NL2009664C2

NL2009664C2 - Methods and devices for aggregating and organising content and providing content to a user.

Info

Publication number: NL2009664C2
Application number: NL2009664A
Authority: NL
Inventors: Hendrikus Johannes Visser
Original assignee: Voiceinternet B V
Priority date: 2012-10-18
Filing date: 2012-10-18
Publication date: 2014-04-22

Description

Methods and devices for aggregating and organising content and providing content to a user

Technical field 5 The various aspects relate to the field of aggregation, organisation, selection and reproduction of content.

Background

More and more content has been, is and will be available. People want to have access io to content and many people want to consume more and more content. Content is usually primarily consumed by means of a display and a touch sensitive display in particular. In case people need to keep their eyes focused on other things than a display displaying content and displaying options for selecting content, today's devices cannot be used in such scenarios.

15

Summary

It is preferred to dispose of a content reproduction device that is arranged to provide content to a user in a, for such scenarios, more practical way and for a content supply service providing content to such a device in an organised way.

20 A first aspect provides, in a content supply server, a method of providing content to a user device, comprising aggregating content items and categorising the aggregated content items in at least one hierarchical level comprising multiple categories. Subsequently, a first menu is created, the first menu comprising first menu items 2 5 corresponding to the categories and a second menu is created, the second menu comprising second menu items corresponding to categorised content items categorised in a first category. The first menu and the second menu are sent to the user device. Upon receiving input from the user device, the received input comprising information corresponding to a selected second menu item, a content item identified by the selected 3 0 second menu item is sent to the user device.

By providing the content in an organised way to the user device, content is easier to access for a user. By providing a hierarchical menu structure, one menu does not contain too many items. This is particularly useful in case the menu is provided in 3 5 spoken form. An alphabetical list with 100 items is relatively easy to process and items can be conveniently selected from such list if displayed at once on a display. But if such 2 list would be presented as a spoken menu, presentation of the list to the user would take too long.

In an embodiment of the first aspect, categorising the aggregated content items 5 comprises: finding a first commonality feature being shared by a first group of aggregated content items and finding a second commonality feature being shared by a second group of aggregated content items. Subsequently, a first category is defined for content items identified by the first commonality feature and a second category is defined for content items identified by the second commonality feature. Subsequently, io the first commonality feature is defined as a first menu item of the first menu; and the second commonality feature is defined as a second menu item of the first menu.

This yields a dynamic menu structure, with an option of changing items in each hierarchy of the menu. This is particularly advantageous in case of changing user 15 preferences for content aggregated.

In a further aspect of the first aspect, the content items comprise text based data and image data, and the method further comprises removing image data from the aggregated content items and storing the text based data as the content items.

20

With content reproduced by the user device preferably or optionally only in audible format, image data may not be required and may even be completely superfluous. Even though the cost of data storage is very low, this embodiment may significantly reduce storage space required for storing content items. Furthermore, the amount of bandwidth 2 5 required for sending the content items is reduced as well, resulting in savings on cost and energy.

A second aspect provides in a content reproduction device, a method of providing content to a user. The method comprises receiving a first menu from a content supply 3 0 server, the first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to content item categories and receiving a second menu from a content supply server, the second menu comprising second menu items corresponding to categorised content items categorised in a first category. The first menu is presented to a user in an audible format. Spoken input is subsequently received from the user, the spoken input being 3 5 related to a content item and the input is sent to the content supply server. Subsequently, the content item is received from the content supply server; the content 3 item being related to the input from the user; and the content item is reproduced in an audible format.

In an embodiment of the second aspect, the spoken input is converted to text and 5 sending the input to the content supply server comprises sending the input converted to text.

An advantage of this is that less bandwidth and energy is consumed sending the input to the content supply server. Text only takes far less data space than spoken text, for io storage as well as transmission.

In a further embodiment of the second aspect, the first menu and the second menu are received as text and the method further comprises converting the text of the first menu and the second menu to spoken text.

15

This embodiment has similar advantages as the previous embodiment.

