Phonetic-sound providing system, server, client machine, information-provision managing server and phonetic-sound providing method

• US 20040172248A1
• Filed: 03/08/2004
• Published: 09/02/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Kitao, Nobuo, Yamada, Yuka, Kutsumi, Hiroshi, Morimoto, Kiyoshi, Otsuka, Nobuyuki
• Granted Patent: US 7,440,899 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/254
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L

Abstract

A server, which transmits phonetic-sound information to a plurality of client machines that are communicably connected thereto and reproduces the transmitted phonetic-sound information, includes: a storage unit for storing a plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers; a timing determining unit for determining reproduction timing of the plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information; and a transmitting unit for transmitting the voiced phonetic-sound information which is applicable to each client machine, so that its reproduction is executed in the reproduction timing determined by the timing determining unit.

Claims

1. A phonetic-sound providing system, which provides a phonetic sound to a user by allowing a plurality of client machines connected communicably to a server to reproduce phonetic-sound information distributed from said server, wherein:

the server stores a plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are respective voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers, determines reproduction timing of each piece of the voiced phonetic-sound information, and transmits, from among the plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information, the voiced phonetic-sound information which is applicable to each client machine; and

the client machines reproduce the transmitted voiced phonetic-sound information in the reproduction timing determined by the server.

2. A server, which transmits phonetic-sound information to a plurality of client machines that are communicably connected thereto and reproduces the transmitted phonetic-sound information, comprising:

a storage means for storing a plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers;

a timing determining means for determining reproduction timing of the plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information; and

a transmitting means for transmitting the voiced phonetic-sound information reproduced in the reproduction timing by said client machines, to the client machines which are applicable thereto.

3. The server according to claim 2, wherein:

said storage means stores the plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents being suitable to the fictitious character of each client machine; and

said transmitting means transmits the voiced phonetic-sound information to the client machines which have the fictitious characters being suitable to the contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information.

4. The server according to claim 2, wherein:

said timing determining means produces timing information which shows the determined timing; and

said transmitting means transmits the voiced phonetic-sound information and the timing information corresponds to each piece of the voiced phonetic-sound information.

5. The server according to claim 2, wherein said timing determining means transmits the voiced phonetic-sound information to said transmitting means in the reproduction timing.

6. The server according to claim 2, further comprising:

a searching means for, on the Internet, searching for and collecting information provided as the base of the conversational contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information; and

a phonetic-sound information producing means for producing the voiced phonetic-sound information based on the collected provided information and storing the voiced phonetic-sound information in said storage means, wherein;

said searching means searches for and collects picture-image information, using a tag given to the picture-image information which shows the contents of the picture-image information;

said phonetic-sound information producing means for producing the voiced phonetic-sound information, using said tag; and

said transmitting means for transmitting the voiced phonetic-sound information which is applicable to each client machine and the picture-image information.

7. The server according to claim 2, further comprising:

a receiving means for receiving information provided as the base of the conversational contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information via an information-provision managing server which manages the provision of information given by an information providing server, said receiving means being communicably connected to said information-provision managing server;

a user phonetic-sound receiving means for receiving, from said client machines, user phonetic-sound information which is collected while the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced and for a predetermined period after the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced, the user phonetic-sound information showing the phonetic sound of a user who uses said client machines;

an analyzing means for analyzing a response of the user based on the received user phonetic-sound information; and

an information transmitting means for transmitting user response information which shows the analyzed user response to the information-provision managing server,

wherein said receiving means receives the provided information which is selected based on the user response information by the information-provision managing server.

8. The server according to claim 2, further comprising:

a searching means for, on the Internet, searching for and collecting information provided as the base of the conversational contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information;

a phonetic-sound information producing means for producing the voiced phonetic-sound information based on the collected provided information and storing the voiced phonetic-sound information in said storage means;

a user phonetic-sound receiving means for receiving, from said client machines, user phonetic-sound information which is collected while the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced and for a predetermined period after the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced, the user phonetic-sound information showing the phonetic sound of a user who uses said client machines; and

an analyzing means for analyzing a response of the user based on the received user phonetic-sound information,

wherein said searching means lowers the frequency of searches for provided information of the same kind as a phonetic sound in which the analyzed user response is made if the user response is a negative response.

