Computer network audio access and conversion system

We claim:

1. An interface system for presenting one or more computer documents in an audio format and navigating through said documents, comprising:

an audio interface for receiving a user command;

a call manager connected to the audio interface for controlling the routing of information to and from the audio interface;

a translator connected to the call manager for translating the user command into a subject word or phrase;

a browser connected to the call manager for retrieving a document identified by a link from a computer network related to the subject word or phrase;

a parser connected to the call manager for parsing the document into file segments according to the standard format;

an audio file player connected to the call manager for playing audio file segments contained in the document to the audio interface.

2. An interface system according to claim 1 wherein the user command comprises a dual-tone multi-frequency signal.

3. An interface system according to claim 2 wherein the user command comprises a user voice commands.

4. An interface system according to claim 1 wherein the user command comprises a user voice commands.

5. An interface system according to claim 4 further comprising a voice recognition engine associated with said call manager.

6. An interface system according to claim 4 further comprising a speech-to-text converter associated with said call manager.

7. An interface system according to claim 1 further comprising:

a searcher connected to the call manager for searching a computer network for file addresses of files related to the subject word or phrase.

8. An interface system according to claim 1 further comprising:

a computer memory connected to the parser for storing predetermined file addresses.

9. An interface system according to claim 1 further comprising:

a transformer connected to the call manager for transforming a non-audio file segment into an audio file segment.

10. An interface system according to claim 9 wherein the transformer comprises a text-to-speech converter.

11. An interface system according to claim 10 wherein the transformer comprises a file decompression unit.

12. An interface system according to claim 9 wherein the transformer comprises an audio decoder.

13. An interface system according to claim 1 wherein the translator comprises a dual-tone multi-frequency detector.

14. An interface system according to claim 13 wherein the translator comprises a speech-to-text converter.

15. An interface system according to claim 1 wherein the translator comprises a speech-to-text converter.

16. An interface system for presenting one or more computer documents in an audio format and for navigating through said documents comprising:

(A) an intelligent signal control point comprising:

(1) a call manager for controlling the routing of information to and from an audio interface; and

(2) a user command interpreter connected to the audio interface;

(B) a server intelligent peripheral connected to the intelligent signal control point comprising:

(1) a browser for retrieving documents identified by a link from one or more computer storage facilities; and

(2) a parser for parsing the document into segments according to the content of the document; and

(3) a presentation manager for directing the presentation of the segments; and

(C) a speech intelligent peripheral connected to the intelligent signal control point comprising:

(1) a speech-to-text converter; and

(2) a text-to-speech converter.

17. An interface system according to claim 16 wherein the server intelligent peripheral further comprises a searcher for searching the computer storage facilities for documents according to a predetermined criteria and indexing documents that satisfy said criteria along with an address of said documents.

18. An interface system according to claim 16 further comprising computer memory connected to the intelligent signal control point.

19. An interface system according to claim 18 wherein the memory contains a caller identification for identifying a user of the audio interface.

20. An interface system according to claim 18 wherein the memory contains a location identification for identifying the location of the audio interface.

21. An interface system according to claim 16 wherein the user command comprises a dual-tone multi-frequency signal.

22. An interface system according to claim 16 wherein the user command comprises a user voice command.

23. An interface system according to claim 22 further comprising a voice recognition engine associated with said call manager.

24. An interface system according to claim 22 further comprising a speech-to-text converter associated with said call manager.

25. A document navigation and audio presentment method comprising the steps of:

accessing a computer document;

interpreting content of the document;

converting segments of the document to audio information based on the interpretation of the content of the segments;

navigating through said document responsive to user commands; and

invoking actions dictated by content of said document in response to a user command.

26. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of converting comprises the step of playing audio files.

27. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of converting comprises the step of text-to-speech conversion.

28. A method according to claim 27 wherein the step of converting comprises imposing different audio characteristics on different types of segments.

29. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of invoking content based actions comprises the step of accessing linked documents when the content is a link to a second computer document.

30. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of accessing comprises accessing locally stored documents.

31. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of accessing comprises accessing remotely stored documents.

32. A method according to claim 25 wherein the step of accessing comprises accessing documents stored in a computer network.

33. An audio interface system comprising:

a document access and retrieval unit associated with one or more computer document storage facilities;

a parser, associated with said access and retrieval unit, which identifies the format of segments of retrieved documents based on the type of content contained in said segments;

one or more audio output devices, responsive to the parser, wherein said audio output devices convert segments of said document to audio information in accordance with the format of said segments;

a linker capable of retrieving documents identified by a link when the content contained in said segments is a document link.

34. An audio interface system according to claim 33 where the audio information is a signal suitable to be played to a user through a telephone.

35. An audio interface system according to claim 33 further comprising:

a command response unit, responsive to a user command, for controlling document presentation.

36. An audio interface system according to claim 35 wherein said access and retrieval unit is connected to said command response unit.

37. An audio interface system according to claim 35 wherein said command response unit is responsive to content of said document subject to user commands.

38. An audio interface system according to claim 37 wherein, responsive to a user command, said command response unit will instruct the access and retrieval unit to retrieve a second document based on the content of a first document.

Description Submit all comments and votes

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to accessing information from a computer network via a telephone, PDA equipped with an audio input/output or other portable device, speaker phone, or other audio device. More specifically, this invention relates to dynamically converting standard document formats, such as hyper-text mark-up language (HTML), standardized graphic mark-up language (SGML), Hytime, and electronic mail (E-mail), for use in an audio interface, locally or over a telephony network.

2. Discussion of the Related Technology

Voice mail and other interactive voice response (IVR) systems allow a user to access audio information stored in a computer memory such as a hard disk. Typically, the audio information is stored in audio files created either by the user or for the user. Conventional IVR systems use dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signalling to allow the user to interact with the server through a standard telephone keypad. Pre-recorded audio information is available on IVR systems in the form of instructional phrases such as "Please type in your account number followed by the pound sign."

