GB2307619A - Internet information access system - Google Patents

Internet information access system Download PDF

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Publication number
GB2307619A
GB2307619A GB9623815A GB9623815A GB2307619A GB 2307619 A GB2307619 A GB 2307619A GB 9623815 A GB9623815 A GB 9623815A GB 9623815 A GB9623815 A GB 9623815A GB 2307619 A GB2307619 A GB 2307619A
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United Kingdom
Prior art keywords
internet
information
user
audio
audio interface
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.)
Granted
Application number
GB9623815A
Other versions
GB2307619B (en
GB9623815D0 (en
Inventor
Alexander James Pollitt
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Individual
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Individual
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Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Publication of GB9623815D0 publication Critical patent/GB9623815D0/en
Publication of GB2307619A publication Critical patent/GB2307619A/en
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of GB2307619B publication Critical patent/GB2307619B/en
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
    • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
    • H04M3/487—Arrangements for providing information services, e.g. recorded voice services or time announcements
    • H04M3/493—Interactive information services, e.g. directory enquiries ; Arrangements therefor, e.g. interactive voice response [IVR] systems or voice portals
    • H04M3/4938—Interactive information services, e.g. directory enquiries ; Arrangements therefor, e.g. interactive voice response [IVR] systems or voice portals comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2201/00—Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems
    • H04M2201/40—Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems using speech recognition
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04Q—SELECTING
    • H04Q2213/00—Indexing scheme relating to selecting arrangements in general and for multiplex systems
    • H04Q2213/13389—LAN, internet
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04Q—SELECTING
    • H04Q2213/00—Indexing scheme relating to selecting arrangements in general and for multiplex systems
    • H04Q2213/13405—Dual frequency signaling, DTMF

Abstract

An audio interface to the Internet operated by a user over a telephone system. The interface generates user interpretable audio output (speech and other sounds) and interprets user generated audio input (speech and/or DTMF tones) of control information which is used to control the information transfer process. The speech recognition system of the interface uses a dynamically constructed list of recognisable phrases based on the contents of the current page. Additional pages are generated internally to give the user additional control over the information transfer process.

Description

Internet Information Access System This invention relates to an audio interface to the Internet.
The Internet is a global network of computers allowing access to millions of pages of information in a variety of formats. Each page of information held on a computer may contain links to other pages either on the same computer or on other computers. The information on the Internet may be accessed using an Internet browser application.
The browser application can display the pages of information visually for the user and navigate through the Internet from page to page at the users instruction. A page of information typically correspond to a Web page, an Internet News article, or an Email message. A variety of protocols are used by the World Wide Web browser to access the different types of pages.
To access the Internet a user typically needs his/her own computer with a browser application and a physical connection to the Internet. This means access to the massive quantity of information on the Internet is currently restricted to a relatively small proportion of the population.
According to the present invention there is provided an audio interface to the Internet which generates user interpretable audio output of information and interprets user generated audio input of control information which controls the transfer of pages of information over the Internet.
A specific embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying diagram (Figure 1) in which the high level components are clearly illustrated.
The user (1) communicates using a telephone (2) by speaking in a normal voice and/or using the DTMF tones generated by pressing the keys on the telephone. Information retrieved from the Internet is supplied to the user as speech and other audio sounds.
Different voices or other audio sounds are used to enable the user to distinguish between standard text and links to other pages of information on the Internet.
The computer interface to the telephone network (4) is implemented using suitable existing technology. The audio signals that are received by the computer interface to the telephone network (4) from the telephone network (3) (i.e. that are generated by the user (1) and telephone (2)) are passed on to the speech and tone recognition system (5). In the reverse direction the audio signals that are generated by the speech and tone generation system (6) are passed on by the computer interface to the telephone network (4) to the telephone network (3) so that the user (1) can listen to them.
The speech and tone recognition system (5) is based on existing technology which is enhanced to incorporate dynamic phrase list recognition. Dynamic phrase list recognition works as follows. For any particular page of Internet information there are a finite number of links that the user may want to select. The dynamic phrase list contains the links in the current page of information. The dynamic phrase list can be used to simplify the implementation of the speech recognition system. When the user speaks the speech recognition system can choose the phrase in the dynamic phrase list which most closely matches its interpretation of the speech. The dynamic phrase list is supplied by the navigation control system (7).
The speech and tone generation system (6) is based on existing technology. The speech and tone generation system (6) is supplied a text representation of the current page by the page processing system (8) and converts it into speech and other audio sounds. Different voices or other audio sounds are used to distinguish between standard text, links to other pages on the Internet, and other attributes of the text such as italic and bold.
The navigation control system (7) processes input from the speech and tone recognition system (5) which it uses to control the movement of the Internet browsing system (9) from one page to another. The navigation control system (7) also supplies the speech and tone recognition system (5) with the dynamic phrase list using the text representation of the current page produced by the page processing system (8) and an internal history of pages processed so far.
The page processing system (8) processes pages supplied by the Internet browsing system (9). Each page typically corresponds to a Web page, an Internet News article, or Email message. The page processing system applies a series of content sensitive filtering, reformatting and conversion operations to convert the page into a text representation that is more suitable for sequential reading. Typical operations include converting date and time information into a simple and consistent format, and identifying and extracting the page specific content from the page's general header and footer information which is less interesting to the user. The text representation of the page produced by the page processing system (8) is used by the navigation control system (7) and the speech and tone generation system (6).
The Internet browsing system (9) implements a variety of protocols for transferring pages over the Internet including World Wide Web pages, Internet News articles and Email messages. In addition it may generate pages of information internally to give the user additional control of the information transfer process. For example, internal pages may be generated to aid the user to construct a reply to an Email message which the Internet browsing system (9) will then send over the Internet using an appropriate protocol.
The computer interface to the Internet (10) is implemented using suitable existing technology.

