JPH09160752A - Information storage medium and electronic device using the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable an information storage medium to control even an electronic device which is not designed in consideration of voice processing by providing a sound wave transducing means which transduces a sound wave into an electric signal and a processing means which processes the converted electric signal. SOLUTION: A picture book type game cartridge 12 is mounted on a folding type video game device main body 10. On the game cartridge, a program ROM which stores a game program, a microphone 44 which transduces a sound into an electric signal, and an LSI for speech recognition which performs speech processing are mounted. The LSI for speech recognition is capable of sound volume recognition for discriminating the loudness of a voice and word recognition (about 10 words) for words spoken by unspecified speaker. The recognition rate can be improved by limiting the number of words to be recognized. A player speaks word to the microphone 44 to give instruction to the game. Consequently, the player can feel as if the player gave the instruction directly to a character on a television monitor 90 and had a conversation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information storage medium for storing information such as a game program and an electronic device using the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, a variety of entertaining games have been developed for home video game devices, and some of them are very popular as entertainment. In the video game device, instructions for switching the game screen and moving the character are given by operating the controller.

On the other hand, as a kind of video game device, a video game device for infants, which is mainly intended for infants, has been developed. Some video game devices for infants have adopted picture book type software so that infants can play with interest. Various games can be played by instructing a specific position on the displayed game screen with a touch pen.

As described above, the conventional video game device is
All the instructions to the game were to be given by the player by operating the controller or touch pen.

[0005]

Voice is the most natural means of communication for human beings. For this reason, various attempts have been made for a long time to control a machine by human voice, and an attempt has been made to control a vehicle, a robot or the like by human voice or an electronic device by voice instruction.

However, in order to control the electronic device by using the voice, it is necessary that the electronic device itself has a structure capable of voice control, such as mounting a microphone and incorporating a voice processing IC. It was For this reason, it is not possible to perform voice control in an electronic device such as a video game device that is not premised on voice processing. An object of the present invention is to provide an information storage medium that enables control by voice even if the electronic device is not premised on voice processing.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device using an information storage medium that enables control by voice.

[0008]

The above object is an information storage medium mounted on an electronic device, and a sound wave converting means for converting a sound wave into an electric signal and an electric signal converted by the sound wave converting means. And an information processing medium for processing the information. In the above-mentioned information storage medium, it is desirable that the processing unit has a voice recognition unit that recognizes a voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion unit.

In the above-mentioned information storage medium, it is desirable that the sound wave converting means is attached at a position deviated from the resonance point of the envelope of the information storage medium. The above-mentioned object is an electronic device that mounts the above-mentioned information storage medium and uses the information stored in the information storage medium, and utilizes the processing result processed by the processing means in the information storage medium. Achieved by a featured electronic device.

In the above electronic device, the processing means has a voice recognition means for recognizing a voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion means, and is controlled by the voice recognized by the voice recognition means. Is desirable.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A video game device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the video game device of this embodiment.
Is a game cartridge of the video game device of the present embodiment, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a microphone position of the game cartridge, FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the video game device of the present embodiment, and FIG. 5 is this embodiment. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a playing method by the video game device of FIG. 6, and FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation of the video game device of the present embodiment.

In the video game device of this embodiment, a picture book type game cartridge 12 is mounted on a foldable game device main body 10. As shown in FIG.
The upper lid 16 is removed from the bottom lid 14 of the game apparatus body 10 and opened, and the game cartridge 12 is inserted into the cartridge slot 18 inside thereof. Bottom cover 1 of game device body 10
4 Inside, a direction button 20 and an execution button 22 are provided on the left side, and a drawing tablet 24 is provided at the center,
A touch pen holder 26 is provided on the right side.

The direction button 20 and the execute button 22 are operated by the player. The direction button 20 is used to instruct four directions of up, down, left and right, and the execute button 22 is used to give an execution instruction. The touch pen holder 26 is a touch pen 28.
Hold. The touch pen 28 is a drawing tablet 2
It is used to operate the picture book software by touching 4.
The drawing tablet 24 detects the position where the touch pen 28 is close by the electromagnetic induction method. The position is detected by receiving an electromagnetic signal emitted from the drawing tablet 24 with the touch pen 28.

