Patent published on August 22, 2023

IBM's New Patent Could Make Writing Easier

Every day, billions of pieces of electronic content — be it an email, a blog post, a social media update, or a professional report — are composed and shared around the globe. Crafting a meaningful piece of content often requires a march through varying stages that could either take a handful of seconds or drag on for tedious hours. Quite frequently, content creation hits a roadblock, compelling the authors to fill the vacuum with lower-quality material simply to finalize and distribute their work. In some cases, the content lacks richness because the author didn't have access to crucial additional information. Culling pertinent, enriching content from the infinite sea of electronic information is no easy task. And herein, lies the predicament.

IBM's patent, US11734371B2, titled 'Multi-sensory content authorship aid,' seeks to find a viable solution to this prevalent issue. It aims to provide a dynamic way of auto-gathering, filtering, and presenting meaningful content that could support the author during content creation.

The new tool, hence, is akin to having a friendly assistant by your side. Imagine writing about the experience of being at a beach. With knowledge of your location — the beach in this case — this tool could encourage you to talk about things that are typically experienced there. It could suggest discussing the building of sandcastles or collecting seashells, ideas drawn from a database on what is usually found or done at that place. These parameters for suggestions could cover all five senses — sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. The tool thus offers a more complex service, including the likes of graphical ontology or fragment frequency and selection.

Effectively, this new solution could revolutionize content creation in numerous ways. Writers stuck in a rut would find a handy accomplice, guiding them with apt suggestions to get past the block. By incorporating more relevant and rich information, blogs, articles, and even social media posts could become more engaging and valuable to readers. Professional reports could see a substantial boost in quality, contributing to more productive business discussions. The world of content creation might just be on the cusp of becoming smoother, richer, and far less daunting.

The patent outlines a promising future for authors of all categories, from professionals to hobbyists. But it's worth noting that patents are potential commercial solutions, and there's no absolute certainty that this concept will make it to market or in what form it may appear. Until then, we can only imagine and hope for a future where writing is no more a laborious task but a seamlessly guided experience.

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