College of Business Professors Awarded Patent for New-Generation Mobile Technology Invention
JONESBORO – The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent to inventors and Arkansas State University faculty members Dr. Ralph Ruby, Jr. and Dr. Paula D. Ruby for their research, development and application of a number of unique intellectual robust functionality properties for communicating and note-taking using a mobile device.
The title of the patent is Translator and was granted on Nov. 10, 2015. The United States Copyright Office has also issued a copyright certificate for the unique intellectual property of the Translator code to the pair. Both Ralph Ruby, Jr. and Paula D. Ruby are professors of Computer and Information Technology (CIT) in the College of Business.
“This is a great accomplishment by Ralph and Paula and I think it provides a terrific example of the innovative culture we strive for here in the A-State College of Business,” said Dr. Shane Hunt, dean of the College of Business.
“The dual purpose of the patented and copyrighted Translator mobile technology is to personalize life making it more intuitive, less complicated and more efficient when communicating,” said Paula Ruby. “It also helps increase student academic success by providing the only intellectual property for decoding, in their note-taking process, thus enhancing student retention levels and learning.
“The Translator improves mobile device communications by allowing individuals to use abbreviations, initials and symbols in place of long words, or phrases, to increase the entry process. When texting, on a mobile device, the Translator will automatically decode abbreviations, initials, and symbols on-the-fly.”
When integrated with any of the universally-recognized and highly recommended educational note-taking templates or organizers by the top 400 universities in the world such as Stanford, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Oxford (United Kingdom), Cambridge (United Kingdom), Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and the University of Chicago, abbreviations, initials and symbols may be decoded either on-the-fly or saved and decoded at a more convenient time.
Another important function of the Translator is its ability to reverse the decoding process. A word or phrase may be inputted to display its abbreviation, initial or symbol. This functionality provides a feature to help parents, educators and law enforcement to better understand, use and monitor communications when the communications is in the commonly referred form of texting.
The Translator also has the ability to use commercially prepared dictionaries. To maintain the highest integrity of a commercially prepared dictionary, the user is not permitted to edit any of the dictionary data. However, the user may delete or block the entire commercially prepared dictionary from being part of the user’s database, or block an abbreviation, initial or symbol and its meaning from being recognized.
These commercially prepared dictionaries can be designed to be used in education to accompany a textbook for a specific educational course or for a specific occupation or other purposes. They may also be used to help individuals in a specific occupation or profession keep life simpler and more efficient when communicating.
The Translator also allows the user to create a personalized dictionary, database of abbreviations, initials and symbols and their meanings. The user can give a personalized dictionary a unique name, display abbreviations, initials and symbols and their meanings, edit and merge with other personalized dictionaries or delete entries or the entire dictionary. Personalized dictionaries may also be emailed.
Personalized dictionaries may be created for specific occupations such as for computer information technology, business technology, education, medical, legal, accounting, law enforcement, marketing, logistics, management, finance, nursing, farming or any other occupation. Personalized dictionaries may be written in any language or in multiple languages.
“This may well be the most important advancement in personal text communications in over 23 years, since Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test engineer for Sema Group (now Airwide Solutions), sent the first text message on Dec. 3, 1992, and in note-taking, in over 65 years, when Dr. Walter Pauk introduced his now world famous Cornell Notes in 1950,” said Ralph Ruby, Jr.
Dr. Walter Pauk, retired law professor and director of the learning and media center at Cornell University, author and inventor of Cornell Notes, in his internationally recognized college textbook titled How to Study in College, recommends using abbreviations and initials to take notes, cautions against using too many abbreviations and initials because their meanings must be remembered and manually decoded at a later time.
The Translator eliminates Dr. Pauk’s major decoding concern, making life more intuitive, easier and less complicated, by automatically decoding abbreviations, initials, and symbols. When there are multiple meanings for an abbreviation, initial or symbol the translator displays all of the meanings giving the user the functionality to select the best or most appropriate meaning.
