US20020025026A1

Movatterモバイル変換

Info

Publication number: US20020025026A1
Application number: US09/907,582
Authority: US
Inventors: Irwin Gerszberg; Jeffrey Martin; Hopeton Walker
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1997-12-31
Filing date: 2001-07-19
Publication date: 2002-02-28
Also published as: US6385305B1

Abstract

A toolkit for creating customized video announcement messages on video-enabled answering machine. The video-enabled answering machine may have many new features including customized video announcement messages, caller ID based video announcement messages, and time based video announcement messages.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed generally to telephone answering machines, and more particularly to a toolkit for creating announcements for a multimedia answering machine.[0001]

BACKGROUND

As deregulation of the telephone industry continues and as companies prepare to enter the local telephone access market, there is a need to offer new and innovative services that distinguish common carriers from their competitors. This cannot be accomplished without introducing new local access network architectures that will be able to support these new and innovative services.[0002]

Conventionally, customer premises telephone and/or data connections contain splitters for separating analog voice calls from other data services such as Ethernet transported over digital subscriber line (DSL) modems. Voice band data and voice signals are sent through a communications switch in a central or local office to an interexchange carrier or Internet service provider. DSL data is sent through a digital subscriber loop asynchronous mode (DSLAM) switch which may include a router. The DSLAM switch connects many lines and routes the digital data to a telephone company's digital switch.[0003]

A major problem with this configuration is that interexchange carriers attempting to penetrate the local telephone company's territory must lease trunk lines from the local telephone company switch to the interexchange company's network for digital traffic. Furthermore, the Internet service provider must lease a modem from the local phone company in the DSLAM switch and route its data through the local phone company's digital switch. Thus, the local phone company leases and/or provides a significant amount of equipment, driving up the cost of entry for any other company trying to provide local telephone services and making it difficult for the interexchange companies to differentiate their services. Furthermore, since DSL modem technology is not standardized, in order to ensure compatibility, the DSL modem provided by the local telephone company must also be provided to the end user in the customer premises equipment (CPE). Additionally, since the network is not completely controlled by the interexchange companies, it is difficult for the interexchange companies to provide data at committed delivery rates. Any performance improvements implemented by the interexchange companies may not be realized by their customers, because the capabilities of the local telephone company equipment may or may not meet their performance needs. Thus, it is difficult for the interexchange companies to convince potential customers to switch to their equipment or to use their services. These factors ensure the continued market presence of the local telephone company.[0004]

As part of this system, there is a need for improved architectures, services and equipment utilized to distinguish the interexchange companies' products and services.[0005]

A problem that has plagued many telephone users is the endless phone hierarchies where a customer calls a company or government office and becomes mired in an endless array of menu choices—none of which seem to guide the individual to where he or she would like to go. Often the answering machine will simply hang-up on the individual at the end of one menus without ever providing the individual the information requested. Users often become frustrated at not being able to speak with a human being.[0006]

Another problem for many users of telephone answering machines is that it is very difficult to customize a telephone answering machine to reflect the personality of the owner of the machine. We customize our business cards, holiday cards, and letter head, employ different advertising, and decorate our offices to reflect our own personalities, to draw attention to ourselves, and to differentiate our services. However, heretofore, it has been difficult to customize our voice announcement messages. Although some users have added music through the use of a tape recorder playing while the user is recording an announcement, these attempts at customizing a voice greeting are crude and at best cumbersome to use.[0007]

As a further problem, users which are placed on-hold are either provided comfort noise, music, and/or advertisements from the company to which they called. Time on hold often passes very slowly and many users may hang-up. Home users without sophisticated PABX (Private Automatic Branch Exchange) machines are even more disadvantages since these users usually only can provide comfort noise to their customers which are place on-hold.[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In order to provide an improved network, it is desirable for the interexchange companies to have access to at least one of the twisted-pair lines or alternate wireless facility connecting each of the individual users to the local telephone network before the lines are routed through the conventional local telephone network equipment. It is preferable to have access to these lines prior to the splitter and modem technology offered by the local service providers. By having access to the twisted-pair wires entering the customer's premises, interexchange companies can differentiate their services by providing higher bandwidth, improving the capabilities of the customer premises equipment, and lowering overall system costs to the customer by providing competitive service alternatives.[0009]

The new architecture may utilize a video phone and/or other devices to provide new services to an end user; an intelligent services director (ISD) disposed at or near the customer's premises for multiplexing and coordinating many digital services onto a single twisted-pair line; a facilities management platform (FMP) disposed in the local telephone network's central office for routing data to an appropriate interexchange company network; and a network server platform (NSP) coupled to the FMP for providing new and innovative services to the customer and for distinguishing services provided by the interexchange companies from those services provided by the local telephone network.[0010]

As part of this system, one aspect of the invention provides a toolkit for creating announcements for a multimedia announcement answering machine. The users may record video greetings for their answering machine. The video greetings may include animations and other suitable audio/video clips. Still images may also be presented.[0011]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing summary of the invention, as well as the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, is better understood when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which are included by way of example, and not by way of limitation with regard to the claimed invention.[0012]

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a hybrid fiber twisted pair local loop architecture.[0013]

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an intelligent services director consistent with the architecture shown in FIG. 1.[0014]

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate an embodiment of a video phone consistent with the architecture shown in FIG. 1.[0015]

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of an embodiment of a facilities management platform consistent with the architecture shown in FIG. 1.[0016]

FIG. 4B illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of a network server platform consistent with the architecture shown in FIG. 1.[0017]

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a display on the videophone shown in FIG. 3[0018]a.