Inside the upper lid 16 of the game apparatus body 10,
A picture book tablet 32 to which the picture book type game cartridge 12 is mounted is provided in the center. The picture book tablet 32 detects the position where the touch pen 28 is close by the same electromagnetic induction method as the picture drawing tablet 24. On the lower left side of the picture book tablet 32, a power switch 34 for turning the power on and off is provided. The game cartridge 12 is on the lower right side of the picture book tablet 32.
There is provided a cartridge slot 18 into which is inserted. When the eject button 36 is pressed, the mounted game cartridge 12 is inserted into the cartridge slot 1
8 can be removed.

A page sensor 38 is provided on the upper right side of the picture book tablet 32. Game cartridge 1
The page sensor 38 detects which page 42 of the second picture book is open. A notch is formed in the upper right portion of each page 42 of the picture book, and the notch width is made wider in the order of pages. By doing so, the number of sensors to be shielded differs depending on the opened page, and the currently opened page can be detected.

As shown in FIG. 1, the game cartridge 12 has a basic form such as a picture book in which a plurality of pages 42 are bound by a binding ring 40 at the left edge. Each page 42
Has a picture corresponding to the game program. As shown in FIG. 1, a microphone 44 that converts sound into an electric signal is attached to the lower left portion of the game cartridge 12.

Details of the game cartridge 12 will be described with reference to FIG. 2A is a plan view of the game cartridge 12 in a state where each page 42 of the picture book is not bound, and FIG. 2B is a sectional view taken along the line AA ′ of FIG.
(C) is an enlarged view of part B. Game cartridge 12
As shown in FIG. 2, the upper portion is a picture book placing portion 46 on which a picture book is placed, and the lower portion is a board housing portion 50 that houses a circuit board 48 therein.

A binding ring 40 for binding each page 42 of the picture book is provided on the left edge of the picture book placing section 46. The picture book tablet 32 is provided in the upper right portion of the picture book placement section 46.
Six sensor holes 52 corresponding to the position of the page sensor 38 are formed. The circuit board 48 is housed inside the board housing portion 50. On the circuit board 48, in addition to the program ROM 54 storing the game program,
A microphone 44 that converts voice into an electric signal and a voice recognition LSI 56 that performs voice recognition are mounted.

Microphone mounting portion 58 on the surface of the substrate housing portion 50
Is a plurality of holes 5 at the position corresponding to the front of the microphone 44 on the surface
8a is opened, and a microphone hold 58b for holding the microphone 44 is formed on the back surface (FIG. 2 (c)).
A rubber holder 44a is covered around the microphone 44 to absorb vibration noise from the outside. The rubber holder 44a is press-fitted into the microphone hold 58b so that the microphone 44
Are held by the microphone mounting portion 58.

In this embodiment, the microphone 44 is mounted at a position deviated from the center of the board housing portion 50 of the game cartridge 12. Game cartridge 12
, There is a standing wave of sound that depends on the shape of the envelope, as shown in FIG. For this reason, when the microphone 44 is attached to the center of the game cartridge 12, a sound other than the voice is received in conformity with the antinode of the standing wave. As shown in FIG. 3, by locating the microphone 44 at the node of the standing wave, offset from the center of the game cartridge 12, no sound other than the sound is input.

Further, by displacing the position of the game cartridge 12 from the center to the left side, when the game cartridge 12 is attached to the game apparatus body 10, as shown in FIG. 1, the microphone 44 is positioned at the center of the entire video game apparatus. Therefore, the voice generated by the player can be reliably picked up. Further, in the present embodiment, the microphone 44 is attached to the microphone hold 58a via the rubber holder 44a. By doing so, it is possible to prevent the microphone 44 from picking up noise when operating the video game device.

