JP3768612B2 - E-mail reading apparatus and method - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an e-mail reading apparatus and method for confirming the contents of an e-mail addressed to the user using a telephone.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, the use of electronic mail has expanded due to the development of networks. In addition, electronic mail is often used to transmit information such as conference guidance. For this reason, if the user is away from the computer for a long time, such as going out, the e-mail cannot be read and important information cannot be known.
[0003]
As a countermeasure for this problem, an e-mail reading device that confirms the content of an e-mail using a telephone is known. When the user calls the device, the e-mail reading device takes out an e-mail addressed to the user, converts it into voice, and conveys the contents to the user through the phone. In this manner, by using the electronic mail reading device, the user can check the content of the electronic mail addressed to himself / herself wherever there is a telephone.
[0004]
In general, e-mail describes header information such as the sender, destination, date / time, and title of the e-mail, and information on the sender is one of important information. Therefore, it is useful for a user who listens to an e-mail through a telephone to accurately grasp the sender by properly grasping the sender.
[0005]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in e-mail, information about the sender is generally described in the sender's e-mail address (sender e-mail address), and if this is read as it is, the user will hear it through the telephone. However, there was a problem that it was difficult to know who the sender was.
[0006]
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail reading apparatus and method capable of easily telling a user who listens to the contents of an e-mail through a telephone who is the sender of the e-mail. .
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
To achieve the above object, an e-mail reading apparatus according to claim 1 of the present invention includes a sender e-mail address extracting means for extracting a sender e-mail address from e-mail header information , an e-mail address and the e-mail address. Search means for searching for a mail address corresponding to the sender mail address extracted by the extraction means from a database that stores the name of the corresponding person and the organization name to which the person belongs in association with each other; and When the e-mail address cannot be searched, the e-mail address including the character string after @ of the sender e-mail address is searched from the second search unit that searches the database, and the e-mail address searched by the second search unit. Acquiring means for acquiring a corresponding organization name, and generating synthesized speech including the organization name acquired by the acquiring means Characterized by comprising a voice synthesizing means.
An e-mail reading method according to claim 5 of the present invention includes a sender e-mail address extracting step of extracting a sender e-mail address from e-mail header information, an e-mail address, a name of a person corresponding to the e-mail address, and the person A search step of searching for a mail address corresponding to the sender email address extracted in the extraction step from a database that stores an association with the organization name to which the mail belongs, and the mail address cannot be searched in the search step A second search step of searching the database for an email address including a character string after @ of the sender email address, and acquiring an organization name corresponding to the email address searched in the second search step And a speech synthesis step for generating a synthesized speech including the organization name acquired in the acquisition step. It is characterized by.
[0012]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of an electronic mail reading apparatus and method according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an e-mail reading apparatus in the embodiment. In the figure, 11 is an e-mail holding unit, 12 is an e-mail capturing unit, 13 is a sender mail address extracting unit, 14 is a sender database, 15 is a sender database search unit, 16 is an unknown sender data estimation unit, 17 Is a voice synthesis unit, and 18 is a voice output unit.
[0013]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the e-mail reading apparatus shown in FIG. In the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a control memory, which stores a control program shown in a flowchart of FIG. Reference numeral 22 denotes a central processing unit that performs determination and calculation according to a control program stored in the control memory 21.
[0014]
Reference numeral 23 denotes a memory. Reference numeral 24 denotes a disk device, which constitutes the e-mail holding unit 11 and the sender database 14. Reference numeral 25 denotes a bus.
[0015]
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation processing procedure of the electronic mail reading apparatus. First, one of the emails held in the email holding unit 11 is taken out by the email fetching unit 12 (step S301). There are various methods for retrieving e-mail, such as a method for sequentially retrieving held e-mails and a method for retrieving an e-mail with a number designated by the user through the telephone, and any method may be employed.