Claims (9)

Claims
1. An audio interface to the Internet which generates user interpretable audio output of information and interprets user generated audio input of control information which controls the information transfer process.
2. An audio interface to the Internet as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the user generated audio input of control information may be normal speech and/or DTMF tones.
3. An audio interface to the Internet as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the generated user interpretable audio output of information may include speech.
4. An audio interface to the Internet as claimed in Claim 3 wherein different voices or other audio sounds are used to enable the user to distinguish between standard text and links to other pages of information on the Internet.
5. An audio interface to the Internet as claimed in Claim 2 or Claim 4, wherein the speech recognition process is enhanced by using a dynamic phrase list which consists of the phrases that the user can issue to control information transfer process given the current page of information.
6. An audio interface to the Internet substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying illustration (Figure 1).
7. An audio interface to the Internet substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying illustration (Figure 1) where the type of information that can be transferred is limited to World Wide Web pages.
8. An audio interface to the Internet substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying illustration (Figure 1) where the type of information that can be transferred is limited to Email pages.
9. An audio interface to the Internet substantially as described herein with reference to the accompanying illustration (Figure 1) where the type of information that can be transferred is limited to Internet News pages.
GB9623815A 1995-11-21 1996-11-18 Internet information access system Expired - Lifetime GB2307619B (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GBGB9523759.0A GB9523759D0 (en) 1995-11-21 1995-11-21 World wide web information retrieval system

Publications (3)

Publication Number Publication Date
GB9623815D0 GB9623815D0 (en) 1997-01-08
GB2307619A true GB2307619A (en) 1997-05-28
GB2307619B GB2307619B (en) 1999-09-01

Family

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Family Applications (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
GBGB9523759.0A Pending GB9523759D0 (en) 1995-11-21 1995-11-21 World wide web information retrieval system
GB9623815A Expired - Lifetime GB2307619B (en) 1995-11-21 1996-11-18 Internet information access system

Family Applications Before (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
GBGB9523759.0A Pending GB9523759D0 (en) 1995-11-21 1995-11-21 World wide web information retrieval system

Country Status (1)

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GB (2) GB9523759D0 (en)