FIGS.[0019]6-9 illustrate various exemplary multimedia announcement messages that may be generated by the video phone upon receiving a call.

FIGS.[0020]10-12 illustrate various embodiments of a display on the videophone shown in FIG. 3a.

FIG. 13 illustrates an exemplary multimedia announcement message that may be generated by the video phone upon receiving a call.[0021]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1, a first exemplary communication network architecture employing a hybrid fiber, twisted-pair (HFTP)[0022]

local loop

1 architecture is shown. An intelligent services director (ISD)22 may be coupled to acentral office34 via a twisted-pair wire, hybrid fiber interconnection, wireless and/orother customer connection30, aconnector block26, and/or a main distribution frame (MDF)28. The ISD22 and the central orlocal office34 may communicate with each other using, for example, framed, time division, frequency-division, synchronous, asynchronous and/or spread spectrum formats, but in exemplary embodiments uses DSL modem technology. Thecentral office34 preferably includes a facilities management platform (FMP)32 for processing data exchanged across thecustomer connection30. The FMP32 may be configured to separate the plain old telephone service (POTS) from the remainder of the data on thecustomer connection30 using, for example, a tethered virtual radio channel (TVRC) modem (shown in FIG. 4A). The remaining data may be output to a high speed backbone network (e.g., a fiber-optic network) such as an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching network. The analog POTS data may be output directly to a public switch telephone network (PSTN)46, and/or it may be digitized, routed through the high speed backbone network, and then output to thePSTN46.

The FMP[0023]32 may process data and/or analog/digitized voice between customer premise equipment (CPE)10 and any number of networks. For example, the FMP32 may be interconnected with a synchronous optical network (SONET)42 for interconnection to any number of additional networks such as an InterSpanbackbone48, thePSTN46, a public switch switching network (e.g. call setup SS7-type network44), and/or a network server platform (NSP)36. Alternatively, the FMP32 may be directly connected to any of these networks. One or more FMPs32 may be connected directly to the high speed backbone network (e.g., direct fiber connection with the SONET network42) or they may be linked via a trunk line (e.g.,trunks40 or42) to one or more additional networks.

The[0024]

NSP

36 may provide a massive cache storage for various information that may be provided across the SONET net42 to theFMP32 and out to theISD22. TheNSP36 and theFMP32 may collectively define an accessnetwork server complex38. TheNSP36 may be interconnected withmultiple FMPs32. Furthermore, eachFMP32 may interconnect with one ormore ISDs22. TheNSP36 may be located anywhere but is preferably located in a point-of-presence (POP) facility. TheNSP36 may further act as a gateway to, for example, any number of additional services.

The[0025]

ISD

22 may be interconnected to various devices such as avideophone130, otherdigital phones18, set-top devices, computers, and/or other devices comprising thecustomer premise equipment10. The customer premise equipment may individually or collectively serve as a local network computer at the customer site. Application applets may be downloaded from theNSP36 into some or all of the individual devices within thecustomer premise equipment10. Where applets are provided by theNSP36, the programming of the applets may be updated such that the applets are continually configured to the latest software version by the interexchange carrier. In this way, theCPE10 may be kept up to date by simply re-loading updated applets. In addition, certain applets may be resident on any of theCPE10. These resident applets may be periodically reinitialized by simply sending a request from, for example, adigital phone18 and/or avideophone130 to theFMP32 and thereafter to theNSP36 for reinitialization and downloading of new applets. To ensure widespread availability of the new features made possible by the present architecture, the customer premise equipment may be provided to end users either at a subsidized cost or given away for free, with the cost of the equipment being amortized over the services sold to the user through the equipment.

Referring to FIG. 2, the[0026]

ISD

22 may connect with a variety of devices including analog and

digital voice telephones

15,18;digital videophones130, devices for monitoring home security, meter reading devices (not shown), utilities devices/energy management facilities (not shown),facsimile devices16,personal computers14, and/or other digital or analog devices. Some or all of these devices may be connected with theISD22 via any suitable mechanism such as a single and/or multiple twisted-pair wires and/or a wireless connection. For example, a number of digital devices may be multi-dropped on a single twisted-pair connection. Similarly, analog phones and other analog devices may be multi-dropped using conventional techniques.