Pre-recorded audio is also used for introductory phrases such as "Your account balance is . . . " At this point, the IVR computer may access a connected database that stores the requested account balance in numerical format, convert the numerical format to an audio format using a numerical text-to-speech engine, and state the account balance. This conversion from numerical format to audio format is extremely rigid and completely predefined. IVR systems are "closed" in that each IVR system is uniquely designed, not connected to a computer network, and IVR systems cannot be used interchangeably. Also, these IVR systems are designed specifically for audio interaction.

In contrast, audio/visual information on a audio/visual server in a computer network may be accessed using a personal computer. For example, a World Wide Web (Web) page on the Internet may be accessed using a computer linked through an Internet access provider, such as America On Line.TM. or Prodigy.TM., to a Web server. In certain situations, however, use of a computer may not be feasible or access to a computer may not be possible. For example, a cellular telephone user driving an automobile may want to know about traffic in the surrounding area, however, the user cannot operate a computer while in the car. In situations such as this, an audio interface may be useful for obtaining information from the Internet or another computer network.

Other situations where an audio interface to a computer network may be useful include accessing an electronic calendar on a local area network (LAN) to receive or modify an itinerary, accessing E-mail on the Internet or a wide-area network (WAN) while away from a computer, and requesting a telephone number from an electronic yellow pages or white pages while at a pay phone. An audio interface to the Web could also be used to traverse the Internet and obtain information residing on various Web servers.

Thus, there is a need for flexible access to various types of computer networks via an audio interface. There is a need for interactive telephone access to a computer network. There is also a need for dynamic conversion of an audio/visual file format to a pure audio format.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The computer network audio access and conversion system allows a user to access information originally formatted for audio/visual interfacing on a computer network via a simple telephone. Of course, information formatted specifically for audio interfacing, such as information from voice mail and other IVR systems, can also be accessed by the system. A user can call a designated telephone number and request information via DTMF signalling or through voice commands. The system analyzes the user's request, establishes a connection with a target computer network, and finds and retrieves the requested information in a standard document file format, such as HTML which is used on the World Wide Web. The document file is analyzed by the system, and depending on the different types of structures used in the file, information is translated from an audio/visual format to an audio format and played to the user via the telephone interface. Typically, the system will use a text-to-speech engine to convert the document to audio information.

For example, if a Web page is returned from the Internet, the title of the Web page may be read in a low male voice. Headline information (or text formatted above a certain typesize) may be read in a female voice. General text information (or text formatted below a certain typesize) may be read in a different voice. A hyper-text link may be read in a contrasting voice, or a bell sound may be used to indicate a hyper-text link. Hyper-text lists may be read to the user in a menu format with an opportunity for the user to select a list entry following the speaking of each entry by the system. This may be accomplished by passing the document through a parser to interpret its contents. The document may then be passed through a text-to-speech engine to read the text. The engine may be responsive to the parser in order to select the voice that is used. In addition, the parser will select what portions of the document are converted to speech.

Throughout the speaking of the Web page, a user may interact with the system through DTMF signalling or voice control. For example, the user may press 1 to indicate the selection of a hyper-text link during a one second period after a hyper-text link is indicated. Or the user may speak a list entry after the speaking of a hyper-text list to select a hyper-text link.

The user interaction is the mechanism by which a user navigates between and within the documents. The system may present navigation options in order to assist the user in the form of a menu or simply by using a recognized voice or other audio signal to designate navigational options. The system may permit navigation based on the content of a document or other criteria.

The user command may be DTMF signals or other recognized signaling methods, or by voice response. The voice response system may be a voice recognition system where the voice recognition will attempt to match a speech input to a preselected list of potential selections or choices. The preselected list can be thought of as the dictionary of words that the voice recognition system will recognize. The voice response system may alternatively be a speech-to-text system which will simply convert a user command to text which will then be used by the system to control navigation.

According to an advantageous feature, the system will respond to a user input to navigate the document or documents based on content of the document. All documents may contain content which is useful for navigation. For example, an HTML document may contain tags designating links or portions of a document. The system will attempt to navigate to a location corresponding to a user command and effect any action possible at that location. For example, if the command corresponds to a link, then the system will take the linked action (such as play an audio file or jump to another document). If the command corresponds to textual content, the system will skip to the next occurrence corresponding to the command in the document. For example, in a document containing a list of stock symbols and quotes, if a user inputs a command corresponding to a stock symbol, the system may skip ahead to the symbol and begin "reading" at the location of the stock symbol.

Also, advanced intelligent network (AIN) features may be incorporated into the system to allow access to individual user profiles using caller identification (ID) information, location profiles using location ID information, user preferences, and sensitive networks using a combination of caller ID, password, and voice recognition information. Additionally, an AIN connection may be used to designate a home page for an individual user, define other preferences, or enhance security by implementing encryption or communicating encryption keys.

Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an audio information presentation system for accessing and navigating through electronic documents and presenting information contained in documents which are not constrained by an audio compatible format. It is a feature of the invention to permit access to electronic information, which is not specifically formatted for audio retrieval, without the requirement of a traditional computer access device. The system is suited for accessing information contained on a computer network, including the internet, without a computer terminal. Information may be accessed over the telephone by people without a computer or individuals with special needs such as those who may have difficulty using a computer, i.e., visually impaired, mobility impaired, or individuals with other requirements that make using a computer difficult.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows the software and hardware architecture of a preferred embodiment.

FIG. 2 shows the system architecture of a preferred embodiment.

FIG. 3 shows an advanced intelligent network implementation of a preferred embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows an advanced intelligent network implementation