds relating to the appropriate talking section.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a talking book in accordance with the present invention;

FIGS. 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D illustrate the construction of a sensor for detecting the opening of pages of the book of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows several sensors used in transmitting and receiving circuitry for triggering sound generation in accordance with the invention; and

FIG. 4 shows computer control circuitry including several voice chips for generating sounds for the talking book of FIG. 1.

As depicted in FIG. 1, a book 10 for generating audible sounds including voices and melodic signals includes a transmitter 12 and a receiver 14 both disposed on opposing pages of the book 10 as a sensor assembly generally shown at reference numeral 15. A pair of labels 16 and 18 are positionable over the transmitter 12 and receiver 14 of the sensor assembly 15 to conceal the presence of the sensor assembly 15 on the pages of the book 10. The label pair 16 and 18 may be a graphic label to both cover the sensor assembly 15 and blend with the indicia on the pages of the book 10. A book cover/electronics housing, housing 20, is provided to enclose the electronic circuitry and speaker associated with the generation of various sounds.

FIGS. 2A-2D illustrate the construction of the sensor assembly 15 for detecting the opening of pages of the book 10. The sensor assembly 15 includes the transmitter 12 shown in FIG. 2A and the receiver 14 shown in FIG. 2D. Disposed between the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 is a ground shield 13. The transmitter 12, ground shield 13 and receiver 14 may be constructed from paper backed conductive foil, such as aluminum foil, which is adhered to paper. The transmitter 12, ground shield 13 and receiver 14 are each provided with an electrical contacting area, fold lines 30 shown as dash lines are provided on the ground shield 13 of FIG. 2B so the ground shield 13 may be folded and placed between the transmitter 12 and receiver 14 as shown in FIG. 2D which illustrates the construction of the sensor assembly 15.

Whereas the triggering mechanisms of the prior art require the user to press a button in order to hear the speech and sounds, the triggering mechanism described herein avoids physical and deliberate triggering by the user and hides the sensor assembly 15. To better discern signals capacitively coupled through the sensor assembly 15, it is desirable to make the transmitter 12 and receiver 14 as large as possible. However, since it will usually be desired to cover up the sensor assembly 15 so that the user will not be aware of its presence, the pair of labels 16 and 18 may be provided as graphic labels to make pages of the book look natural. Of course, it is desirable at the same time to keep the size of the pair of labels 16 and 18 minimized so as to conceal the sensor assembly 15 from the user.

In the described and preferred embodiment, the wide areas of the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 are provided as having dimensions 1 centimeter by 3 centimeters and thus having an area of 3 cm.sup.2. With these dimensions, a 5-volt D.C. 10 kilohertz square wave input signal to the transmitter 12 provides an output signal of 2 volts peak-to-peak when the book is closed; 0.4 volts peak-to-peak when book pages are open 30 degrees; and 0.2 volts peak-to-peak at 45 degrees or greater. The voltage ranges were determined to be adequate to discern between pages which are closed and those which are open. Since the capacitive coupling of electrical signals between the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 is sensitive, the ground shield 13 provides considerable immunity to noise and bypasses all such extraneous signals to ground which prevents misinterpreting the scanning of the sensor assemblies 15.

Examples wherein the sensor assembly 15 has other dimensions include the following. A 2 cm..sup.2 area produced by the dimensions 2 centimeters by 1 centimeter produces an output signal of 1.4 volts peak-to-peak when the book is closed; 0.3 volts peak-to-peak at 30 degrees; and 0.2 volts peak-to-peak at 45 degrees or greater. With an area of 1 cm..sup.2, dimensions 1 centimeter by 1 centimeter, the output signals generated are 1 volt peak-to-peak with the book closed; 0.25 volts peak-to-peak at 30 degrees; and 0.2 volts peak-to-peak at 45 degrees or greater. An area of 9 cm..sup.3, 3 centimeters by 3 centimeters, provides 3 volts peak-to-peak when the book is closed; 0.6 volts peak-to-peak at 30 degrees; and 0.32 volts peak-to-peak at 45 degrees or greater. An area of 6 cm..sup.2, 3 centimeters by 2 centimeters, provides 2.5 volts peak-to-peak when the book is closed; 0.5 volts peak-to-peak at 30 degrees; and 0.3 volts peak-to-peak at 45 degrees or greater.

