The integration of computers and telephony services has grown tremendously over the last decade. Rapidly advancing technology in combination with decreasing equipment costs have spurred the computer-telephony integration (CTI) industry to new heights. Because of these advancements, telephone service providers are now generally able to offer more complex calling services to a wider population and at a lower cost than previously available.
In the evolution of the modem communication network, all telephone services, including so-called xe2x80x9cenhancedxe2x80x9d services, were previously provided by telephone switches. Every time a new calling service was developed, the switch had to be re-programmed by the switch vendor to implement that calling service. Because of the enormous complexity and expense of telephone switches, new calling services were generally delayed until the new switches were implemented. This process and the enormous costs of switches typically prohibited smaller telephone service providers from introducing and implementing their own calling services.
In response to this slow progression, the industry developed a design architecture called Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN). AIN architecture allowed much of the call processing and calling services to be removed from the switches and placed in peripheral computing systems. The AIN architecture uses peripheral computing systems as service control points (SCPs), service nodes (SNs), and intelligent peripherals (IPs) to provide call processing and calling services. Telephone service providers could now invest in relatively inexpensive computers with enough processing power to provide the enhanced calling services and call processing. This opened the market for calling services to the smaller telephone service providers.
The Internet has also experienced unmatched growth over the last decade. A vast array of information and services is now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
Most companies have web sites or web-enabled databases. Services which were previously limited to interactive calling implementation, such as information services, home banking, stock trading, and retail sales, have now become a mainstay of Internet commerce. Within the last five years, advancing technology has allowed Internet service providers (ISPs) to enter the long distance telephony market in competition with traditional telephone service providers. This evolutionary step established the potential for integration of the Internet with traditional CTI.
Recently, in the wireless phone industry, Internet content has become accessible, in a limited format, over a new design of wireless phone and wireless data terminals, and the development of wireless information formats. In addition to all of the communication services available to wireless phone users, they now enjoy limited access to the Internet content over an expanded visual display on their wireless phones. While this limited integration has increased the services and information resources available to the public, the amount and character of the information and services available is limited by the current technology.
The availability of Internet-based information and services based upon standard digital data networking and Internet standards such as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), transfer control protocol (TCP), Internet protocol (IP), extensible markup language (XML), hypertext markup language (HTML), scripting formats and others, which allow access to the Internet information relatively independent from a particular platform, creates a problem for mobile communication device users. With the memory, power, and input/output limitations inherent in the small mobile communication devices, it becomes increasingly difficult to take advantage of the current digital networking and Internet standards.
In response to this limitation, the industry has developed resource conservative alternatives to the current Internet and information protocols. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) has risen to the top of these conservative alternatives as the defacto standard transport protocol for delivery of wireless information and telephony services to wireless devices.
Using WAP, information and resources are generally transported in a format which is more appropriate for wireless handheld device users. A WAP Gateway typically converts web protocols, such as HTTP and TCP/IP, into WAP transfer protocol and vice versa. To a limited extent, the WAP Gateway may also translate web content into the proper, reduced-sized format for display on a smaller handheld device, if it includes the appropriate logic and processing capabilities. Through appropriate use of proxy technology, much of the computational functionality is accomplished via the WAP Gateway, thus, further eliminating the need for excessive on-device memory and power.
The emerging wireless application protocols and formats (e.g. WML, HDML, see below) generally allow the use of soft keys (keys which have multiple functions dependent on the mode or function the handheld devices is operating in) for enabling users to make menu selections, scroll through multiple screens or xe2x80x9ccards,xe2x80x9d as they are referred to in WML. The availability of an alphanumeric keypad on most hand held devices allows for entry of standard text or numeric information either with dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) or other data signal criteria. Therefore, the presentation of the information is tailored to fit within the space confines and interactivity limits of a handheld device interface.
In addition to the WAP-styled technology, small-scaled web browsers are normally used to navigate through the information while presenting a familiar interface to the user. These small-scaled browsers, called mini-browsers, are typically designed to render mark-up languages designed specifically for the memory, input/output and bandwidth limitations of mobile handheld devices communicating over a wireless network. Two of the more prevalent languages, Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) and Wireless Markup Language (WML) allow navigation similar to the standard HTML and use a tag-based language set defined as an XML document type. These wireless mark-up languages typically conserve memory resources by converting much of the overhead necessary for navigation into smaller machine-code or binary representations. WML or HDML applications can be written using existing HTML and XML development environments.
Although WAP and languages such as, HDML and WML, succeed in presenting a familiar interface compatible with a mobile handheld device, the inherent limitations of this interface complicates the user""s interaction. Entering even a small amount of textual information using a 12-key alphanumeric keypad requires a great deal of concentration and detailed manipulation for the user. Furthermore, soft key functions must be arranged in standard locations in order for a user to navigate intuitively through xe2x80x9cglance and touchxe2x80x9d activation. In most instances, a user is engaged in multiple tasks when using a wireless device. Such a user will be less inclined to access a wireless information service if it requires too much special, physical attention.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to have a fully-integrated communication system which may access and supply information services from the Internet, corporate databases, and other electronic information media and also provides enhanced interface between the user and the information service. It would also be advantageous to provide a simpler user interface which allows a user to control access to information and application functionality using basic inherent skills and minimized device manipulation. These and other features and technical advantages are achieved by a system that allows a blended communication and information system which can supply electronically accessed information to mobile devices and also provides a simple, intuitive interface between a user and an information service provider. Such mobile devices may include items like wireless telephones, handheld computing devices, pagers, and other electronic equipment which include a display, memory, processing capability, and some form of user interface for receiving user input.
