System and method of controlling sound in a multi-media communication application

• US 7,697,668 B1
• Filed: 08/03/2005
• Issued: 04/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Graf, Hans Peter, Ostermann, Joern, Isaacson, Thomas M., Civanlar, Mehmat Reha
• Primary Examiner(s): Anwah; Olisa
• Application Number:
  US11/195,934
• Time in Patent Office: 1,714 Days
• Field of Search: 704/272, 704/276, 704/275, 704/270, 704/258, 704/260, 704/2, 704/6, 379/100.08
• US Class Current: 379/100.08
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination

Abstract

A computing device and computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity. The instructions comprise receiving from the sender inserted voice emoticons, which may be repeated, into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message; and transmitting the text message such that a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message at a variable level associated with a number of times a respective voice emoticon is repeated.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity, the instructions comprising:

receiving from the sender inserted voice emoticons, which may be repeated, into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message; and

transmitting the text message such that a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message at a variable level associated with a number of times a respective voice emoticon is repeated.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the voice emoticons comprise emoticons associated with at least one of voice stress, volume, pause, and emotion.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the voice emoticons are implicitly derived from emoticons.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein an effect of the voice emoticons within the text message begins with a word immediately following the respective voice emoticon.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the recipient device can further deliver the multi-media message such that the animated entity is modified throughout the message according to the voice emoticons.

6. The compute-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise receiving from the sender duration tags associated with inserted voice emoticons, wherein the recipient device may deliver the message with durations associated with the received duration tags.

7. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device for customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity, the instructions comprising:

receiving from a sender an insert of a voice volume emoticon into a text message associated with a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message, wherein the voice volume emoticon may be repeated to amplify of the effect of the voice volume emoticon and wherein a recipient device can delivery the multi-media message with the voice of the animated entity modified throughout the message according to the voice volume emoticon.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the voice volume emoticon comprises one of a voice volume increase emoticon and a voice volume decrease emoticon.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein repeated use of a voice volume decrease emoticon results in the animated entity whispering a portion of the text message.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein repeated use of a voice volume increase emoticon results in the animated entity yelling a portion of the text message.

11. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity, the instructions comprising:

receiving from a sender an insert of a voice emoticon into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by the animated entity to deliver the text message, wherein a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message such that the voice of the animated entity is modified according to a number of punctuation marks placed at the end of a word.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the voice of the animated entity is modified by increasing an amplitude of the voice of the animated entity linearly to the number of punctuation marks added to the end of the word.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the punctuation marks are at least one of question marks and exclamation points.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein if the punctuation marks are question marks, then the voice of the animated entity is modified to make it sound like a question is being asked.

15. A computing device that customizes a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity, the computing device comprising:

a module configured to receive from the sender inserted voice emoticons, which may be repeated, into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message; and

a module configured to transmit the text message such that a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message at a variable level associated with a number of times a respective voice emoticon is repeated.

16. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the voice emoticons comprise emoticons associated with at least one of voice stress, volume, pause, and emotion.

17. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the voice emoticons are implicitly derived from emoticons.

18. The computing device of claim 15, wherein an effect of the voice emoticons within the text message begins with a word immediately following the respective voice emoticon.

19. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the recipient device can further deliver the multi-media message such that the animated entity is modified throughout the message according to the voice emoticons.

20. The computing device of claim 15, further comprise a module configured to receive from the sender duration tags associated with inserted voice emoticons, wherein the recipient device may deliver the message with durations associated with the received duration tags.