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Apparatus, system and program for issuing presence information

1. first meritorious effect of the present invention is that it is unnecessary for the human being to select a Oct 13 2005 suitable candidate for status description or to formulate optional status description A status computing unit com putes the status description from conversation parameters in accordance with calculating rules as stored in e g a calcu lating rule holding unit Since the above described process ing is carried out by a program the human being may be relieved of the load of selecting a suitable candidate for status description or the load of preparing the status descrip tion itself The processing time is also shorter than if the user performs the operation 0045 The second meritorious effect is that even status changes of which a user may not be aware may be notified as presence information more reliably than in the case of manual inputting The reason is that the conversation param eter extraction unit is able to automatically collect various parameters pertinent to the human conversation 0046 The third meritorious effect is that the status of a user may be notified to the presence service even if the user is busy in conversation The reason is that if the presence information management user agent is enclosed in the mobile phone the conversation parameter extracting unit is able to extract parameters pertinent to the conversation if only the conversation is had over the mobile phone 0047 The four
2. 13 A presence server comprising inferring means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of input information based on at least one parameter extracted from said input information holding means for holding the status inferred last time by said inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means differ from each other 14 The presence server according to claim 13 compris ing means for holding one or plurality of inference compu tation rules for said inferring means 15 A computer program installed on an information processing apparatus for enabling said information process ing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a presence information issuing apparatus comprising the functions of extracting at least one parameter making up input infor mation inferring the status of a source of transmission of said input information based on said parameter extracted by said extracting functions holding the status inferred last time by said inferring function and comparing the status inferred last time and held by said holding funct
3. Meanwhile the inputting of the operation input information is omitted in FIG 5 0162 In the flowchart shown in FIG 6 the step S11 reads Has preset time elapsed as from the time of inputting the last operation And has not the procedure of invoking the operation input been as yet executed the step 512 reads Execute the procedure of invoking the operation input and the step S1 reads Acquire the operation input infor mation An Example of Application which is based on this operation input information is now described as Examples of Application 15 to 19 0163 Example of Application 15 0164 This Example of Application is such a one in which a device such as a mobile phone produces an action for the user to prompt the user to make an input to the status computing unit 2 0165 Such an Example of Application may be imple mented in which when no mail has been received for a preset time period the mobile phone makes mail distribution registration for various services to prompt inputting to the status computing unit 2 In case the user has no person to Oct 13 2005 whom to transmit a mail the presence information can be issued on acquisition of the time during which unread mails have been left unattended 0166 Example of Application 16 0167 Such an Example of Application may be imple mented in which when there is no incoming call for a preset time period the mobile phone requests c
4. from an inconvenience that if the person doing the operation is busy in the conversation the presence information cannot be notified at a proper timing 0010 Even with the conventional presence information management user agent it is possible for the program to detect that the device is being used and to issue the presence information that the user is employing the device However there has not been proposed a scheme in which the program automatically notifies the presence information specifying the particular status of the user for example the status indicating that the user is unable to respond to the telephone call has not read mails or is requesting the communication 0011 In view of the above depicted status of the art it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and an apparatus for issuing presence information whereby the user s status may be automatically inferred and recorded or displayed without relying upon the manual input by the user 0012 The present invention is directed to a system according to which the status of a user employing or holding a device is inferred from the use pattern of the device or from the information acquired from a sensor s loaded on the device and the so inferred status of the user is issued as the presence information 0013 On receipt of the use pattern of the device or the information acquired from the sensor s loaded the device a status computing unit of th
5. 80 dB Ssound vol ume 100 dB then the status cannot make telephone call On receipt of 85 dB as the sound volume of the noise the status computing unit 2 outputs a status tele phone call cannot be made in accordance with the above rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues to the presence service 6 the presence information no telephone call can be made In particular if the surrounding noise is not less than 80 dB such that talk over the telephone is difficult the effect indicating that the telephone call cannot be responded to may be issued as the presence information With the present Example of Application if the user is in a status it is difficult to make a telephone call the watcher may select contact means other than telephone from the outset 0143 Example of Application 13 0144 Example of Application in which the surround ing noise is analyzed from the mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described If as a result of noise analysis the sound is found to be that of the electric rolling stock it may be inferred that the user is in transit 0145 With the above Example of Application the sur rounding noise is acquired not only during the timing of call of the mobile phone but also by turning a microphone on at all times only periodically or only when a preset condition is satisfied 0146 Example of Application 14 0147 An Example of Applicatio
6. and means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by said last operation input time hold ing means 9 A user device comprising extracting means for extracting one or plurality of param eters making up input information and filtering means for filtering out at least one of said one or plurality of parameters extracted by said extracting means Oct 13 2005 10 The user device according to claim 9 further com prising means for holding one or plurality of filtering rules used by said filtering means 11 The user device according to claim 9 further com prising last input time holding means for holding the last input time of said input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by said last input time holding means 12 The user device according to claim 9 further com prising last operation input time holding means for holding the last operation input time by a user to the user device and means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by said last operation input time hold ing means
7. extracted by said extracting function 20 The computer program according to claim 19 for implementing the functions of holding one or plurality of filtering rules employed by said filtering functions 21 The computer program according to claim 19 for implementing the functions of holding the last input time of said input information which is the speech information and Oct 13 2005 sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by said holding function 22 The computer program according to claim 19 for implementing the functions of holding the last operation input time by a user to a user device and executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by said holding function 23 A computer program installed on an information processing apparatus for enabling said information process ing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a presence server including the functions of inferring the status of a source of transmission of input information based on at least one parameter extracted from input information holding the status inferred last time by said inferring function and comparing the status inferred last time and held by said holding function and the status inferred for
8. the operation input information is entered to the utterance unit 7 along with the user s speech information 0063 The operation input information herein the operation input information in the user device such as a mobile phone or a PDA having the presence issuing module 21 built therein The inputting of the operation input infor mation in FIG 5 is omitted from the drawing only for simplicity Oct 13 2005 0064 FIG 7 shows a presence information issuing sys tem according to a third embodiment of the present inven tion Referring to FIG 7 the presence information issuing system according to the third embodiment includes a mobile phone 30 as a user device and a presence server 31 The mobile phone 30 includes a conversation parameter extract ing unit 1 for extracting various parameters making up the speech information as the input information a conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 for filtering preset one s of the various parameters extracted by the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 and a policy management unit 8 for holding filtering rules used by the conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 The presence server 31 includes a status computing unit 2 for receiving the various parameters filtered by the conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 via conversation parameter receiving unit 10 and for infer ring the status of the source of transmission of the speech information based on the above menti