A third aspect provides a content supply server comprising a processing unit and a communication unit. The processing unit is arranged to: aggregate content items; 2 0 categorise the aggregated content items in at least one hierarchical level comprising multiple categories; create a first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to the categories; and create a second menu comprising second menu items corresponding to categorised content items categorised in a first category. The communication unit arranged to: send the first menu and the second to the user device; 2 5 receive input from the user device, the received input comprising information corresponding to a selected second menu item; and send a content item identified by the selected second menu item to the user device.

A fourth aspect provides a content reproduction device. The content reproduction 3 0 device comprises a communication module arranged to: receive a first menu from a content supply server, the first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to content item categories; receive a second menu from a content supply server, the second menu comprising second menu items corresponding to categorised content items categorised in a first category. The content reproduction device further comprises 3 5 an audio rendering module arranged to present the first menu to a user in an audible format and an audio sensor module arranged to receive spoken input from the user related to a content item.

4

In the content reproduction device, the communication unit is further arranged to: send the input to the content supply server and receiving the content item from the content supply server; the content item being related to the input from the user. The audio 5 rendering unit is further arranged to reproduce the content item in an audible format.

With the ability to present the menu structure to an audible format, to receive spoken input from the user and subsequently present a selected content item to the user in an audible format, the content reproduction device provides a convenient way to provide io content to a user who may need to use his or her hands and/or eyes for other operations, like driving a car.

A fifth aspect provides a content supply and reproduction system comprising: the content supply server according to the third aspect; and the content reproduction device 15 according to the fourth aspect. The communication unit of the content supply server is arranged to be operatively coupled to the communication unit of the content reproduction device for exchanging menu items, user input and content items.

Brief description of the drawings 2 0 The various aspects and embodiments thereof will now be discussed in further detail in conjunction with Figures. In the Figures:

Figure 1: shows a content supply server; 2 5 Figure 2: shows smartphone;

Figure 3: shows a content aggregation, supply and reproduction system;

Figure 4: shows a first flowchart; and 30

Figure 5: shows a second flowchart.

Detailed description

Figure 1 discloses a content supply server 100. The content supply server 100 3 5 comprises a first communication module 120, a central processing unit 110, a second communication unit 130 and a storage module 140. The first communication module 120 is preferably embodied as a network communication unit, like a DSL modem or a 5 fixed broadband connection in a server park. The first communication module 120 is in that way preferably a two-way communication module. The second communication module 130 may be implemented in the same or a similar way. Alternatively or additionally, the second communication module 130 is embodied as a mobile 5 communication transceiver for communicating with other devices over a wireless and more specifically cellular communication network. The communication over the cellular network may be voice channel of GSM or over a data channel like GPRS, SMS, DPA or LTE. In one embodiment, the content supply server 100 comprises one single communication module, performing the functionality of the first communication module io 120 and the second communication module 130.

The storage module 140 is preferably embodied as a harddisk drive, but may be embodied as a non volatile or volatile semiconductor memory as well. The central processing unit 110 may be a generic microprocessor as available from companies like 15 AMD and Intel. Such microprocessors are programmable to perform virtually any type of operations. Alternatively, the central processing unit 110 is an application specific integrated circuit or ASIC, an integrated circuit designed and manufactured to perform a specific role in a system. The central processing unit 110 may be embodied as a single circuit or as multiple circuits, either programmed by software or hardwired to perform 2 0 operations as discussed in further detail below.

The central processing unit 110 comprises a content aggregation module 112, a commonality analysis module 114, a categorisation module 116 and a menu generation module 118. In addition, the central processing unit 110 is arranged to provide further 2 5 functions, including controlling the operation of the various parts of the content supply server 100. The central processing unit is in this embodiment a generic microprocessor that is programmable to perform the various functions described below by means of software stored in the storage module 140. Alternatively, the software may be stored on another medium.

30

Figure 2 discloses a smartphone 200 as an embodiment of the content reproduction device according to the fourth aspect of the invention. The smartphone 200 comprises a transceiver module 220, a central processing unit 210, a storage module 240, an input audio processing unit 250 connected to a microphone 252 as an audio sensor, an 3 5 output audio processing unit 260 connected to a speaker 262 as an audio reproduction unit and a touchscreen 270 as visual output unit and an input unit for receiving user input.

