JP2007058681A - Electronic conference support device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic conference support device, enabling a user with auditory difficulties to smoothly participate in a conference. <P>SOLUTION: This electronic conference support device comprises a means accepting a conference start instruction, and means reporting start of electronic conference to an electronic conference support device of the other participant according to the accepted conference start instruction, and presenting a start report of electronic conference received from the other electronic conference support device to the user. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an apparatus for supporting an electronic conference performed by transmitting and receiving data via a network, and more particularly to an improvement in use of a hearing impaired person.

  With the development of information technology in recent years, there has been an electronic conference system that sends and receives video and audio signals over a network and reproduces the video and audio on each participant's computer without actually having a meeting. It has become widespread. Here, for example, when a plurality of users conduct an electronic conference all at once, audio from each user is mixed and reproduced.

Patent Document 1 discloses a system in which character information based on received voice information is generated and displayed using a voice recognition device and non-linguistic information such as a gesture from a speaker can be presented. ing.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-244841

  However, in the conventional electronic conference system and the like, the following problems have been pointed out when used by hearing impaired persons.

  First, it is common not to know what part of the monitor each individual participant sees, so in a normal meeting, whether someone is speaking or not, the trend of surrounding participants However, in an electronic conference, for example, it is difficult to know whether someone is speaking or not even if he wants to speak. This situation is particularly noticeable in an audio-only electronic conference system. It is also difficult to tell if someone has started speaking and whether the meeting has started.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide an electronic conference support apparatus that can smoothly participate in a conference even for a user with hearing impairment. .

  The present invention for solving the problems of the above-mentioned conventional example is an electronic conference support device, which is a means for accepting a conference start instruction, and an electronic conference of other participants according to the accepted conference start instruction. And a means for notifying the support device of the start of the electronic conference and a means for presenting the user with a notification of the start of the electronic conference received from another electronic conference support device.

  In addition, the present invention for solving the problems of the conventional example is an electronic conference support device, which accepts information related to a statement, and while accepting information related to a statement, A means for notifying the electronic conference support device that the speech is in progress and when other electronic conference support devices are notified that the speech is in progress, information indicating that the other is speaking is presented to the user. And means for performing.

  Furthermore, the present invention for solving the problems of the above-mentioned conventional example is an electronic conference support apparatus, which is a means for accepting information that desires to speak, and accepts information that desires to speak, A means for notifying the conference support device that the user wishes to speak, and when the other electronic conference support device is notified that the speech is desired, information indicating that the other person is speaking is presented to the user. Means.

  Further, the electronic conference support method according to one aspect of the present invention receives a conference start instruction to a computer, and notifies the start of the electronic conference to other participants' computers in response to the accepted conference start instruction. And a step of presenting the user with a notice of the start of the electronic conference received from the computer of another participant.

  Furthermore, a program according to another aspect of the present invention is a procedure for accepting a conference start instruction to a computer and notifying other participants' computers of the start of an electronic conference in response to the accepted conference start instruction. And a procedure for presenting the user with a notice of the start of the electronic conference received from the computer of another participant.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the electronic conference support device 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a control unit 11, a storage unit 12, an operation unit 13, a display unit 14, a microphone 15, a speaker 16, The communication unit 17 is included.

  The control unit 11 is a CPU or the like, and operates according to a program stored in the storage unit 12. The control unit 11 performs a process for transmitting a signal indicating the start of a conference by a user operation, a process for transmitting a signal indicating that a speech is being performed when a voice is input from the microphone 15, and the like. Execute. Specific examples of processing contents of the control unit 11 will be described in detail later.

  The storage unit 12 includes a storage element such as a RAM or a ROM, and a computer-readable recording medium such as a hard disk. The storage unit 12 stores a program executed by the control unit 11. The storage unit 12 also operates as a work memory for the control unit 11. In the present embodiment, information (user name) for identifying the user of the electronic conference support apparatus 1 is stored in the storage unit 12.

  The operation unit 13 is a keyboard, a mouse, or the like, accepts a user's instruction operation, and outputs the contents of the accepted instruction operation to the control unit 11. The display unit 14 is a display or the like, and displays information according to an instruction input from the control unit 11.

