Method for intelligent consumer earcons

• US 7,797,305 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2007
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gopinath, Ramesh, Basson, Sara H., Kelley, Edward E., Kanevsky, Dimitri
• Primary Examiner(s): Le; Uyen T.
• Application Number:
  US11/860,874
• Publication Number:
  US 20090083249A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,085 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/713
• 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;

selecting a series of earcons from the database of earcons based on the user profile and preferences database; and

playing one or more earcons from the series of earcons on a user'"'"'s communication device based on the monitored user audio content and user 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:

detecting and interpreting the user'"'"'s conversational content using a speech recognition system;

determining pauses in the user'"'"'s conversation and the pauses'"'"' respective length; and

selecting earcons for playback on the user'"'"'s communications device based upon the detecting, interpreting, and determining steps.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing, with a semantic analyzer, the user environment;

identifying, with a situation recognition module;

an environmental impact of the user and the user'"'"'s conversation; and

associating a set of possible consequences of transmitting the earcon to the user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring the user environment comprises monitoring current user environment, and the playing the one or more earcons is based upon the monitored current user environment.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring of the user environment comprises:

tracking the location of the user 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; and

selecting the earcon for playback on the user'"'"'s communications device based upon the user'"'"'s location, wherein the communication devices comprise one or more of;

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

10. A method for implementing earcons;

the method comprising;

gathering data from a series of sources;

processing the data;

interpreting the processed data;

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

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

wherein the data from the series of sources comprise a combination of audio/video (A/V) data, positional data, user profiles, and user preferences, and

at least one each of a microphone data, camera data, and user biometric data.

11. The method of claim 10,

wherein the gathering data comprises obtaining positional data 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 interpreting of the processed data comprises correlating the positional data with the A/V data;

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

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

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

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

providing a service agreement database that contains information about which company allows the use of their earcons and information about privacy and legal conditions; and

wherein the selection of the earcon is dependent on the a user'"'"'s agreed service agreement from the service agreement database.

13. The method of claim 10,

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, 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.

14. The method of claim 10,

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

and

further comprising determining which earcon to play based upon the length of the pauses and breaks in the conversation.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the processing and interpreting the data comprises performing speech recognition on a user'"'"'s conversation and determining relevancy of the earcon to a topic the user is discussing.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the interpreting of the processed data includes:

performing semantic analysis on audio data, with a semantic analyzer, to determine a topic that the user is discussing; and

determining relevancy of the topic to an earcon.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

analyzing, with a semantic analyzer, the user environment;

identifying, with a situation recognition module;

an environmental impact of the user and the user'"'"'s conversation; and

associating a set of possible consequences of transmitting the earcon to the user.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the gathering data, the processing the data, and the interpreting the processed data comprises monitoring user audio content and monitoring current user environment, and the playing the selected earcon based on the interpreted data comprises playing the selected earcon based upon the user'"'"'s monitoring data.

19. A computer-readable medium storing instructions to be executed by a computer, the stored instructions comprising:

forming a database of earcons;

forming a user profile and preferences database;

monitoring user audio content;

monitoring user environment;

selecting a series of earcons from the database of earcons based on the user profile and preferences database; and

playing one or more earcons from the series of earcons on a user'"'"'s communication device based on the monitored user audio content and user environment.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the stored instructions comprising the monitoring the user environment comprises monitoring current user environment, and wherein the stored instructions comprising the playing the one or more earcons is based upon the monitored current user environment.