NZ540448A

NZ540448A - Method for generating speech on a server upon a text request from a mobile phone

Info

Publication number: NZ540448A
Application number: NZ540448A
Authority: NZ
Inventors: Peter Rogers
Original assignee: Hutchison Whampoa Three G Ip
Priority date: 2002-11-22
Filing date: 2003-11-24
Publication date: 2006-09-29
Also published as: GB0227340D0; HK1065197A1; CN1714389A; AU2003286261A1; NO20052723L; KR20060012255A; EP1563484A1; JP2006509224A; GB2395631B; GB2395631A; WO2004049300A1

Abstract

An application running on a mobile telephone 10 operating in a mobile communications network sends a text request for a speech file to be sent to a remote server 13. In response the server generates speech which is transmitted to the mobile telephone for reproduction.

Description

<div class="application article clearfix" id="description"> 540448 METHOD FOR GENERATING AN AUDIO FILE ON A SERVER UPON A REQUEST FROM A MOBILE PHONE The present invention relates to the generation of speech in a mobile telephone using a remote server. 5 Nowadays, mobile phones are used not only for real-time conversation, but also for running software applications. Mobile phone based applications are already a thriving market and will be even 10 more so in the coming years. It is possible to perform many tasks in these applications from the popular sms (short message service) and games to recording video from a plug in camera and then sending it to another phone. What is not possible at the moment is dedicated audio functionality i.e. the ability 15 for dynamic creation of audio data. It will come eventually but only on the very expensive handsets and not for a while yet. Distributed architectures can relieve handsets of dedicated functionality by having a simple client that connects across a network to a server that does all of the hard 20 work. In this context "client" means an application using the services of a server. The present invention is based on the proposal that a distributed architecture can provide dedicated audio functionality. This will work by the server doing the hard work of generating the required audio file and the client that resides on the phone 25 simply downloading the resulting audio file. Thus, the present invention provides a method of generating speech in a mobile telephone operating in a mobile communications network including a remote server capable of communication simultaneously with several mobile telephones, in which I S(*jTLL'.i-.CT(JAL PROPERTY I I OFFICF OF N.Z. I 1 e JUN 2008 1 I li an application running on the mobile telephone causes a text request for a speech file to be sent to the remote server, the requested speech file is generated by means within the remote server in response to the text request, transmitted from the remote server to the mobile telephone and reproduced by the mobile telephone. 5 Some embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a communications network in which the present 10 invention may be used; and Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a possible software architecture implementing the invention. 15 Figure 1 shows a mobile telephone 10 having a communication channel to a data centre 11 having server 13 via a radio access network including base transmitter stations 12 and a core network linking base stations 12 to various data centres. In the example in Figure 2, the telephone 10 has distributed audio client software 20 indicated at 20 and the server 13 has distributed audio server software indicated at 23. In the specific examples which follow, the phone 10 must support the following client software: 25 1. Application environment; and 2. Ability to play sound files through the application environment or 1. SMS capability; and 2. Ability to playback MMS audio files The following types of currently available handsets are examples that meet the required criteria: 5 1. MIDP 1.0 with audio extensions 2. Do Java 1.0 with audio extensions 3. MIDP 2.0 4. Native (proprietary) application support with audio capability 10 The phone will run an application 20 that acts as a client. This client will send a request to the server software 23 to perform a task, i.e. generate a speech file. The server 23 will read in the request, perform the required request and then send 15 the resulting audio file back. Preferably the server is able to support the following: 1. Receive messages by Http 20 2. Send message by MMS or Http 3. Create audio files The following types of currently available server will meet the required criteria: 25 1. J2SE1.3+ 2. C/C++ with audio capabilities 3. PERL with audio capabilities 4 • 10 15 £ 20 Use Case 1: Text to speech 1. The client 20 is written in MIDP 2.0 2. The client is used by a game which wishes to play some speech which says "Game Over" 3. The game asks the client to request the "Game Over" speech 4. The client sends a text based message to the server 23 (using TCP/IP) containing the message "Game Over" 5. The server receives the text-based message and proceeds to call a program to convert the "Game Over" text into a (8-bit, 8K, PCM, mono) WAV file. 6. The server sends the WAV file to the client 7. The client receives the WAV file and notifies the game that it has received the sound file 8. The game retrieves the sound file and plays it 9. The player hears the speech "Game Over" The round trip time may be less than 5 seconds for small pieces of speech Glossary SMS short message service MMS multimedia messaging MIDP mobile information device profile Java a platform independent programming language MIDI musical instrument digital interface Http hypertext transfer protocol WAV file type for audio files TCP transmission control protocol IP internet protocol RAN radio access network oA,. PRQf'i^TY OFFICH OF N.Z. 1 s m ?oos '■;? f r rWFES </div>

Claims

<div class="application article clearfix printTableText" id="claims"> Claims

1. A method of generating speech in a mobile telephone operating in a mobile communications network including a remote server capable of 5 communication simultaneously with several mobile telephones, in which an application running on the mobile telephone causes a text request for a speech file to be sent to the remote server, the requested speech file is generated by means within the remote server in response to the text request, transmitted from the remote server to the mobile telephone and reproduced 10 by the mobile telephone.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the text request is generated from text input by the telephone user via a keypad. 15

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the remote server is arranged to convert text which is included in the text request to speech.

4. A method of generating speech in a mobile telephone substantially as herein before described with reference to the accompanying drawings. 20 END OF CLAIMS </div>