Patent ID: 7613613
Filing Date: 2009-11-03
Classification: G10L

Abstract:
1. A method for presenting information in real time, the method comprising: providing a plurality of rules for controlling modification of words of a sequence of words, the rules including rules to add a sound after a phrase, to replace words with words of different complexity, to remove certain verbs without replacing the verbs, and to modify words based on identification of a current expression derived from comparison of words of the sequence to be spoken; providing an expression store with images of a character representing different expressions of emotion for that character; receiving a sequence of words; modifying the words of the received sequence by for each of a plurality of rules, generating speech for the character corresponding to the modified words, the speech represented by a sequence of phonemes including replacing phonemes with other phonemes to achieve regional effects; identifying expressions of emotion from the words of the received sequence; mapping the phonemes of the speech and the identified expressions for the character to the words of the received sequence; generating a sequence of images based on the images of the expression store to represent the character speaking the generated speech and having the identified expressions of emotion and to represent hands of the character moved to effect output of the modified words in a sign language, wherein the mapping to words of the received sequence is used to synchronize the movement of the lips representing the character enunciating the phonemes of the words with the image of the character exhibiting the identified expressions of emotion mapped to those words so that the speaking of a word is synchronized with the image of the character exhibiting the expression of emotion identified from that word; and outputting the generated speech represented by the sequence of phonemes and the sequence of generated images to portray the character speaking the words of the modified received sequence and having the identified expressions.