JPH10133981A - Virtual speech electronic mail system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize a virtual speech electronic mail system, which facilitates call-originating processing more and does not increase the information quantity of an electronic mail itself. SOLUTION: Speech information concerning the speech of an electronic mail originating person is stored in an individual speech information accumulating part 4. Based on identification information added to a received electronic mail, speech information of the transmitting person of the mail is extracted from the storing part 4. The contents of the electronic mail is speech-outputted by a speech synthesizing part 7 and a speaker 8. Consequently, call-originating processing is facilitated by speech-outputting the electronic mail without setting speech information each time on the side of the transmitting person at the time of call-originating the electronic mail. A call tariff is not increased because the information quantity of the electronic mail itself is not increased.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a virtual voice electronic mail system, and more particularly to a system for outputting the contents of an electronic mail on the receiving side of the electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, electronic mail is widely used as a means of information transmission. However, at present, text information is created by a sender, displayed on a display by a receiver, and read by eyes. It is difficult to tell whether the caller is a man or a woman, and whether it is young or old. It is also unsuitable for blind people. Under such circumstances, a virtual voice electronic mail system is required.

A conventional virtual voice electronic mail system is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-44156. This system has a means for selecting an utterance designation on the sender side of the e-mail, and a means for creating an e-mail based on the display information, pronunciation information, and utterance designation. It is configured to read out the utterance designation from the mail, acquire utterance information from the utterance designation, set the utterance sound to the sound output means, and provide a sound output means.

In this system, in an e-mail transmission / reception system that handles voice output information together with display information, pronunciation information and voice information are newly added to the e-mail in addition to the display information and transmitted. By doing so, the contents can be conveyed by the voice intended by the caller.

[0005]

In the conventional voice electronic mail system described above, since information relating to voice is added to the main body of the electronic mail and transmitted, it is necessary to set the voice information in the electronic mail every time when transmitting. There is a disadvantage that it is complicated. There is also a disadvantage that the amount of information of the e-mail itself increases.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a virtual voice electronic mail in which transmission processing is easier and the information amount of the electronic mail itself does not increase. Is to provide a system.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A virtual voice electronic mail system according to the present invention comprises a storage unit for storing voice information relating to the voice of an electronic mail sender, and a storage unit for storing voice information based on identification information added to a received electronic mail. Voice information extraction means for extracting voice information of the sender of the mail from the storage means;
Voice output means for voice-outputting the content of the e-mail according to the extracted voice information.

In short, in the prior art, the sender added information about voice to the e-mail every time, but in the present invention, only the text of the e-mail is transmitted without being added. In the present invention, the receiver has a means for storing personal voice information, and collects and stores personal information related to voice in advance. Based on identification information such as an ID number and an address number added to the e-mail, the stored personal information relating to the sound is extracted and input as an input parameter of the voice synthesizing unit, and the e-mail text is read.

[0009]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a virtual voice electronic mail system according to the present invention, and shows a configuration of a receiving side.

In the figure, a receiving side of the present system is provided with a receiving device 1 for receiving a transmitted e-mail, an e-mail storage unit 2 for storing the received e-mail, and added to the received e-mail. The system includes an identification number extracting unit 3 for extracting identification information such as an ID number and an address number, and a personal voice information storage unit 4 for storing voice information on voice for each individual in association with the identification information.

The receiving side of the system includes a voice synthesizing unit 7 for synthesizing the information of the electronic mail text with the voice information by referring to the voice information in the storage unit 4, and a speaker 8 for outputting the synthesized voice. And a display device 6 for displaying the contents of the e-mail, and a display control unit 5 for controlling the display device 6.

The voice information stored in the personal voice information storage unit 4 is, in this example, items as shown in FIG. In other words, an identification number for identifying the caller, gender information indicating male / female distinction, information indicating an age group such as young / middle / old age, information indicating a slow / middle / early speaking speed, It is composed of information indicating the tone of the voice such as high, middle, and low. In the example shown in the figure, the identification number is “ABC1292”, the gender is “male”, the age group is “middle-aged”, the speaking speed is “slow”, and the voice tone is “low”. I have.

