JP2000232529A - Telephone terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To confirm a voice message that is recorded during absence from a remote place at a low cost. SOLUTION: When a telephone set 300 sends a call to an Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 during absence of a user and a voice message is recorded, a microcomputer 110 applies compression processing to the voice message and forms an electronic mail, which is sent to a preset mail address. The user uses a personal computer 340 to read the mail addressed to itself so as to confirm contents of the voice message recorded in the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a telephone terminal device connectable to a network (for example, the Internet), and more particularly to a telephone terminal device capable of converting a received voice message of a telephone into electronic mail and automatically transferring the same. About.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There has been conventionally known an answering machine which allows a partner to leave a voice message when a call is received during an absence. When the user of the answering machine returns to his / her home or office, he / she can listen to the message left by the other party during his / her absence by playing back the voice message stored in the answering machine. Furthermore, while out of the office, by calling a voice mail at home or the like and performing a predetermined operation such as inputting a personal identification number, the voice message left on the voice mail can be reproduced and listened to by the telephone on the go. it can.

On the other hand, in an e-mail widely used at present, a text message can be transmitted to a specific party by designating a destination mail address. The e-mail recipient can read the text message sent to his or her e-mail address at any time. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-314829 describes a method for inexpensively and efficiently performing such automatic transfer and redistribution of electronic mail.

[0004]

In the above-mentioned conventional answering machine, in order to confirm a message left during answering, it was necessary to directly call at least one's answering machine. Therefore, when trying to check the presence or content of a voice message at a remote location (for example, overseas), it is necessary to make a long-distance call (for example, an international call) from a telephone at a remote location to one's answering machine. Communication costs such as fees increase.

[0005] It is an object of the present invention to provide a telephone terminal device capable of checking a voice message received by an answering machine at an office or home at a low cost.

[0006]

A telephone terminal device according to the present invention is a telephone terminal device connected to a communication line. Then, a proxy response processing unit that performs a proxy response, an electronic mail processing unit that converts the voice message received by the proxy response processing unit into an electronic mail, and a transmission that transmits the electronic mail output by the electronic mail processing unit And a processing unit.

In this case, the apparatus further comprises a voice compression processing section for compressing the voice message received by the proxy response processing section, wherein the electronic mail processing section includes a compressed voice data output from the voice compression processing section. May be converted to an e-mail.

In addition, the apparatus further includes a voice recognition processing section for converting the voice message received by the proxy response processing section into character data, and the electronic mail processing section converts the character data output from the voice recognition processing section into electronic data. You may make it convert into an email.

In addition, the electronic mail processing unit has both the voice compression processing unit and the voice recognition processing unit, and the electronic mail processing unit includes character data output by the voice recognition processing unit and compressed voice output by the voice compression processing unit. Either of the data may be converted to an e-mail.

In this case, for example, if the recognition rate in the voice recognition processing is equal to or more than a predetermined value, the character data output by the voice recognition processing unit is converted into an electronic mail. May be converted into an electronic mail.

In the above case, a reception processing unit for receiving an electronic mail, an information extraction processing unit for analyzing the electronic mail received by the reception processing unit, and reproducing information output by the information extraction processing unit And a reproduction processing unit for performing the processing.

In this case, the information processing apparatus further includes a voice decompression unit for decompressing the compressed voice data output from the information extraction processing unit, and the reproduction processing unit reproduces the voice message output from the voice decompression processing unit. You may do so.

In addition, the apparatus further comprises a voice synthesis processing section for converting the character data output by the information extraction processing section into voice, wherein the reproduction processing section reproduces a voice message output by the voice synthesis processing section. Is also good.

Further, in the above case, the electronic mail processing section sets the transmission destination of the electronic mail according to the telephone number of the sender of the voice message accepted by the proxy response processing section. Good.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

First, regarding the first embodiment of the present invention,
This will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration and connection form of an Internet transfer telephone terminal according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, an Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 and a telephone 300 are connected to a public telephone network 31.
0 and the Internet transfer telephone terminal 10
Normal telephone communication is possible between 0 and the telephone 300. In addition, facsimile communication may be performed between the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 and the facsimile machine.

The Internet transfer telephone terminal 100
Can be connected to the Internet 320 by connecting a telephone line to a connection destination (access point) of an Internet connection provider via a public telephone line network 310.

A personal computer (hereinafter, referred to as a personal computer) 340 is an Internet transfer telephone terminal 100.
It can be connected to the Internet 320 via a public telephone network 330.