9. INFOMATION US 2005 0228882 1 APPARATUS SYSTEM AND PROGRAM FOR ISSUING PRESENCE INFORMATION FIELD OF THE INVENTION 0001 This invention relates to status analysis for infer ring the status of a user as a source of transmission of input Information based in particular on speech Information to use the so inferred status for an apparatus for recording or display BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 presence system means system for supervising the status of people articles or services at large The presence system the basic architecture of the system of which is shown in RFC 2778 is made up by a presence information management means for providing own presence information a watcher observing it and a presence service for receiving the presence information from the presence information management means for distribution to the watcher The presence information management user agent as referred to in the following explanation is specifically a program for providing the functions of the presence infor mation management means 0003 In conventional presence services the presence values other than the states of communication such as online state or offline state as presumed from the client presence service connection were manually set by the user Consequently the presence information provided by the user is low in reliability such as by the user forgetting to change the state for example see the JP Patent Docu
10. and comparing the status inferred last time and held by the holding function to the status inferred for the present time to output the currently inferred status as the status information by the inferring function in case of the two statuses differing from each other There may further be implemented the function of holding one or plurality of inference computation rules of the inferring functions 0034 The computer program may further implement the functions of holding the last input time point of the input information which is the speech information and send out a preset message as speech signals in case no new speech information is input even after lapse of a preset time as from the last input time held by the holding function 0035 The computer program implements the functions of holding the last operation input time by a user to the user device and executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by the holding function US 2005 0228882 1 0036 a further aspect the present invention provides a computer program which when installed on an informa tion processing apparatus enables the information process ing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a user device comprising the functions of extracting a variety of parameters making up the input information and filtering out preset ones
11. com gt lt tuple id abc123 gt lt status gt lt ex feeling gt nervous lt ex feeling gt lt status gt lt tuple gt lt presence gt Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 4 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG 4 ACQUIRE SPEECH INFORMATION EXTRAGT PARAMETERS COMPUTE STATUS FORMULATE PRESENCE INFORMATION REFER TO LAST PRESENCE INFORMATION 59 ISSUE NO PRESENCE INFORMAT ON ISSUE PRESENCE INFORMATION SAVE NEW PRESENCE INFORMATION Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 5 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG 9 USER PRESENCE ISSUING MODULE STATUS COMPUT ING UNIT PRESENCE INFORMAT ION ISSUING UNIT PRESENCE INFORMATION STORAGE UNIT PRESENCE SERVICE Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 6 of 10 US 2005 0228882 A1 FIG 6 HAS PRESET TIME ELAPSED AS FROM TIME LAST ION HAS NOT USER BEEN ACCOSTED HAS USER TALKED YES 12 ACCOST USER ISSUE NO PRESENCE INFORMATION ISSUE PRESENCE INFORMATION SAVE NEW PRESENCE INFORMATION US 2005 0228882 1 Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 7 of 10 301 PNIS d 30 35394 LINN SNI0SSI NOILLVWHO4AWNI HNIS Hd LINN 39 9015 NOI LWAYOANT JONAS Jud ANOHd 311904 LIND 10dW09 DNI SHV 81015 NOT
12. mobile phone 30 of the third embodiment shown in FIG 7 and the utterance unit 7 of the second embodiment shown in FIG 5 The operation of the fourth embodiment is the combination of the flowcharts of FIGS 6 and 8 That is 0191 Step S13 Registration of the filtering rules The user registers the filtering rule in the policy management unit 8 lest the voice pitch parameters should be transmitted to the presence server 31 0192 Step S1 Acquisition of speech information The speech information is entered to the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 0193 Step S10 Recording the time point When the user has had conversation the utterance unit 7 updates the time point of the latest conversation to the current time 0194 Step S2 Parameter extraction Parameters are extracted in the same way as in the step S2 of the first embodiment The conversation parameter extracting unit 1 delivers the parameters to the conversation parameter trans mitting unit 9 0195 Step S14 Execution of filtering The conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 carries out filtering in accor dance with the filtering rules acquired from the policy management unit 8 Concretely specified parameter values which should not be transmitted are replaced by statistically calculated average values If the filtering rules registered in the step 513 are applied the voice pitch medium 0196 The conversation parameter transmitting unit 9
13. presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information representing the busy status to the presence service 6 As the presence information the pres ence information indicating that the user is kept busy dealing with frequent telephone calls may be issued in addition to the busy Oct 13 2005 0103 By the present Example of Application it may automatically be imparted to a watcher that the user is kept busy in dealing with frequent incoming telephone calls A watcher desirous to make a telephone call to this user may wait a little while before making a call 0104 It may be inferred that the larger and the smaller the number of times of telephone calls per unit time as acquired from a mobile phone the more busy and the less busy is the user respectively The computation rule for this case may be such that if the number of times of telephone calls per ten minutes three times then the status busy 0105 The number of times per unit time may also be counted as the busy time of the user is excluded For example the computation rule may be such that if the number of times of incoming telephone calls per ten minutes of the latest waiting time three times then the status busy By so doing the busyness of the user may be inferred more correctly The busyness of the user may similarly be inferred in case the number of calls from the user is substituted for the number of incoming ca
14. presence service US 2005 0228882 1 6 addition to the presence information indicating unidentified person is handling the phone the presence information indicating that a third party is attempting to intrude into protected data of a mobile phone may also be issued With the present Example of Application the user being desirous to have entrance to the protected data of a mobile phone may automatically be imparted to a watcher In case the owner of the mobile phone is a watcher he she may take measures for physical protection of the mobile phone 0140 The following computation rule reading If the number of times of failure in authenticationZonce then the status offline which infers that the mobile phone is lent or borrowed and is being used by a party other than the owner of the phone may possibly be used For example the presence information indicating that during the time a mobile phone is lent to a friend of the owner the owner cannot be contacted may be notified to a watcher On receipt of this notice the watcher may refrain from making a call to the mobile phone being used by e g a user s friend 0141 Example of Application 12 0142 An Example of Application in which the sound volume of the surrounding noise is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored a computation rule reading If
15. pro gram which is installed on a general purpose information processing apparatus to implement in the information pro cessing apparatus the functions equivalent to those of the presence issuing modules 20 21 of the first and second embodiments or the mobile phone 30 and the presence server 31 in the third and fourth embodiments This program may be recorded on a recording medium and installed in this status on an information processing apparatus or down loaded on the information processing apparatus from the communication network in order to implement in the infor mation processing apparatus the functions equivalent to those of the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 status computing unit 2 computation rule storage unit 3 presence information storage unit 4 presence information issuing unit 5 utterance unit 7 policy management unit 8 conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 and a conversation parameter receiving unit 10 0067 The embodiment of the present invention is now further explained in detail US 2005 0228882 1 0068 receipt of a device utilizing pattern or the information acquired by a sensor loaded on a device the status computing unit 2 derives the presence information of a user based on the computation rules as stored in the computation rule storage unit 3 The results as calculated are issued as the presence information by the presence infor mation issuing unit 5 0069 The computation rules
16. rules cannot be changed until the user talks 0203 With the use of a robot having a more advanced natural language understanding capability it may be envis aged to handle the information pertinent to words or con texts as conversation parameters For computation rules a highly advanced inference function may be introduced It is possible to issue multifarious presence information by mak ing inferences from parameters pertinent to words or con texts 0204 Meanwhile the present embodiment may applied not only to the mobile phone 30 but also to the fixed phone In the present embodiment the presence information prepared by the presence server 31 may be returned to the mobile phone 30 which then issues the presence information in the presence service 6 In this case the user may confirm the presence information formulated by the presence server 31 based on the conversation on the mobile phone 30 0205 The utterance unit 7 may further be provided with means for holding the last operation inputting time point for the mobile phone 30 and with means for carrying out a preset operation input invoking procedure in case there is no new operation input even after lapse of a preset time period as from the latest operation input time point as held by the holding means In this case the operation input information is entered to the utterance unit 7 along with the information on the user s speech Meanwhile the inputting of the op
