Email text-to-speech conversion in sender's voice

• US 20070174396A1
• Filed: 01/24/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jain, Mukul, Kumar, Sanjeev, Patel, Labhesh, Khouri, Joseph
• Application Number:
  US11/338,377
• Publication Number:
  US 20070174396A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

Multiple authors'"'"' voices can be used in a text-to-speech (TTS) conversion of an email thread so that each part of the thread is read in that author'"'"'s voice. A tag is used to identify which text portion corresponds to which author. Voice characteristics can be originated from an author'"'"'s sending device or can be centrally stored in a voice characteristic database at a unified messaging server and provided to a recipient of the email thread. A similar approach can be used in a single document such as a change-tracked document that is being edited by multiple authors. The different voice characteristics of authors corresponding to different parts of the document can be accessed for TTS conversion so that a person listening on an audio device (e.g., phone, VoIP phone, cell phone, etc.) can identify the author of a specific part without the use of text or other displayed information. Voice characteristics can be centrally stored and delivered to users of audio devices to be used with a variety of text communications.

Claims

1. A method for performing a text-to-speech conversion of an email, wherein the email includes multiple parts created by multiple human authors, the method comprising:

determining that the email is to be sent to a particular destination;

detecting that the email message includes a first part from a first author and a second part from a second author;

retrieving a first voice characteristic of the first author;

retrieving a second voice characteristic of the second author; and

transferring the first and second voice characteristics to the particular destination.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving includes:

retrieving the voice characteristics from a stored location.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the steps of claim 1 are performed by a server computer, wherein a database is coupled to the server computer, the method further comprising:

retrieving the voice characteristics from the database.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

inserting a first tag into the email to indicate a start of text information corresponding to the first author; and

inserting a second tag into the email to indicate a start of text information corresponding to the second author.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of an age of a speaker.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of an emotion of a speaker.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of volume of a speaker.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first voice characteristic is selected by the first author.

8. A method for performing a text-to-speech conversion of text, wherein the text includes multiple parts created by multiple human authors, the method comprising:

detecting that the text includes a first part from a first author and a second part from a second author;

retrieving a first voice characteristic of the first author;

retrieving a second voice characteristic of the second author; and

transferring the first and second voice characteristics to the particular destination.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the text is included in a document having multiple edited parts, wherein two or more edited parts are done by different authors.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the text includes a change-tracked word processing document.

12. A method for playing a text-to-speech conversion of text, wherein the text includes multiple parts created by multiple human authors, the method comprising:

detecting that the text includes a first part from a first author and a second part from a second author;

retrieving a first voice characteristic of the first author;

retrieving a second voice characteristic of the second author;

performing a text-to-speech conversion of the first part using the first voice characteristic; and

performing a text-to-speech conversion of the first part using the first voice characteristic.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of an age of a speaker.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of an emotion of a speaker.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein a voice characteristic includes a property of volume of a speaker.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the first voice characteristic is selected by the first author.

17. An apparatus for performing a text-to-speech conversion of an email, wherein the email includes multiple parts created by multiple human authors, the apparatus comprising:

a processor;

a machine-readable medium including one or more instructions executable by a processor for;

determining that the email is to be sent to a particular destination;

detecting that the email message includes a first part from a first author and a second part from a second author;

retrieving a first voice characteristic of the first author;

retrieving a second voice characteristic of the second author; and

transferring the first and second voice characteristics to the particular destination.

18. A machine-readable medium including instructions executable by a processor for performing a text-to-speech conversion of an email, wherein the email includes multiple parts created by multiple human authors, the machine-readable medium comprising one or more instructions for:

determining that the email is to be sent to a particular destination;

detecting that the email message includes a first part from a first author and a second part from a second author;

retrieving a first voice characteristic of the first author;

retrieving a second voice characteristic of the second author; and

transferring the first and second voice characteristics to the particular destination.