Voice-coded in-band data for interactive calls

• US 8,909,517 B2
• Filed: 08/03/2012
• Issued: 12/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Mosko, Marc E., Barber, Simon E. M.
• Primary Examiner(s): PULLIAS, JESSE SCOTT
• Application Number:
  US13/566,951
• Publication Number:
  US 20140039901A1
• Time in Patent Office: 858 Days
• Field of Search: 704200-230, 704500-504, 379 9001-10802
• US Class Current: 704/200
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/00 Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis in musical instruments G10H
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/066 Telephone sets adapted for data transmision

Abstract

A voice-coded in-band communication device monitors a voice-coded channel to detect data to present to a user. During operation, the communication device can detect a data-encoding signal from the voice-coded channel, such that the voice-coded channel can carry an audio signal that includes a voice signal and the data-encoding signal. The device decodes the data-encoding signal to detect a data element. The data element can include information that is to be presented to a local user, a request from a remote device for information about the local user, or information that the system can use to establish a peer-to-peer connection with the remote device over a separate data channel. The device can also generate a filtered audio signal to present to the user by removing the detected data-encoding signal from the voice-coded channel, and then reproduces the filtered audio signal for the user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

monitoring, by a local computing device, an audio-receiving channel;

detecting a data-encoding signal from the audio-receiving channel, wherein the audio-receiving channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and the data-encoding signal from a remote device;

decoding the data-encoding signal to obtain a data element;

determining that a received data element includes a request for a user-preference parameter;

determining, from a profile of a local user, a user-preference value that satisfies the request;

responsive to determining that the user-preference parameter is sensitive user information, presenting an interactive user-interface to the local user, wherein the interactive user-interface requests a permission from the local user to reveal the requested information to the remote device; and

responsive to detecting a response from the local user that grants the permission, communicating the user-preference value to the remote device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a filtered audio signal to present to a local user by removing the detected data-encoding signal from the audio-receiving channel; and

reproducing the filtered audio signal for the local user to hear.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a data connection over a separate data channel with the remote device by exchanging network address information with the remote device.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising sending data elements to and/or receiving data elements from the remote device over the separate data channel based on the established data connection.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein establishing the data connection involves performing a network address translation (NAT) traversal using data-encoding signals over the audio channels.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the network address information includes at least one of:

an Internet Protocol (IP) address;

a URL;

a username for a centralized messaging service; and

one or more prioritized address-mapping entries for performing NAT traversal, wherein a respective address-mapping entry maps an IP address to a corresponding port.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that a received data element includes information to present to a local user on a display; and

displaying the information to the local user.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising reproducing a user alert for the local user, wherein the user alert informs the local user of the displayed information, and wherein reproducing the user alert involves one or more of:

reproducing a predetermined audio pattern for the user to hear; and

generating a vibration pattern.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein determining that the received data element includes information to present to the local user involves determining that the received data element includes one or more of:

a character string;

an image;

an audio file;

a user-interface (UI) object;

a universal resource locator (URL) to an object that is to be presented to the local user; and

an identifier to a cached object that is to be presented to the local user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the data-encoding signal involves detecting a discernable in-band signal within the audio-receiving channel, wherein the discernable in-band signal comprises a beginning portion that includes a predetermined audio pattern indicating the start of the data-encoding signal, and further comprises an ending portion that includes the data element.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the data-encoding signal involves detecting an in-band signal within one or more inter-voice white space segments of the audio-receiving channel.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that a received data element includes one or more interactive user-interface elements; and

presenting an interactive user-interface to a local user, wherein the interactive user-interface includes the user-interface elements.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

detecting a response, from the local user, to one or more of the presented user-interface elements; and

communicating the user response to the remote device.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating data to the remote device, wherein communicating the data involves:

generating an outbound data-encoding signal that includes the data; and

transmitting the outbound data-encoding signal over an audio-transmission channel that carries a voice-transmission signal of the local user.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the data-encoding signal includes one or more of:

an identity of a remote entity associated with the data-encoding signal;

an encrypted message from the remote device that facilitates performing cryptographic verification of the identity of the remote entity;

a data-decoding capability, which indicates whether the remote device is capable of detecting and decoding a data-encoding signal;

a data-channel capability, which indicates whether the remote device has access to a separate data channel while the audio-receiving channel is active;

an acknowledgement packet for a data-encoding transmission signal communicated over an audio-transmission channel;

a data-decoding capability request, which requests an indication as to whether the computing device is capable of detecting and decoding a data-encoding signal;

a data-channel capability request, which requests an indication as to whether the computing device has access to a separate data channel while the audio-receiving channel is active; and

a communication-acknowledgement configuration request, which requests an acknowledgement receipt for data-encoding signals received via the audio-receiving channel.