As shown in FIG. 1, the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 comprises a microcomputer 110, a memory 12
0, keyboard 130, display control circuit 140, display device 150, modem processing circuit 160, microphone 17
0, a speaker 180, and a telephone line connection terminal 190.

On the microcomputer 110, a multitask real-time OS operates, and the operations of a plurality of application programs are managed by the multitask real-time OS.

FIG. 2 shows an Internet transfer telephone terminal 10.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating functional blocks of processing performed by a microcomputer 110 in a block 0. As shown in the figure, the processing performed by the microcomputer 110 includes a telephone processing unit 500, a proxy response processing unit 510,
Memory control section 520, audio compression processing section 530, e-mail processing section 540, transmission processing section 550, reproduction processing section 560, audio decompression processing section 570, information extraction processing section 580, reception processing section 590. Each processing unit is realized as an application program that operates on a multitask real-time OS.

The telephone processing section 500 controls outgoing and incoming calls. When the answering machine function is set, proxy response processing section 510 makes a proxy response on behalf of a person. The memory control unit 520 controls recording and reproduction of a voice message and the like in the memory 120. The voice compression processing unit 530 performs a compression process on a voice message output from the memory control unit 520. E-mail processing unit 540
Performs a conversion process into an electronic mail by adding transmission information to the compressed audio information output from the audio compression processing unit 530.
The transmission processing unit 550 transmits the electronic mail generated by the electronic mail processing unit 540.

The reception processing unit 590 performs an e-mail reception process. The information extraction processing unit 580 includes a reception processing unit 590
Compressed voice information and the like are extracted from the e-mail information output from. The audio decompression processing unit 570 performs an expansion process on the compressed audio information output from the information extraction processing unit 580. The reproduction processing unit 560 uses the memory 120
The reproduction processing of the voice message or the like recorded in the.

Next, the operation of the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 having the above-described configuration will be described.

When a call is made from the telephone 300 shown in FIG. 1 to the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100, first, the modem processing circuit 160 connected to the public telephone line network 310 via the telephone line connection terminal 190 is switched to the public telephone line. Net 31
A calling signal from 0 is detected, and an interrupt signal is generated to the microcomputer 110.

The microcomputer 110 that has received the interrupt signal from the modem processing circuit 160 notifying the incoming call activates the telephone processing unit 500 shown in FIG.

In accordance with the instruction from the telephone processing unit 500, the modem processing circuit 160 establishes communication with the telephone exchange on the public telephone network 310. Further, the telephone processing unit 500 controls the modem processing circuit 160 to output a ringtone to the speaker 180 to notify the user of the incoming call. Here, when the user picks up the telephone, a normal call is started.

However, if the receiver cannot be picked up after a certain period of time, such as when the user is absent, the telephone processing unit 500 transmits a start-up message for the proxy response processing unit 510 to the multitask real-time OS. In response to this, the multitasking / real-time OS activates the proxy response processing unit 510.

The proxy response processing unit 510 controls the modem processing circuit 160, automatically receives a call on behalf of the user, and automatically starts a call. The proxy response processing unit 510 activates the memory control unit 520, reads out and plays back a voice message (presence response message) indicating that the user is absent recorded in the memory 120 in advance, and makes a call. Prompts the user of the telephone 300 to leave a voice message. As the absence response message, a fixed message may be recorded in the memory 120 in advance, or the user may be able to record the message in the memory 120 using the microphone 170 or the like.

The telephone 3 responds to the absence response message.
00 user issues a voice message, the proxy response processing unit 510 sends the voice message to the memory control unit 5
20 is controlled and recorded in the memory 120.

When the modem processing circuit 160 detects that the communication line has been disconnected after the user of the telephone 300 leaves a voice message, the modem processing circuit 160 generates an interrupt signal to the microcomputer 110.

The microcomputer 110 that has received the request terminates the processing of the proxy response processing unit 510 and controls the memory control unit 520 to determine the time at which the voice message was recorded and the telephone number of the telephone 300 (caller ID notification). Additional information, such as when the telephone number of the caller is known (for example, when the service is available) is added to the voice message and recorded.

Here, the Internet transfer telephone terminal 10
0 transmits the recorded voice message to the Internet 32
If the automatic transfer mode is set to 0 (automatic transfer mode), the microcomputer 110 activates the audio compression processing unit 530 in response to the recording of the audio message. Note that the user of the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 can use the keyboard 13 to set the mode for determining whether or not to perform automatic transfer and the information necessary for transfer (e-mail address of transfer destination).
It is set in advance using 0 or the like.

