METHOD FOR INTELLIGENT CONSUMER EARCONS

• US 20090083249A1
• Filed: 09/25/2007
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Basson, Sara H., Kelley, Edward E., Kanevsky, Dimitri, Gopinath, Ramesh
• Granted Patent: US 7,797,305 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A method for utilizing earcons, includes: forming a database of earcons; forming a user profile and preferences database; monitoring user audio content; monitoring the user environment; playing a series of earcons from the database of earcons on a user'"'"'s communication device; wherein the series of earcons are chosen from the database of earcons based on the user profile and preferences database; and wherein the playing of individual earcons from the series of earcons is based on the monitored user audio content and environment.

Claims

1. A method for utilizing earcons, the method comprising:

forming a database of earcons;

forming a user profile and preferences database;

monitoring user audio content;

monitoring user environment;

playing a series of earcons from the database of earcons on a user'"'"'s communication device;

wherein the series of earcons are chosen from the database of earcons based on the user profile and preferences database; and

wherein the playing of individual earcons from the series of earcons is based on the monitored user audio content and environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the database of earcons is comprised of at least one of the following:

company, product, service, retail location, and earcon length information.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the user profile and preferences database is comprised of user and observationally supplied user profile information;

and

wherein the monitoring of the user environment provides the observationally supplied user profile information.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein the user profile and preferences database is comprised of user biometric data;

and

wherein the user biometric data comprises one or more of gender of the user, age of the user, accent of the user, native language of the user, dialect of the user, socioeconomic classification of the user, educational level of the user, and emotional state of the user.

5. The method of claim 1,

wherein the user profile and preferences database is comprised of user preferences;

wherein the user preferences includes types of companies, products, services the user wants to receive earcons about; and

wherein the user preferences further comprise specified audio levels, lengths, and points in the usage of the communication device and the conversation for playing the earcons.

6. The method of claim 1,

wherein the monitoring of user audio content comprises using a speech recognition system to detect and interpret conversational content;

wherein based on the interpreted conversational content earcons are chosen for playback on the user'"'"'s communications device;

wherein the monitoring of user audio content is used to determine pauses in the user'"'"'s conversation;

wherein based on the determined pauses and their respective length, earcons are chosen for playback on the user'"'"'s communications device;

wherein the monitoring of the user environment comprises tracking the location of the user;

wherein the tracking of user location comprises the use of at least one of the following;

global positioning system (GPS) satellites and related electronic device chip sets within the communication devices, cellular phone infrastructure, and Internet gateways;

wherein based on the user location an earcon is chosen for playback on the user'"'"'s communications device; and

wherein the communication devices comprise one or more of;

cellular phones, fixed landline phone, mobile computing devices, and desktop computers; and

wherein the cellular phones, the mobile computing devices, and the desktop computers are configured with voice over Internet protocol (VOIP).

7. A method for implementing earcons;

the method comprising;

gathering data from a series of sources;

processing the data;

interpreting the processed data;

selecting earcons based on the interpretation of the data from a database of earcons;

playing the selected earcons on a user'"'"'s communication device based on the interpreted data;

wherein series of sources comprise audio/video (A/V) data, positional data, user profiles, user preferences, and other sensor data; and

wherein the other sensor data includes data from microphones, cameras, and user biometrics.

8. The method of claim 7,

wherein during the interpreting of the processed data, the positional data is correlated with the A/V data;

wherein the positional data is obtained with at least one of the following;

global positioning system (GPS) satellites and related electronic device chip sets within the communication devices, cellular phone infrastructure, and Internet gateways;

wherein the database of earcons is comprised of at least one of the following;

company, product, service, retail location, and earcon length information;

wherein database of earcons tracks which earcon corresponds to which company and their products and services;

wherein the selection of an earcon is dependent on a service agreement database;

wherein the service agreement database contains information about which company allows the use of their earcons;

wherein the service agreement database also contains information about privacy and legal conditions;

wherein the biometric data comprises one or more of gender of the user, age of the user, accent of the user, native language of the user, dialect of the user, socioeconomic classification of the user, educational level of the user, and emotional state of the user;

wherein the user preferences includes types of companies, products, services the user wants to receive earcons about;

wherein the user preferences further comprise specified audio levels, lengths, and points in the usage of the communication device and the conversation for playing the earcons;

wherein the interpreting of the processed data includes semantic analysis with a semantic analyzer to determine pauses and breaks in the users conversation for playing of earcons;

wherein the length of the pauses and breaks determines which earcon to play;

wherein speech recognition is employed during processing and interpreting the audio data to determine how relevant the earcons are to the topic that the user is discussing;

wherein the choice of earcon to play is based on a ranking of factors; and

wherein the factors comprise relevancy of the earcon to the user.