The[0027]

ISD

22 may be located within the home/business or mounted exterior to the home/business. TheISD22 may operate from electrical power supplied by the local orcentral office34 and/or from the customer's power supplied by the customer's power company. Where theISD22 includes a modem, it may be desirable to power theISD22 with supplemental power from the home in order to provide sufficient power to enable the optimal operation of the modem.

As shown in FIG. 2, in some embodiments the[0028]

ISD

22 may include acontroller100 which may have any of a variety of elements such as acentral processing unit102, aDRAM103, anSRAM104, aROM105 and/or an internet protocol (IP)bridge router106 connecting thecontroller100 to asystem bus111. Thesystem bus111 may be connected with a variety ofnetwork interface devices110. Thenetwork interface devices110 may be variously configured to include one or more of an integrated services digital network (ISDN)interface113, an Ethernet interface119 (e.g., for 28.8 kbs data, 56 kbs data, or ISDN), anIEEE 1394 “fire wire” interface112 (e.g., for a digital videodisc device (DVD)), for a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem (e.g., a TVRC modem interface), aresidential interface114, (e.g., standard POTS phone systems such as tip ring), a business interface116 (e.g., a T1 line and/or PABX interface), a radio frequency (RF) audio/video interface120 (e.g., a cable television connection), and/or a cordless phone interface123 (e.g., a 900 MHZ transceiver). Connected to one of the network interfaces and/or thesystem bus111 may be any number of devices such as an audio interface122 (e.g., for digital audio, digital telephones, digital audio tape (DAT) recorders/players, music for restaurants, MIDI interface, DVD, etc.), adigital phone121, a videophone/user interface130, a television set-top device131 and/or other devices. Where the network interface is utilized, it may be desirable to use, for example, theIEEE 1394interface112 and/or theEthernet interface119.

A[0029]

lifeline

126 may be provided for continuous telephone service in the event of a power failure at theCPE10. Thelifeline126 may be utilized to connect theISD22 to the local telecommunications company'scentral office34 and, in particular, to theFMP32 located in thecentral office34.

The ISD may be variously configured to provide any number of suitable services. For example, the[0030]

ISD

22 may offer high fidelity radio channels by allowing the user to select a particular channel and obtaining a digitized radio channel from a remote location and outputting the digital audio, for example, onaudio interface122,video phone130, and/ordigital phones121. A digital telephone may be connected to theaudio interface122 such that a user may select any one of a number of digital audio service channels by simply having the user push a digital audio service channel button on the telephone and have the speaker phone output particular channels. The telephone may be preprogramed to provide the digital audio channels at a particular time, such as a wake up call for bedroom mounted telephone, or elsewhere in the house. The user may select any number of services on the video phone and/or other user interface such as a cable set-top device. These services may include any number of suitable services such as weather, headlines in the news, stock quotes, neighborhood community services information, ticket information, restaurant information, service directories (e.g., yellow pages), call conferencing, billing systems, mailing systems, coupons, advertisements, maps, classes, Internet, pay-per-view (PPV), and/or other services using any suitable user interface such as theaudio interface122, the video phone/user interface130, digital phones,121 and/or another suitable device such as asettop device131.

In further embodiments, the[0031]

ISD

22 may be configured as an IP proxy server such that each of the devices connected to the server utilizes transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) protocol. This configuration allows any device associated with the ISD to access the Internet via an IP connection through theFMP32. Where theISD22 is configured as an IP proxy server, it may accommodate additional devices that do not support the TCP/IP protocol. In this embodiment, theISD22 may have a proprietary or conventional interface connecting theISD22 to any associated device such as to the settop box131, thepersonal computer14, thevideo telephone130, thedigital telephone18, and/or some other end user device.

In still further embodiments, the[0032]

ISD

22 may be compatible with multicast broadcast services where multicast information is broadcast by a central location and/or other server on one of the networks connected to theFMP32, e.g., an ATM-switched network. TheISD22 may download the multicast information via theFMP32 to any of the devices connected to theISD22. TheISD22 and/orCPE10 devices may selectively filter the information in accordance with a specific customer user's preferences. For example, one user may select all country music broadcasts on a particular day while another user may select financial information. TheISD22 and/or any of theCPE10 devices may also be programmed to store information representing users' preferences and/or the received uni-cast or multicast information in memory or other storage media for later replay. Thus, for example, video clips or movies may be multicast to all customers in the community with certain users being preconfigured to select the desired video clip/movie in real time for immediate viewing and/or into storage for later viewing.

Referring to FIG. 3A, a[0033]

videophone

130 may include atouch screen display141 andsoft keys142 around the perimeter of thedisplay141. The display may be responsive to touch, pressure, and/or light input. Some or all of thesoft keys142 may be programmable and may vary in function depending upon, for example, the applet being run by thevideophone130. The function of each soft key may be displayed next to the key on thedisplay141. The functions of thesoft keys142 may also be manually changed by the user by pressingscroll buttons143. Thevideophone140 may also include a handset144 (which may be connected via a cord or wireless connection to the rest of the videophone and/or directly to the ISD), akeypad150, avideo camera145, acredit card reader146, asmart card slot147, amicrophone149, a motion and/orlight detector148, built-in speaker(s)155, a printer/scanner/facsimile152, and/or external speakers154 (e.g., stereo speakers). Akeyboard153 and/or apostage scale151 may also be connected to thevideophone130. Any or all of the above-mentioned items may be integrated with the videophone unit itself or may be physically separate from the videophone unit. A block diagram of the video phone unit is shown in FIG. 3B. Referring to FIG. 3B, in addition to the items above, thevideo phone130 may also include asignal processor171, highspeed interface circuitry172,memory173,power supply174, all interconnected via acontroller170.