  The microphone 15 converts the incoming voice into a digital voice signal and outputs it to the control unit 11. The speaker 16 sounds a sound based on the sound signal in accordance with an instruction input from the control unit 11.

  The communication unit 17 is a network card or the like, and sends information and signals via the network according to instructions input from the control unit 11, and outputs signals and information received via the network to the control unit 11. .

  Here, the operation of the control unit 11 of the present embodiment will be described. When starting the execution of the electronic conference system program, the control unit 11 according to the present embodiment selects a pull-down menu (A) for instructing the start / end of the conference and on / off of voice recognition on the display unit 14. A menu (B) and a menu (C) representing the state of the message are displayed. In addition, a message display section (D) for displaying the result of voice recognition and the like is displayed.

  The storage unit 12 holds a list (participant list) of network addresses of the electronic conference support device 1 of the conference participants notified in advance, for example.

  The pull-down menu (A) for instructing the start / end of the conference is initially in the “stop conference” state. When the user operates the operation unit 13 and selects “in meeting” from the pull-down menu (A), the conference is started to each network address included in the participant list stored in the storage unit 12. The control unit 11 transmits and outputs the signal.

  In addition, when receiving a signal indicating the start of the conference, the control unit 11 on the side that has received the signal to start the conference changes the pull-down menu (A) to “in conference” and displays it. Thereby, the user can easily know that the conference has started.

  Further, at this time, the control unit 11 on the side that has received the signal to start the conference starts the voice recognition processing at the timing of receiving this signal, and displays a menu indicating that the voice recognition is turned on. You may carry out in (B).

  Voice data uttered by the user to the microphone 15 is subjected to voice recognition processing by the control unit 11, and information on the recognition result (uttered character string information) is stored in the storage unit 12 as character string information. Sent to each network address included in the participant list. At this time, the user name stored in the storage unit 12 may be added to the comment character string information and transmitted. The character string data input by the user via the operation unit 13 such as a keyboard is transmitted to each network address included in the participant list stored in the storage unit 12 as speech character string information. Also at this time, the user name stored in the storage unit 12 may be added to the comment character string information for transmission.

Upon receiving these information, the control unit 11 on the side receives the input of the user name being spoken and the speech character string information, and displays the user name and the speech character string information on the speech display unit (D). . For example, if the user name is “Sato” and the comment character string information is “By the way, that case is”, the control unit 11
"Sato: By the way, that is,"
As described above, the user name and the comment character string information are associated with each other and displayed in a connected manner through a delimiter (here, a colon) so that both can be distinguished.

  Further, while receiving voice input via the microphone 15, the control unit 11 sends a signal indicating that the speech state is “speaking” to each network address included in the participant list.

  In addition, when the control unit 11 that has received voice input via the microphone 15 has not received voice input from the microphone 15 for a predetermined period of time or longer, the control unit 11 is included in the participant list. A signal indicating that the speech state is “speech stop” is transmitted to each network address.

  The control unit 11 on the side that has received these signals from the other electronic conference support apparatus 1 has information (for example, a network address) that identifies the other electronic conference support apparatus 1 and a state of remarks based on the received signal (“ "Speaking" or "Speaking stop") is associated and stored in the storage unit 12 as a speech state database (FIG. 3). Then, in the speech state database stored in the storage unit 12, when any speech state is “speaking”, the control unit 11 displays a pull-down menu (C) indicating the speech state “speaking”. To "". Further, when the state of all the utterances among the utterance states stored in the utterance state database is “utterance stop”, the pull-down menu representing the state of the utterance is set to “utterance stop”.

  Further, when the user operates the operation unit 13 to perform an instruction operation to change the pull-down menu (C), which is “stop speech”, to “in speech” (a request for speech request is made). When it is performed), a signal indicating that the speech state is “speaking” may be transmitted to each network address included in the participant list.

  In this case, when there is no input from the microphone 15 or the keyboard over a predetermined time or more, the control unit 11 indicates that the state of the speech is “Speak” to each network address included in the participant list. A signal indicating “stop” is sent, and a pull-down menu (C) indicating the state of speech is set to “stop speech”.

  Therefore, the user can know whether or not another person is speaking by referring to the menu representing the state of speech, and if he / she wants to speak, operates the pull-down menu representing the state of speech. You can let others know you want to speak.