Turning now to FIG. 3, three exemplary sensor assemblies 15 are illustrated, however it should be understood that several such sensor assemblies 15 are employed in various talking sections of the book 10 and in one embodiment seventeen (N=17) such sensor assemblies 15 have been used. Input signals are provided to the various transmitters 12 via connections at X1, X2, . . . XN, and output signals are taken from the various receivers 14 at comparators 40, 42 and 44 which are LM 339 comparators for discerning between the open and closed positions of respective pages having a sensor assembly 15. Output signals are taken from the respective comparators 40, 42 and 44 and provided as outputs Y1, Y2, . . . YN.

The electronics of FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 discussed below are enclosed in the housing 20 of the book 10. The transmitting and receiving ends of the transmitter 12 and receiver 14 are bonded together via a positioning label 22 as shown in FIG. 3, the sensor assemblies 15 are wrapped around the spine of book 10 and lead into the housing 20. The various sensor assemblies 15 are evenly spaced throughout the spine of the book 10 so as to avoid uneven thickness in stacking.

A buffered voltage divider network is provided for use with the comparators 40, 42 and 44. A voltage, V, on the order of 5 to 6 volts, is divided via resistors 36, 37 and 38 which in one embodiment are resistors having values of 20 kiloohms, 1 kiloohm and 20 kiloohms, respectively. Any appropriate divider network will suffice. Operational amplifiers 32 and 34 herein LM 324 op amps are figured as unity gain buffers whose outputs are presented to the inputs of the comparators 40, 42 and 44 for comparing the output of a sensor assembly 15 to discern the positioning of the pages of the book 10.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a computer base circuit for operating the book 10. A computer 50 herein is provided as the SHARP Co. single chip microcomputer model SM5K5 which is a single chip, 4 bit microcomputer. Of course, any appropriate microcomputer or microprocessor could be employed as computer 50. The output signals X1, X2, . . . XN are provided at the outputs of demultiplexers 52 and 54 which are three to eight decode/demux 74HC138 devices. Inputs from Y1, Y2, . . . YN are received via multiplexers 56 and 58 which are one of eight selectors/multiplexers 74HC151 devices. The demultiplexers 52 and 54 and multiplexers 56 and 58 are interfaced via ports of the computer 50.

FIG. 4 also shows several voice chips 60, 62 and 64 which are SUNPLUS Technology Co., Ltd. SPS28A speech synthesizer circuits which provide 28 seconds of synthesized speech or music. The SPS28A is a PCM speech synthesizer providing 32 speech sections. Sound is triggered from the voice chips 60, 62 and 64 under the control of the computer 50 via a key or trigger input on the voice chips which are connected to ports of the computer 50. Enabling and disabling of the voice chips 60, 62 and 64 may be switched via a transistor 66 under the control of the computer 50 to switch the voltage to the voice chips 60, 62 and 64 and to activate or deactivate the R input of the voice chips 60, 62 and 64 which will serve to enable and disable sound generation by the book 10.

Although three voice chips 60, 62 and 64 are shown in FIG. 4, seven such voice chips have been employed in an embodiment for selective triggering of sound based upon the opening and closing of pages detected by the computer 50 via the transmitting and receiving of signals through sensor assemblies 15 as described above. Once a sound on a particular one of the voice chips 60, 62 or 64 is selected by the computer 50, an electrical signal is sent to a speaker 70 for generating sound thereby. A switching transistor 68 is provided to switch the connection to the speaker 70 to ground under the control of the computer 50. This allows the computer 50 to enable and disable the speaker 70.

In operation, the computer 50 scans each sensor assembly 15 to detect whether a talking section of the book pages has been opened. An electrical pulse is sent to the transmitter 12, the signals X1, X2, . . . XN. If the talking section relating to a particular sensor assembly 15 is closed, then the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 are in close proximity to one another and the receiver 14 will detect a strong electrical pulse capacitively coupled from the transmitter 12. This received signal will be output via the comparators 40, 42 and 44 to the computer 50 through the multiplexing of signals Y1, Y2, . . . YN. If the signal output from the sensor assembly 15 exceeds the detection threshold of the comparator, so as to indicate that the talking section under scan is not opened, the computer 50 will then scan the next talking section. Of course, if a talking section being scanned is open, then the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 are far from one another and any signal capacitively coupled therebetween is very weak and cannot exceed the detection threshold. Thus, the computer 50 will detect the opening of the scanned talking section and play speech or melody associated therewith through one or more of the voice chips 60, 62 and 64.

Other embodiments of the book and sensor for generating and triggering sounds in accordance with the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended, therefore, that the specification be considered as exemplary only with the true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.