GB2378875A - Annunciator for converting text messages to speech - Google Patents

Annunciator for converting text messages to speech Download PDF

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Publication number
GB2378875A
GB2378875A GB0110891A GB0110891A GB2378875A GB 2378875 A GB2378875 A GB 2378875A GB 0110891 A GB0110891 A GB 0110891A GB 0110891 A GB0110891 A GB 0110891A GB 2378875 A GB2378875 A GB 2378875A
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GB
United Kingdom
Prior art keywords
annunciator
speech
audio device
sms
messages
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
GB0110891A
Other versions
GB0110891D0 (en
Inventor
Andrew James Marsh
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Individual
Original Assignee
Individual
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Priority to GB0110891A priority Critical patent/GB2378875A/en
Publication of GB0110891D0 publication Critical patent/GB0110891D0/en
Publication of GB2378875A publication Critical patent/GB2378875A/en
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
    • G10L13/00—Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/72—Mobile telephones; Cordless telephones, i.e. devices for establishing wireless links to base stations without route selection
    • H04M1/724—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
    • H04M1/72403—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
    • H04M1/7243—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality with interactive means for internal management of messages
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2201/00—Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems
    • H04M2201/60—Medium conversion
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
    • H04W4/00—Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
    • H04W4/18—Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
  • Computational Linguistics (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Mobile Radio Communication Systems (AREA)

Abstract

An Annunciator 1 is a portable device that includes Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis modules, which is connected (Fig 1) to a mobile station (MS) 2 and an audio device (AD) 3. The Annunciator can read ASCII messages (that are in a defined format such as GSM 07.07) received at the MS (these include short message service (SMS) messages) and convert them to speech. The Annunciator can therefore allow the user to listen, via an audio device, to the ASCII messages being read. This may be carried out independently of any received encoding schemes set in the message header. The speech output is possible in SMS peer-to-peer service or in SMS cell broadcast service. The Annunciator, an external to the MS device, may include the audio device, a microcontroller and wireless interface connections to the MS and AD. It may also include a storage medium and an on-the-fly language translation module.

Description

<Desc/Clms Page number 1>
The Annunciator This invention relates to a portable device (i. e. that may be put anywhere convenient) that includes Text-To-Speech and speech synthesis support, which can be connected to a mobile station (MS) and an audio device (AD).
To receive ASCII text messages (including SMS) at an MS are well known, but suffer from the disadvantage that they can only be read (i. e. seen on a screen). In some circumstances, for example driving a car, it is difficult to read the received messages as soon as they have arrived and if the user is visually impaired then it is also impossible.
The objective of this invention is to allow messages that have been received at the MS to be read and converted to speech.
Accordingly, this invention uses Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis to listen, via an audio device (AD), to messages being read that have been received at a mobile station (MS).
Preferably the Annunciator is made of lightweight metal and/or plastics material and is as small as desirable in size to be used as a handsfree device.
A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows how the Annunciator will be connected to the MS and AD.
Figure 2 shows a modular diagram of the Annunciator components.
As depicted in Figure 1, the Annunciator can be connected to a Mobile Station (MS) and an Audio Device (AD). The Annunciator (1) comprises of at least two I/O Interfaces 4 and 6. Data Interface 4 is used to transfer data to and from data interface 5 of the MS (2). Audio Interface 6 is used to transfer data to an AD (3) via its input interface 7. The physical connections between 4 & 5 and 6 & 7 respectively may be either cable or wireless.
As shown in Figure 2, the Annunciator consists, but is not restricted to, a number of interconnected modules. Each of these modules (4,6, 8,9, 10, 11 and 12) may be either hardware (e. g. a chipset) or software (e. g. a program) or a combination of both. These modules may also be combined in any combination, for example modules 8 and 9 may be combined into a single chipset.
The Data Interface (4) has at least 3 uses; firstly to connect the Annunciator to at least one MS, secondly, to convert any data received into a format that can be used by the Annunciator and thirdly, to convert any data to be sent to the MS into a format that can be used by the MS.
The Text-To-Speech (TTS) module (8) and the Speech Synthesis (SS) module (9) collectively take as input an ASCII string and produce the corresponding audio output in a defined format.
<Desc/Clms Page number 2>
The Audio Interface (6) has 3 uses; firstly to connect the Annunciator to at least one AD, secondly, to convert any data to be sent to the AD into a format that can be used by the AD and thirdly to adjust any customizable audio parameters which includes volume, tine, pitch, speed and articulation.
To facilitate flexibility the Annunciator may also include a storage medium (10), a language translation module (11) to multi-lingual speech and translation and a microcontroller (12).
Designed originally for the visually impaired, elderly and the handicapped but equally applicable in any handsfree environment an example of the"Annunciator"is one that uses the latest Text-ToSpeech and speech synthesis technology to allow the user to listen, via a handsfree earpiece, to their SMS messages being read as they are received at their GSM mobile handset (900/1800/1900 Mhz).
The Annunciator could support a fully programmable exception dictionary, multi-lingual pronunciation, and predefined voices with customizable parameters including volume, tone, pitch, speed, reverb, expression, formant frequency and articulation. The Annunciator with a programmable word association dictionary could also support user-defined SMS encoding and message shorthand, for example an SMS from +447703235307 with the text"WLC 2 TE ANCTR HNDFR SMS RDR"could be pronounced in English as"SMS received from VMWS: Welcome to the Annunciator handsfree SMS reader".