  In other words, in the present embodiment, the start / stop of the conference, the presence / absence of another person's speech, the desire to speak, etc. are mutually transmitted and received between the electronic conference support apparatuses 1 of each participant and displayed on the screen. This helps the hearing impaired to attend the meeting.

  The pull-down menu (B) indicating whether or not to perform voice recognition may be set to “voice recognition off” so that voice recognition is not performed on the voice captured by the microphone 15. As a result, for example, when a participant who participated in a conference at his / her seat is answering an incoming call, the voice of the phone is prevented from being recognized and notified to other conference participants. it can.

  In this case, the control unit 11 uses “voice recognition” turned off when voice recognition is not resumed until a predetermined recognition resumption confirmation period elapses after “voice recognition off” is set. A person may be notified that voice recognition is off.

  In addition, information that identifies a user, such as a user name, may be appropriately changed by the user.

  Furthermore, in the description so far, the start / stop of the conference is displayed as characters, but it may be displayed as a picture such as an icon. Further, when a mouse or the like that can present tactile sensation or tactile sensation is used in the operation unit 13, information such as start / stop of the conference may be presented by vibrating these vibrators or the like. .

  According to the present embodiment, a user who has a hearing impairment can smoothly participate in the conference.

  In addition, the electronic conference referred to here may be performed by at least some participants meeting in a conference room or the like and sitting at one table. In this case, a schematic image of a table on which the attending participants are seated and information for specifying the seating position of each participant are stored in the storage unit 12 of each electronic conference support device 1. The control unit 11 can distinguish the seating position of the user who is “speaking” or the user who has requested to speak in a manner distinguishable from the seating position of other users (for example, different colors). You may display (FIG. 4).

  Further, the control unit 11 may receive an operation indicating that the result of the speech recognition is incorrect from the user and transmit information indicating that to the electronic conference support device 1 of another user. In this case, the electronic conference support apparatus 1 that has received the information indicating that the result of the voice recognition is incorrect displays the information. Thereby, recognition that there is an error in voice recognition can be shared among participants.

It is a block diagram showing the example of a structure of the electronic conference assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing showing the example of a screen display in the electronic conference assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing showing the example of the speech state database produced | generated in the electronic conference assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing showing another example of the screen display in the electronic conference assistance apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Electronic conference assistance apparatus, 11 Control part, 12 Storage part, 13 Operation part, 14 Display part, 15 Microphone, 16 Speaker, 17 Communication part.

Claims (6)

A means of accepting a meeting start instruction;
Means for notifying the start of the electronic conference to the electronic conference support device of another participant in response to the received instruction to start the conference;
Means for presenting a user with a notice of start of an electronic conference received from another electronic conference support device;
An electronic conference support apparatus comprising: A means of accepting information about the statement;
While accepting the information related to the statement, means for notifying other participants' electronic conference support device that they are speaking,
Means for presenting information to the user that another person is speaking when notified that the other electronic conference support apparatus is speaking;
An electronic conference support apparatus comprising: A means of accepting the information you wish to speak,
Means for accepting information to be remarked and notifying other participants' electronic conference support devices that they wish to remark;
Means for presenting information to the user that the other person is speaking when the electronic conference support device is notified that he / she wishes to speak;
An electronic conference support apparatus comprising: A microphone that accepts the voice spoken by the user,
Means for obtaining information identifying a user;
Means for performing voice recognition processing based on the voice received by the microphone, and notifying the voice recognition result and the information identifying the acquired user to the electronic conference support device of another participant;
Means for presenting a user with a voice recognition result notified from another electronic conference support device and information for identifying the user;
An electronic conference support apparatus comprising: On the computer,
Accepting the start instruction of the meeting, and notifying the start of the electronic meeting to the computer of the other participants in response to the received instruction to start the meeting;
Presenting the user with a notice of the start of the electronic conference received from another participant's computer;
An electronic conference support method characterized in that On the computer,
A procedure for accepting a conference start instruction, and in response to the accepted conference start instruction, notifying the other participants' computers of the start of the electronic conference;
Presenting the user with a notice of the start of the electronic conference received from another participant's computer;
A program characterized by having executed.

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