6

The input audio processing unit 250 is arranged to provide audio data received to the central processing unit 210 and speech data provided by a user in particular. For speech data provided by a user and registered by the microphone 252, the input audio 5 processing unit 250 is arranged to convert the speech data to text and provide the text to the central processing unit.

The output audio processing unit 260 is arranged to provide audio data to the speaker 262 for reproduction of the date in an audible format. The output audio processing unit io 260 is to that purpose in one embodiment arranged to decompress data compressed in accordance with specific audio compression algorithms, like Ogg or MPEG 1 Layer 3. The output audio processing unit 260 may also be arranged to handle uncompressed audio frames (PCM, pulse code modulation). In another embodiment, the output audio processing unit 260 comprises a text to speech converter for converting text based data 15 to speech. The output audio processing unit 260 may be implemented in dedicated hardware in a separate circuit, as software in a separate circuit or as software running on the central processing unit 110.

The storage module 240 is in this embodiment a non-volatile memory and a Flash 2 0 memory in particular. The storage module 240 is arranged for local storage of content to be reproduced by the smartphone 200 and/or for generated by the smartphone 200. Furthermore, the storage module 240 is arranged for programming the central processing unit 210 for executing the various steps as discussed below in further detail.

2 5 The touchscreen 270 is arranged for user interaction, including providing visual data to the user and receiving input from the user. Although a touchscreen is a very common feature of a smartphone, embodiments can be envisaged without a touchscreen or even without a screen at all.

3 0 Figure 3 discloses a content distribution system 300 as an embodiment of the fifth aspect of the invention. The content distribution system 300 comprises the content supply server 100 and the smartphone 200. The content supply server 100 communicates with the smartphone 200 via the first network 310.1. The first network 310.1 may be a single cellular mobile communication network, a wired data 3 5 communication network, other, or a combination thereof.

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The content distribution system 300 is connected to a first content server 320.1, a second content server 320.2 and a third content server 320.3 via a second network 310.2. The second network 310.2 may be embodied in the same way as the first network 310.1. In one embodiment, the first network 310.1 and the second network 5 310.2 are one and the same network. The content servers are preferably web servers that make content accessible through the hypertext transfer protocol. Such content may be webpages, podcasts, other, or a combination thereof. The content servers 320 may also provide an RSS feed with references to content.

10 Figure 4 shows a flowchart 400 depicting a procedure as an embodiment of the first aspect. The following table provides a short description of the process steps of the flowchart 400.

Ref.__Step_ 402__Start procedure_ 404__Obtain list references_ 406__Obtain content from references_ 408__Text or audio?_ 410__Strip content from graphical information_ 412__Store content_ 414__Analyse content_ 416__Categorise data first level_ 418_ Categorise data second level 420__Create first level category menu_ 422__Create second level menus_ 424__Create content item menus_ 426__Receive menu request_ 428__Send menu_ 430_ Receive input on item 432__Send requested item_ 434__Send related items_ 436 End 15 The procedure starts in a terminator 402. Subsequently, the content supply server 100 obtains a list with references to content. The list may be provided as an RSS feed provided by one or more content servers 320. Alternatively, the list may be provided by 8 a search engine in response to the content supply server 100 or another computer providing a search term to the search engine. In yet another alternative, the content supply server has the list stored in the storage module 140. In again another alternative, the list is based on preferences of a user. Also the search term may be based on 5 preferences of a user. Such user preferences may have been received earlier. Alternatively, content is obtained upon receiving such user preferences.

From a practical point of view, user preferences may be obtained by means of manual input of a user, which input relates to certain preferred categories of content, certain io newspapers, books, weblogs and/or other types of content, one or more email accounts, including metadata like mailserver, username and password. This information may be entered by the user in the smartphone 200 or another device comprising user input means like a touch screen, microphone and/or keyboard and is subsequently provided to the content supply server 100.