17. said inferring means differ from each other 2 The apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising means for holding one or plurality of inference computation rules for said inferring means 3 The apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising last input time holding means for holding the last input time of said input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by said last input time holding means 4 The apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising last input time holding means for holding the last input time of said input information which is operation input information and US 2005 0228882 1 means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by said last input time holding means 5 A presence information issuing system comprising a user device which includes extracting means for extracting one or plurality of param eters making up input information and filtering means for filtering out at least one of said one or plurality of parameters extracted by said extracting means and a presence server which includes inferring means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of said input informatio
18. the present time by said inferring function and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by said inferring function as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by said holding function and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring function differ from each other 24 The computer program according to claim 23 for implementing the functions of holding one or plurality of inference computation rules for said inferring function
19. transmits the conversation parameters over the network to the presence server 31 0197 The conversation parameter receiving unit 10 receives the parameters from the mobile phone 30 to deliver the so received parameters to the status computing unit 2 US 2005 0228882 1 0198 steps 53 to 59 the same as those of the first embodiment described above 0199 Step S15 Is there any change in the filtering rules If there is any change in the filtering rules the filtering rules are registered again S13 0200 Step S11 Has preset time elapsed as from the time of the latest conversation And has the user not as yet be accosted The utterance unit 7 is monitoring the time elapsed as from the time of the latest conversation 0201 Step S12 Accosting the user If the status devoid of conversation with the user has persisted for longer than a preset time the utterance unit again accosts the user in order to acquire the user s status again 0202 Step S12 Has the user talked It is verified whether or not as a result of the utterance unit 7 having accosted the user the user has talked and if the result is affirmative the program transfers to the step S1 If other wise the program reverts to the step S11 In FIG 10 the program returns from the step S12 through the step S15 back to the step S11 Or the program may directly return from the step S12 to the step S11 In this case however the filtering
20. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the second embodiment 0055 FIG 7 is an overall view showing a presence issuing module of a third embodiment US 2005 0228882 1 0056 FIG 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the third embodiment 0057 FIG 9 is a block diagram showing the configura tion of a mobile phone of a fourth embodiment 0058 FIG 10 is a flowchart showing the operation of the fourth embodiment PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION 0059 Referring to FIG 1 a presence issuing module as a presence information issuing device according to a first embodiment of the present invention is now described FIG 1 is a block diagram showing a presence issuing module 20 according to the first embodiment 0060 The presence issuing module 20 shown in FIG 1 includes a conversation parameter extracting unit 1 a status computing unit 2 a computation rule storage unit 3 a presence information storage unit 4 and a presence infor mation issuing unit 5 The conversation parameter extracting unit 1 extracts various parameters making up the speech information as the input information The status computing unit 2 for inferring the status of the user as a source of transmission of the speech information based on the above mentioned various parameters as extracted from the con versation parameter extracting unit 1 The computation rule storage unit 3 holds inference computation rules for the status comput
21. LYSYJANO9 LINN 39 5015 LINN i YALSNVa d NOL 1 1 09 NOI LYSYJANOO Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 8 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 13 REGISTER FILTERING RULE YES FILTERING RULE CHANGED ACQUIRE SPEECH INFORMATION EXTRACT PARAMETERS EXECUTE FILTERING COMPUTE STATUS FORMULATE PRESENCE INFORMATION REFER 10 LAST PRESENCE INFORMATION a ISSUE PRESENCE INFORMATION SAVE NEW PRESENCE INFORMATION PRESENCE SERVER 31 ISSUE NO PRESENCE INFORMATION Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 9 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG 9 USER i 30 UTTERANCE UNIT POL ICY CONVERSATION MANAGEMENT PARAMETER EXTRACT ING _ UNIT UNIT CONVERSATION PARAMETER TRANSMITTING UNIT MOBILE PHONE Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 10 of 10 US 2005 0228882 A1 S13 YES REGISTER FILTERING RULE CHANGED NG S12 YES AGCOST USER HAS PRESET TIME ELAPSED AS FROM TIME OF LAST CONVERSATION HAS NOT USER BEEN ACCOSTED AOBILE PHONE 30 ACQUIRE SPEECH INFORMATION RECORD TIME POINT 10 EXTRACT PARAWETERS 514 EXECUTE FILTERING 53 COMPUTE STATUS FORMULATE PRESENCE INFORMAT ION DELED rey DDE 52 54 55 59 No ISSUE NO PRESENCE INFORMAT ON PRESENCE SERVER 31 ISSUE PRESENCE INFORMATION SAVE NEW PRESENCE
22. US 20050228882A1 Patent Application Publication Pub No US 2005 0228882 1 United States Watanabe et al 43 Pub Date Oct 13 2005 54 APPARATUS SYSTEM AND PROGRAM FOR ISSUING PRESENCE INFORMATION 75 Inventors Masafumi Watanabe Tokyo JP Naoko Ito Tokyo JP Natsuko Tsutazawa Tokyo JP Correspondence Address SUGHRUE MION PLLC 2100 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE N W SUITE 800 WASHINGTON DC 20037 US 73 Assignee NEC CORPORATION 21 Appl No 11 085 095 22 Filed Mar 22 2005 30 Foreign Application Priority Data 25 2004 2004 089260 ACQUIRE SPEECH INFORMATION EXTRACT PARAWETERS COMPUTE STATUS FORMULATE PRESENCE INFORMATION REFER TO LAST PRESENCE INFORMAT ION ISSUE PRESENCE INFORMAT ION SAVE NEW PRESENCE INFORMATION Publication Classification 51 Int CI 06 15 173 G06F 15 16 UJ SSC gt hu oso naa yasa 709 224 709 219 57 ABSTRACT Disclosed is a system in which the status of a user is automatically inferred without relying on the user s manual input and the so inferred status is displayed The status of the user making use of or holding a device such as a mobile phone is inferred from the use pattern of the device or from the information derived from sensors mounted to the device and the so inferred status of the user is issued as the presence information On receipt of the in
23. all is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is explained It may be inferred that the longer the response time to the incoming call the more the user is busy such that he she cannot readily respond to the incoming call In such case there is stored in the computation rule storage unit 3 a computation rule If response time to the incoming call2 30 seconds then the status busy On receipt of 35 seconds as the response time to the incoming call the status computing unit 2 outputs the status busy in accordance with the afore mentioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating busy to the presence service 6 In the present embodiment it is possible to issue the presence information other than busy indi cating that there is some circumstance which renders it difficult for the user to respond to the incoming telephone call 0117 It may also be inferred that if the responding time to the incoming telephone call is short the user is not busy In addition on receipt of 7 seconds as the responding time to the incoming telephone call the status computing unit 2 may apply a computation rule different from the above rule namely the rule reading If the responding time to the Oct 13 2005 incoming telephone call lt 30 seconds then the status on line The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the p
24. allback to various services to prompt inputting to the status computing unit 2 In case no one phones the user the presence information can be issued on acquisition of the response time of incoming call of the user phone 0168 Example of Application 17 0169 In case the presence information has not been updated for a preset period of time the link to the Web content may be displayed by the mobile phone on its screen to prompt the user to browse the Web content In case the user does not browse the Web content voluntarily the URL of the Web contents browsed by the user may be acquired to issue the presence information 0170 When the mobile phone is in a waiting for incom ing call links may be displayed Among the contents of the link destination there are news weather forecast flash reports for sports application for prizes or audition sites for incoming melodies 0171 The links to various contents may be advertise ments from business organizations The user may be apprized by light sound or oscillations of the fact that an advertisement is being displayed When the mobile phone demonstrates the links on the screen backlights for example may be automatically turned on to enable facili tated viewing of the screen by a user 0172 Example of Application 18 0173 In case the presence information has not been updated for a preset time period such an Example of Application may be implemented in which an applicatio
25. ance unit 7 accosts the user in order to acquire the user s status again 0158 Step S12 Has the user talked It is verified whether or not as a result of the utterance unit 7 accosting the user in the step 512 the user has talked If the user has talked the program transfers to the step S1 and if otherwise the program reverts to a step S11 0159 With the use of a robot having a more advanced natural language understanding capability it may be envis aged to handle the information pertinent to words or con texts as conversation parameters For computation rules a highly advanced inference function may be introduced It is possible to issue multifarious presence information by mak ing inferences from parameters pertinent to words or con texts 0160 The utterance unit 7 may further include means for holding the last input time point of the operation input information as the input information and means for execut ing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case there lacks no new operation input after lapse of a preset time as from the last input time point of the operation input infor mation as held by the holding means In such case the operation input information is entered to the utterance unit 7 along with the user s voice information 0161 The operation input information is the operation input information in the user device such as PDA or mobile phone into which is built the presence issuing module 21
