Print user interface system and its applications

A method for translating printed pattern into human sensory reception, comprising:

• (a) sensing light from a print showing a pattern of pixels and determining pixel values of pixels in said pattern of pixels, said pattern of pixels constituting a foreground visual image that conveys cognizable information to an observer and containing an embedded message;
• (b) recovering an embedded message from the pattern of pixels by determining binary values in the pattern of pixels;
• and
• (c) performing a function according to the embedded message to result in resultant information displayable by a display suitable for human sensory reception.

A portable device for translating printed pattern of pixel into human sensory inputs, comprising:

• (a) portable reader for sensing light from a selected pattern of pixels and determining pixel values of at least some of the pixels in said pattern of pixels, said pattern of pixels constituting a foreground visual image that conveys cognizable information that is one of graphic, text, and a combination thereof to an observer;
• and
• (b) processor associated with the reader having a program of code means readable by the processor to recover embedded data from the pattern of pixels, the program comprising:
• (i) code means for determining the embedded data by determining binary values based on the pixel values for pixels from the pattern of pixels;
• and
• (ii) code means for performing a function according to the embedded data to result in resultant information displayable by a display suitable for human sensory reception;
• and
• (c) portable display.

A method for translating printed patterns of pixels into human sensory inputs, comprising:

• (a) sensing light from view field on a printed surface showing a selected pattern of pixels and determining pixel value of at least some of the pixels in said pattern of pixels, said pattern of pixels constituting a foreground visual image that conveys cognizable information to an observer;
• (b) recovering an embedded nonWeb-site-hyperlinked message from the pattern of pixels by determining binary values in the pattern of pixels and recognizing tiles carrying a function, wherein a cell represents a bit of information, said recovering further comprises selecting a function among groups of tiles of different functions by determining weight of the tiles;
• and
• (c) performing a function according to the embedded message to result in resultant information displayable by a portable display suitable for human sensory reception.

An interactive print user interface device for translating prints into human sensory inputs, comprising:

• (a) document having printed patterns of pixels, said patterns of pixels constituting foreground visual images that convey cognizable information to an observer;
• (b) reader for sensing light from selected portions of said patterns of pixels and determining pixel values of pixels in said patterns of pixels;
• (c) display for displaying output;
• and
• (d) processor that is adapted to recover an embedded message from a selected pattern of pixels, said processor being adapted to determine the embedded message by determining binary values of pixels in said selected pattern of pixels for performing a function according to the embedded message to result in resultant information displayable by the display suitable for human sensory reception, wherein the document provides patterns of pixels related to the selected patterns of pixels such that the observer can select the related patterns of pixels as a response to the resultant information.

A method for recovering data from a print of pixels which has tiles of cells for embedding data, the tiles having respective multidimensional coordinates, comprising:

• (a) sensing pixels within a field of view on the print of pixels and decoding coordinate data of tiles in the field of view;
• (b) creating a prototype tile for a selected tile by averaging coordinate data of a group of tiles in the field of view;
• (c) finding error cell in the selected tile in the field of view and replacing the error cell with a cell in the prototype tile that corresponds to the error cell;
• (d) deriving coordinate location of a center of the field of view by calculating a selected tile's coordinate location and the selected tile's relative offset from the center of the field of view;
• and
• (e) translating the derived coordinate location into a resource pointer via a predefined mapping table.