Importance

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Abstract

A system and method of information dissemination that permits the user to listen to the specific content of information when and where he or she wants to. A radio or television receiver system receives information from a FM subcarrier, a television vertical blanking interval transmission, a television separate audio program transmission or a dedicated channel and stores the transmitted information in a memory. A user interface allows selection from the memory of the stored information via a set of menus controlling a hierarchical database, so as to access particular items of information. Typically the system includes RAM and/or a storage medium such as a digital audio tape,a magneto-optical mini-disk, a magnetic disk or optical disk, sufficient to store information for 10 hours of audio. A decompression device, accepts the accessed compressed digital audio information items which may have been encrypted and transforms them into spoken speech. The user interface is either by voice or a single or multi-position switch allowing scanning through and selection from the menu items. The signal for such a device is generated by converting analog audio signals into a digital audio data stream which may be encrypted. The encrypted digital data stream is compressed and inserted on the radio or television carrier via an FM Subcarrier, the television vertical interval or the separate audio program channel of a television transmitter. The system is also capable of transmitting alphanumeric data and converting this alphanumeric to a voice form using a speech synthesizer.

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First Claim