Claims (11)

  1. CLAIMS 1. An Annunciator includes a Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis module, which are connected to a mobile station (MS) and an audio device (AD).
  2. 2. An Annunciator as claimed in claim I where the Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis module are either combined hardware components or separate hardware components.
  3. 3. An Annunciator as claimed in claim 1 where the Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis module are either combined software components or separate software components.
  4. 4. An Annunciator as claimed in claim I where the Text-to-Speech and Speech Synthesis module is a combination of claim 2 and claim 3.
  5. 5. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including a wireless interface between the Annunciator and the MS.
  6. 6. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including a wireless interface between the Annunciator and the audio device.
  7. 7. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including an audio device.
  8. 8. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including a storage medium.
  9. 9. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including a language translation module.
  10. 10. An Annunciator as claimed in any preceding claim including a mircocontroller.
  11. 11. An Annunciator substantially as herein described and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
GB0110891A 2001-05-04 2001-05-04 Annunciator for converting text messages to speech Withdrawn GB2378875A (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB0110891A GB2378875A (en) 2001-05-04 2001-05-04 Annunciator for converting text messages to speech

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB0110891A GB2378875A (en) 2001-05-04 2001-05-04 Annunciator for converting text messages to speech

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
GB0110891D0 GB0110891D0 (en) 2001-06-27
GB2378875A true GB2378875A (en) 2003-02-19

Family

ID=9913981

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
GB0110891A Withdrawn GB2378875A (en) 2001-05-04 2001-05-04 Annunciator for converting text messages to speech

Country Status (1)

Country Link
GB (1) GB2378875A (en)

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP1511286A1 (en) * 2003-08-28 2005-03-02 Alcatel Multimode voice/screen simultaneous communication device
CN103165126A (en) * 2011-12-15 2013-06-19 无锡中星微电子有限公司 Method for voice playing of mobile phone text short messages
CN108737662A (en) * 2018-06-19 2018-11-02 苏州工业园区服务外包职业学院 Information displaying method, device, terminal and medium

Citations (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0776097A2 (en) * 1995-11-23 1997-05-28 Wireless Links International Ltd. Mobile data terminals with text-to-speech capability
EP0901000A2 (en) * 1997-07-31 1999-03-10 Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Message processing system and method for processing messages
GB2361556A (en) * 2000-04-19 2001-10-24 Roundpoint Inc Text-to-speech browser
US20020095288A1 (en) * 2000-09-06 2002-07-18 Erik Sparre Text language detection

Patent Citations (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0776097A2 (en) * 1995-11-23 1997-05-28 Wireless Links International Ltd. Mobile data terminals with text-to-speech capability
EP0901000A2 (en) * 1997-07-31 1999-03-10 Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Message processing system and method for processing messages
GB2361556A (en) * 2000-04-19 2001-10-24 Roundpoint Inc Text-to-speech browser
US20020095288A1 (en) * 2000-09-06 2002-07-18 Erik Sparre Text language detection

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP1511286A1 (en) * 2003-08-28 2005-03-02 Alcatel Multimode voice/screen simultaneous communication device
CN103165126A (en) * 2011-12-15 2013-06-19 无锡中星微电子有限公司 Method for voice playing of mobile phone text short messages
CN108737662A (en) * 2018-06-19 2018-11-02 苏州工业园区服务外包职业学院 Information displaying method, device, terminal and medium

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB0110891D0 (en) 2001-06-27

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