15

Alternatively or additionally, user preferences may by obtained automatically by the content supply server 100 by retrieving or receiving aggregated user preferences from the smartphone 200 or another device having user preferences stored thereon, like a social media network server. Such aggregated user preferences may be favourites in a 2 0 web browser or other content rendering device or application, purchases of various content items like newspaper subscriptions and podcasts, content items that the user has indicated to "like" by means of a social media network site, other, or a combination thereof.

2 5 Based on this information, the central processing unit 210 may generate a general user preference profile. The general user preference profile may subsequently be used by the content aggregation module 112 for aggregating specific content that is at least probably preferred by the user. In this way, dedicated content is aggregated in line with individual user preferences.

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The aggregation of content, in any or all of the ways discussed above - or other ways -is carried out by the content aggregation module 112.

Having received the list with references, the content supply server 100 obtains the 3 5 content identified by the references comprised by the list from the webservers 320 in a step 406 by means of the first communication module 120.

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In a decision 408 is checked whether the content is text based, like a webpage, or audio based, like a podcast. A webpage with mixed text and image content is for this decision considered to be text based. If the content is audio based, the content is stored directly in the storage module 140 in a step 412. If the content is text based, the content is 5 stripped from any image data and typographic make up, like font type and font size in a step 410. In case the content item is accompanied by any meta data, the meta data is preferably preserved for later use. After the content has been stripped and basically a plain text file is available, the process continues with storing the stripped content in de step 412. Alternatively, only references to content are stored. A content item is in this 10 alternative only retrieved, stored and stripped in case applicable upon a request for the content item by a user.

After the content has been stored, the content is analysed in a step 414. The analysis may comprise various analysis techniques. One analysis technique is to find 15 commonalities between the content items stored. This analysis is carried out by the commonality analysis module 114. Such commonalities may be a topic of the text, a main language in which the text is provided, a reference at which the content has been obtained and the domain name in particular, an author, a publisher, a country of origin, an IP address of the reference, other, or a combination thereof. Such data may be 2 0 obtained by semantic analysis of the text and/or by analysis of meta data that may be provided with the content item. Alternatively, the content analysis only comprises scanning meta data, language, domain name, other characteristics of the content item or a combination thereof.

2 5 The content items are subsequently categorised in a step 416 on a first level. This operation is carried out by the categorisation module 116. The number of categories at the first level is preferably limited to a limited amount. The actual categories may be predefined as podcasts, newspapers, weblogs, company press releases, gossip magazines and the like. Alternatively, the categories are dynamic and based on the 3 0 outcome of the commonalities found in the previous step. In that case, the categories are defined as the commonalities shared by most of the content items. With a limited number of categories being for example nine, the nine commonalities that each have most content items are defined as the first level categories. One issue may be that some content items obtained may not fall in any of these categories. Optionally, an 3 5 additional category "miscellaneous" may be provided to resolve this. Content items may also fall in multiple categories. This is no issue, as long as not the majority of content 10 items falls in the majority of the first level categories. This may be resolved to ignore such commonality and pick another for categorisation.

In case the categories are pre-defined categories, the content items retrieved may not 5 be required to be analysed for commonalities. Rather, the content of the document (domestic news, sports, science), the provenance (published, website) and the nature (weblog, newspaper, podcast) may be more relevant for categorisation. This many significantly reduce processing time required for categorisation of the content items aggregated.

10

Within each first level category, the same steps are executed again to define second level categories and group content items in a specific group in a step 418. So per category, a commonality and/or meta data analysis or another analysis may be conducted for analysing content items and/or defining categories may be conducted.

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After the content has been categorised, menus are created by means of the menu generation module 118. In a step 420, a first level menu is created by setting the categories as menu items. With the number given above, nine menu items referring to specific content are created and one miscellaneous content item. Also further menu 2 0 items like "options" for adjusting personal preferences and "applications" for further applications provided as services may be created.

Next, per first level menu item and in particular per first level menu item related to content items, second level menus are created in a step 422. Such second level menus 2 5 correspond for content item related menu items to second level categories. And for each second level menu item, a content item menu is created in a step 424. In such content item menu, each menu item corresponds to a content item categorised in the second level menu item to which the content item menu corresponds.

