# US 8,751,562 B2 · Systems and methods for pre-rendering an audio representation of textual content for subsequent playback > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 8,751,562 B2 - Document ID: US8751562B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 12/429,794 - Filed: 2009-04-24 - Published: 2010-10-28 - Granted: 2014-06-10 - Earliest claimed: 2009-04-24 - Assignees: Voxx International Corporation - Applicants: Richard A. Zemer - Inventors: Richard A. Zemer - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US8751562B2 ## CPC - G10L 13/00: Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems - G10L: SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING ## Abstract A system configured to pre-render an audio representation of textual content for subsequent playback includes a network, a source server, and a requesting device. The source server is configured to provide a plurality of textual content across the network. The requesting device includes a download unit, a signature generating unit, a signature comparing unit, and a text to speech conversion unit. The download unit is configured to download the plurality of textual content from the source server across the network. The signature generating unit is configured to generate a unique signature for each of the textual content. The signature comparing unit is configured to compare each unique signature with a prior corresponding signature to determine whether the corresponding textual content has changed. The text to speech conversion unit is configured to convert the textual content to speech when the textual content has been determined to have changed. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A system configured to pre-render an audio representation of textual content for subsequent playback, the system comprising: a requesting device comprising: a memory configured to store a computer program; and a processor configured to execute the computer program, wherein the computer program comprises: a download unit configured to download first textual content of a content type from a remote source server across a computer network; a signature generating unit configured to locally generate a first signature from the downloaded first textual content, wherein the first signature identifies the first textual content; a signature comparing unit configured to locally compare the first signature with a second signature identifying a previously downloaded second textual content of the same content type to determine whether the second textual content differs from the first textual content; a text to speech conversion unit configured to convert the first textual content to speech only when the signature comparing unit determines that the second textual content differs from the first textual content; and wherein, when resources of the requesting device are limited, the requesting device is configured to transfer the speech to the remote source server and remove the speech from itself. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the requesting device is configured to pre-fetch textual content of the same content type at a periodic download rate. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the requesting device further comprises a storage device to store the signatures, the downloaded textual content, and a preference file to store content types of the textual content to be downloaded and the periodic download rates of each of the content types. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the requesting device further comprises a media player configured to play the speech. ### Claim 5 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the signature generating unit uses a message digest (MD) hashing algorithm to generate the signatures. ### Claim 6 (depends on 5) The system of claim 5, wherein each of the signatures are MD5 signatures. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the textual content is in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the textual content includes at least one of an Aviation Routine Weather Report (METAR) format or a Terminal Aerodrome Format (TAF). ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, further comprising: a parser that is configured to parse the textual content into tokens; and a converter to convert at least part of the tokens into human readable text. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the content type indicates that the first textual content is one of a weather report, a traffic report, a horoscope, a recipe, or a news report. ### Claim 11 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein, during a subsequent download period when the speech is present on the server, the requesting device is configured to download the speech from the server instead of textual content of the content type to play the speech. ### Claim 12 A method to pre-render an audio representation of textual content for subsequent playback, the method comprising: downloading, by a first device, first textual content of a content type during a first period from a server remote from the first device; converting, by the first device, the first textual content to first speech; computing, by the first device, a first signature from the first textual content that identifies the first textual content; downloading, by the first device, second textual content for the same content type from the server during a second period after the first period; computing, by the first device, a second signature from the second textual content that identifies the second textual content; converting, by the first device, the second textual content to second speech only when the first signature differs from the second signature; and when resources of the first device are limited, transferring the first or second speech from the first device to the server and removing the transferred speech from the first device. ### Claim 13 (depends on 12) The method of claim 12, wherein the computing of the signatures comprises performing a secure hash algorithm (SHA) on at least part of the corresponding textual content. ### Claim 14 (depends on 12) The method of claim 12, further comprising: downloading, by a second device remote from the server and the first device, the transferred speech from the r-emote server; and playing the downloaded transferred speech locally on the second device. ### Claim 15 (depends on 12) The method of claim 12, further comprising, during a subsequent download period when the transferred speech is present on the server, the first device downloading the transferred speech from the server instead of third textual content of the content type to play the transferred speech.