26. atus busy in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating the busy to the presence service 6 In addition to the busy the presence information indicat ing that the user is tied up may also be issued With the present Example the fact that the user is tied up may automatically be imparted to the watchers The watcher about to make a telephone call may wait for a while before making the call 0133 Example of Application 10 0134 An Example of Application in which the URL of the content browsed from the mobile phone by the Web browser is acquired to issue the presence information is now described The user s status can be inferred from the URL of the contents by defining from the outset the user s status that may be inferred from the sorts of the contents For example a computation rule reading If browsed URL prize site then the status boredom may be applied to apprize the user s status that may be inferred from the prize site such as boredom 0135 Other examples of the computation rules that may be applied include If browsed URL cross over retrieval then the status busy and If browsed URL gourmet retrieval then the status want to go out to drink 0136 It may be inferred whether or not the user feels bored by the application of the mobile phone he she is using For e
27. cating that the user is in a noisy place and cannot phone or 0077 2 the information which prompts others to initiate communication or transactions for example the information indicating that the user is not busy 0078 For acquiring the information as input to the status computing unit 2 an action prompting an input may be produced from a device such as mobile phone Specified examples are now explained in order EXAMPLE 1 0079 The configuration of Example 1 is now described with reference to FIG 1 Changes in the user s status are converted by a presence issuing module 20 into the presence information which is issued to a presence service 6 0080 The present Example 1 extracts voice parameters from speech from call by voice over the mobile phone to compute the presence information in the status computing unit 2 Among the parameters relevant to speech there are for example the loudness and the pitch of the voice and the speed with which conversation proceeds 0081 The presence information computed from the speech parameters may be exemplified by the feeling or Oct 13 2005 busyness of the user As for the computation rules for computing the presence information from the voice param eters there are applied such rules that the user is excited if his her voice is loud and of high pitch or the user is speaking confidentially and busy if his her voice is quiet and of low pitch 0082 The pre
28. cribed with reference to FIGS 7 and 8 FIG 7 shows the configuration of a presence information issuing system of the third embodiment of the present invention The first and second embodiments are directed to the presence issuing module 20 or 21 and a mobile phone as its speech inputting means The inputting means is however not limitative Conversely the third embodiment now explained is directed to a presence information issuing system compris ing a mobile phone 30 and a presence server 31 0179 The third embodiment is made up by the mobile phone 30 presence server 31 and the presence service 6 The mobile phone 30 has enclosed therein the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 conversation parameter trans mitting unit 9 and the policy management unit 8 The conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 sends param eters pertinent to the conversation as collected by the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 to the presence server 31 network may be interposed between the mobile phone 30 and the presence server 31 In case the conversa tion parameter is sent over a network the information pertinent to the privacy of an individual may be filtered by the conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 The policy management unit 8 supervises the filtering rule in filtering conversation parameters for transmission to outside the mobile phone The presence server 31 includes the conver sation parameter receiving unit 10 computati
29. e mail cannot be read at once can be issued 0112 Example of Application 3 0113 An Example of Application in which the number of unread mails are acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the more the number of unread mails the longer would be the time reading mails has been neglected In the com putation rule storage unit there is stored a computation rule reading If the number of unread mails2 30 then the status mail reading is neglected On receipt of 40 as the number of unread mails the status computing unit 2 outputs the presence information indicating that reading mail has been neglected to the presence service 6 in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating that reading mails is being neglected to the presence service 6 With the present embodiment failure in reading mails on the part of the user in these days may automatically be transmitted to the counterpart party In accessing this user it is possible to select means other than a mail at the outset 0114 The status indicating failure in reading a mail may also be issued based not on the number of unread mails but on failure in mail reading even after lapse of a preset time interval 0115 Example of Application 4 0116 An Example of Application in which the response time to the incoming c
30. e present invention derives the presence information of the user based on the computation rule as retained by the computation rule hold ing unit and issues the results as the presence information 0014 In one aspect the present invention provides an apparatus for issuing presence information comprising 0015 means for extracting a variety of parameters making up the input information 0016 means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of the input information based on the various parameters extracted by the extracting means 0017 means for holding the status inferred last time by the inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by the holding means and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by the holding means and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means differ from each other 0018 The apparatus may further comprise means for holding one or plurality of inference computation rules for the inferring means 0019 The apparatus may further comprise means for holding the last input time of the input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech informa tion is entered even after lapse of pres
31. ence service 6 0097 Step 58 Saving of new presence information The presence information issued by the presence informa tion issuing unit 5 is delivered to the presence information storage unit 4 as well The presence information storage unit 4 discards the old presence information it held so far and saves the new presence information delivered from the presence information issuing unit 5 0098 Step S9 Issuing no presence information If the presence information saved in the presence information storage unit 4 last time is the same as the current presence information no presence information is issued by the pres ence information issuing unit 5 0099 Example of Application 1 0100 example of application in which the number of times of call incoming per unit time is acquired from the mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the larger and the smaller the number of times of call incoming the more busy and the less busy is the user respectively 0101 In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored e g the computation rule if the number of times of telephone call incoming per 10 minutes2three times then the status busy If three times is received by the status computing unit 2 as the number of times of telephone call incoming per minute the status computing unit issues the status busy in accordance with the above rule 0102 The
32. eration input information is omitted in FIG 9 Such Example of Application which is based on the operation input information is the same as the Application Examples 15 to 19 in the above described second embodiment 0206 In the flowchart shown in FIG 10 the step S11 is Has preset time elapsed as from the last operation input time point And has the operation input invoking procedure not as yet been executed while the step 512 is Has the user carried out the operation The step 512 is Has the user done the operation and the step 51 is operation input information has been acquired 0207 Meanwhile as an exemplary filtering rule in case of employing the operation input information the user s Oct 13 2005 busyness may be inferred based on the number of times of call transmission or incoming per unit time of the mobile phone 30 However if the user registers the filtering rules in the policy management unit 8 lest the parameters of the number of times of transmission or incoming should be sent to the presence server 31 then the busyness medium 0208 According to the present invention the user s current status may be automatically inferred and displayed without relying upon the user s manual input Hence the present invention may be used for a system for grasping the status of a user who is unable to enter his her status on his or her own such as children or demented elderly pers