Cited By (25)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP0847179A2 (en) * 1996-12-04 1998-06-10 AT&T Corp. System and method for voiced interface with hyperlinked information
EP0848373A2 (en) * 1996-12-13 1998-06-17 Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. A sytem for interactive communication
WO1998035491A1 (en) * 1997-02-05 1998-08-13 British Telecommunications Public Limited Company Voice-data interface
EP0859500A2 (en) * 1997-02-18 1998-08-19 Lucent Technologies Inc. Method and apparatus for browsing the Internet with a telecommunications device
WO1999046920A1 (en) * 1998-03-10 1999-09-16 Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. A system for browsing the world wide web with a traditional telephone
GB2342530A (en) * 1998-10-07 2000-04-12 Vocalis Ltd Gathering user inputs by speech recognition
WO2000052914A1 (en) * 1999-02-27 2000-09-08 Khan Emdadur R System and method for internet audio browsing using a standard telephone
WO2001002997A1 (en) * 1999-07-02 2001-01-11 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. User-profile driven mapping of speech onto urls
WO2001015009A2 (en) * 1999-08-23 2001-03-01 Mannesmann Ag Internet access having voice input and output
WO2001016936A1 (en) * 1999-08-31 2001-03-08 Accenture Llp Voice recognition for internet navigation
WO2001050453A2 (en) * 2000-01-04 2001-07-12 Heyanita, Inc. Interactive voice response system
EP1168799A2 (en) * 2000-06-30 2002-01-02 Fujitsu Limited Data processing system with vocalisation mechanism
EP1172975A1 (en) * 2000-02-21 2002-01-16 NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system, and communication service providing method
EP1178656A1 (en) * 2000-08-02 2002-02-06 Passcall Advanced Technologies Ltd System and method for computerless surfing of an information network
EP1178658A2 (en) * 2000-06-19 2002-02-06 International Business Machines Corporation Voice over IP based system for internet browsing using a gateway
WO2002042941A2 (en) * 2000-11-21 2002-05-30 Blue Wireless, Inc. Portable browser device with adaptive personalization capalibity
WO2002069614A2 (en) * 2001-02-28 2002-09-06 Telecom Italia S.P.A. System and method for access to multimedia structures
GB2374757A (en) * 2001-01-05 2002-10-23 Michael John Stubbs Remote audio-video instructional database
DE10131410A1 (en) * 2001-06-28 2003-01-09 Deutsche Telekom Ag Selecting/providing stored information involves connecting caller via associated exchange station to interface computer connected to network with access to background information database
EP1282295A2 (en) * 2001-08-03 2003-02-05 Deutsche Telekom AG Conversion device and method for acoustical access to a computer network
US6678673B1 (en) 1998-02-24 2004-01-13 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. System and method for providing appropriate hyperlink based on identified keywords from text messages sent between users
FR2848053A1 (en) * 2002-11-29 2004-06-04 Streamwide PROCESS FOR PROCESSING AUDIO DATA ON A NETWORK AND DEVICE FOR CARRYING OUT SAID METHOD
US7106837B2 (en) 2001-08-31 2006-09-12 Mitel Networks Corporation Split browser
US7885815B2 (en) 2001-02-28 2011-02-08 Telecom Italia S.P.A. System and method for access to multimedia structures
US8697453B2 (en) 2002-12-11 2014-04-15 Life Technologies As Particles

Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO1996020553A2 (en) * 1994-12-23 1996-07-04 Alphanet Telecom Inc. Unified messaging and long distance communication system
GB2300991A (en) * 1995-05-15 1996-11-20 Andrew Macgregor Ritchie Serving signals to browsing clients on the INTERNET
GB2301260A (en) * 1995-05-26 1996-11-27 Ibm Voice mail system

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO1996020553A2 (en) * 1994-12-23 1996-07-04 Alphanet Telecom Inc. Unified messaging and long distance communication system
GB2300991A (en) * 1995-05-15 1996-11-20 Andrew Macgregor Ritchie Serving signals to browsing clients on the INTERNET
GB2301260A (en) * 1995-05-26 1996-11-27 Ibm Voice mail system