The audio compression processing section 530 includes a memory control section 5
20 is started, and the voice messages recorded by controlling the memory control unit 520 are sequentially read from the memory 120.
The voice compression processing unit 530 converts the voice message output from the memory 120 into a predetermined algorithm (for example, MPEG
(Motion Picture Experts Group) 1 Audio algorithm) and compress the compressed audio data into memory 120
Transfer to the work area created above.

Then, the microcomputer 110 activates the electronic mail processing unit 540. E-mail processing unit 540
Reads out additional information, such as the time the voice message was recorded and the telephone number of the sender, writes the information in an email according to the format of the email, attaches the compressed audio data in the work area, A setting is made so as to transmit to a destination set in advance on the H.120.

Note that a plurality of correspondences (for example, a pair of a telephone number and an e-mail address) between a caller's telephone number and a transfer destination e-mail address may be set in the memory 120.

In this case, if the user owns a plurality of e-mail addresses, it becomes possible to change the e-mail transfer destination address according to the telephone number of the sender. For example, if a phone number can distinguish between work-related messages and other private messages, forward work-related messages to your work email address and leave other messages private. Forwarding to a privately used e-mail address can prevent private messages from being transmitted to an e-mail address used for work.

When the creation of the e-mail is completed, the e-mail conversion processing unit 540 executes the multitasking / real-time OS.
Sends a message notifying completion of e-mail transmission preparation.

Next, in response to this, the microcomputer 110 activates the transmission processing unit 550. The transmission processing unit 550 reads out the telephone number of the connection destination stored in the memory 120 in advance so as to connect the telephone line to the connection destination of the Internet connection provider contracted in advance, and makes a call to the telephone number. It controls the modem processing circuit 160.

The modem processing circuit 160 includes a transmission processing unit 55
Call from 0 to the designated telephone number, and public telephone network 3
10 to the connection destination of the Internet connection provider. Then, the transmission processing unit 550 reads information for connecting to the Internet 320 according to a predetermined protocol, for example, a user ID and a password for logging in to a server of an Internet connection provider from the memory 120 and transmits the read information. A connection with the Internet 320 is established. Then, transmission of the e-mail attached with the compressed audio data to the connection destination of the Internet connection provider is started.

At this time, the microcomputer 110 also activates the reception processing unit 590, and when the completion of the transmission of the e-mail to the Internet 320 is confirmed, the microcomputer 110 starts the reception processing. The reception processing unit 590 checks whether there is a newly arrived e-mail, and if there is a newly arrived e-mail, starts receiving the newly arrived e-mail, and controls the memory control unit 520. The received mail is recorded in the received mail storage area on the memory 120. When all the receptions are completed, the reception processing unit 590 controls the modem processing circuit 160 to disconnect the connection with the Internet 320, and further, the communication of the public telephone line network 310 with the connection destination of the Internet connection provider. Is disconnected, and a message notifying that the communication has been completed is transmitted to the multitask real-time OS.

In response to this, the microcomputer 110 terminates the transmission processing unit 550 and the reception processing unit 590 and activates the information extraction processing unit 580. Information extraction processing unit 580
Checks whether the received e-mail contains compressed voice data.

As a result of the examination, if the received electronic mail contains compressed voice data, the information extraction processing unit 580
Extracts this and transfers it to the audio decompression processing unit 570.
The microcomputer 110 receives this, and the audio decompression processing unit 570
Start

The audio decompression processing unit 570 automatically identifies the compression algorithm of the compressed audio data extracted by the information extraction processing unit 580 from the header or the like and performs decompression processing, controls the memory control unit 520, and performs decompression. The written voice messages are sequentially written to the memory 120.

The information extraction processing unit 580 extracts other information included in the e-mail, for example, the sender, the transmission date and time, the subject, the text, etc., classifies them, and classifies them.
The control unit 40 controls the display unit 40 to display on the display device 150 that the electronic mail has arrived. The user uses the keyboard 13
By operating “0”, the contents of the received e-mail and information other than the voice message can be displayed on the display device 150 and read. In addition, the user can use a predetermined keyboard 1
By operating the 30, the reproduction processing unit 560 is activated, and the voice message in the memory 120 can be reproduced and listened under the control of the memory control unit 520.

On the other hand, the e-mail transmitted by the transmission processing unit 550 is distributed via the Internet 320 to a mail address designated as a transmission destination. A user who is at a remote location (for example, overseas) can send this e-mail to the personal computer 340 via the public telephone network 330,
It can be received by connecting to the nearest connection destination of the contracted Internet connection provider. in this case,
Compared to a case where a long distance call (for example, an international call) is directly made to a voice message to the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 located in a remote place and a voice message is confirmed, the voice is charged at a lower telephone charge (for example, a local local call charge). You can check the message.