33. essing down of the button per minute the status comput ing unit 2 outputs the status busy in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating busy to the presence service 6 In addition to the presence information busy the presence information indicating that the user is preoccupied in operating the mobile phone may be issued With the present Example the fact that the user is preoc cupied in the operation of the mobile phone may automati cally be imparted to the watchers The watcher about to make a telephone call to the user may wait for a while before making the call 0127 It may also be contemplated to infer more correct busyness on the part of the user by acquiring the number of times of the pressing down of the button during the back light on period For example a computation rule reading If the number of times of the button pressing down operation during the backlight on period five times then the sta tus boredom may be applied 0128 Example of Application 8 0129 Example of Application in which the number of times of lid opening closure of a mobile phone is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the more frequently the lid is opened closed the less the user is busy In this case there is stored in the computation rule storage unit 3 a com
34. et time as from the last input time held by the holding means 0020 Thus by prompting the conversation for the user the information for comprehending the user s state may be acquired reliably US 2005 0228882 1 0021 apparatus further comprise means for holding the last input time of the input information which is the operation input information and means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no opera tion input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by the holding means 0022 Thus by prompting an operation input from the user in the absence of an operation input from the user the information for comprehending the user s state may be acquired reliably 0023 In a second aspect the present invention provides a presence information issuing system comprising a user device which user device includes means for extracting various parameters making up the input information and filtering means for filtering out preset ones of the various parameters extracted by the extracting means and a pres ence server which presence server includes means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of the input information based on the various parameters filtered out by the filtering means means for holding the status inferred last time by the inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by the holding mea
35. formation derived from the use pattern of the device or from sensors mounted to the device the status calculation unit calculates the user s presence information based on calculating rules as held on a computation rule holding unit to issue the results as the presence information 59 ISSUE NO PRESENCE INFORMATION Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 1 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG 1 USER PRESENCE ISSUING MODULE COMPUTAT ION RULE STORAGE UNIT CONVERSATION PARAMETER EXTRACTING UNIT STATUS PRESENCE INFORMATION ISSUING UNIT PRESENCE INFORMATION STORAGE UNIT PRESENCE SERVICE Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 2 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG 2 lt xml version 1 O encoding UTF 8 gt lt presence _ xmlns urn ietf params xml ns pidf xmins ex http schema example com feeling entity pres user example gt lt tuple id abc123 gt lt status gt lt ex feeling gt relaxed lt ex feeling gt lt status gt lt tuple gt lt presence gt Patent Application Publication Oct 13 2005 Sheet 3 of 10 US 2005 0228882 1 FIG lt xml version 1 8 gt lt presence xmins urn ietf params xml ns pidf xmins ex htto schema example com feeling entity pres user example
36. he conversation speed slow then the status lt feeling gt relaxed lt feeling gt US 2005 0228882 1 0090 If the pitch of the voice high loudness of the voice medium and the conversation speed quick then the status lt feeling gt nervous lt feeling gt 0091 If the pitch of the voice low loudness of the voice quiet and the conversation speed quick then the status lt feeling gt busy lt feeling gt 0092 If the pitch of the voice high loudness of the voice loud and the conversation speed quick then the status lt feeling gt excited lt feeling gt 0093 Step S4 preparation of the presence information The presence information issuing unit 5 prepares the pres ence information of FIG 2 including the status description lt feeling gt relaxed lt feeling gt received in the step 53 0094 Step 55 reference to directly previous presence information The presence information of FIG 3 issued last time to the presence service has been saved in the presence information storage unit 4 0095 Step S6 Comparison The presence information issuing unit 5 compares the presence information prepared in the step S4 to the presence information saved in the presence information storage unit 4 0096 Step 57 Issuance of presence information Since the two differ from each other the presence information issuing unit 5 issues the new presence information to the pres
37. ing unit 2 The presence information storage unit 4 holds the status inferred last time by the status computing unit 2 The presence information issuing unit 5 compares the status inferred last time and held by the presence information storage unit 4 to the status currently inferred by the status computing unit 2 and if the two statuses differ from each other outputs the status currently inferred by the status computing unit 2 as the status infor mation 0061 FIG 5 shows a presence issuing module 21 according to the second embodiment In the second embodi ment an utterance unit 7 is provided as shown in FIG 5 This utterance unit 7 includes a means not shown for holding the last input time point for the speech information as the input information and a means not shown for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is not entered after lapse of preset time as from the last input time as held by the holding means 0062 Or the utterance unit may include a means for holding the last input time point of operation input infor mation as input information and a means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no new speech information is not entered after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time as held by the holding means The holding means and the executing means both not shown may be provided in the utterance unit 7 shown in FIG 5 In this case
38. ion to the presence service 6 0085 The operation of the first embodiment is now described with reference to FIG 4 which is a flowchart showing the operation of the Example 1 0086 Step 51 acquisition of the speech information The speech information is entered to the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 0087 Step S2 parameter extraction When the user has a conversation the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 extracts conversation parameters by a technique used in speech analyses or natural language processing For the present explanation it is assumed that the conversation parameters have been successfully extracted with the loud ness of the voice medium loudness of the voice quiet and the conversation speed quick as parameters The parameter extracting unit 1 delivers the parameters loudness medium pitch medium and conversation speed slow to the status computing unit 2 0088 Step S3 status computations The status comput ing unit 2 applies the following computation rules saved in the computation rule storage unit 3 to the parameters The status computing unit 2 derives the status description lt feel ing gt relaxed lt feeling gt as being the result for the param eters loudness medium pitch medium and conversation speed slow to deliver the status description to the presence information issuing unit 5 0089 If the pitch of the voice medium loudness of the voice medium and t
39. ion to the status inferred for the present time to output the currently inferred status as the status information by said inferring function in case of the two statuses differing from each other US 2005 0228882 A1 16 The computer program according to claim 15 for implementing the function of holding one or plurality of inference computation rules of said inferring functions 17 The computer program according to claim 15 for implementing the functions of holding the last input time point of said input information which is the speech information and sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is input even after lapse of a preset time as from the last input time held by said holding function 18 The computer program according to claim 15 for implementing the functions of holding the last operation input time by a user to the user device and executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by said holding function 19 A computer program installed on an information processing apparatus for enabling said information process ing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a user device comprising the functions of extracting one or plurality of parameters making up input information and filtering out at least one of said one or plurality parameters
40. is possible to acquire more detailed presence information of the user 0109 The time information or the schedule table enclosed in the mobile phone may similarly be used in combination to estimate that if the number of times of incoming and outgoing telephone calls during working is many the user is busy however if the number of times of incoming and outgoing telephone calls during the private time is many the user is not busy 0110 Example of Application 2 0111 Example of Application in which the time unread mail was left unattended is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the longer the time an unread mail is left unattended the more busy is the user such that the user US 2005 0228882 1 cannot afford time to read the the computation rule storage unit there is stored a computation rule reading if the time an unread mail is left unattended 230 minutes then the status busy If the status computing unit 2 receives 40 minutes as the time an unread mail is left unattended the status computing unit outputs the status busy in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating the status of busy to the presence service In the present Example of Application the presence information other than busy indicating that th
41. lls 0106 The number of times of incoming telephone calls that could not be dealt with by the user may be acquired from the mobile phone of the user to apply the computation rule such that if there is any incoming telephone call then the status busy It may be inferred that the more the number of times of incoming telephone calls that had no response could not be dealt with the more busy is the user 0107 It is also possible to acquire the number of times of incoming telephone calls that could not be dealt with by the user and the access time by the ring tone or a vibrator may also be acquired to apply the computation rule such that if there is any incoming telephone call that could not be dealt with despite access for a time period longer than a preset time then the status busy 0108 By using the telephone directory function of the mobile phone in combination more detailed presence infor mation may be acquired The attributes of a counterpart party registered in a telephone directory may be acquired in addition to the number of times of telephone calls from the user in order to apply the computation rule if the number of times of telephone calls from the user per minuteZonce and the attribute of the counterpart party business colleague then the status is working If the number of times of incoming telephone calls is substituted for the number of times of telephone call from the user it
