The present invention describes a system and method for communicating voice and data over a packet-switched network that is adapted to coexist and communicate with a legacy PSTN. The system permits packet switching of voice calls and data calls through a data network from and to any of a LEC, a customer facility or a direct IP connection on the data network. The system includes soft switch sites, gateway sites, a data network, a provisioning component, a network event component and a network management component. The system interfaces with customer facilities (e.g., a PBX), carrier facilities (e.g., a LEC) and legacy signaling networks (e.g., SS7) to handle calls between any combination of on-network and off-network callers. The soft switch sites provide the core call processing for the voice network architecture. The soft switch sites manage the gateway sites in a preferred embodiment, using a protocol such as the Internet Protocol Device Control (IPDC) protocol to request the set-up and tear-down of calls. The gateway sites originate and terminate calls between calling parties and called parties through the data network. The gateway sites include network access devices to provide access to network resources. The data network connects one or more of the soft switch sites to one or more of the gateway sites. The provisioning and network event component collects call events recorded at the soft switch sites. The network management component includes a network operations center (NOC) for centralized network management.

Voice over data telecommunications network architecture

An information service provides search and notifications to inform when certain people (e.g., friends, family, business contacts, etc.) are nearby so as to facilitate communications with those people. Users may define lists of people whose locations may be tracked by positioning equipment based on personal communications/computing devices carried by the people. The information service processes this people and place data to identify those of the listed people that are in the user's vicinity, and provide notifications and user-initiated search results informing the user such as via the user's personal communications/computing device.

Place-specific buddy list services

A computer-based virtual assistant includes a virtual assistant application running on a computer capable of receiving human voice communications from a user of a remote user interface and transmitting a vocalization to the remote user interface, the virtual assistant application enabling the user to access email and voicemail messages of the user, the virtual assistant application selecting a responsive action to a verbal query or instruction received from the remote user interface and transmitting a vocalization characterizing the selected responsive action to the remote user interface, and the virtual assistant waiting a predetermined period of time, and if no canceling indication is received from the remote user interface, proceeding to perform the selected responsive action, and if a canceling indication is received from the remote user interface halting the selected responsive action and transmitting a new vocalization to the remote user interface. Also a method of using the virtual assistant.

Personal Virtual Assistant

The present invention provides a voice user interface with personality. In one embodiment, a method includes executing a voice user interface, and controlling the voice user interface to provide the voice user interface with a personality. The method includes selecting a prompt based on various context situations, such as a previously selected prompt and the user's experience with using the voice user interface.

Voice user interface with personality

A Message Storage and Deliver System (MSDS) is connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and receives incoming calls with these calls being facsimile, voice, or data transmissions. The MSDS detects the type of call and stores the message signal in a database. The MSDS is also connected to the Internet and has a hyper-text transfer protocol deamon (HTTPD) for receiving requests from users. The HTTPD forwards requests for certain files or messages to a network server which transmits at least part of the message to the HTTPD and then to the user. In addition to requests for certain documents, the HTTPD may also receive a request in the form of a search query. The search query is forwarded from the HTTPD to an application program for conducting the search of the database. The results of the search are forwarded through the HTTPD to the user. The user may then select one or more files or messages from the search results and may save the search for later reference.

Systems and methods for storing, delivering, and managing messages

A method of providing a voice mail service is disclosed using a voice processing system having a communications link to one or more voice mail systems. A voice message for a subscriber to said one or more voice mail systems is received at said voice processing system, which prompts a determination as to the voice mail system on which said subscriber has a voice mailbox. The voice message is the transmitted to the voice mail system on which said subscriber has a voice mailbox. In the preferred embodiment, the communications link forms part of the Internet, and received messages are processed independently by two separate voice processing systems to provide redundancy.

Voice processing system

A first Internet telephone system 620 attempts to call with a second Internet telephone system 630 via the Internet 600. However, the second Internet telephone system 630 is not logged onto the Internet at the time of the call. In response to the failed attempt to call, the first Internet telephone system prompts the user to send voice mail to the user of the second Internet telephone system. This results in a phone call over the Internet between a voice mail system 610 and the first Internet telephone system, allowing a greeting to be heard, and a message to be stored. This message may be subsequently retrieved, either using an Internet telephone system over the Internet, or using a standard phone over the conventional telephone network.

Voice mail on the internet

This invention relates to the electronic distribution of business card information. There is provided a method and apparatus for distributing smart card information comprising the steps of: acquiring electronic information from a first smart card; acquiring an electronic address from a second smart card; and sending the information from the first smart card to the electronic address of the second card. This allows electronic information from one smart card to be sent to an e-mail location contained on another smart card without the e-mail location of the second smart card being manually entered by the card carrier.

Electronic business card exchange

Voice data requires large storage resources even when compressed and takes a long time to retrieve. Further the required information cannot normally be directly located and it is difficult to analyze the voice data for statistical information. There is described a method for performing a voice recognition function on a voice telephone conversation to convert the conversation into text data using a voice processing system. The method comprises receiving voice data representing the telephone conversation comprising a first series of speech data from an agent interspersed with a second series of speech data from a client and storing the first and second series of speech data as a single body of voice data for later retrieval. Then a voice recognition function is performed on the voice data to convert it into text data representing the telephone conversation and the text data is stored for later retrieval. Such a solution allows entire days/weeks or even months of conversation to be stored and accessed. Since the memory space required is considerably smaller for text storage it is possible to keep many days of conversation in directly accessible memory that may be searched by a computer. Furthermore it is possible to search for keywords typed from the keyboard and it is not necessary to manually scan the entire conversation for the desired topic.

Voice recognition of telephone conversations

The present invention relates to system for varying the voice menus and segments presented to the user of a voice response system according to the competence of the user. The response time of a user to voice prompts is measured and an average response time is determined. It is assumed that the lower the average response time, the greater the competence of the user. The average response time is used as an index to a table of ranges of response times. Each range has respective voice segments associated therewith. The voice segments comprise oral instructions or queries for the user and vary according to the anticipated competence of the user. If the average response time changes such that the voice segments indexed are different to the current voice segments then a data base containing information relating to user competence is updated to reflect such a change. Accordingly, when the user next interacts with the voice response system a new set of voice segments more appropriate to the user's competence with be played.

Lawrence Leon Porter

Papers

Voice processing system

Voice mail on the internet

Electronic business card exchange

Voice recognition of telephone conversations

Voice response system