[0016]
Subsequently, the sender email address is extracted by the sender email address extraction unit 13 from the header information of the extracted email (step S302). FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the contents of the e-mail. In this case, “taro@bcl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp” is extracted as the sender mail address from the line “From: taro@bcl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp”.
[0017]
Then, the sender database 14 is searched by the sender database search unit 15 using the extracted sender mail address as a key (step S303). As a result of the search, it is determined whether corresponding sender data is found (step S304). When the sender data is found, predetermined items related to the sender such as the sender's name and the organization name belonging to the sender data are extracted. In the electronic mail of FIG. 5, the sender database 14 is searched using “taro@bcl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp” as a key. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of the sender data registered in the sender database 14. If the corresponding sender data is found as a result of searching the sender database 14, the sender's name is "Taro Yamada" and the affiliation is "University of Tokyo".
[0018]
From this sender data, the sender information text is arranged into a form such as “E-mail from Taro Yamada of the University of Tokyo” and converted into synthesized speech by the speech synthesizer 17 (step S306). Further, the body of the e-mail is converted into synthesized speech (step S307), and the synthesized speech converted in steps S306 and S307 is output by the speech output unit 17 (step S308).
[0019]
On the other hand, if the corresponding sender data is not found in step S304 as a result of the search in step S303, the unknown sender data estimation unit 16 estimates the sender data. The unknown sender data estimation unit 16 operates as follows.
[0020]
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the contents of an electronic mail when sender data is not found. “Hanako@cis.canon.co.jp” as the sender mail address extracted from the electronic mail does not exist in the sender database 14 of FIG.
[0021]
The unknown sender data estimation unit 16 pays attention to the “canon.co.jp” portion of the sender mail address, and searches the sender database 14 for a sender mail address that matches this part. As a result, when the sender data with the name “Jiro Tanaka” and the affiliation “Canon Inc.” is found, the affiliation of the sender of this e-mail is estimated to be “Canon Inc.”.
[0022]
Further, paying attention to the “hanako” portion which is the name portion of the sender mail address, a combination of the reading of the vowel character and the reading of the consonant character is estimated as “hanako”. In this way, the sender information text is arranged in the form of “E-mail from Hanako of Canon Inc.”.
[0023]
In this embodiment, when the name of an unknown sender is estimated, it is estimated by combining the reading of the vowel character and the reading of the consonant character in the name part of the sender email address. You may read it. In the case of the e-mail shown in FIG. 6, it is possible to read out “E-mail from Canon Inc., HNA, K.O.”.
[0024]
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the contents of an electronic mail having other header information. In this case, in “From: SATOH Hanako <hanako@cis.canon.co.jp>”, pay attention to the “SATOH Hanako” part and combine the reading of the vowel character and the reading of the consonant character. The name may be estimated as “Sato Hanako”.
[0025]
For a specific sender, the nickname or abbreviation may be changed instead of the name, and then converted into synthesized speech by the speech synthesizer 17 and read out by the speech output unit 18.
[0026]
Furthermore, the present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices, or may be applied to an apparatus composed of one device. Needless to say, the present invention can also be applied to a case where the present invention is achieved by supplying a program to a system or apparatus. In this case, the system or apparatus can enjoy the effects of the present invention by reading the storage medium storing the program represented by the software for achieving the present invention into the system or apparatus.
According to the e-mail reading apparatus described in the present embodiment, when confirming the content of the e-mail addressed to itself, the sender e-mail address is extracted from the header information of the e-mail addressed to the e-mail, and the extracted transmission A sender database in which predetermined items relating to the sender are registered is searched based on the sender mail address, and the sender information text is converted into synthesized speech based on the predetermined items relating to the extracted sender, and the synthesized speech is output. Therefore, the user who listens to the contents of the e-mail can be easily told who the sender of the e-mail is. Therefore, the user can understand more precisely who the sender is, so that the content of the text of the e-mail read out after that can be understood more accurately.