42. may be exemplified by 0070 1 those inferring that judging from the reac tion time from a user responsive to an operation prompting an action on the part of the user that the user is not available the user being busy or outing 0071 2 those inferring the status of the user depend ing on the frequency of the user utilizing a device such as a mobile phone 0072 3 those inferring the status of the user depend ing on which of the functions as loaded on a device such as mobile phone is exploited by the user for example those inferring that the user is not busy when the user is playing a game or that the user is busy when the user is exploiting the function of call by voice 0073 4 those inferring the status of the user from the input information itself to a device such as mobile phone for example those inferring the humor of the user from the status of his her voice in voice commu nication and 0074 5 those inferring the status of the user from the number of items or data stored in a device such as mobile phone for example those inferring whether or not the user is reading mails diligently These may also be combined together to make up computation rules 0075 The presence information transmitted in accor dance with the present invention may be exemplified by 0076 1 the information which invites others to select means for communication or transactions for example the information indi
43. ment 1 0004 Patent Document 1 0005 JP Patent Kokai Publication No JP P2003 167900A SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE 0006 If with the aid of the conventional presence infor mation management user agent the user s status is to be notified as the presence information a suitable candidate is selected from a status describing list provided in advance to update and notify the presence information 0007 With this method in which suitable status descrip tion is checked by the user there is raised a problem that if the number of status descriptions is increased the user becomes unable to deal with the situation Although it is possible for the user to formulate optional status descrip tions the inputting operation itself is extremely labor consuming 0008 With pre existing presence information manage ment user agents such as Windows Messenger of Microsoft Inc or Yahoo Messenger of YAHOO Co Ltd it is necessary to act on an inputting device such as a keyboard or a mouse for updating the presence information However changes in the user status may occur as he she is not aware of the changes caused Consequently there is raised a problem that since the user is apt to forget updating the presence information the reliability of the presence information is lowered 0009 the other hand the presence information man agement user agent actuated by operation by a user suffers Oct 13 2005
44. n based on said parameter filtered out by said filtering means holding means for holding the status inferred last time by said inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means differ from each other 6 The presence information issuing system according to claim 5 further comprising means for holding one or plurality of filtering rules used by said filtering means and means for holding one or plurality of inference compu tation rules for said inferring means 7 The presence information issuing system according to claim 5 further comprising last input time holding means for holding the last input time of said input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by said last input time holding means 8 The presence information issuing system according to claim 5 further comprising last operation input time holding means for holding the last operation input time by a user for said user device
45. n in which the contents of conversation in speech communication by a mobile phone are analyzed by the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 inclusive of the speech recognition system to issue the presence information is now described The speech recog nition system included in the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 extracts a registered keyword from the contents of the user s utterances In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored a computation rule for inferring Oct 13 2005 the presence information of the user associated with each keyword A computation rule reading If a keyword sad is uttered then the status depressed in feeling for example is stored The present Example of Application is made up by a mobile phone and a presence issuing module 20 in the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 of which is included the speech recognition system Meanwhile the presence issuing module 20 may be provided as a presence server Second Embodiment 0148 Referring to FIG 5 the presence issuing module 21 according to a second embodiment is now described In the present second embodiment the utterance unit 7 queries whether or not the user is in a good condition and an answer received is analyzed by the conversation parameter extract ing unit 1 which includes the speech recognition system to issue the presence information In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored a computation r
46. n of a mobile phone is booted to prompt the inputting to the status computing unit 2 Even if the user does not voluntarily boot the application the sort of the application exploited by the user or the information on the number of times of key actuation may be acquired to issue the presence information 0174 In particular in the case of a game application characters or abaters of a game may invite the user to play a game It is also possible to boot an application in need of periodic interactions such as pet nurturing game to prompt the user to make an input to the status computing unit 2 0175 Example of Application 19 0176 In case the presence information has not been updated for a preset time period such an Example of Application may be implemented in which an alarm of the mobile phone is actuated to prompt the inputting to the status computing unit 2 If the user does not set the alarm volun tarily the information on alarm actuation time or the number of times of key actuation may be acquired to issue the presence information 0177 The Example may also be adapted so that when the time zone for which no schedule has been set is impending the mobile phone actuates an alarm to prompt the inputting US 2005 0228882 1 to status computing unit 2 This method is effective when the user s status cannot be inferred from the schedule Third Embodiment 0178 Athird embodiment of the present invention is now des
47. ns and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by the holding means and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means differ from each other 0024 The presence information issuing system may fur ther comprise means for holding one or plurality of filtering rules used by the filtering means and means for holding one or plurality of inference computation rules for the inferring means 0025 this case the presence information issuing sys tem may be provided with the user device and with the presence server as distinct devices For example the user device is a mobile phone owned by a user and the presence server may be provided as equipment owned by a mobile phone servicing business organization 0026 The user device may include filtering means to inhibit outflow of the private information the leakage of which to outside is not desirable for the user Which infor mation is to be filtered out may be determined by filtering rules provided by the user 0027 The system for issuing presence information may again further comprise means for holding the last input time of the input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even af
48. nt has the utterance unit 7 newly added to the presence issuing module 20 of the first embodiment and may be assumed to be a robot having the conversation with human beings By the utterance unit 7 accosting the user changes in the user s feeling humor or stress degree may spontaneously be detected even in case the user is not willing to have conversation voluntarily The utterance unit 7 has the functions of saving the time of the latest conver sation understanding the conversation with the user and accosting the user 0152 The operation of the second embodiment is now described with reference to FIG 6 which is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the second embodiment 0153 Step 51 Acquisition of speech information The speech information is entered to the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 US 2005 0228882 1 0154 Step 510 Time point recording When the user has the conversation the utterance unit 7 updates the time of the last conversation to the current time 0155 The steps S2 to S9 are the same as those of the first embodiment 0156 Step S11 Has preset time elapsed as from the time of the latest conversation And has not the user been accosted The utterance unit 7 is monitoring the time elapsed as from the time of the last conversation 0157 Step S12 Accosting the user If the time interval during which no conversation with the user has been made has surpassed a preset value the utter
49. nt time by the inferring function and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by the inferring function as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by the holding function and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring function differ from each other The program may also implement the functions of holding on a plurality of inference computation rules for the inferring function 0040 By recording the program of the present invention on a recording medium the information processing appara tus is able to install the program of the present invention with the aid of the recording medium Or the program of the present invention may be installed from a server holding the program of the present invention directly on the information processing apparatus over a network 0041 Thus there may be provided a system and an apparatus for issuing presence information in which the user s state may automatically be inferred and displayed using a general purpose information pro apparatus without relying upon manual inputs by a user 0042 The meritorious effects of the present invention are summarized as follows 0043 The conventional presence information manage ment server user agent was unable to notify changes in the feeling humor or stress degree of the human being as the presence information automatically to a watcher The present invention addresses to this problem 0044