When the[0034]

videophone

130 is used as a video telephone, thedisplay141 may include one or more video window(s)160 for viewing a person to whom a user is speaking and/or showing the picture seen by the person on the other end of the video phone. The display may also include a dialed-telephone-number window161 for displaying the phone number dialed, avirtual keypad162,virtual buttons163 for performing various telephone functions,service directory icons165, amail icon164, and/or variousother service icons166 which may be used, for example, for obtaining coupons or connecting with an operator. Any or all of these items may be displayed as virtual buttons and/or graphic icons and may be arranged in any combination. Additionally, any number of other display features may be shown on the video phone in accordance with one or more of the applications incorporated by reference below.

Referring to FIG. 4A, the[0035]

FMP

32 may coordinate the flow of data packets, separate voice signals from other signals, perform line monitoring and switching functions, and/or convert between analog and digital signals. TheFMP32 may process data sent from theCPE10 to the central orlocal office34 by separating and reconstructing analog voice signals, data, and control frames. TheFMP32 may process data sent from the central orlocal office34 to theCPE10 by separating control messages from user information, and configure this information into segments that for transport across the digital subscriber loop. TheFMP32 may also terminate the link layer associated with the digital subscriber loop.

In some embodiments, the[0036]

FMP

32 may include anaccess module70 and adigital loop carrier87. Theaccess module70 may include aline protector71, a cross-connector73, a plurality of TVRC modems80, a plurality ofdigital filters82, acontroller multiplexer84, and/or a router andfacilities interface86. Thedigital loop carrier87 may include a plurality ofline cards96, a time domain multiplexing (TDM) multiplexor (MUX)88, aTDM bus90, acontroller92, and/or afacilities interface94.

During normal operations, digital signals on the customer connection[0037]30 (e.g., twisted-pair lines) containing both voice and data may be received by the TVRC modems80 via theline protector71 and the cross-connector73. Preferably, theline protector71 includes lightning blocks for grounding power surges due to lightning or other stray voltage surges. The TVRC modems80 may send the digital voice and/or data signals to thecontroller multiplexor84 and thedigital filters82. Thedigital filters82 may separate the voice signals from the digital data signals, and thecontroller multiplexor84 may then multiplex the voice signals and/or data signals received from thedigital filters82. Thecontroller multiplexor84 may then send multiplexed voice signals to theTDM MUX88 and the data signals to the router and facilities interface86 for transmission to one or more external networks. TheTDM MUX88 may multiplex the voice signals from thecontroller multiplexor84 and/or send the voice signals to theTDM bus90, which may then send the digital voice signals to thecontroller92 and then to thefacilities interface94 for transmission to one or more external networks. Both the router and facilities interface86 and thefacilities interface94 may convert between electrical signals and optical signals when a fiber optic link is utilized.

When there is a failure of the digital data link (e.g., if there is a failure of the TVRC modems[0038]80 at theFMP32 or theTVRC modem114 at the ISD22), only analog voice signals might be sent over the subscriber lines30. In such a case, the analog voice signals may be directly routed to theline cards96, bypassing the TVRC modems80, thedigital filters82, thecontroller multiplexor84, and theTDM MUX88. Thus, voice communication via PDTS is ensured despite a failure of the digital data link. Theline cards96 may convert the analog voice signals into digital format (e.g., TDM format) and send the digitized voice data onto theTDM bus90 and eventually through thecontroller92 and thefacilities interface94 for transmission to one or more external networks.

Referring to FIG. 4B, the[0039]

NSP

36 may be variously configured to provide any number of services provided by a server such as information services, Internet services, pay-per-view movie services, data-base services, commercial services, and/or other suitable services. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4B, theNSP36 includes arouter185 having a backbone180 (e.g., a fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) backbone) that interconnects amanagement server182, an information/database server183, and/or one or moreapplication server clusters184. TheNSP36 may be connected via therouter185 by alink181 to one or more external networks,NSPs36, and/or anFMPs32. The information/database server183 may perform storage and/or database functions. Theapplication server cluster184 may maintain and control the downloading of applets to theISD22. TheNSP36 may also include a voice/call processor186 configured to handle call and data routing functions, set-up functions, distributed operating system functions, voice recognition functions for spoken commands input from any of the ISD connected devices as well as other functions.

The[0040]

NSP

36,FMP32,ISD22, and/orvideophone130 may host a multimedia announcement answering machine which may be either a standard format and/or customized by individual users. FIGS.6-9 provide various examples of multimedia announcement messages that may appear on videophone-enabled telephones.

