JP2000339137A - Electronic mail receiving system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To voice-output the text data of an electronic mail with sound quality corresponding to the sex or age of a transmitter. SOLUTION: This system is provided with a voice data storing part 53 which stores voice data for voice-outputting text data for each criteria, a criteria deciding part 16 which decides which criteria to which a transmitter belongs based on the received electronic mail, and a voice signal outputting part 19 and a speaker 20 which select the voice data of the decided criteria for the voice output of the text data, and voice-outputs the text data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail receiving system having a function of outputting text data by voice. For example, the present invention relates to a mobile phone or a portable information terminal device having an e-mail transmission / reception function and a voice output function for received e-mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A service for converting text data of an electronic mail into voice data on the mail server administrator side, transmitting the voice data to a terminal device, and outputting the voice on the terminal device side is known.

[0003]

In the technique of outputting text data of an e-mail by voice, the e-mail is transmitted irrespective of whether it is a man, a woman, an old man, a child, or the like. However, since the voice is read out using the voice data of one specific sound quality, a voice different from that of the caller may be output, giving the listener a sense of discomfort. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to enable text data of an e-mail to be output with sound quality according to the sex, age, etc. of a sender.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail receiving system having a function of outputting text data by voice, wherein the voice data for outputting text data by voice is output by voice. Voice data storage means for storing each category classified based on the characteristics of the category, and category determining means for determining which of the categories the sender of the email belongs to based on the received email Selecting means for selecting voice data of the category determined by the category determining means for voice output of the text data of the electronic mail, and using the voice data selected by the selecting means, Voice output means for outputting data as voice. The electronic mail system according to claim 2 is the electronic mail system according to claim 1, further comprising address storage means for storing personal information including gender and age for each e-mail sending and receiving party in addition to the mail address. The category to which the sender of the received e-mail belongs is determined by referring to the personal information in the address storage means. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 3 further includes an analyzing unit for analyzing a term in the text data of the electronic mail according to claim 1, and the category determining unit receives the term based on the analysis result of the analyzing unit. The category to which the sender of the electronic mail belongs is determined. An electronic mail receiving system according to a fourth aspect of the present invention is the electronic mail receiving system according to the second aspect, further comprising the analyzing means according to the third aspect, wherein the category determining means determines whether the sender of the electronic mail is stored in the address storage means. The category to which the sender of the received e-mail belongs is determined based on the analysis result of the analysis means. An electronic mail receiving system according to a fifth aspect is characterized in that, in any one of the first to fourth aspects, the manager of the mail server has the category determining means and the voice data storing means. According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the portable information terminal device incorporates the electronic mail receiving system according to any one of the first to fourth aspects or the electronic mail receiving system excluding the category determining means and the voice data storing means according to the fifth aspect. It is characterized by.

[0005]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram showing the appearance of a portable telephone device (the portable telephone device of the embodiment) in which the electronic mail receiving system of the present invention is incorporated, and FIG. 2) is a block diagram showing a configuration of the mobile telephone device, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a function of processing an electronic mail using the control device 10 and the storage device 50 of FIG. 1B, and FIG. 3 is an address storage of FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating data stored in a unit 51.

[0006] When the data is received by the receiving device 60, the receiving device 60 checks whether the received data is an e-mail or not. To the user address extraction unit 11. If the data is other than the e-mail, the data is sent to a means for processing the other data (not shown in the control device 10). A unit for checking whether the received data is an electronic mail may be provided in the control device 10.

Text data / sender address extraction unit 1
1 extracts a sender address and text data from an electronic mail. The extracted sender address is sent to the personal information extraction unit 13. The text data is sent to the text data analysis unit 14 and the audio signal output unit 19
Sent to

[0008] The personal information extracting unit 13 searches the address storage unit 51 in the storage device 50 for a mail address that matches the sender address of the electronic mail received this time. As a result, if there is a matching e-mail address, the gender and age stored in association with the e-mail address are sent to the category determining unit 16. On the other hand, if there is no matching e-mail address, or if there is a matching e-mail address but gender and age are not associated,
The fact is sent to the category determining unit 16.