16. An apparatus, comprising:

a monitoring module to detect a data-encoding signal from an audio-receiving channel, wherein the audio-receiving channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and the data-encoding signal from a remote device; and

a decoding module to decode the data-encoding signal to obtain a data element;

a data-analyzing module to determine that a received data element includes a request for a user-preference parameter;

a profile-analyzing module to determine, from a profile of a local user, a user-preference value that satisfies the request;

a user-interface module to present an interactive user-interface to the local user, responsive to determining that the user-preference parameter is sensitive user information, wherein the interactive user-interface requests a permission from the local user to reveal the requested information to the remote device; and

a communication module to communicate the user-preference value to the remote device, responsive to detecting a response from the local user that grants the permission.

17. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

selecting, by a local computing device, one or more data elements to provide to a remote computing device;

generating an outbound data-encoding signal that includes the selected data elements; and

transmitting the outbound data-encoding signal over an audio-transmission channel, wherein the audio-transmission channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and the outbound data-encoding signal;

wherein a data element provided to the remote computing device includes at least one or more of;

a plurality of menu options, from a menu tree, that are to be presented to a user of the remote computing device;

executable code that implements a graphical user interface;

an interactive user-interface element;

a universal resource locator (URL) to an object that is to be presented to a user of the remote computing device;

an identifier to a cached object at the remote computing device; and

a request for a user-preference parameter for a user of the remote computing device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein transmitting the outbound data-encoding signal over the audio-transmission channel involves temporarily suppressing the voice signal.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein a data element provided to the remote computing device includes one or more configuration parameters from a group consisting of:

a response-type attribute, which indicates a signal type that the remote computing device is to use to provide a response from the user, wherein the signal type includes one or more of;

a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signal; and

a data-encoding signal;

a data-decoding capability of the computing device, which indicates whether the computing device is capable of detecting and decoding a data-encoding signal;

a data-channel capability of the computing device, which indicates whether the computing device has access to a separate data channel while an audio channel is active;

a data-decoding capability request for the remote computing device, which requests an indication as to whether the remote computing device is capable of detecting and decoding a data-encoding signal;

a data-channel capability request for the remote computing device, which requests an indication as to whether the remote computing device has access to a separate data channel while an audio channel is active;

a communication-acknowledgement configuration request for the remote computing device, which requests an acknowledgement receipt for data-encoding signals sent to the remote computing device via the audio-transmission channel; and

network address information for establishing a rendezvous with the remote computing device over a separate data channel.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

monitoring an audio-receiving channel to detect an incoming data-encoding signal from the remote computing device, wherein the audio-receiving channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and also includes the incoming data-encoding signal; and

decoding the incoming data-encoding signal to obtain an incoming data element from the remote computing device.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein a data element received from the remote computing device includes one or more of:

an identity of a user associated with the remote computing device;

an encrypted message from the remote computing device that facilitates performing cryptographic verification of the identity of the user associated with the remote computing device;

a user response to a menu option;

a user response to an interactive user-interface element;

a user-preference parameter value;

a data-decoding capability of the remote computing device;

a data-channel capability of the remote computing device;

an acknowledgement packet for a data-encoding transmission signal communicated over the audio-transmission channel;

a data-decoding capability request for the computing device;

a data-channel capability request for the computing device;

a communication-acknowledgement configuration request; and

network address information for establishing a rendezvous with the remote computing device over a separate data channel.

22. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

selecting one or more data elements to provide to a remote computing device;

generating an outbound data-encoding signal that includes the selected data elements; and

transmitting the outbound data-encoding signal over an audio-transmission channel, wherein the audio-transmission channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and the outbound data-encoding signal;

wherein a data element provided to the remote computing device includes at least one or more of;

a plurality of menu options, from a menu tree, that are to be presented to a user of the remote computing device;

executable code that implements a graphical user interface;

an interactive user-interface element;

a universal resource locator (URL) to an object that is to be presented to a user of the remote computing device;

an identifier to a cached object at the remote computing device; and

a request for a user-preference parameter for a user of the remote computing device.

23. The storage medium of claim 22, the method further comprising:

monitoring an audio-receiving channel to detect an incoming data-encoding signal from the remote computing device, wherein the audio-receiving channel carries an audio signal that includes a voice signal and also includes the incoming data-encoding signal; and

decoding the data-encoding signal to obtain an incoming data element from the remote computing device.