Computer network audio access and conversion system
First Claim
1. An interface system for presenting one or more computer documents in an audio format and navigating through said documents, comprising:
- an audio interface for receiving a user command;
a call manager connected to the audio interface for controlling the routing of information to and from the audio interface;
a translator connected to the call manager for translating the user command into a subject word or phrase;
a browser connected to the call manager for retrieving a document identified by a link from a computer network related to the subject word or phrase;
a parser connected to the call manager for parsing the document into file segments according to the standard format;
an audio file player connected to the call manager for playing audio file segments contained in the document to the audio interface.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The computer document audio access and conversion system allows a user to access information originally formatted for audio/visual interfacing on a computer network via a simple telephone. Of course, files formatted specifically for audio interfacing can also be accessed by the system. A user can call a designated telephone number and request a file via dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signalling or through voice commands. The system analyzes the request and accesses a predetermined document. The document may be in a standard document file format, such as hyper-text mark-up language (HTML) which is used on the World Wide Web. The document is analyzed by the system, and depending on the different types of formats used in the document, information is translated from an audio/visual format to an audio format and played to the user via the telephone interface. The document may contain links to other documents which can be invoked to access such other documents. In addition, the system can have a native command capability which allows the system to act independently of the accessed document contents to replay a document or carry out functions similar to those available in conventional web browsers.
943 Citations
38 Claims
-
1. An interface system for presenting one or more computer documents in an audio format and navigating through said documents, comprising:
-
an audio interface for receiving a user command; a call manager connected to the audio interface for controlling the routing of information to and from the audio interface; a translator connected to the call manager for translating the user command into a subject word or phrase; a browser connected to the call manager for retrieving a document identified by a link from a computer network related to the subject word or phrase; a parser connected to the call manager for parsing the document into file segments according to the standard format; an audio file player connected to the call manager for playing audio file segments contained in the document to the audio interface. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. An interface system for presenting one or more computer documents in an audio format and for navigating through said documents comprising:
-
(A) an intelligent signal control point comprising; (1) a call manager for controlling the routing of information to and from an audio interface; and (2) a user command interpreter connected to the audio interface; (B) a server intelligent peripheral connected to the intelligent signal control point comprising; (1) a browser for retrieving documents identified by a link from one or more computer storage facilities; and (2) a parser for parsing the document into segments according to the content of the document; and (3) a presentation manager for directing the presentation of the segments; and (C) a speech intelligent peripheral connected to the intelligent signal control point comprising; (1) a speech-to-text converter; and (2) a text-to-speech converter. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
-
-
25. A document navigation and audio presentment method comprising the steps of:
-
accessing a computer document; interpreting content of the document; converting segments of the document to audio information based on the interpretation of the content of the segments; navigating through said document responsive to user commands; and invoking actions dictated by content of said document in response to a user command. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
-
-
33. An audio interface system comprising:
-
a document access and retrieval unit associated with one or more computer document storage facilities; a parser, associated with said access and retrieval unit, which identifies the format of segments of retrieved documents based on the type of content contained in said segments; one or more audio output devices, responsive to the parser, wherein said audio output devices convert segments of said document to audio information in accordance with the format of said segments; a linker capable of retrieving documents identified by a link when the content contained in said segments is a document link. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
-
Specification