3 0 The process continues with receiving a request for menu data in a step 426. Such menu data request is in this embodiment sent by the smartphone 200. In a step 428, the menu created as described above is sent to the smartphone 200 in a step 428. Sending and receiving is handled by the second communication module 130. The menu may be sent as a whole, sending all hierarchical levels at once. Alternatively, the menu is sent on a 3 5 per-level basis. In a step 430, input is received on a selected item. Such selected item may be a category on the first or second hierarchical level. In the second alternatively last mentioned, a specific second level menu would only be sent after a corresponding 11 first level menu would have been selected and that selection had been received by the content supply server 100.

If the input received in the step 430 relates to a specific content item, the content item is 5 looked up at the storage module 130 or, if only references are stored in the storage module 130, the content item is retrieved from a Webserver 320, processed in case required and sent to the smartphone 200 in a step 432. Text based content items are sent as text only, optionally with meta data and audio based content items like podcasts are sent as audio based content items, either compressed or not, optionally with meta io data.

With a data communication link open between the content supply server 100 and the smartphone 200, it is preferred to use the communication channel as efficiently as possible. Therefore, in an optional step 434 additional content items related to the 15 selected content item are sent to the smartphone 200 for local storage or caching. This is particularly advantageous if a user of the smartphone 200 will have to or wants to switch off data communication by the smartphone 200 at a soon to arrive later moment, for example to save battery life or because the user will enter an environment where radio communication is not allowed.

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Subsequently, the process ends in a terminator 436.

The process described above may not be preferred for email, due to security issues. Holders of email accounts and/or companies may not want their emails to be retrieved 2 5 and forwarded by the content supply server 100. Therefore, as an option implementation, where for example the second content server 320.2 is an email server, email may be sent from the second content server 320.2 directly to the smartphone 200. In this implementation, the second content server 320.2 communicates only limited information to the content supply server 100, like sender, email subject header, date, 3 0 time, other or a combination thereof. This information is used for generating the menu structure discussed above. Upon selection of email as a content item, in the same way as discussed above or a way similar to that, the content supply server 100 sets up an operational link between the second content server 320.2 and the smartphone 200 for transferring the content of the selected email or emails directly from the second content 3 5 server 320.2 to the smartphone 200.

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Figure 5 shows a flowchart 500 depicting a procedure as an embodiment of the second aspect. The following table provides a short description of the process steps of the flowchart 500.

Ref.__Step_ 502 Start procedure 504__Request menu_ 506 Receive menu 508 Convert selected menu level to speech 510__Provide menu level to user_ 512 Receive menu instruction 514 Convert spoken instruction to text 516 Instruction related to specific content item? 518 Send item request to content supply server 520 Receive requested content item 522 Receive related content items 524 Requested content item text based? 526 Convert requested content item to speech 528 Present requested content item to user 530 End procedure 5

The procedure starts with a terminator 502 and continues in a step 504 by sending a request for a menu to the content supply server 100. Such request for a menu may be sent in response to receiving a user input via the microphone 252 or the touchscreen 270. Alternatively, the smartphone 200 requests menu data at regular intervals.

10

In response to receiving the request for menu data, the content supply server sends the menu data, which is received by the smartphone 200 in a step 506. As discussed above, the menu data may be sent all at once or on a per-level basis. The menu data is stored in the non-volatile memory 240.

15

Having received the menu and after an input by the user to present the menu, data of the first level is converted to speech by the output audio processing unit 260 in a step 508. The converted text is presented to the user in an audible format via the speaker 262 in a step 510. The menu items of the first level are provided in consecutive order 13 and may be provided with consecutive numbers to make selection of the menu items more convenient. Optionally, the menu may also be provided on the touch screen 270.

After or even during presentation of the menu, the user may provide his or her 5 instruction indicating a choice for a certain menu item. The choice may be provided by speaking out the number of the menu item, the text of the menu item and/or by providing input via the touch screen 270. The input is received by the smartphone 200 in a step 512 by the microphone 252 and subsequently converted to text by the input audio processing unit 250 by means of an automatic speech recognition module. The io conversion to text may be a literal conversion to text, like the conversion of the spoken word "nine" to the text "nine" or the number "9". Alternatively, the spoken word nine is directly converted to an instruction to access the ninth menu item. In the first case, the conversion to an instruction for accessing the ninth menu item is done via an intermediate step of speech to text conversion.