Referring to FIG. 5, a user of the[0041]

videophone

130 may record standard and/or customized multimedia greetings for the answering machine. The user may create a greeting by using, for example, a toolkit application. The toolkit application may be resident as hardware, software, and/or firmware on thevideophone130, theNSP36, theFMP32, theISD22, and/or any other network server. The toolkit application may be a downloadable applet and/or may be updated in the same manner as the other applets mentioned above. The toolkit application may include a variety of tool buttons201-216 on atoolbar241 and/or pull-down menus217-223 to aid the user in customizing a greeting. Examples of tools that may be provided via tool buttons include aselection tool201 for selecting, dragging, and/or dropping objects, aline tool202 for drawing lines, anoval tool203 for drawing circles and/or ovals, abox tool204 for drawings squares, rectangles, and/or other polygons, afreehand drawing tool205, a rotate/flip tool206 for rotating and flipping objects, afill tool207 for filling enclosed objects with a color and/or pattern, a time/date tool208 for applying time and/or date dependencies to objects, a text input/editing tool209, abutton creation tool210, acheckbox creation tool211, a drop-downlist creation tool212, apassword protection tool213, a videowindow creation tool214, aborder creation tool215, and/or acaller identification tool216 for applying caller identification dependencies to objects.

Drop-down menus may also be available to the user. When selected, a drop-down menu may present a list of drop-down functions. For instance, an announcement drop-[0042]

down menu

217 may present drop-down functions such as new announcement, edit announcement, erase announcement, and/or assign an announcement with a particular user. A record drop-down menu218 may present drop-down functions such as record audio/video, record video only, and/or record audio only. A styles drop-down menu219 may present drop-down functions such as text style, line style, button style, and/or border style. A colors drop-down menu220 may present drop-down functions such as color and/or pattern. A special effects drop-down menu221 may include drop-down functions such as slow-motion video, freeze-frame, object shadow, video contrast, video hue, video brightness, video colors, video filters, audio filters, echo, and/or animation. An advanced options drop-down menu222 may present drop-down functions such as time, date, security, and/or caller identification dependencies with regard to an entire message, as well as special mail boxes for different users. A library drop-down menu223 may present functions such as retrieve standard and/or saved objects, and/or download objects from a central database. Such saved and/or downloadable objects may be stored in thecustomer premise equipment10 such as the videophone itself, theISD22, theFMP32, theNSP36, and/or other networks.

Objects that may be manipulated, configured, created, erased, and/or otherwise modified by these tools and drop-down functions include shapes/figures/drawings (e.g., drawing[0043]224), dependency icons (e.g., dependency icons225-227), windows (e.g.,video windows228,233), buttons (e.g., buttons301-306,310-315,320,321,331,350,353,354, shown in FIGS.5-10), checkboxes (e.g., checkbox229), drop-down lists (e.g., drop-down list230), borders (e.g., border231), text (e.g.,text232,234), background images, and/or any other graphic representation.

Some or all of the objects may be configured by, for example, single or double-tapping on the objects (if the videophone is equipped with a touch-screen display) or selecting them by single or double-licking a mouse button (if the videophone is attached to a mouse input device). Password dependency icons[0044]227 may be configured with one or more passwords. Calleridentification dependency icons225 may be configured with one or more callers' identifications. Time/date dependency icons226 may be configured with one or more dates and/or times. Buttons may be configured with button size and/or button labels (i.e., the text printed on a button, such as button label240) and/or functions. Drop-down lists230 may be configured with text listings.

Dependencies may be applied to various objects. Any object may be configured to appear in the announcement only if certain conditions are met, such as a certain time, date, and/or caller, and/or if a password is entered. Thus, a user that wants to display the[0045]

text

232 “Happy birthday, Lara!!” only when Lara calls and only on a certain date (e.g., Lara's birthday) may, using thecaller identification tool216 drag and drop a calleridentification dependency icon225 at thetext232. The user may, using the time/date tool208, drag and drop a time/date dependency icon226 at thetext232. The time/date dependency icon226 may then be configured by the user to allow thetext232 to appear in the announcement on the date of Lara's birthday. Also, the calleridentification dependency icon225 may be configured to allow thetext232 to appear in the announcement if the caller is Lara.