The rib of the microphone hold 58a is shallower than the height of the rubber holder 44a. If this rib is made deeper, it will be necessary to push it in with as much force as possible during assembly, and the workability will be impaired.
The workability at the time of assembly is improved by setting the minimum depth required for positioning 4a. Next, the configuration of the video game device of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the structure of the game apparatus body 10 will be described. The MPU 60 controls the entire video game device. R
The AM 62 is a work memory of the MPU 60. The video display processor 64 controls the drawing process of the background and characters. The video information is written in the video RAM 66. The video signal from the video display processor 64 is output to the RGB encoder 68 and is output to a television monitor (not shown) via the video output interface 70.

The voice synthesis LSI 72 synthesizes words spoken by the character. The words according to the game are synthesized and pronounced. The mixing circuit 74 mixes the audio signal from the video display processor 64 and the audio signal from the audio synthesizing LSI 72, and outputs the audio signal to a television monitor (not shown) via the audio output interface 76. The button controller 78 monitors the states of the direction button 20, the execution button 22, the touch pen 28, and the page sensor 38, and outputs the input information by the player's operation to the MPU 60.

The tablet controller 80 monitors the states of the picture book tablet 32 and the drawing tablet 24 and outputs the input information by the operation of the player to the MPU 60. The MPU 60, RAM 62, video display processor 64, voice synthesis LSI 72, button controller 78 and tablet controller 80 are connected by an address / data bus 86 and a control bus 88.

Next, the structure of the game cartridge 12 will be described with reference to FIG. The game cartridge 12 of this embodiment includes a program RO storing a game program.
A microphone 44 that converts voice into an electrical signal together with the M54
And a voice recognition LSI 56 (RF5A1 for performing voice recognition).
38: manufactured by Ricoh Company, Ltd.) is installed. The voice recognition LSI 56 performs volume recognition for identifying the volume of voice,
Word recognition (about 10 words) by an unspecified speaker is possible. The recognition rate can be improved by limiting the number of recognized words.

Program ROM 54 and voice recognition LSI
56 is connected by an address / data bus 86 and a control bus 88. The game apparatus body 10 and the game cartridge 12 are connected via connectors 82 and 84, and the address / data bus 86 and the control bus 88 of the game apparatus body 10 and the game cartridge 12 are connected to each other. A power line (not shown) is also supplied to the game cartridge 12 via the connectors 82 and 84.

Next, a playing method of the video game apparatus of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 5, a television monitor 90 is provided on the game apparatus body 10.
And the game cartridge 12 provided with the microphone 44 is mounted. The play button 22
Instead of operating the direction button 20 and the touch pen 28,
Alternatively, along with these operations, a voice is output to the microphone 44 to give an instruction to the game.

The video game device of the present embodiment is capable of volume recognition and voice type recognition. In this specification, volume recognition and voice type recognition are collectively defined as voice recognition. The volume recognition is a process of recognizing the volume of voice input to the microphone 44. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6A, first, it is determined whether or not a voice is being input (step S10), and the process waits until a voice is input. When voice is input, the volume of the voice is recognized, and image processing described below is performed based on the recognition result (step S11).

The voice type recognition is the type of voice of an unspecified speaker input to the microphone 44, for example, "yes" or "no".
This is a process for recognizing "goodbye", "go", and the like. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6B, when a voice is input, it is calculated which voice is most similar to the registered voice, and it is determined whether the voice type is recognized (step S20). ). Specifically, the score for each type of voice is output. The higher the score, the more similar. In order to perform voice type recognition according to the scene, a word to be recognized is selected in advance. When the type of voice is recognized, image processing described later is performed based on the recognition result (step S21).

By using the recognition results of the volume recognition and the voice type recognition of this embodiment, the following exciting game can be played. (1) A game is operated by using voice type recognition. Prompt for a specific word during the game, and proceed with the game based on the recognition result. For example, the question from the game program is answered with "yes" or "no", and the game is advanced according to the recognition result. If it is mistakenly recognized, the game progress will be different. (2) The game is operated by using the volume recognition. The type and number of characters appearing on the screen differ depending on the volume of the voice. Fight against enemies with characters that appear louder. (3) Have the character speak. When the player makes a voice, the character in the monitor screen also speaks. The voice of the character on the monitor screen may be synchronized with the voice of the player. (4) Talk with the character. The player can dodge a simple conversation with the character on the monitor screen. The game develops based on the conversation.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the player can feel as if he or she is giving a direct instruction to the character on the TV monitor or having a conversation. Further, since the player only has to speak into the microphone fixed to the video game device, he can play without releasing the microphone in his hand. The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications are possible.

