Call Screening Service Interrogating Callers via Voice and Text
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face challenges in determining the purpose of incoming telephone calls, especially from unknown numbers, leading to unanswered calls and potential missed communications.
Innovation Solution
A call screening service (CSS) is implemented on a computing device that interrogates incoming callers via a combination of voice and text communication, analyzing and transcribing audio data to provide users with information about the caller's purpose before deciding how to respond.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users answer all incoming calls to ensure no important communications are missed, then communication completeness is improved, but users waste time on spam and nuisance calls
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by analyzing caller information (caller ID, contact list matching, communication history) before the user answers the call. This pre-screening process identifies potential spam or important calls, allowing users to make informed decisions about which calls to answer, thus avoiding time waste on spam while ensuring important communications are not missed.
2Loss of time
If users do not answer calls from unknown numbers to avoid spam, then time loss from spam calls is reduced, but important communications from unknown numbers are missed
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of unknown callers by checking against contact lists, analyzing communication patterns, and evaluating caller credentials before the user decides to answer. This allows the system to distinguish between spam and important calls from unknown numbers, presenting filtered information to the user to make informed answering decisions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system acts as an intermediary between the user and incoming calls, particularly from unknown numbers. It analyzes caller information, evaluates potential importance versus spam risk, and presents filtered information to the user. This intermediary function protects users from spam while allowing important communications from unknown numbers to be identified and answered.
3Loss of information
If a call screening service interrogates all callers to determine call purpose, then call relevance information is improved, but device processing resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by using different levels of screening based on caller characteristics. For calls from known contacts or high-priority sources, minimal processing is applied. For unknown or suspicious numbers, more intensive analysis is performed. This selective approach provides necessary call purpose information while conserving device processing energy by avoiding uniform intensive screening of all calls.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes processing parameters dynamically based on caller identification results. When a caller is identified as low-risk or high-priority, the system reduces interrogation depth and processing intensity. When spam risk is detected or importance is uncertain, the system increases analysis depth. This parameter adjustment optimizes the balance between obtaining call purpose information and conserving device energy.
Data Source
AI summary
A computing device is described that accepts, a telephone call, from another device, initiated by a caller. Prior to establishing a telephone user interface that receives spoken input from the user and outputs spoken audio from the caller, the computing device executes a call screening service that outputs an audio user interface, to the other device and as part of the telephone call. The audio user interface interrogates the caller for additional information including a purpose of the telephone call, which allows the user to have more context of the telephone call before deciding whether to accept the call or hang up. The computing device outputs a graphical user interface associated with telephone call. The graphical user interface includes an indication of the additional information obtained via the audio user interface that interrogates the caller.