Referring to FIG. 6, announcement messages[0046]300 may be variously configured to include one or more of the following either alone or in any combination: a video greeting316 recorded via the camera145; a video greeting downloaded from a video playing device such as a digital video camera; a stock video greeting obtained from a compact disc (not shown), a stock video greeting/image obtained from the NSP36 via the ISD22 and FMP32 (e.g., a holiday or seasonal greeting—Christmas, Thanksgiving, winter, summer, fall, movie star greeting a well known movie star, etc.); a still image or photograph scanned in via the scanner152; an audio only greeting; stock greeting layouts obtained either locally (via a storage medium, RAM card inserted via smart reader147, locally attached CD ROM (not shown)) and/or remotely from the NSP; greetings generated locally by the user; greetings which include one or more of the following control buttons and/or announcements: the video greeting316 to answer the incoming call, leave voice mail310 to allow an incoming caller to leave a voice mail message, leave video mail311 to allow an incoming caller to leave a video mail message, leave E-mail312 to allow an incoming caller to leave an E-mail message, please call313 to allow a caller to simply push a button on the video phone to leave a stock message to the receiving party using either a caller identification number or a number entered by the calling party; will call again314 to allow a caller to simply push a button on his or her video phone to leave a stock message identified using a caller identification and a name spoken and/or typed by the user; secondary user buttons320,321 to provide one touch direct access to an individual mail box and/or secondary greeting of another resident of the called location; and/or a plurality of alternate contact buttons317 to provide direct access via pressing one of the buttons to alternate contact information for the called party such as an E-mail interface button301, and/or a plurality of speed dial buttons for automatically dialing various devices such as a pager302 (including sending of the calling parties number), cellular phone303, work phone304, vacation home305, and/or facsimile machine306; and/or a password protected access button318 to provide the owner of the video phone access to various control features of the answering machine.

Referring to FIG. 7, is can be seen that the[0047]

greeting

316 may be any suitable size. For example, thegreeting316 may form a background over either all or substantially all of thescreen141. Thegreeting316 may have one ormore keys326 overlayed over the greeting and/or disposed about the border of thegreeting316. The announcement message may include atoggle button351 for switching between a standard display format and a user-customized display format, as will be described below.

Referring to FIG. 8, the greeting may be customized for a particular caller identification. For example, where the calling location of the users girl friend is known, the user may customize his screen to play a special message to the calling party. Different screens may be shown to the called parties parents, friends, girl friend, siblings, boss, and people unknown to the called party. In the example illustrated in FIG. 8, the calling party is someone named LARA. In the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 8, the[0048]

greeting

316 occupies substantially all of thevideo screen141. Various items may be overlayed on the screen including the ability to leavevideo mail311,voice mail310, and/or enter password protected areas such asmessages331 and/or photos etc.,332. The password protected access nomenclature may or may not appear on the screen depending on the called parties preference. Where password protection access is used, the called party may give the calling party access to private numbers, pictures, video clips, and/or messages, etc.

A further exemplary embodiment is shown in FIG. 9. In this embodiment, the called party may use seasonal and/or special occasion greetings which are either programmed into the video phone at the time or pre-stored to prevent forgetting an occasion. For example, the called party can program his video phone to read an internal or remote clock (not shown) and obtain data about the current date and time. Further, in a programming screen, the called party may specify certain greetings to be displayed during certain times, during certain days, during certain ranges of days, and/or for certain caller IDs based on certain times, certain days, and/or certain ranges of days. For example, the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 9 shows a seasonal announcement message such as a Christmas tree as the[0049]

video greeting

316. The seasonal announcement message may be programmed to appear during certain days such as between November 29 and December 31. Thereafter, a new-years greeting could be scheduled to appear during the first month of the year. Different seasonal greetings and/or random greetings selected from a NSP and/or other database could be selected to be displayed on the screen. In this manner, more creative individuals could both customize their greeting with minimal effort and give the appearance of having a completely up-to-date greeting. As an example, where an individual knows that he or she goes home at 5:00 pm each day, the individual can leave after hours contact information and/or other customized announcement message which automatically appears between 5:00 pm and 8:00 am each day.

In addition to the above, the greeting may be customized for a combination of a particular caller identification and date. For example, a called party may set his office answering machine to detect his wife's caller identification and display a happy anniversary message when his wife called the office. Similarly, an individual may use a separate message when he is working at home than when he is in the office. Further, the video phone may be programmed to call an individual on a specified date and time to send a reminder message and/or anniversary greeting to that person.[0050]

To add an object, a user may select any of the tools on the[0051]

toolbar

241. In the exemplary embodiment illustrated in FIG. 10, a user may select the button tool210 (e.g., by tapping on the button). A menu242 of the available buttons may appear, which may include various selections400-415 for selecting various buttons301-306,310-315,320,321,331,350,353,354, as well as other user-definable buttons. FIG. 10 shows a user selecting the leavevideo mail selection407 and dragging across the screen to anarea450 of the user's choice. FIG. 10 also shows avideo window460 associated with a calleridentification dependency icon461. Some or all of the objects may be added to the announcement message in a similar way.

Once an object is added, the user may configure the object. In the exemplary embodiment illustrated in FIG. 11, the user has added the leave[0052]

video mail button

311, thevideo window460, and the calleridentification dependency icon461 associated with thevideo window460. The user may select an object (e.g., by tapping the object) and a dialog box may appear. FIG. 11 shows adialog box470 appearing for the calleridentification dependency icon461, adialog box471 appearing for the leavevideo mail button311, and a dialog box appearing for thevideo window460. One or more dialog boxes may appear for any given selected object. Some dialog boxes may includecheckboxes473 and/ortext input areas474. For example, when configuring the calleridentification dependency icon461, the user might enter one or more caller identifications into thetext input area474 of thedialog box470. An alternate method of creating a dependency, for instance, for thevideo window460 may be to check the I.D.checkbox473 in itsdialog box472 and enter caller identification information into its associatedtext input area474. Some or all of the objects may be configured in similar ways.

