Wireless Server Text-to-Speech Email Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing email systems for mobile devices, such as PDAs and cellular phones, lack the capability to convert and play back email messages as voice messages due to the absence of processing capabilities for text-to-speech engines and the requirement for a unified messaging system.
Innovation Solution
A wireless server-based system that identifies incoming email messages on mobile devices, sends them to a server for conversion to an audible format, and plays them back through a media player upon user demand, eliminating the need for a unified messaging system and leveraging existing processing capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a text-to-speech engine is integrated into mobile devices to enable email playback, then email functionality is improved, but device complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The text-to-speech engine is extracted from the mobile device and relocated to a remote server. The mobile device only needs to send email text to the server and receive the converted speech, eliminating the need for complex local processing capabilities while maintaining email playback functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
A remote server acts as an intermediary between the mobile device and the text-to-speech conversion process. The server receives email text from the mobile device, performs the complex text-to-speech conversion, and returns the speech audio, thereby mediating the processing requirements between the simple mobile device and the complex conversion task.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a unified messaging system is implemented to enable text-to-speech conversion, then email playback is enabled, but system complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The unified messaging system requirement is extracted and replaced with a simpler server-based text-to-speech service. Instead of requiring a complex unified messaging infrastructure, the system only needs basic email reception and text-to-speech conversion capabilities on the server side.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution uses affordable, readily available server infrastructure and standard text-to-speech APIs instead of expensive, specialized unified messaging systems. This approach achieves the same functionality with less complex, more cost-effective components.
Data Source
AI summary
An email system for mobile devices, such as cellular phones and PDAs, is disclosed which allows email messages to be played back on the mobile device as voice messages on demand by way of a media player, thus eliminating the need for a unified messaging system. Email messages are received by the mobile device in a known manner. In accordance with an important aspect of the invention, the email messages are identified by the mobile device as they are received. After the message is identified, the mobile device sends the email message in text format to a server for conversion to speech or voice format. After the message is converted to speech format, the server sends the messages back to the user's mobile device and notifies the user of the email message and then plays the message back to the user through a media player upon demand.