Method and apparatus for improving listener differentiation of talkers during a conference call

• US 20040013252A1
• Filed: 07/18/2002
• Published: 01/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: General Instrument Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Craner, Michael L.
• Granted Patent: US 6,882,971 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/142.01
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/63 for estimating an emotional state
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/247 Telephone sets including user guidance or feature selection means facilitating their use user interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones H04M1/724
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/575 Means for retrieving and displaying personal data about calling party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72427 for supporting games or graphical animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/06 Recording class or number of calling , i.e. A-party or called party , i.e. B-party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/62 user interface aspects of conference calls
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42042 Notifying the called party of information on the calling party details within substation equipment H04M1/57, signalling details H04Q3/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/569 using the instant speaker's algorithm speech detection per se G10L25/78

Abstract

A method and associated apparatus for indicating the voice of each talker from a plurality of talkers to be heard by a listener. The method uses a signal that is transmitted over a telecommunications system. The method includes projecting the voice from each one of the plurality of talkers to the listener. A talker indicator is provided proximate to the listener. Talker identification information is generated in the talker indicator that can be used to indicate the identity of each talker who is speaking at any given time to the listener. A device is coupled to the talker indicator that can transmit the voice signal from each talker to the listener. In different aspects, the talker identification information can include such varied indicators as audio, video, or an announcement combined with a temporally compressed voice signal. In another aspect, an emotographic figure is displayed to the listener that each represent a distinct talker. The mood of each emotographic is somehow configured to reflect the mode of the talker, as indicated by the talker'"'"'s voice.

Claims

1. A method for communicating a voice signal and talker identification information from a plurality of talkers to at least one listener, the method comprising:

conveying the voice signal from the plurality of talkers to a first terminal point;

conveying the talker identification information that individually identifies each one of the plurality of talkers to a second terminal point, wherein the listener can access the voice signal from the first terminal point and the talker identification information from the second terminal point; and

indicating to the listener which talker is speaking in response to the talker identification information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a plurality of channels, each channel extending at least part of the way between at least one of the plurality of talkers and the listener;

associating each one of the plurality of channels with one or more of the plurality of talkers; and

transmitting signals through at least some of the plurality of channels, each signal corresponds to a distinct talker who is speaking.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising using the channel identifier to derive a pointer into a database to identify data relevant to the talker who is speaking at any given time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said second terminal point includes a visual display including at least one from the group of a plurality of LEDs, an alphanumeric display, a graphical display, a CRT display, an LCD display, a holographic projection, or an audible sound segment to display the talker identification information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said second terminal point includes a visual display including a plurality of areas, each area in said plurality of areas represents one or more of said talkers, and the method includes differentiating the area representing said talker who is speaking relative to areas representing other talkers.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicating the talker who is speaking is provided over a display, the indicating includes one from the group of illuminating a portion of the display, changing the color of a portion of the display, blinking a portion of the display, varying the intensity of a portion of the display, and varying multiple characteristics of a portion of the display.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicating the talker includes displaying a figure, the figure is displayed using at least one from the group of iconic graphics, caricature graphics, emotigraphics, alphanumerics, graphics, digital photographics, animated graphics, hybrid digital photographic and caricatures, text blocks, and combined text and graphics.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the indicating the talker further includes at least one from the group of animating, highlighting, enhancing, embellishing with text, blinking, morphing, flipping, changing the color of, changing the intensity of, animating the subcomponents of, changing the apparent emotional state of, animating the mouth of, or rotating the figure representing the talker.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the conveying the talker characteristic information includes a text block containing information about the talker.

10. The method of claim 9, including providing text in the text box relating to the voice signal of the talker within said text box.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicating the talker includes projecting the voice corresponding to different talkers to different apparent locations relative to the first terminal point.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the projecting involves projecting the different voices at different signal strengths through a plurality of speakers.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the projecting uses a head related transfer function [HRTF] technique.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the projecting includes associating an audio announcement with a segment of the voice signal.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said audio announcement includes an indicator that distinguishes the talker who is speaking from other talkers.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein said audio announcement precedes the talkers voice signal.