Cited By (48)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6282511B1 (en) 1996-12-04 2001-08-28 At&T Voiced interface with hyperlinked information
EP0847179A2 (en) * 1996-12-04 1998-06-10 AT&T Corp. System and method for voiced interface with hyperlinked information
EP0847179A3 (en) * 1996-12-04 2000-05-31 AT&T Corp. System and method for voiced interface with hyperlinked information
EP0848373A3 (en) * 1996-12-13 1999-03-10 Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. A sytem for interactive communication
EP0848373A2 (en) * 1996-12-13 1998-06-17 Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. A sytem for interactive communication
WO1998035491A1 (en) * 1997-02-05 1998-08-13 British Telecommunications Public Limited Company Voice-data interface
EP0859500A3 (en) * 1997-02-18 2001-03-07 Lucent Technologies Inc. Method and apparatus for browsing the Internet with a telecommunications device
EP0859500A2 (en) * 1997-02-18 1998-08-19 Lucent Technologies Inc. Method and apparatus for browsing the Internet with a telecommunications device
US6678673B1 (en) 1998-02-24 2004-01-13 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. System and method for providing appropriate hyperlink based on identified keywords from text messages sent between users
WO1999046920A1 (en) * 1998-03-10 1999-09-16 Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. A system for browsing the world wide web with a traditional telephone
GB2342530A (en) * 1998-10-07 2000-04-12 Vocalis Ltd Gathering user inputs by speech recognition
US6606611B1 (en) * 1999-02-27 2003-08-12 Emdadur Khan System and method for audio-only internet browsing using a standard telephone
WO2000052914A1 (en) * 1999-02-27 2000-09-08 Khan Emdadur R System and method for internet audio browsing using a standard telephone
CN100393073C (en) * 1999-02-27 2008-06-04 E·R·汗 System and method for internet audio browsing using standard telephone
WO2001002997A1 (en) * 1999-07-02 2001-01-11 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. User-profile driven mapping of speech onto urls
WO2001015009A2 (en) * 1999-08-23 2001-03-01 Mannesmann Ag Internet access having voice input and output
WO2001015009A3 (en) * 1999-08-23 2002-10-24 Mannesmann Ag Internet access having voice input and output
US7590538B2 (en) 1999-08-31 2009-09-15 Accenture Llp Voice recognition system for navigating on the internet
WO2001016936A1 (en) * 1999-08-31 2001-03-08 Accenture Llp Voice recognition for internet navigation
WO2001050453A2 (en) * 2000-01-04 2001-07-12 Heyanita, Inc. Interactive voice response system
WO2001050453A3 (en) * 2000-01-04 2002-01-31 Heyanita Inc Interactive voice response system
EP1172975A4 (en) * 2000-02-21 2005-01-05 Ntt Docomo Inc Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system, and communication service providing method
US7346042B2 (en) 2000-02-21 2008-03-18 Ntt Docomo, Inc. Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system and communication service providing method
EP1580961A2 (en) * 2000-02-21 2005-09-28 NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system, and communication service providing method
EP1172975A1 (en) * 2000-02-21 2002-01-16 NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system, and communication service providing method
EP1580961A3 (en) * 2000-02-21 2011-12-28 NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Information distributing method, information distributing system, information distributing server, mobile communication network system, and communication service providing method
EP1178658A2 (en) * 2000-06-19 2002-02-06 International Business Machines Corporation Voice over IP based system for internet browsing using a gateway
EP1178658A3 (en) * 2000-06-19 2004-05-26 International Business Machines Corporation Voice over IP based system for internet browsing using a gateway
EP1168799A3 (en) * 2000-06-30 2005-12-14 Fujitsu Limited Data processing system with vocalisation mechanism
EP1168799A2 (en) * 2000-06-30 2002-01-02 Fujitsu Limited Data processing system with vocalisation mechanism
EP1178656A1 (en) * 2000-08-02 2002-02-06 Passcall Advanced Technologies Ltd System and method for computerless surfing of an information network
WO2002042941A2 (en) * 2000-11-21 2002-05-30 Blue Wireless, Inc. Portable browser device with adaptive personalization capalibity
WO2002042941A3 (en) * 2000-11-21 2003-12-18 Blue Wireless Inc Portable browser device with adaptive personalization capalibity
GB2374757A (en) * 2001-01-05 2002-10-23 Michael John Stubbs Remote audio-video instructional database
GB2374757B (en) * 2001-01-05 2003-06-11 Michael John Stubbs Remote audio visual instruction system
WO2002069614A2 (en) * 2001-02-28 2002-09-06 Telecom Italia S.P.A. System and method for access to multimedia structures
US8155970B2 (en) 2001-02-28 2012-04-10 Telecom Italia S.P.A. System and method for access to multimedia structures
WO2002069614A3 (en) * 2001-02-28 2004-03-25 Telecom Italia Spa System and method for access to multimedia structures
US7885815B2 (en) 2001-02-28 2011-02-08 Telecom Italia S.P.A. System and method for access to multimedia structures
DE10131410A1 (en) * 2001-06-28 2003-01-09 Deutsche Telekom Ag Selecting/providing stored information involves connecting caller via associated exchange station to interface computer connected to network with access to background information database
EP1282295A2 (en) * 2001-08-03 2003-02-05 Deutsche Telekom AG Conversion device and method for acoustical access to a computer network
EP1282295A3 (en) * 2001-08-03 2004-05-12 Deutsche Telekom AG Conversion device and method for acoustical access to a computer network
US7106837B2 (en) 2001-08-31 2006-09-12 Mitel Networks Corporation Split browser
FR2848053A1 (en) * 2002-11-29 2004-06-04 Streamwide PROCESS FOR PROCESSING AUDIO DATA ON A NETWORK AND DEVICE FOR CARRYING OUT SAID METHOD
US8644465B2 (en) 2002-11-29 2014-02-04 Streamwide Method for processing audio data on a network and device therefor
US8697453B2 (en) 2002-12-11 2014-04-15 Life Technologies As Particles
US8722429B2 (en) 2002-12-11 2014-05-13 Life Technologies As Particles
US9187691B2 (en) 2002-12-11 2015-11-17 Life Technologies Corporation Particles

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB9523759D0 (en) 1996-01-24
GB2307619B (en) 1999-09-01
GB9623815D0 (en) 1997-01-08

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Expiry date: 20161117