The system provides a wireless information service interface for use between a communication device and an information service provider comprising a first server and a second server. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention described in this application, the first server would be a communication server with a data network connection wherein the server enables communication with the wireless data networking features of the communication device. The second server would preferably include a voice response unit (VRU) with a telecommunication connection and one or more voice applications, wherein the VRU provides voice prompts and/or audio information to the communication device over its telephony interface (via the PSTN). The VRU preferably has speech recognition capabilities allowing users to respond verbally to voice prompts created by any one or more of the voice applications.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the interface may include a data network server capable of providing information compatible with the communication device. The data network server preferably includes one or more data applications accessible by the communication device, wherein the data applications may provide visual information to the communication device, and are capable of automatically initiating a telecommunication connection between the communication device and the VRU. Once such a telecommunication connection is established, the VRU may selectively run one or more of the voice applications based on information provided to the VRU by the data application, the user, or a remote host application server in communication with the VRU or data network server.
In operation according to a preferred embodiment, a user will access one or more of the data applications via the data network server. The data application will then generally send a set of compatible instructions for controlling the application which are stored in a memory on the communication device. The application then preferably initiates a telecommunication link with the VRU sending data which allows the VRU to selectively activate one or more of the voice applications. It should be noted that the data application""s initiation of the telecommunication link may preferably be prompted by the user responding to an action that the data application presents or may preferably be automatically initiated by the data application either if the information that the data application is attempting to present is too complex for the communication device display, or the data application itself incorporates the simultaneous use of the voice application to accept and present input or output. Once the telecommunication link is established, the data application may then be suspended until the telephony session terminates, or allowed to process as a background task, depending on the capabilities of the wireless data network and handsets as well as the details of the application.
The VRU can preferably obtain information either from the data application, directly from the user using speech recognition technology, through data signals generated by the communication device, or from a remote host application server. Using selected voice prompts, text-to-speech capabilities, and/or pre-recorded messages, the voice application processes and obtains the information desired by the user. When the voice application has obtained the requisite data, it preferably places the information into memory storage, informs the caller that the information can be retrieved from the data network server, and suspends or terminates the telecommunication link. Alternatively, the voice application may present some of the retrieved information verbally to the user, if it is not too complex or long. Alternatively, the voice application may interact with the user to gather input needed to retrieve the information for the user and pass this input back to the data application server for actual information retrieval and presentation. As the telecommunication link is suspended or terminated, the data application is brought back to the foreground, such as by reactivation or redesignation as the active task, to operate with the user. Thus a preferred embodiment of the system allows for either the data application server or VRU server or both to have the ability to access the host application server.
A wireless data application generator, which can be a WML page generator, an HDML page generator, or some other wireless data application language, builds the data application information in a format compatible with the mobile communication device and wireless data network. The wireless data application generator then forwards the information to the data network server for final transmission via the wireless data network to the communication device. The application information thus sent to the communication device for rendering and user interaction may include both application navigation structures and data retrieval and presentation structures. For typical situations, there will preferably be a single button or command presented to the user on the communication device so the user can retrieve the information or initiate actions with single button actuation. Other situations may result in an automatic push of the data to the communication device when the data application is operating in the foreground.
After the wireless data application generator has forwarded the application information, some or all of the information may remain in the memory storage indefinitely. An alternative embodiment of the present invention would preferably provide the user addressable access to the memory storage for retrieving the information more than the one, initial time. Preferably, the user would be able to repeatedly access the user-specific memory location to review any or all of the currently stored information-retrieval results. The memory could be configured to retain all of the retrieved information until either the user deletes it, or the service provider deletes it according to terms negotiated in a service contract. Alternatively, the information may be deleted when subsequent activity by the user stores new information.
It should be noted that the preferred embodiment of the present invention is not limited solely to wireless communication devices. A conventional wireline telephone could also benefit from the services and interface disclosed by the preferred embodiment. In order to implement the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a wireline phone would typically have a visual display either built directly into the unit or as a supplemental display unit and some degree of memory capability. Such a telephone would generally also have processing capabilities to operate functions, programs, and instructions written in a wireless application protocol. In the use of this alternative embodiment, a desk phone could be connected to the Internet or other data network which could provide access to phone directories, locator services, retail services, or other information services available to the wireless communication device user. Alternatively, a standard data network access terminal such as a PC with internet access connectivity and browser software further enhanced with a voice telephony capability could also be used for the same purpose.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the conception and specific embodiment disclosed may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.