It is to be noted that only some of these items may be used as audio information, or other items may be added.

In such a configuration, first, an outgoing e-mail is received by the receiving device 1 and is sent to the e-mail storage unit 2.
Are stored in the order in which they arrived. The receiver determines the desired e-mail from the e-mails contained in the e-mail, and outputs the character information to the display device 6 via the display control unit 5.

On the other hand, the identification number existing in the desired e-mail is extracted by the identification number extracting unit 3 and is input to the personal voice information storage unit 4. The storage unit 4 stores a large number of personal voice information, which are registered in advance. These pieces of information serve as input parameters of the speech synthesis unit 7 and are coded as parameters that resemble the sound quality of an individual.

The voice synthesizing unit 7 includes, in addition to the voice parameters from the personal voice information storage unit 4, an electronic mail storage unit 2.
, The information of the corresponding e-mail text is also input, and speech synthesis is executed therein. The output is output to the outside via the speaker 8.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a series of operations described above. When one e-mail is read and the processing is completed,
In the case of continuation, the next electronic mail to be read is similarly read.

That is, in FIG. 3, an electronic mail to be read is first determined (step 31). Next, the identification number of the determined e-mail is extracted (step 3).
2) Extract personal voice information from the storage unit based on the extracted identification number (step 33).

In addition to the extracted voice information, parameters for voice synthesis are set in the voice synthesizer (step 34). Then, the contents of the e-mail are displayed and output on the display device (step 35), and sound is output from the speaker (step 36).

Finally, it is determined whether or not the reading process of the electronic mail is completed (step 37), and if not, the above process is repeated (steps 37 → 31 → 32...).

As described above, in the present system, the stored personal voice information is extracted based on the identification number added to the electronic mail, and the contents of the electronic mail are output as voice based on the voice information. It is doing.

When registering data in the personal voice information storage unit 4 shown in FIG. 1, the information first sent by e-mail is registered, and thereafter, the voice information can be used continuously. If you want to update, you can send it again by e-mail. Of course, registration and update can also be performed manually using a keyboard or the like. From these facts, in the present system, it is not necessary to send voice information every time an e-mail is sent, so that there is an advantage that the sender side is less complicated and the call capacity is smaller.

When the voice information corresponding to the identification information is not registered in the personal voice information storage section 4, it is sufficient to not perform voice synthesis or to play a voice having a constant sound quality. This can be considered as an indication that the caller does not want to make a sound similar to that of the caller, and is also a consideration for privacy protection.

The present invention can take the following aspects in connection with the description of the claims.

(4) The virtual voice electronic mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the voice information includes information indicating a gender of the sender.

(5) The virtual voice electronic mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the voice information includes information indicating an age group of the sender.

(6) The virtual voice electronic mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the voice information includes information indicating information on a speed at which the caller speaks.

(7) The voice information includes information indicating a tone of voice of the caller.
3. The virtual voice electronic mail system according to any one of 3.

[0030]

As described above, the present invention accumulates personal voice information necessary to output an e-mail by voice, extracts the voice information, and outputs the e-mail by voice. The electronic mail can be output as voice without setting the voice information each time on the caller side when making a call, and there is an effect that the calling process becomes easy. In addition, by storing personal voice information on the receiving side, there is an effect that the amount of information of the e-mail itself does not increase and the call charge does not increase.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a virtual voice electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of voice information in the virtual voice electronic mail system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the virtual voice electronic mail system of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Receiving device 2 E-mail storage part 3 Identification number extraction part 4 Personal voice information storage part 5 Display control part 6 Display device 7 Voice synthesis part 8 Speaker

Claims (3)

[Claims] A storage means for storing voice information relating to a voice of an electronic mail sender, and voice information of a sender of the mail is extracted from the storage means based on identification information added to a received electronic mail. A virtual voice electronic mail system, comprising: voice information extracting means; and voice output means for outputting the contents of the electronic mail by voice in accordance with the extracted voice information. 2. The virtual voice electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein the voice information is stored in the storage unit when the first electronic mail from the sender is received. 3. The virtual voice electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein said voice information is stored in said storage means by a keyboard input.