Further, according to the e-mail reading apparatus described in the present embodiment, the predetermined items related to the sender are the name of the sender and the name of the organization to which the sender belongs, so that the name and organization name of the sender can be easily understood. I can tell you.
In addition, according to the e-mail reading apparatus described in the present embodiment, when the predetermined item related to the corresponding sender cannot be extracted, a part of the predetermined item related to the sender is extracted based on a part of the sender mail address, Predetermined items related to the sender are estimated based on a part of the extracted predetermined items, a sender information text is created based on the estimated predetermined items related to the sender, and the created sender information text is synthesized. Since it is converted to voice, it is possible to easily tell who the sender is even if the sender email address is not registered in the sender database.
Further, according to the e-mail reading apparatus described in the present embodiment, since the name is estimated by combining the vowel characters and the consonant characters corresponding to the name of the sender mail address, the name corresponding to the sender database is Even if you are not registered, you can easily tell who the sender is.
[0027]
【The invention's effect】
According to the present onset Akira, can be conveyed to the user to hear the contents of the e-mail over the telephone, an easy-to-understand the electronic or e-mail of the sender where the Who. In particular, even when the sender mail address is not registered in the database, the user can grasp which organization the sender belongs to.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an e-mail reading apparatus in an embodiment.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the e-mail reading apparatus shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation processing procedure of the e-mail reading apparatus.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of sender data registered in a sender database 14;
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the contents of an electronic mail.
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the contents of an e-mail when sender data is not found.
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the contents of an e-mail having other header information.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 E-mail holding | maintenance part 12 E-mail capture | acquisition part 13 Sender mail address extraction part 14 Sender database 15 Sender database search part 16 Unknown sender data estimation part 17 Speech synthesizer 18 Voice output part

Claims (8)

A sender email address extracting means for extracting the sender email address from the header information of the email;
Retrieval means for retrieving a mail address corresponding to the sender mail address extracted by the extraction means from a database that stores the mail address, the name of the person corresponding to the mail address, and the name of the organization to which the person belongs. When,
A second search means for searching the database for a mail address including a character string after the @ of the sender mail address when the search means cannot search the mail address;
Obtaining means for obtaining an organization name corresponding to the email address searched by the second search means;
An e-mail reading apparatus comprising: a speech synthesizer that generates a synthesized speech including the organization name acquired by the acquisition unit. 2. The synthesized speech further includes a synthesized speech generated by combining a vowel character and a consonant character in a character string before @ of the sender mail address extracted by the extracting unit. E-mail reading device. 2. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the synthesized speech further includes synthesized speech generated by combining readings of each character in a character string before @ of the sender mail address extracted by the extracting unit. Mail reading device. 2. The electronic mail reading apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising voice output means for outputting the synthesized voice and a synthesized voice corresponding to the body of the electronic mail. A sender email address extracting step of extracting a sender email address from the header information of the email;
A search step of searching for a mail address corresponding to the sender email address extracted in the extraction step from a database that stores a mail address, the name of the person corresponding to the mail address, and the organization name to which the person belongs in association with each other When,
A second search step of searching the database for an email address including a character string after @ of the sender email address when the email address cannot be searched in the search step;
An acquisition step of acquiring an organization name corresponding to the email address searched in the second search step;
A method for reading out an e-mail , comprising: a speech synthesis step for generating a synthesized speech including the organization name acquired in the acquisition step . 6. The synthesized speech further includes a synthesized speech generated by combining a vowel character and a consonant character in a character string before @ of the sender mail address extracted by the extraction method. E-mail reading method. 6. The electronic device according to claim 5, wherein the synthesized speech further includes synthesized speech generated by combining readings of each character in a character string before @ of the sender mail address extracted by the extraction method. Mail reading method.   6. The method for reading out an e-mail according to claim 5, further comprising a voice output method for outputting the synthesized voice and a synthesized voice corresponding to the body of the email.

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