Systems and Methods for Multiple Voice Document Narration

• US 20100318362A1
• Filed: 01/14/2010
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T Play Holdings LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: K-NFB Reading Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Albrecht, Paul, Kurzweil, Raymond C., Chapman, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,151 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/062 Combinations of audio and printed presentations, e.g. magnetically striped cards, talking books, magnetic tapes with printed texts thereon
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• 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

Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices where the portions of the text narrated using the different voices are selected by a user.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

displaying a sequence of words on a user interface rendered on a display device;

applying, by one or more computers, in response to a user-based selection of a first portion of words in the sequence of words, a first indicium to the user-selected first portion of words in the sequence of words;

associating, by the one or more computers, a first narration voice to the first portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associating, by the one or more computers, a second narration voice to a second portion of words in the sequence of words, the second portion of the words in the sequence of words being different from the first portion of words in the sequence of words.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words are user selected, the method further comprises:

applying, in response to the user selected second portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words do not have an assigned indicium.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

applying, in response to a user-based selection of a third portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium to the user-selected third portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associating a third narration voice to the third portion of words in the sequence of words.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the user selection of the first portion of words.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising receiving the user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the selected first portion of words.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein receiving the user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models comprises receiving the selection in response to a user selecting a voice model from a drop down menu.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by the one or more computer systems, an audible output corresponding to the words in the sequence of words, with the words in the first portion of words narrated using the first narration voice and the words in the second portion of words narrated using the second narration voice.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the second narration voice comprises a default narration voice.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first indicium comprises a highlighting

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

modifying one or both of the first and second narration voices by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.

12. A computer program product residing on a computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a processor to:

display a sequence of words on a user interface rendered on a display device;

apply in response to a user-based selection of a first portion of words in the sequence of words, a first indicium to the user-selected first portion of words in the sequence of words;

associate a first narration voice to the first portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associate a second narration voice to a second portion of words in the sequence of words, the second portion of the words in the sequence of words being different from the first portion of words in the sequence of words.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words are user selected and the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

apply, in response to the user selected second portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words do not have an assigned indicium.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

apply, in response to a user-based selection of a third portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium to the user-selected third portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associate a third narration voice to the third portion of words in the sequence of words.

16. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

display a drop down menu including a plurality of narration voice models; and

receive the user selection of one of a plurality of narration voice models to associate with the selected first portion of words from the drop down menu.

17. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

generate an audible output corresponding to the words in the sequence of words, with the words in the first portion of words narrated using the first narration voice and the words in the second portion of words narrated using the second narration voice.

18. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions for causing the processor to:

modify one or both of the first and second narration voices by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.

19. A system comprising:

a memory; and

a computing device configured to;

display a sequence of words on a user interface rendered on a display device;

apply in response to a user-based selection of a first portion of words in the sequence of words, a first indicium to the user-selected first portion of words in the sequence of words;

associate a first narration voice to the first portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associate a second narration voice to a second portion of words in the sequence of words, the second portion of the words in the sequence of words being different from the first portion of words in the sequence of words.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words are user selected and the computing device is further configured to:

apply, in response to the user selected second portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the second portion of words in the sequence of words do not have an assigned indicium.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

apply, in response to a user-based selection of a third portion of words in the sequence of words, a second indicium to the user-selected third portion of words in the sequence of words; and

associate a third narration voice to the third portion of words in the sequence of words.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

generate an audible output corresponding to the words in the sequence of words, with the words in the first portion of words narrated using the first narration voice and the words in the second portion of words narrated using the second narration voice.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the computing device is further configured to:

modify one or both of the first and second narration voices by at least one of modifying a reading speed associated with the voice model, modifying a volume associated with the voice model, modifying the gender of the character associated with the voice model, modifying the age of the character and modifying a language of the voice model.