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In a decision 516 is checked whether the instruction received is related to a selection of a specific content item to a menu of a lower hierarchy. If the instruction is meant to select a menu of a lower hierarchy, the process branches back to a step 508 by converting the lower hierarchy menu to speech. Alternatively, if the menu is provided on 2 0 per level basis, the process branches back to the step 504. If the instruction provided by the user relates to a specific content item, a request for that specific item is sent to the content supply server 100 in a step 518.

A content item can thus be selected by selecting a menu item at a higher hierarchy, 2 5 providing access to a menu at a lower level, providing access to an again lower level providing content items or a menu with categories again. Alternatively or additionally, it may also be possible to directly access a content item by sequentially pronouncing multiple numbers, related to menu items in consecutive hierarchies within the menu or by consecutively pronouncing names of content items in consecutive hierarchies. This is 3 0 particularly advantageous with fixed menu categories and in case a specific content item, like the front page of a newspaper is requested very often. Additionally or alternatively, an option to mark certain content items as conveniently and/or directly accessible favourites may be implemented.

3 5 The requested item is sent by the content supply server 100 and received by the smartphone 200 in a step 520. Optionally, the smartphone 200 may receive additional content items related to the requested content item in a step 522.

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In a decision 524 is checked whether the content item received and/or selected for reproduction by means of the speaker 262 is a text based content item or an audio based content item. If the content item is a text based item, it is converted to speech by 5 means of a text to speech converter comprised by the output audio processing unit 260. Subsequently, the synthesised speech data is provided to the user in an audible format by means of the speaker 262 in a step 528. If the content item is an audio based item, it is directly provided to the speaker 262 (via an amplifying module, in case required) for presentation to the user. Having reproduced the requested content item, the procedure lo ends in a terminator 530.

In summary, The disclosure relates to a method of providing content to a user device, comprising aggregating content items and categorising the content items in at least one hierarchical level comprising multiple categories. A first menu is created, comprising first 15 menu items corresponding to the categories and a second menu is created, comprising second menu items corresponding to content items categorised in the first category. The menus are sent to the user device for input. Having received information from the user device corresponding to a selected second menu item, content identified by the selected second menu item is sent to the user device. By providing the content in an 2 0 organised way to the user device, content is easier to access for a user. By providing a hierarchical menu structure, one menu does not have to contain too many items. This is particularly useful in case the menu is provided in spoken form.

Expressions such as "comprise", "include", "incorporate", "contain", "is" and "have" are 2 5 to be construed in a non-exclusive manner when interpreting the description and its associated claims, namely construed to allow for other items or components which are not explicitly defined also to be present. Reference to the singular is also to be construed in be a reference to the plural and vice versa.

3 0 In the description above, it will be understood that when an element such as layer, region or substrate is referred to as being "on", "onto" or "connected to" another element, the element is either directly on or connected to the other element, or intervening elements may also be present.

3 5 Furthermore, the invention may also be embodied with less components than provided in the embodiments described here, wherein one component carries out multiple functions. Just as well may the invention be embodied using more elements than 15 depicted in Figure 1, wherein functions carried out by one component in the embodiment provided are distributed over multiple components.

A person skilled in the art will readily appreciate that various parameters disclosed in 5 the description may be modified and that various embodiments disclosed and/or claimed may be combined without departing from the scope of the invention.

It is stipulated that the reference signs in the claims do not limit the scope of the claims, but are merely inserted to enhance the legibility of the claims.

