INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE AND METHOD AND PROGRAM

• US 20110200210A1
• Filed: 02/08/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: KEMMOCHI, Chisato
• Granted Patent: US 8,903,097 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/107
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 19/04 the ringing-current being generated at the substations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 9/082 using echo cancellers echo cancellers per se H04B3/23

Abstract

An information processing device includes: an output device configured to perform notification to a user by outputting ringing sound; a sound pickup device configured to pick up surrounding sound as ambient sound; an adaptive filtering process device configured to perform an adaptive filtering process using the picked-up ambient sound and the ringing sound output from the output device, to thereby extract, from the ambient sound, estimated environmental sound from which the ringing sound picked up by the sound pickup device has been removed; and a control device configured to control, on the basis of the feature quantity of a predetermined feature extracted from the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of at least one of the sound volume and the sound quality of the ringing sound.

Claims

1. An information processing device comprising:

output means for performing notification to a user by outputting ringing sound;

sound pickup means for picking up surrounding sound as ambient sound;

adaptive filtering process means for performing an adaptive filtering process using the picked-up ambient sound and the ringing sound output from the output means, to thereby extract, from the ambient sound, estimated environmental sound from which the ringing sound picked up by the sound pickup means has been removed; and

control means for controlling, on the basis of the feature quantity of a predetermined feature extracted from the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of at least one of the sound volume and the sound quality of the ringing sound.

2. The information processing device according to claim 1, further comprising:

frequency analysis means for performing frequency analysis on the estimated environmental sound,

wherein the control means controls, on the basis of a frequency feature quantity obtained by the frequency analysis performed on the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of the sound volume or the sound quality of the ringing sound.

3. The information processing device according to claim 2,

wherein the frequency analysis means further performs the frequency analysis on the ringing sound, and

wherein the control means controls, on the basis of the frequency feature quantity of the estimated environmental sound and the frequency feature quantity of the ringing sound, the adjustment of the sound volume or the sound quality of the ringing sound.

4. The information processing device according to claim 3, further comprising:

time waveform analysis means for performing time waveform analysis on the estimated environmental sound and the ringing sound,

wherein the control means controls, on the basis of the respective frequency feature quantities of the estimated environmental sound and the ringing sound and the respective time waveform feature quantities of the estimated environmental sound and the ringing sound obtained by the time waveform analysis, the adjustment of the sound volume or the sound quality of the ringing sound.

5. The information processing device according to claim 4,

wherein the control means includes

sound volume control means for controlling, on the basis of the result of comparison between the respective time waveform feature quantities of the estimated environmental sound and the ringing sound and the result of comparison between the respective frequency feature quantities of the estimated environmental sound and the ringing sound, the adjustment of the sound volume of the ringing sound, and

sound quality control means for controlling, on the basis of the frequency feature quantity of the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of the sound quality of the ringing sound.

6. The information processing device according to claim 5,

wherein the sound volume control means controls, on the basis of the result of comparison between the time waveform feature quantities, the result of comparison between the frequency feature quantities, and a suppression amount of the ambient sound obtained by the adaptive filtering process, the adjustment of the sound volume of the ringing sound.

7. The information processing device according to claim 1, further comprising:

time waveform analysis means for performing time waveform analysis on the estimated environmental sound,

wherein the control means controls, on the basis of a time waveform feature quantity obtained by the time waveform analysis performed on the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of the sound volume or the sound quality of the ringing sound.

8. The information processing device according to claim 1, further comprising:

vibration means for vibrating to perform the notification to the user; and

vibration control means for calculating, with the use of a propagation characteristic of the ringing sound between the output means and the sound pickup means obtained by the adaptive filtering process, a propagation characteristic feature quantity representing the degree of proximity of a nearby object to the information processing device, and controlling the vibration of the vibration means on the basis of the propagation characteristic feature quantity.

9. The information processing device according to claim 1, serving as a mobile phone,

wherein the ringing sound is sound for notifying the user of an incoming call, and

wherein the sound pickup means is a microphone for telephone conversation configured to pick up the voice of the user during a telephone conversation using the mobile phone.

10. An information processing method performed by an information processing device including

output means for performing notification to a user by outputting ringing sound,

sound pickup means for picking up surrounding sound as ambient sound,

adaptive filtering process means for performing an adaptive filtering process using the picked-up ambient sound and the ringing sound output from the output means, to thereby extract, from the ambient sound, estimated environmental sound from which the ringing sound picked up by the sound pickup means has been removed, and

control means for controlling, on the basis of the feature quantity of a predetermined feature extracted from the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of at least one of the sound volume and the sound quality of the ringing sound,

wherein the information processing method comprises the steps of:

causing the output means to output the ringing sound;

causing the sound pickup means to pick up the ambient sound;

causing the adaptive filtering process means to perform the adaptive filtering process and extract the estimated environmental sound; and

causing the control means to control, on the basis of the feature quantity of the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of the sound volume or the sound quality of the ringing sound.

11. A program for causing a computer to perform processing comprising the steps of:

causing output means to perform notification to a user by outputting ringing sound;

causing sound pickup means to pick up surrounding sound as ambient sound;

performing an adaptive filtering process using the picked-up ambient sound and the ringing sound output from the output means, to thereby extract, from the ambient sound, estimated environmental sound from which the ringing sound picked up by the sound pickup means has been removed; and

controlling, on the basis of the feature quantity of a predetermined feature extracted from the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of at least one of the sound volume and the sound quality of the ringing sound.

12. An information processing device comprising:

an output device configured to perform notification to a user by outputting ringing sound;

a sound pickup device configured to pick up surrounding sound as ambient sound;

an adaptive filtering process device configured to perform an adaptive filtering process using the picked-up ambient sound and the ringing sound output from the output device, to thereby extract, from the ambient sound, estimated environmental sound from which the ringing sound picked up by the sound pickup device has been removed; and

a control device configured to control, on the basis of the feature quantity of a predetermined feature extracted from the estimated environmental sound, the adjustment of at least one of the sound volume and the sound quality of the ringing sound.