The text data analysis unit 14 extracts a predetermined term from the terms used in the text data received this time, and counts points set in the term. The predetermined term is a term that is particularly frequently used in any of the categories of male / female / old man / child, and that is less frequently used in other categories. Is a term for which points are set in advance in accordance with the difference between the frequency of use and the frequency of use in other categories. For example, in men, subjects such as "I" and "I" and "~
It is considered that endings such as "da" are frequently used, and females are likely to use endings such as "~ dawa" and concluding words such as "kashiko". In addition, it is considered that a child often uses "hiragana" or a particular expression such as "super". In addition to the terms in these sentences, it is also possible to estimate the gender based on the name of the signature. By setting points for these specific terms and names in advance, the text data analysis unit 14 counts the number of points of the terms and signatures in the text data, and based on the result, the caller can determine It is possible to estimate the category to which the user belongs. The estimation result or the result of counting the points is sent to the category determination unit 16. In addition, each of the above terms, male / female / elderly /
The category of children is an example, and it is naturally possible to use other terms and categories.

The category determining unit 16 determines the category to which the sender belongs based on the gender and age sent from the personal information extracting unit 13. When the category to which the sender belongs cannot be determined based on the information sent from the personal information extraction unit 13, the sender belongs to based on the estimation result sent from the text data analysis unit 14 or the point count result. Determine the category. The determined category is the audio signal output unit 19
Sent to

The audio signal output unit 19 selects audio data (male voice / female voice / senior voice / child voice) corresponding to the category sent from the category determination unit 16 and selects the selected voice data. Using the voice data, a voice signal is generated from the text data sent from the text data / sender address extraction unit 11 and output to the speaker 20. In this manner, text data can be read aloud by voice in a category in which the sender of the e-mail belongs.

In the above description, the text data / sender address extraction unit 11, the personal information extraction unit 13,
Although a technique for implementing the text data analysis unit 14 and the category determination unit 16 is not described, these may be implemented by a hardware circuit or may be implemented as a procedure executed by the MPU.

In the above description, the text data / sender address extraction unit 11, the personal information extraction unit 13, the text data analysis unit 14, the category determination unit 16, the address storage unit 5
1. An example in which the audio data storage unit 53 is provided on the terminal device side has been described, but these may be provided on the mail server administrator (example: provider) side. In that case, the audio data or the audio signal is received by the terminal device.

[0014]

According to the present invention, means for storing voice data for outputting text data by voice for each category, and determining which of the categories the sender belongs to based on the received electronic mail. Determining means, means for selecting voice data of the determined category for voice output of text data, and output means for voice output of text data using the selected voice data, so that the gender of the sender is The text data of the e-mail can be output as sound with a sound quality corresponding to the age and the age.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram illustrating an appearance of a mobile phone device according to an embodiment, and FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the mobile phone device in FIG.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a function of processing an electronic mail using the control device 10 and the storage device 50 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating data stored in an address storage unit 51 of FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 text data / sender address extraction unit 13 personal information extraction unit 14 text data analysis unit

Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat II (reference) H04M 1/00 G10L 3/00 Q 1/725 H04B 7/26 109M 11/00 302 H04L 11/20 101B F term (reference) 5D045 AA07 AB04 5K027 AA11 BB03 FF28 HH19 HH23 5K030 GA18 HA06 HD10 JT01 KA07 KA08 KA20 5K067 AA21 BB21 DD53 EE02 FF02 FF26 HH21 HH22 HH23 5K101 KK02 LL12 MM07 NN16 NN06

Claims (6)

[Claims] An electronic mail receiving system having a function of outputting text data by voice, wherein voice data for outputting text data by voice is stored in each category classified based on characteristics of voice. Voice data storage means, category determining means for determining to which of the categories the sender of the electronic mail belongs based on the received electronic mail, and voice data of the category determined by the category determining means. Selecting means for selecting the voice output of the text data of the email, and voice output means for voice outputting the text data of the email using the voice data selected by the selecting means. Characteristic e-mail receiving system. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising address storage means for storing personal information including gender and age for each e-mail transmission / reception partner in addition to the e-mail address. An electronic mail system, wherein a category to which a sender of a received electronic mail belongs is determined by referring to personal information in a storage unit. 3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising analyzing means for analyzing terms in the text data of the e-mail, wherein the category determining means includes:
An electronic mail receiving system, which determines a category to which a sender of the received electronic mail belongs. 4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising the analyzing unit according to claim 3, wherein the category determining unit is configured to execute the analyzing unit when the sender of the electronic mail is not stored in the address storage unit. A category to which a sender of the received e-mail belongs is determined based on the analysis result of the e-mail. 5. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein the category determining means and the voice data storing means are provided on a mail server administrator side. 6. An electronic mail receiving system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, or an electronic mail receiving system excluding the category determining means and the voice data storing means according to claim 5. Mobile information terminal device.