As described above, by transferring the voice message recorded on the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 to the Internet 320, the remote computer 3
At 40, by connecting to the nearest Internet connection by a short distance call (for example, a local call), it becomes possible to receive a voice message in the form of an e-mail, and the communication cost for confirming the voice message is greatly reduced. Can be reduced.

Also, since the voice message left on the answering machine can be received as an e-mail, the voice message left on the answering machine can be checked at the same time as checking the normal e-mail. .

In the above example, the example of MPEG1 Audio was used as the audio compression method. However, the present invention is not limited to this.
Other audio compression methods, such as MPEG4 Audio and ADPCM (AdapM
tive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) method or the like may be used.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

The internal configuration and connection form of the Internet transfer telephone terminal according to the second embodiment are the same as those shown in FIG. The difference from the first embodiment lies in the processing performed by the microcomputer 110 in the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing functional blocks of processing performed by the microcomputer 110 in the second embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 3, the processing performed by the microcomputer 110 includes a telephone processing unit 500 and a proxy response processing unit 510.
A memory control unit 520, an audio compression processing unit 530,
Voice recognition processing unit 531 and e-mail conversion processing unit 540
, A transmission processing unit 550, a reproduction processing unit 560, a voice decompression processing unit 570, a voice synthesis processing unit 571, an information extraction processing unit 580, and a reception processing unit 590. That is, a speech recognition processing unit 531 and a speech synthesis processing unit 571 are added to the functional blocks shown in FIG. Also in this case, each processing unit is a multitask real-time O
It is realized as an application program operating on S.

The voice recognition processing unit 531 includes the memory control unit 5
The voice recognition processing of the voice message output from the voice message 20 is performed. The speech synthesis processing unit 571 performs speech synthesis processing of the character information output from the information extraction processing unit 580.

In this case, since the amount of calculation processing is increased as compared with the first embodiment, a microcomputer having high calculation processing capacity is used as necessary.

Next, the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100
Will be described. The operation from the time when the telephone 300 receives the call to the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 until the voice message is recorded is the same as that of the first embodiment, and the description is omitted.

When the Internet transfer telephone terminal 100 is set to the automatic transfer mode for automatically transferring the recorded voice message to the Internet 320, the microcomputer 110 receives the voice message and
The voice recognition processing unit 531 is activated.

The voice recognition processing unit 531 includes the memory control unit 5
20 is started, and the voice messages recorded by controlling the memory control unit 520 are sequentially read from the memory 120.
The voice recognition processing unit 531 sequentially converts the voice messages read from the memory 120 into text messages according to a predetermined voice recognition algorithm, and transfers the generated text messages to a work area created on the memory 120.

At the same time, the speech recognition processing unit 531
Measure the conversion rate (recognition rate) from voice messages to text messages. For example, due to the noise around the telephone 300 at the time of recording or the noise of the public telephone network 310,
For example, when the voice cannot be accurately recognized and the conversion cannot be performed well, the conversion rate becomes poor.

If the measured conversion rate is lower than a predetermined value, the character message may not be meaningful, so that the character message is discarded and compressed as in the first embodiment. Forward the voice message you sent.

For this reason, the voice recognition processing unit 531 notifies the multitasking / real-time OS that the voice recognition processing has not been successful.
Starts the audio compression processing unit 530.

The voice compression processor 530 compresses voice messages in the same manner as in the first embodiment, and transfers the compressed voice data to the work area created on the memory 120.

Then, the microcomputer 110 activates the electronic mail processing section 540. E-mail processing unit 540
Reads out additional information such as the time at which the voice message was recorded and the telephone number of the telephone 300, describes the information in an e-mail according to the format of the e-mail, and writes the characters in the work area created on the memory 120. message,
Alternatively, a setting is made so that compressed audio data is attached and transmitted to a destination set in the memory 120 in advance.

The operation from transmitting the e-mail created in this way to the Internet and receiving a new e-mail is the same as in the first embodiment, and a description thereof will be omitted.

When the mail transmission / reception processing is completed, the microcomputer 110 activates the information extraction processing section 580. The information extraction processing unit 580 checks whether or not the received e-mail contains compressed voice data.

As a result of the examination, if the received e-mail contains compressed voice data, the compressed voice data is expanded in the same manner as in the first embodiment.
The decompressed voice messages are sequentially written to the memory 120.