Referring to FIG. 12, one or more drop down function sets may appear when a dropdown menu is selected (e.g., by tapping on the drop-down menu box). For example, when the user selects the drop-down[0053]

announcement menu

217, afunction set500 may appear. The function set500 may offer functions such as creating a new announcement message, editing an existing announcement message, erasing an existing announcement message, assigning an announcement message to a particular user, viewing an announcement message using an outgoing view, and viewing an announcement message using an incoming view. If the user selects the library drop-down menu223, afunction set501 may appear offering functions such as retrieving objects and/or announcement messages from local storage (e.g., stored within theCPE10 and/or the IDS22), downloading objects and/or announcement messages from a server (e.g., theFMP32 and/or the ISD36), and/or retrieving and/or downloading special occasion announcement messages and/or templates (e.g., for Chanukah, Christmas, New Year's Day, etc.).

As a further embodiment of the invention, because the announcement messages may be customized, it is often difficult for a receiving party to find the particular buttons in order to formulate a response. Accordingly, the processor or[0054]

controller

170 in thevideo phone130 may be configured to reformat the incoming message to a consistent format regardless of the announcement message sent by the called party. In this manner, the calling party may program his video phone to always display announcement messages in the same format. The video greeting is always the same size and displayed on the video phone in the same location. Similarly, the response buttons are always the same size and/or located in the same location so that the calling party does not have to search through a new display each time that he calls a different party. For example, the announcement message sent by the called party may appear as that shown in FIG. 13. However, the calling party may program theprocessor170 in thevideo phone130 to reformat the display to a consistent display format as shown in FIG. 6. Of course, the consistent display format is optional and the calling party may toggle back and forth In the embodiment shown in FIG. 13, the video phone screen may include a

toggle button

350,351 which allows the calling party to toggle back and forth between the original display format of the announcement message and the consistent display format which the user is used to seeing.

A user may view, create, and/or edit a user-customized display format by selecting, for example, the announcement drop-[0055]

down menu

217 and the incoming function of the associatedfunction set500. Furthermore, the

toggle button

350,351 may be created by selecting, for example, thebutton tool210 and the toggledisplay format selection414.

The following applications, filed concurrently herewith, are hereby incorporated by reference:[0056]

1. A Hybrid Fiber Twisted-pair Local Loop Network Service Architecture (Gerszberg 41-3-13);[0057]

2. Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation for use in the Hybrid Fiber Twisted-pair Local Loop Network Service Architecture (Gerszberg 42-4-14);[0058]

3. The VideoPhone (Gerszberg 43-9-2);[0059]

4. VideoPhone Privacy Activator (Gerszberg 44-10-3);[0060]

5. VideoPhone Form Factor (Gerszberg 45-11-4);[0061]

6. VideoPhone Centrally Controlled User Interface With User Selectable Options (Gerszberg 46-12-5);[0062]

7. VideoPhone User Interface Having Multiple Menu Hierarchies (Gerszberg 47-13-6);[0063]

8. VideoPhone Blocker (Gerszberg 79-38-26);[0064]

9. VideoPhone Inter-com For Extension Phones (Gerszberg 48-14-7);[0065]

10. Advertising Screen Saver (53-17);[0066]

11. VideoPhone FlexiView Advertising (Gerszberg 49-15-8);[0067]

12. VideoPhone Multimedia Announcement Answering Machine (Gerszberg 73-32-20);[0068]

13. VideoPhone Multimedia Announcement Message Toolkit (Gerszberg 74-33-21);[0069]

14. VideoPhone Multimedia Video Message Reception (Gerszberg 75-34-22);[0070]

15. VideoPhone Multimedia Interactive Corporate Menu Answering Machine Announcement (Gerszberg 76-35-23);[0071]

16. VideoPhone Multimedia Interactive On-Hold Information Menus (Gerszberg 77-36-24);[0072]

17. VideoPhone Advertisement When Calling Video Non-enabled VideoPhone Users (Gerszberg 78-37-25);[0073]

18. Motion Detection Advertising (Gerszberg 54-18-10);[0074]

19. Interactive Commercials (Gerszberg 55-19);[0075]

20. VideoPhone Electronic Catalogue Service (Gerszberg 50-16-9);[0076]

21. A Facilities Management Platform For Hybrid Fiber Twisted-pair Local Loop Network, Service Architecture (Barzegar 18-56-17);[0077]

22. Multiple Service Access on Single Twisted-pair (Barzegar (16-51-15);[0078]

23. Life Line Support for Multiple Service Access on Single Twisted-pair (Barzegar 17-52-16);[0079]

24. A Network Server Platform (NSP) For a Hybrid Fiber Twisted-pair (HFTP) Local Loop Network Service Architecture (Gerszberg 57-4-2-2-4);[0080]

