Conversion of text email or SMS message to speech spoken by animated avatar for hands-free reception of email and SMS messages while driving a vehicle

• US 20090055187A1
• Filed: 08/21/2007
• Published: 02/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Anan Yaagoub, Howard Leventhal
• Original Assignee: Anan Yaagoub, Howard Leventhal
• Inventors: Yaagoub, Anan, Leventhal, Howard
• Application Number:
  US11/894,440
• Publication Number:
  US 20090055187A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

Subscribers can access and listen to their email while they drive, access to the email messages being hands-free so a person can listen to email while they drive. In further accord with the present invention, a selectable avatar speaks the email message. And, the invention provides unified messaging such that SMS and email are unified and present and spoken by the avatar, so the subscriber need not access two devices (an instant message device, and an email device). Additionally, the invention can convert natural language to an acronym to be spoken by the avatar, and can convert acronyms in a message to natural language spoken by the avatar; subscriber selects the desired one of these two.

Claims

3-1. The method of claim 1, wherein the process of transferring said email occurs in response to a list of emails on the mail server being provided to said personal computer for display on the screen and the user selects at least one email from the list for transfer to the personal computer.