The microcomputer 110 activates the speech synthesis processing section 571. The voice synthesis processing unit 571 uses the voice database in the voice synthesis processing unit 571 to convert the character information (for example, sender, transmission date and time, subject, text, etc.) included in the e-mail extracted by the information extraction processing unit 580. The message is converted into a voice message and sequentially written to the memory 120.

By operating the keyboard 130, the user can display the contents of the incoming e-mail and information other than the voice message on the display device 150 and read it.
Further, the user can activate the reproduction processing unit 560 by operating the predetermined keyboard 130 to reproduce and listen to the voice message.

The second embodiment described above has the following advantages in addition to the advantages shown in the first embodiment. That is, since the voice message is converted into the text message by the voice recognition processing unit 531, the capacity of the e-mail transmitted by the transmission processing unit 550 is reduced as compared with the case where the compressed voice message is attached and transmitted. It is possible to reduce the communication cost when connecting to the connection destination of the Internet connection provider.

In the above-described embodiment, an example of an Internet transfer telephone terminal having a function of transferring voice messages bidirectionally has been described. Good. In this case, the cost of the Internet transfer telephone terminal can be reduced.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, an example of a dedicated terminal such as an Internet transfer telephone terminal has been described, but it may be realized by a personal computer having a built-in modem.

Further, although the functions shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 have been described by way of an example in which the functions are implemented as software executed on a microcomputer, the functions may be realized by hardware using a dedicated circuit.

[0075]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, a voice message of a received telephone call is converted into an electronic mail and automatically transmitted to a predetermined mail address, so that the communication cost for confirming the voice message is increased. Can be greatly reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of an Internet transfer telephone terminal.

FIG. 2 Microcomputer 1 in Internet transfer telephone terminal
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating functional blocks of a process performed by the first embodiment;

[Fig. 3] Microcomputer 1 in Internet transfer telephone terminal
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating functional blocks of a process performed by the first embodiment;

[Explanation of symbols]

 100: Internet transfer telephone terminal 300: Telephone 310, 330: Public telephone network 320: Internet 340: Personal computer

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor, Adult Ojo 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside the Hitachi, Ltd.Information Media Division (72) Inventor Hideki Kuwamoto, Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 292 Hitachi Media, Ltd.Information Media Division (72) Inventor Eiro Ito 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Hitachi Media Inc.Information Media Division (72) Inventor Mayumi Nakade Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Hitachi, Ltd. Information Media Division (72) Inventor Hiroshi Shimizu 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa, Japan F-term in Reference Information Media Division 5K030 GA20 HA06 HB01 HB06 JT01 KA20 LA07 5K039 CC08 EE00 5K101 KK02 KK05 KK06 LL02 NN08 NN16 RR19 UU19

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A telephone terminal device connected to a communication line, comprising: a proxy response processing unit for performing a proxy response; and an electronic mail processing unit for converting a voice message received by the proxy response processing unit into an electronic mail. A transmission processing unit for transmitting an e-mail output by the e-mail conversion processing unit. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a voice compression processing unit configured to perform a compression process on the voice message received by the proxy response processing unit. The electronic mail processing unit converts the compressed voice data output from the voice compression processing unit into electronic data. 2. The telephone terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the telephone terminal device converts the mail into a mail. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a voice recognition processing unit configured to convert the voice message received by the proxy response processing unit into character data. The electronic mail processing unit converts the character data output by the voice recognition processing unit into electronic data. 2. The telephone terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the telephone terminal device converts the mail into a mail. 4. A voice compression processing unit for compressing a voice message received by the proxy response processing unit, wherein the e-mail processing unit is configured to output character data and voice data output by the voice recognition processing unit. 4. The telephone terminal device according to claim 3, wherein one of the compressed voice data output from the compression processing unit is converted into an electronic mail. 5. A reception processing unit that receives an electronic mail, an information extraction processing unit that analyzes the electronic mail received by the reception processing unit, and a reproduction processing unit that reproduces information output by the information extraction processing unit. The telephone terminal device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising: 6. An audio decompression processing unit for decompressing compressed audio data output from the information extraction processing unit, wherein the reproduction processing unit reproduces a voice message output from the audio decompression processing unit. The telephone terminal device according to claim 5, wherein 7. A voice synthesizing unit for converting the character data output by the information extraction processing unit into speech, wherein the reproduction processing unit reproduces a voice message output by the voice synthesis processing unit. The telephone terminal device according to claim 5, wherein 8. The electronic mail processing unit according to claim 1, wherein the electronic mail destination is set according to a telephone number of a sender of the voice message received by the proxy response processing unit. 8. The telephone terminal device according to claim 7.