50. of the various parameters extracted by the extracting function The program may further imple ment the functions of holding one or plurality of filtering rules employed by the filtering functions 0037 The computer program may further implement the functions of holding the last input time of the input infor mation which is the speech information and sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech information is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by the holding function 0038 The computer program may further implement the functions of holding the last operation input time by a user to a user device and executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by the holding function 0039 In yet another aspect the present invention pro vides a computer program which when installed on an information processing apparatus enables the information processing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a presence server including the functions of inferring the status of a source of transmission of input information based on the various parameters extracted from input information holding the status inferred last time by the inferring function and comparing the status inferred last time and held by the holding function and the status inferred for the prese
51. on rule storage unit 3 status computing unit 2 presence information issuing unit 5 and the presence information storage unit 4 The conversation parameter receiving unit 10 may receive con versation parameters transmitted from the mobile phone 30 The presence server 31 issues the presence information of the user to the presence service 6 to take the place of the mobile phone 30 0180 Referring to FIG 8 the operation of the third embodiment is described with reference to FIG 8 which depicts a flowchart showing the operation of the third embodiment 0181 Step S13 Registration of filtering rules The user registers the filtering rules in the policy management unit 8 in order not to transmit parameters pertinent to the pitch of the voice to the presence server 31 0182 Step 51 Acquisition of the speech information The speech information is entered to the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 0183 Step 52 Parameter extraction Parameters extracted in the same way as in the step S2 of the first embodiment The conversation parameter extracting unit 1 delivers the parameters to the conversation parameter trans mitting unit 9 0184 Step S14 Filtering The conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 carries out filtering in accordance with the filtering rules acquired from the policy management unit 8 Specifically such a method may be contemplated in which specified parameter values which should not be sen
52. oned various param eters a computation rule storage unit 3 for holding inference computation rules of the status computing unit 2 a presence information storage unit 4 for holding the status inferred last time by the status computing unit 2 and a presence infor mation issuing unit 5 for comparing the status inferred last time and held by the presence information storage unit 4 to the status currently inferred by the status computing unit 2 and outputs the status currently inferred by the status com puting unit 2 as the status information if the two statuses differ from each other Referring to FIG 9 the utterance unit 7 may be provided in the mobile phone 30 in the third embodiment as in the second embodiment fourth embodi ment 0065 There may further be provided a means for holding the last operation input time to the mobile phone 30 by a user and a means for invoking a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no new operation input occurs after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time as held by the holding means The holding means and the executing means both not shown may be provided in the utterance unit 7 shown in FIG 9 In this case the utterance unit 7 is supplied with the operation input infor mation along with the user s speech information The input ting of the operation input information is omitted form the drawing only for simplicity 0066 The present embodiment is implemented as a
53. ons Or the present invention may be applied to a robot per forming movements as it grasps the user s status or may be used for services for interchanging reciprocal feeling or humor during talk over the telephone 0209 It should be noted that other objects features and aspects of the present invention will become apparent in the entire disclosure and that modifications may be done without departing the gist and scope of the present invention as disclosed herein and claimed as appended herewith 0210 Also it should be noted that any combination of the disclosed and or claimed elements matters and or items may fall under the modifications aforementioned What is claimed is 1 An apparatus for issuing presence information com prising extracting means for extracting at least one parameter making up input information inferring means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of said input information based on said parameter extracted by said extracting means holding means for holding the status inferred last time by said inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by said inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by said holding means and the status inferred for the present time by
54. putation rule reading If the number of times of lid opening closure minute2 25 times then the status not busy On receipt of 30 times as the number of times of the lid opening closure per minute the status computing unit 2 outputs the status not busy in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating the not busy to the presence service 6 In addition to the not busy the presence information indicating the user not having anything to do may also be issued With the present Example the fact that the user has nothing to do may automatically be imparted to the watchers The watcher about to make a telephone call may be apprized of the tact that he she may call the user over telephone without any inconvenience 0130 Example of Application 9 0131 An Example of Application in which the packet communication time within unit time is acquired from a Oct 13 2005 mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the longer the packet communication time the more busy is the user 0132 In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is saved a computation rule reading If the packet communi cation time per 60 minutes2 40 minutes then the status is busy On receipt of 50 minutes as the packet commu nication time the status computing unit 2 outputs the st
55. ration input time held by the holding means 0032 Ina fourth aspect the present invention provides a presence server comprising means for inferring the status of a source of transmission of input information based on various parameters extracted from the input information means for holding the status inferred last time by the inferring means and means for comparing the status inferred last time and held by the holding means and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means and for outputting the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means as the status information in case the status inferred last time and held by the holding means and the status inferred for the present time by the inferring means differ from each other There may further be provided with means for holding one or plurality of inference computation rules for the inferring means 0033 In a fifth aspect the present invention provides a computer program which when installed on an information processing apparatus enables the information processing apparatus to implement the functions equivalent to those of a presence information issuing apparatus comprising the functions of extracting a variety of parameters making up the input information inferring the status of a source of transmission of the input information based on the param eters extracted by the extracting functions holding the status inferred last time by the inferring function
56. resence information other then on line indicating the status in which the user is able to respond readily to the incoming telephone call 0118 Example of Application 5 0119 Example of Application in which the number of times of mail transmission from a mobile phone per unit time is acquired to issue the presence information is now described It may be inferred that the more the number of mails transmitted per unit time the less the user is busy and the more he she is bored There is saved in the computation rule storage unit 3 a computation rule reading If the number of times of mail transmission unit time thrice then the status is bored On receipt of five times as the number of times of mail transmission per unit time the status computing unit 2 outputs the status bored in accordance with the aforementioned rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating the status of boredom to the presence service 6 In addition to the presence information indicating boredom the presence information indicating the demand for communication on the part of the user may also be issued With the present Example of Application the user being desirous to have communication is imparted to watchers other than the counterpart party of mail transmis sion thus promoting mail exchange between the user and the watcher 0120 In such case it is possible
