The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for operating on messages, and more particularly for operating on non-text messages, such as voice and facsimile messages, including, for example, searching such messages.
Modern communications technology has produced voice mail, faxes, e-mail, video conferencing and many other ways to send messages.
The growth in voice mail systems has been explosive. In 1996, telephone company revenues generated by providing Voice Mail service exceeded one billion dollars. While business users typically buy voice mail systems, residential customers buy this service from telephone companies. The residential market accounts for 82% of telephone company voice mail subscribers and 69% of revenues generated. Thus, voice mail and faxes are fully part of the daily communications fabric.
In the last twenty years the use of facsimile messaging (fax) has also exploded. The cost of fax machines has decreased steadily, and with the advent of computer telephony (CT), faxes can be received and sent via local area networks (LANs) directly to computers on the user's desktop, eliminating the need to even walk down the hall to the fax machine.
Known systems will collect all digital communications, display the time of receipt, the source of the message, and indicate whether it is voice mail, a fax, or e-mail.
With known systems, a user with a telephone system and a computer can quickly become inundated with information. As such, it is important to be able to separate important messages, or messages which contain key information, from routine messages or electronic junk mail. With known systems this is difficult. In addition, finding key elements of messages can be time consuming and difficult, if not impossible. Known systems provide functions for finding, filtering, filing and re-directing textual messages (e.g., e-mail) but do not do so for voice or facsimile messages.
The present invention solves these problems by providing a way for searching for, or through, non-text messages to find certain information, or to determine if certain information is included therein, and/or for performing other operations thereon. In conjunction with the present invention, a search is undertaken for one or more signal samples having pre-defined characteristics by comparing one or more signal samples of non-text messages with these pre-defined characteristics. For example, the pre-defined characteristics may comprise one or more templates for voice samples which make up a specific word (e.g., “urgent”). In that case, these voice templates may be compared with signal samples of a voice message in a search for signal samples which match these voice templates. In addition, and in accordance with the present invention, a non-text message having pre-defined characteristics may be operated upon to provide a desired result (e.g., forwarded).
Therefore, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a method for operating on a non-text message including searching the message for one or more signal samples having pre-defined characteristics by comparing one or more signal samples with the pre-defined characteristics.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for operating on a non-text message, including searching the message for one or more signal samples having pre-defined characteristics and upon finding one or more signal samples having the pre-defined characteristics, operating on the message.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for operating on a non-text message, including a non-text search engine for searching the message for one or more signal samples having pre-defined characteristics by comparing one or more signal samples with the pre-defined characteristics.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, there is provided apparatus for operating on a non-text message, including: a unit for searching the message for one or more signal samples having pre-defined characteristics; and a unit for, upon finding one or more signal samples having the pre-defined characteristics, operating on the message.
In the figures, which illustrate example embodiments of the invention,
a, 4b, and 4c are flow diagrams of methods in accordance with the invention.
The non-text messages may be voice messages, video messages with a voice component, or facsimile messages (which, as will be understood by those skilled in the art, are graphics messages which typically include text in graphical form). As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the messages with a voice component comprise quantised analog voice signals. The text-based messages are digital messages according to the text standard of the network, which is typically the ASCII standard such that the text-based messages comprise ASCII characters.
The processor 12 is also connected for two-way communication with a user interface 20 and with a memory 26. Memory 26 may comprise any appropriate kind of volatile and/or non-volatile memory.
As seen in
The memory 26 (
a provides a flow chart of a method in accordance with this invention for handling new messages; the operation of this method may be carried out by processor 12 in the system of
If a new message is natively text-based (S111), the enveloped message creator 28 associates an envelope shell with the message which merely indicates in message type area 60 (
If the message is a natively non-text message (or has a non-text component) (S111), the enveloped message creator associates an envelope shell with the message, and indicates in area 60 (
If the new message is found to contain one or more signal samples falling within a set of pre-defined characteristics (S122), then the text-based equivalent of the corresponding template(s) is added to slot 62 (
If the new message does not contain one or more signal samples falling within a given set of pre-defined characteristics, then the slots for the text based equivalent 62 and signal sample pointer 64 of the field 56 for the relevant search are set to null. This process is repeated for each of the sets of pre-defined characteristics in memory (S125). Thereafter, the non-text search engine 30 passes the enveloped message to the memory interface 36 for storage in memory 26 (S126) and the message log is updated and the user is prompted (S116).
Sets of pre-determined characteristics may be accessed sequentially from the memory 26. The results of sequential searches following from sequentially accessed sets of pre-defined characteristics may be stored in sequential fields of the envelope so that each field ID 58 is an ordinal representing a search number. Alternatively, each field ID may be populated by the non-text search engine with a description of the search and a pointer to the memory area in which the set of pre-defined characteristics is found.
The sets of predefined characteristics are handled as standing search requests which are applied to each new message which is received. When a new set of pre-defined characteristics is added, optionally, a search of all existing messages may be undertaken based on the new set.
A new set of pre-defined characteristics may be specified by a user as follows. Referencing
c provides a flow chart of a method in accordance with this invention for the handling of user message operations requests. Referencing
Optionally, the signal sample pointers 64 may be omitted and, where a message comprises a voice component, the message operations engine may pass the text-based equivalent to a voice synthesizer (which may be part of the user interface) to play a voice equivalent.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the automatic dialling may be effected by sending a message on network 14 (or other communication path) to an automatic dialler or computer telephony interface.
If no matches are found, the processor simply reports this to the user (S135). If the message operations request does not have search parameters, but instead identifies a specific message or messages, program control passes from S132 to S136.
As should be apparent from
In an alternate and simplified embodiment, only the signal sample pointers 64 may be stored in a message envelope field on finding one or more signal samples falling with a set of pre-defined characteristics (and not the text-based equivalent). In this case, a user could request the system to play/display the signal samples pointed to by the sample pointers. For example, a set of pre-defined characteristics may identify messages from one of several specified company departments. The user could then, on request, hear/see these departments and then decide upon further action based on this information.
In another embodiment, messages may be enveloped and searches for sets of pre-defined characteristics conducted and ensuing operations undertaken as aforedescribed in conjunction with
In a further embodiment, it is not necessary to envelope new messages. In this embodiment, non-text messages are searched for sets of pre-defined characteristics, and after finding one or more signal samples falling within a set of pre-defined characteristics, the apparatus immediately performs an operation on the message (e.g., the message is deleted). This operation could be one entered by the user or recalled from memory. In another aspect of this embodiment, after finding one or more signal samples falling within a set of predefined characteristics, the one or more signal samples are mapped to a text-based equivalent and the apparatus then takes action based on the text-based equivalent (e.g., dial a telephone number) rather than storing the text-based equivalent and/or pointer thereto in an envelope for the message.
Other modifications in accordance with the spirit of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/220,864 filed Dec. 28, 1998 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,631,368. This application claims the benefit, under 35 U.S.C. 119(e), of U.S. provisional application No. 60/108,448 filed Nov. 13, 1998. This application is related to application Ser. No. 09/220,865 filed Dec. 28, 1998, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
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Child | 10124248 | US |