For example, in the above embodiment, the present invention is applied to the game cartridge mounted on the video game device, but any information storage medium mounted on the electronic device may be used. For example, it may be an information storage medium such as a memory card. For example, in the above embodiment, the present invention is applied to the video game device, but any electronic device may be used as long as it is an electronic device on which an information storage medium is mounted. For example, electronic notebook, personal computer, calculator,
It may be an electronic device such as a facsimile or a printer.

In the above embodiment, the electric signal from the microphone is processed by voice recognition. However, other processing such as processing for removing distortion of voice or simple amplification processing may be performed. Further, preprocessing such as processing for converting a child's voice into an adult's voice (formant processing) may be performed.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the sound wave converting means for converting a sound wave into an electric signal and the processing means for processing the electric signal converted by the sound wave converting means are provided, the sound processing is performed. Even if the electronic device is not a prerequisite,
Voice control can be performed.

If voice recognition means for recognizing voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion means is provided, it is possible to achieve voice communication between a human and an electronic device. Further, if the sound wave converting means is mounted at a position deviated from the resonance point of the envelope of the information storage medium, the voice generated by the player can be reliably picked up.

Further, according to the present invention, the above information storage medium is mounted, the information stored in the information storage medium is used, and the processing result processed by the processing means in the information storage medium is used. Therefore, even an electronic device which is not premised on voice processing can be controlled by voice. In addition, if a voice recognition unit that recognizes voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion unit is provided and control is performed by the voice recognized by the voice recognition unit, voice communication between a human and an electronic device can be performed. Can be planned.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a video game device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a game cartridge of a video game device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a microphone position of a game cartridge.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a video game device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a playing method of the video game device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation of the video game device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Game device body 12 ... Game cartridge 14 ... Bottom lid 16 ... Top lid 18 ... Cartridge slot 20 ... Direction button 22 ... Execution button 24 ... Drawing tablet 26 ... Touch pen holder 28 ... Touch pen 32 ... Picture tablet 36 ... Eject button 38 ... Page sensor 40 ... Ring 42 ... Page 44 ... Microphone 44b ... Rubber holder 46 ... Picture book placement section 48 ... Circuit board 50 ... Board storage section 52 ... Sensor hole 54 ... Program ROM 56 ... Voice recognition LSI 58 ... Microphone mounting section 58a ... hole 58b ... microphone hold 60 ... MPU 62 ... RAM 64 ... video display processor 66 ... video RAM 68 ... RGB encoder 70 ... video output interface 72 ... voice synthesis LSI 76 ... voice output interface 74 ... mixing Circuit 78 ... Button controller 80 ... Tablet controller 86 ... Address / data bus 88 ... Control bus 90 ... TV monitor

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An information storage medium mounted on an electronic device, comprising: a sound wave converting means for converting a sound wave into an electric signal; and a processing means for processing the electric signal converted by the sound wave converting means. Characteristic information storage medium. 2. The information storage medium according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit has a voice recognition unit that recognizes a voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion unit. 3. The information storage medium according to claim 1, wherein the sound wave conversion means is attached at a position deviated from a resonance point of an envelope of the information storage medium. Medium. 4. An electronic device which mounts the information storage medium according to claim 1 and uses information stored in the information storage medium, wherein the processing in the information storage medium is performed. An electronic device utilizing a processing result processed by the means. 5. The electronic device according to claim 4, wherein the processing unit has a voice recognition unit that recognizes a voice from the electric signal converted by the sound wave conversion unit, and the voice recognized by the voice recognition unit. An electronic device characterized by being controlled by.