57. sence issuing module 20 includes a con versation parameter extracting unit 1 a status computing unit 2 a computation rule storage unit 3 a presence infor mation storage unit 4 and a presence information issuing unit 5 The conversation parameter extracting unit 1 collects one or more parameters relevant to the conversation by the user by a technique used in speech analysis or natural language processing 0083 The computation rule storage unit 3 stores rules for deriving the description of the user s status from a variety of conversation parameters The status computing unit 2 executes the processing of deriving the status description from the conversation parameters as collected by the con versation parameter extracting unit 1 in accordance with the computation rules as stored in the computation rule storage unit 3 0084 The status computing unit 2 also has the functions of delivering the so derived status description to the pres ence information issuing unit 5 The presence information storage unit 4 has the function of transiently storing the presence information issued last time to the presence service 6 The presence information issuing unit 5 has the functions of preparing the new presence information from the status description delivered from the status computing unit 2 comparing the new presence information to the presence information saved in the presence information storage unit 4 and issuing the new presence informat
58. t are replaced by statistically calculated mean values If the filtering rule registered in the step 513 is applied the voice pitch medium Oct 13 2005 0185 The conversation parameter transmitting unit 9 transmits conversation parameters over a network to the presence server 31 0186 The conversation parameter receiving unit 10 receives the parameters from the mobile phone 30 to deliver it to the status computing unit 2 0187 The steps S3 to S9 are the same as those of the first embodiment 0188 Step S15 Is there change in filtering rules If there is any change in the filtering rules such changes filtering rules are re registered S13 0189 Meanwhile the present embodiment may be applied not only to the mobile phone 30 but also to a fixed phone In the present embodiment the presence information prepared by the presence server 31 may be returned to the mobile phone 30 which then issues the presence information in the presence service 6 In this case the user may confirm the presence information formulated by the presence server 31 on the basis of the conversation on the mobile phone 30 Fourth Embodiment 0190 Referring to FIGS 9 and 10 a fourth embodiment is now described FIGS 9 and 10 depict a block diagram of a mobile phone of the present fourth embodiment and a flowchart showing the operation of the fourth embodiment respectively Referring to FIG 9 the fourth embodiment comprises the
59. ter lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by the holding means 0028 Or the apparatus for issuing presence information may further comprise means for holding the last operation input time by a user for the user device and means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no new operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last operation input time held by the holding means 0029 In a third aspect the present invention provides a user device comprising means for extracting various param Oct 13 2005 eters making up the input information and filtering means for filtering out preset ones of the various parameters extracted by the extracting means There may further be provided with means for holding one or plurality of filtering rules used by the filtering means 0030 The user device may further comprise means for holding the last input time of the input information which is the speech information and means for sending out a preset message as a speech signal in case no new speech informa tion is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last input time held by the holding means 0031 The user device may further comprise means for holding the last operation input time by a user to the user device and means for executing a preset operation input invoking procedure in case no operation input is entered even after lapse of preset time as from the last ope
60. tes and alarm type alarm clock then the status offline may be applied in order to suppress an incoming telephone call under a status in which the user is in bed or is a poor riser Acomputation rule reading If alarm on time lt 10 seconds and alarm type alarm clock then the status comfort able may also be applied to notify that the user has just risen but is available US 2005 0228882 1 0124 Incase the status which the alarm of the mobile phone is not stopped by the user and kept ringing for a preset time until it is stopped automatically may be detected to infer that the user is not in a status of using the mobile phone In such case a computation rule reading If alarm is stopped automatically then the status offline for example may be applied 0125 Example of Application 7 0126 Example of Application in which the number of times of the pressing down of a button per unit time is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence infor mation is now described In case a button has been pressed down a large number of times per unit time it may be inferred that the user is preoccupied in operating the mobile phone and is busy In the computation rule storage unit there is saved a computation rule reading If the number of times of pressing down the button per minute 120 then the status busy On receipt of 130 as the number of the pr
61. th meritorious effect is that not only the presence information indicating the online state or the device using state is automatically issued to the device but also the presence information indicating the specified status of the user may also be issued automatically 0048 Still other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in this art from the following detailed description in conjunc tion with the accompanying drawings wherein only the preferred embodiments of the invention are shown and described simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated of carrying out this invention As will be realized the invention is capable of other and different embodiments and its several details are capable of modifi cations in various obvious respects all without departing from the invention Accordingly the drawing and descrip tion are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0049 FIG 1 is a block diagram showing the configura tion of a presence issuing module of a first embodiment 0050 FIG 2 shows an example of the presence infor mation 0051 FIG 3 shows an example of the previous presence information 0052 FIG 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment 0053 FIG 5 is a block diagram showing the configura tion of a presence issuing module of a second embodiment 0054 FIG
62. to carry out computa tions in cooperation with an address book in such a manner that counterpart party is busy or not busy if he she is a colleague of business or is a private friend respectively It is also possible to carry out computations in cooperation with time information or a schedule book in such a manner that counterpart party is busy or not busy if he she is a colleague of business or is a private friend respectively 0121 Example of Application 6 0122 An Example of Application in which the alarm on time is acquired from a mobile phone to issue the presence information is now described If the alarm on time exceeds a preset time interval it may be inferred that the user is absent or otherwise in a status unable to turn off the alarm In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored e g computation rule reading If alarm on time five min utes then the status absent On receipt of ten minutes as the alarm on time the status computing unit 2 outputs the status absent to the presence service 6 in accordance with the aforementioned rule With the present Example it is possible to issue the presence information other than the absence indicating the status in which the alarm is on but the user is not aware of it 0123 Computations may be made of the alarm on time in combination with the alarm type For example a computa tion rule reading If alarm time2 ten minu
63. ule reading If the answer to the query how is your condition is leave me alone then the status depressed in feeling On receipt of leave me alone as the answer to the query how is your condition the status computing unit 2 issues the status depressed in feeling in accordance with the above rule The presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information indicating the status of being depressed in feeling to the presence service 6 In particu lar by the utterance unit 7 accosting the user the presence information may be issued spontaneously responsive to changes in the user s feeling humor or stress degree even in such case where the user is not willing to make the conver sation voluntarily 0149 With the second embodiment such an effect of promoting the communication from a watcher may be derived The second embodiment may be made up by a mobile phone and by the presence issuing module 21 in the conversation parameter extracting unit 1 of which is included the speech recognition system The presence issu ing module 21 may also be provided as a presence server 0150 Meanwhile the presence information derived by the status computing unit 2 may be reverted to the former presence information prior to change or replaced by other computations or other user operations after lapse of a preset time 0151 That is the presence issuing module 21 of the second embodime
64. xample a computation rule reading If a game is enjoyed then the status boredom may be applied 0137 The number of times an antenna is extended or retracted per unit time may be acquired to infer whether or not the user feels bored For example the computation rule reading if the number of times of antenna extension and retraction per minute five times then the status bored may be applied 0138 Example of Application 11 0139 An Example of Application in which failure in authentication of a user owning a mobile phone is detected to issue the presence information is now described While there are password based fingerprint based and face based authentication systems no limitations are imposed here on the particular authentication systems Should the number of times of failure in user authentication occur a number of times exceeding a preset value it may be inferred that a third party is using the phone In the computation rule storage unit 3 there is stored in the computation rule storage unit 3 a computation rule reading If the number of times of failure in user authentication2three times then the status an unidentified person is handling the phone On receipt of four times as the number of times of the inputting of the erroneous password the presence information issuing unit 5 issues the presence information representing an unidenti fied person is handling the phone to the

Apparatus, system and program for issuing presence information

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