Claims

A content delivery server, a method for delivering content to a user device, the method comprising:

5. Collecting content items; Categorizing content items in at least one hierarchical level comprising multiple categories; Creating a first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to the categories; - Creating a second menu comprising second menu items that correspond to categorized items that are categorized in the first category; Sending the first menu and the second menu to the user device;

15. Receiving input from the user device, the received input comprising information corresponding to a selected menu item; and Send to the user device a content item identified by the selected second menu item. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting content items comprises: Receiving a list comprising references to locations of content items; and Receiving content items from the locations. 25

The method of claim 2, wherein: the references to the locations include a URI; and Content items are categorized by domain name. 4. Method as claimed in any of the foregoing claims, wherein collecting content items comprises: Receiving user preferred data; Search for content items that match the user preference data; and

5. Receive content items that match the user preference data.

A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein categorizing the collected content items comprises: Determining a first common property that is shared by content items in a first group of content items;

5. Determining a second common property that is shared by content items in a second group of content items; Defining a first category of content items identified by the first common property; Defining a second category of content items identified by the second common property; Defining the first common property as a first menu item of the first menu; and Defining the second common property read a second menu item from the first menu. 15

The method of claim 5, further comprising: determining a third common property shared by a third group of content items included in the first category; Determining a fourth common property that is shared by 2. a fourth group of content items included in the first category; Defining a first sub-category for content items identified by the third common property; Defining a second sub-category for content items identified by the fourth common property;

25. Creating a third menu comprising third menu items corresponding to the first sub-category and the second sub-category; Defining the third common property as a first menu item from the third menu; and Defining the fourth common property as a second menu item from the third menu.

A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the content items comprise text and image-based data, the method further comprising removing image-based data from the collected 3. content items and storing the text-based data as the content items.

8. Method as claimed in any of the foregoing claims, further comprising, following receiving of the input from the user of the user device, the input comprising information corresponding to a second selected menu item, sending a further content item related to the content item. The method of claim 8, wherein the further content items correspond to a further menu items provided in the second menu together with the selected second menu item. 10. in a content reproduction apparatus, a method of delivering content to a user, the method comprising: Receiving a first menu item from a content delivery server, the first menu item comprising first menu items corresponding to content item categories; Receiving a second menu from the content delivery server, the first menu comprising second menu items that correspond to categorized content items that are categorized in a first category; Presenting the first menu to the user in an audible 2. format; Receive spoken input from the user, which input is related to a content item; Sending the input to the content delivery server; Receiving the content items from the content delivery server, which 2. content items is related to user input; and Reproducing the content item in audible format.

The method of claim 10, wherein the spoken input is converted to text and sending the input to the content delivery server comprises sending the text-converted input.

A method according to any of claims 10 or 11, wherein the first menu and the second menu are received as text and the method further comprising converting the text of the first menu and the second menu into spoken text. 35

A content delivery server comprising: A processing unit configured to: Collect content items; Categorize the collected content items into at least one hierarchical level comprising multiple categories; Create a first menu, the first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to the categories; and create a second menu, the second menu comprising second menu items corresponding to categorized menu items categorized into a first category; and A communication module designed to:

10. Send the first menu and the second menu to a user device; To receive input from the user device, the received input including information corresponding to a selected second menu item; and

15. Sending a content item identified by sending the second selected menu item to the user device.

14. Content reproduction device comprising: A communication module arranged to:

A first menu to be received from a content delivery server, the first menu comprising first menu items corresponding to content item categories; Receive a second menu from a content delivery server, the second menu comprising second menu items that 2. correspond to categorized content items that are categorized in a first category; A sound reproduction module adapted to present the first menu to an user in audible format; A sound sensor module adapted to receive spoken input from the user 30, which input is related to a content item; Where: The communication module is designed to: Send the input to the content delivery server; Receive the content item from the content delivery server, 3. which content item is related to the user's input; and The sound reproduction module is further arranged to reproduce the content item in an audible format.

A content delivery and reproduction system comprising: The content delivery server according to claim 13; and The content reproduction device according to claim 14;

5 The communication module of the content delivery server is further adapted to be operatively linked to the communication module of the content reproduction device for exchanging menu items, user input and content items. 16. A computer program product stored on a computer readable medium, comprising computer program code adapted to perform the method of claim 1 when the code is executed by a computer.

17. Computer program product stored on a computer readable medium, comprising computer program code adapted to perform the method of claim 1 when the code is executed by a computer.