Portable telephone with voice-prompted menu screens

• US 6,470,076 B1
• Filed: 09/21/1998
• Issued: 10/22/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Iwami, Akiko
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Escalante, Ovidio
• Application Number:
  US09/155,114
• Time in Patent Office: 1,492 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.27, 379/88.28, 379/67.1, 379/72, 379/76, 379/387.02, 455/550, 455/575, 455/566
• US Class Current: 379/67.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72466 with selection means, e.g. keys, having functions defined by the mode or the status of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72481 for visually impaired users
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/56 including a user help function

Abstract

The portable telephone of the present invention provides an environment in which recording/playing back of user'"'"'s voice is made possible at each of the menu screens. Operations of a portable telephone can be smoothly performed by adding voice information to each menu screen.

There are provided a memory device (4) for storing voice data, a microphone (1) and a speaker (7) for inputting/outputting voice, an encoder (2) and a decoder (6) for performing digital/analog conversion of voice, and a key operating portion (9) for achieving recording or playing back of voice by a first key operation and determining an input operation and executing recording or playing back of voice by a second key operation. Not only character information displayed on a display, but also guides or information by voice messages, can be obtained and, therefore, erroneous operations made by the user can be eliminated.

Claims

1. A portable telephone including a microphone for receiving a sound input and a speaker for delivering a sound output, and a display for displaying a plurality of menu screens, each menu screen having a plurality of selectable functions contained therein, and each menu screen being associated with an address, said portable telephone comprising:

a keypad including a plurality of operation keys;

a memory device for storing sound data corresponding to said sound input to said microphone;

a control portion having a function to record sound data input from said microphone during display of one of said plurality of menu screens, as digital data into said memory device at an address corresponding to the address associated with the menu screen being displayed, and outputting an analog signal converted from said digital data through said speaker upon performing one of subsequent display of said menu screen and operation of a particular key on said keypad.

2. A portable telephone according to claim 1, having a function of recording and playing back an input voice from said microphone in accordance with each numeric key of numeric keys provided in said keypad.

3. A portable telephone according to claim 1, adapted to play back recorded voices one after the other and allow access to a menu screen at which a voice being played back was recorded.

4. A portable telephone according to claim 1, adapted, by the use of a timer function, to play back a recorded voice when a predetermined period of time has elapsed.

5. A portable telephone according to claim 1, adapted to be selectively switched so as to play back either voice data recorded in a ROM in advance or voice data recorded in a RAM.