17. The method of claim 14, including:

temporally compressing the voice signal from an original length to a shortened length;

providing the audio announcement with a duration substantially equal to the difference between said original length and said shortened length;

mixing said temporally compressed voice signal and said audio announcement to create a mixed temporally compressed sound segment that lasts less than or equal to the same duration as the original length of the voice signal; and

playing the mixed temporally compressed voice signal and the audio announcement at the first terminal point.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the pitch of the temporally compressed voice signal is substantially equal to the pitch of the original voice signal.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the audio announcement includes one from the group of the talkers name, a musical sequence, a tone, a beep, an alert, a warble, a click, a buzz, or a subsonic pulse.

20. The method of claim 1, further including:

creating a unique handle for each talker in a conference call over the talker identification system;

storing a voice sample for one or more talkers;

retrieving the voice sample for one or more talkers; and

matching the voice sample from each of the one or more talkers that most closely match the voice signal.

21. The method of claim 20, further including:

capturing and storing data relevant to each talker; and

retrieving data relevant to each talker from storage.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein said voice signal is carried on a packet based network as a series of packets, and said packets include packet origination information, the method additionally including:

extracting at least a part of said packet origination information from said series packets to provide origination data;

searching, using a part of said origination information as a keyword, to determine at least one component of said talker identification information; and

storing, using a part of said origination data as a lookup handle in a storage element, containing part of said talker identification information.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice signal and the talker identification information are carried over separate networks.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice signal and the talker identification information are carried over the same network, but said talker identification information is conveyed over a side-band of the network and the voice signal is conveyed over a main band of the network.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the data network is the Internet.

26. The method according to claim 1, wherein the spatializing talker identification information is used to graphically indicate the identity of the talker.

27. The method according to claim 1, further comprising distinguishing the identity of the talker who is speaking by correlating the voice signal with prior stored records of the voices of all the talkers.

28. The method according to claim 1, wherein each one of the plurality of talkers are located proximate a voice capture device.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the voice capture device includes a plurality of voice capture devices.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice signal and the talker identification information are carried over the same network, but said talker identification information is conveyed over a main-band of the network and the voice signal is conveyed over a side band of the network.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the talker identification information includes spatial information about the talker that is speaking.

32. A method for indicating the voice of each talker from a plurality of talkers, using a signal being transmitted over a telecommunications system to be heard by a listener, the method comprising:

projecting the voice from each one of the plurality of talkers to the listener;

providing a talker indicator proximate to the listener;

generating talker identification information in the talker indicator that can be used to indicate the identity of each talker to the listener; and

providing a device coupled to the talker indicator that can transmit the voice signal to the listener.

33. The method according to claim 32, wherein the talker indicator includes audio.

34. The method according to claim 32, wherein the talker indicator including video.

35. The method according to claim 32, wherein the talker indicator includes a display.

36. The method according to claim 35, wherein the display provides a visual figure representing each one of the plurality of talkers.

37. The method according to claim 32, further comprises providing an active window indicator proximate each of the identity indicators.

38. The method according to claim 37, wherein the active window indicator is configured to indicate the talker that is talking at any given time.

39. The method of claim 32, wherein the indicating the identity of the talker that is talking at any given time includes spatial information that is used to physically separate the location from which the voice of each talker is projected.

40. A method for projecting a plurality of spatially distinct voices respectively corresponding to a plurality of talkers, the method comprising:

establishing talker identification information that indicates the talker associated with each one of the plurality of voices;

providing the talker identification information to the telephone voice projecting device; and

projecting the voices associated with each one of the talkers at a distinct spatial location proximate to a voice projecting device in response to the talker identification information.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the establishing talker identification information comprises:

creating a database including vocal information relating to each talker; and

correlating each one of the plurality of voices to each respective one of the plurality of talkers in response to the talker identification information.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein the talker identification information is established at a voice capture device.

43. The method of claim 40, wherein the talker identification information is established at a voice projecting device.

44. An apparatus for regenerating voices spoken by a plurality of talkers, wherein the voices were originally captured and correlated to yield talker information including a selected talker from said plurality of talkers, the apparatus comprising:

a voice retransmission device for producing the regenerated voice; and

a talker indicator for indicating the identity of the talker associated with each one of the regenerated voices.

45. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the talker indicator includes a visual display.

46. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the visual display includes a two dimensional graphical display.

47. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the display visually displays one emotigraphic that corresponds to each one of said plurality of talkers.

48. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein the talker identification includes a correlation device can correlate the emotion of said selected talker by correlating the voice of the selected talker with a plurality of voice recordings of the selected talker, multiple ones of said voice recordings were previously mapped to the selected talker when the talker was in different moods.

49. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein the emotigraphic comprises one from the group of an emotion that displays an emotion in response to said correlated emotion of the selected talker, or a list of names, the names correspond to the selected talker.

50. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein the talker indicator further includes a voice modification portion that generates an altered voice for each one of said plurality of talkers, wherein the voice modification portion enhances identification of the produced voice from said plurality of talkers.

51. The apparatus of claim 50, wherein the voice modification portion further comprises a sound field spatialization device that produces the voice from each one of said plurality of talkers appears to emanate from distinct locations.

52. The apparatus of claim 50, wherein the voice modification portion further comprises a variable voice amplification device that amplifies selected altered voices from the plurality of talkers differently.

53. The apparatus of claim 50, wherein the voice modification portion further comprises a nasaling algorithm device that applies a modified nasaling algorithm to each voice altered voice.

54. The apparatus of claim 44, further comprising a sound coordinate receiving device that generates output voices corresponding to the selected talker in response to spatial coordinate information.

55. The apparatus of claim 54, further comprising a medium for transmitting the transmission sound information from the sound coordinate transmission device to the sound coordinate receiving device.

56. An apparatus for conveying a voice signal and the identity of a talker comprising:

a sound coordinate capture device for generating spatial voice information in response to a plurality of voices spoken by a respective plurality of talkers;

a talker identifier correlation device, coupled to the sound coordinate capture device, for selecting the talker from the plurality of talkers that most likely produced the voice based on the spatial voice information;

a voice retransmission device for producing regenerated voices in response to the spatial voice information; and

a talker indicator for spatially indicating the identity of the talker that produced the voice.

57. A method for displaying an emotigraphic over a display, the emotigraphic may be provided with a plurality of emotional expressions, the method comprising:

receiving voice input including talker identification information, wherein the talker identification information includes attitude indication information;

selecting one of the emotional expressions in response to the attitude indication information and in response to the talker identification information; and

displaying the emotigraphic with the selected emotion expression.

58. The method of claim 57, wherein the emotigraphic includes a body, and the emotion expression is at least partially indicated by a motion of the body.

59. The method of claim 57, wherein the emotigraphic includes a face, and the emotion expression is at least partially indicated by a facial expression of the face.

60. The method of claim 57, further comprising:

establishing talker identification information that indicates the talker associated with each one of the plurality of voices;

providing the talker identification information to the voice projecting device; and

providing each one of the plurality of voices at a distinct spatial location at an voice projecting device corresponding to the identity of the talker associated with each voice in response to the talker identification information.

61. An apparatus comprising:

a spatialization determiner that spatially determines the location of a voice originating from a distinct spatial location, the spatialization determiner comprising;

a steerable beamformer that can be steered to receive voices from different spatial positions, and

an adaptive filter coupled to the steerable beamformer, to optimize steering of the steerable beamformer to optimize the received voice from the beamformer.

62. An apparatus that enhances a communication, said communication is provided from a plurality of talkers to at least one listener, the apparatus comprising:

means for conveying voice signals from the plurality of talkers to a first terminal point; and

means for conveying talker identification information identifying the voices of each talker to a second terminal point, wherein said second terminal point is proximate the first terminal point.

63. An apparatus that indicates the identity of a voice of each talker from a plurality of talkers, on a voice signal being transmitted over a telecommunications system to a listener, the apparatus comprising:

a talker indicator disposed proximate to a listener, the talker indicator generating talker identification information that can be used to indicate the identity of each talker;

a device coupled to the talker indicator that transmits the voice signal to the listener; and

the talker indicator spatially indicating to the listener the identity of the talker.

64. The apparatus according to claim 63, wherein the talker indicator includes audio.

65. The apparatus according to claim 63, wherein the talker indicator includes video.

66. The apparatus according to claim 63, wherein the talker indicator includes a display.

67. The apparatus according to claim 66, wherein the display provides a visual indication of the identity of each of the plurality of talkers.

68. The apparatus according to claim 63, wherein the talker indicator includes an active window indicator.

69. The apparatus according to claim 68, wherein the active window indicator indicates the talker who is currently speaking.

70. An apparatus comprising:

means for spatially determining the location of a voice originating from a distinct spatial location, the means for spatially determining further comprising;

means for steering a steerable beamformer that can be steered to receive voices from different spatial positions, and

means for adaptive filtering coupled to the means for steerable beamformer, to optimize steering of the means for steerable beamformer to optimize the means for spatially determining the location of a voice.