9. The server according to claim 2, further comprising:

a searching means for, on the Internet, searching for and collecting information provided as the base of the conversational contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information;

a phonetic-sound information producing means for producing the voiced phonetic-sound information based on the collected provided information and storing the voiced phonetic-sound information in said storage means;

a user phonetic-sound receiving means for receiving, from said client machines, user phonetic-sound information which is collected while the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced and for a predetermined period after the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced, the user phonetic-sound information showing the phonetic sound of a user who uses said client machines; and

an analyzing means for analyzing a response of the user based on the received user phonetic-sound information,

wherein said searching means heightens the frequency of searches for provided information of the same kind as a phonetic sound in which the analyzed user response is made if the user response is a positive response.

10. The server according to claim 2, further comprising:

a receiving means for receiving information provided as the base of the conversational contents of the voiced phonetic-sound information via an information-provision managing server which manages the provision of information given by an information providing server, said receiving means being communicably connected to said information-provision managing server;

a user-response information receiving means for receiving, from said plurality of client machines, user response information which shows the response of a user while the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced or for a predetermined period after the voiced phonetic-sound information is reproduced;

a judging means for judging whether the user permits the transmission of the received user response information to the information-provision managing server; and

a user-response information transmitting means for transmitting only the user response information whose transmission is judged to be permitted by said judging means, to the information-provision managing server,

wherein said receiving means receives the provided information which is selected based on the user response information by the information-provision managing server.

11. An information-provision managing server, which manages, over a server, the provision of information provided as the base for determining the conversational contents of a plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are respective voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers, said server producing the voiced phonetic-sound information, determining reproduction timing of the voiced phonetic-sound information and transmitting the voiced phonetic-sound information reproduced in the reproduction timing to a plurality of client machines connected communicably thereto, comprising:

a requesting means for requesting an information providing server which provides the provided information to transmit the provided information to the server; and

a rate charging means for charging said information providing server a rate for giving an opportunity of providing the provided information if said requesting means makes a request.

12. The information-provision managing server according to claim 11, further comprising:

a preference-data producing means for receiving, from said server, user response information which shows the response of a user to the voiced phonetic-sound information reproduced in said client machines, and based on the received user response information, producing preference data which shows a preference of the user who uses the server that transmits the user response information; and

a transmitting means for transmitting, over a network, the produced preference data to said information providing server,

wherein said rate charging means charges the information providing server a rate for the transmission of the preference data.

13. A client machine, which is, together with other client machines, communicably connected to a server, and reproduces phonetic-sound information distributed from said server and provides a phonetic sound to a user, comprising:

a phonetic-sound information receiving means for receiving, from the server, voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are respective voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers; and

a phonetic-sound reproducing means for reproducing the voiced phonetic-sound information transmitted in reproduction timing which is determined by the server.

14. A phonetic-sound reproducing method, in which a server that a plurality of client machines are connected to distributes phonetic-sound information to said client machines and reproduces the distributed phonetic-sound information, comprising:

a phonetic-sound information storing step of said server storing a plurality of pieces of voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are respective voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers;

a timing determining step of said server determining reproduction timing of each piece of the voiced phonetic-sound information; and

a phonetic-sound information transmitting step of said server transmitting, the voiced phonetic-sound information which is reproduced in the reproduction timing by the client machines, to the client machines which are applicable thereto.

15. A recording medium which stores a phonetic-sound reproducing program, which is used for distributing phonetic-sound information to a plurality of client machines and reproducing the distributed phonetic-sound information, allowing a server to function as:

a phonetic-sound information storing means for storing voiced phonetic-sound information whose contents are respective voices of a plurality of speakers in a conversation made up of the voices of the plurality of speakers;

a timing determining means for determining reproduction timing of each piece of the voiced phonetic-sound information; and

a phonetic-sound information transmitting means for transmitting, the voiced phonetic-sound information which is reproduced in the reproduction timing by said client machines, to the client machines which are applicable thereto.