25. A Communication Server Apparatus For Interactive Commercial Service (Gerszberg 58-20-11);[0081]

26. NSP Multicast, PPV Server (Gerszberg 59-21-12);[0082]

27. NSP Internet, JAVA Server and VideoPhone Application Server (Gerszberg 60-5-3-22-18);[0083]

28. NSP WAN Interconnectivity Services for Corporate Telecommuters (Gerszberg 71-97-4-21-6);[0084]

29. NSP Telephone Directory White-Yellow Page Services (Gerszberg 61-6-4-23-19);[0085]

30. NSP Integrated Billing System For NSP services and Telephone services (Gerszberg 62-7-5-24-20);[0086]

31. Network Server Platform/Facility Management Platform Caching Server (Gerszberg 63-8-6-3-5);[0087]

32. An Integrated Services Director (ISD) For HFTP Local Loop Network Service Architecture (Gerszberg 72-36-22-12);[0088]

33. ISD and VideoPhone Customer Premise Network (Gerszberg 64-25-34-13-5);[0089]

34. ISD Wireless Network (Gerszberg 65-26-35-14-6);[0090]

35. ISD Controlled Set-Top Box (Gerszberg 66-27-15-7);[0091]

36. Integrated Remote Control and Phone (Gerszberg 67-28-16-8);[0092]

37. Integrated Remote Control and Phone User Interface (Gerszberg 68-29-17-9);[0093]

38. Integrated Remote Control and Phone Form Factor (Gerszberg 69-30-18-10);[0094]

39. VideoPhone Mail Machine (Attorney Docket No. 3493.73170);[0095]

40. Restaurant Ordering Via VideoPhone (Attorney Docket No. 3493.73171);[0096]

41. Ticket Ordering Via VideoPhone (Attorney Docket No. 3493.73712);[0097]

42. Multi-Channel Parallel/Serial Concatenated Convolutional Codes And Trellis Coded Modulation Encode/Decoder (Gelblum 4-3);[0098]

43. Spread Spectrum Bit Allocation Algorithm (Shively 19-2);[0099]

44. Digital Channelizer With Arbitrary Output Frequency (Helms 5-3);[0100]

45. Method And Apparatus For Allocating Data Via Discrete Multiple Tones (filed Dec. 12, 1997, Attorney Docket No. 3493.20096—Sankaranarayanan 1-1);[0101]

46. Method And Apparatus For Reducing Near-End Cross Talk In Discrete Multi-Tone Modulators/Demodulators (filed Dec. 22, 1997, Attorney Docket No. 3493.37219—Helms 4-32-18).[0102]

In addition, the following two patent applications are hereby incorporated by reference:[0103]

1. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/943,312 filed Oct. 14, 1997 entitled Wideband Communication System for the Home, to Robert R. Miller, II and Jesse E. Russell, and[0104]

2. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/858,170, filed May 14, 1997, entitled Wide Band Transmission Through Wire, to Robert R. Miller, II, Jesse E. Russell and Richard R. Shively.[0105]

While exemplary systems and methods embodying the present invention are shown by way of example, it will be understood, of course, that the invention is not limited to these embodiments. Modifications may be made by those skilled in the art, particularly in light of the foregoing teachings. For example, each of the elements of the aforementioned embodiments may be utilized alone or in combination with elements of the other embodiments.[0106]

Claims

We claim:

1. In a video phone answering machine, a toolkit application for creating a video announcement message.

2. The toolkit ofclaim 1 wherein the the toolkit is capable of creating the announcement message such that the announcement message appears to a caller based on an identification of the caller.

3. The toolkit ofclaim 1 wherein the the toolkit is capable of creating the announcement message such that the announcement message automatically changes based on a comparison of pre-stored criteria with a current date.

4. The toolkit ofclaim 1 wherein an object may be created and manipulated in the announcement message.

5. The toolkit ofclaim 4 wherein the object is capable of being configured to appear in the announcement message to a caller based on a comparison of pre-stored criteria with a current date.

6. The toolkit ofclaim 4 wherein the object may be configured to appear in the announcement message to a caller based on a comparison of pre-stored criteria with an identification of the caller.

7. The toolkit ofclaim 4 wherein the object is a video window.

8. The toolkit ofclaim 4 wherein the object is a button.

9. The toolkit ofclaim 1 wherein the toolkit includes a toolbar, the toolbar having a plurality of tools for creating objects.

10. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

allowing a user to create at least one of a plurality of objects, the objects defining a video announcement message, the announcement message appearing to a caller; and

allowing the user to manipulate at least one of the objects.

11. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 10, wherein the instructions for allowing the user to create includes allowing the user to create a button.

12. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 10, wherein the instructions for allowing the user to create includes allowing the user to create a video window.

13. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 10, wherein the computer-readable medium is used to program a video phone answering machine.