Patent ID: 7617282

Claim:
An apparatus for converting e-mail (electronic mail) data into audio data, comprising: a communication connector connected to an e-mail server via a communication line and comprising: a controller configured to control a conversion of e-mail data received from the server into e-mail message header data, e-mail content data and e-mail attachment-type data, and an audio data generator configured to convert the e-mail message header data, e-mail content data and e-mail attachment-type data into audio data including corresponding audio header data, audio content data and audio attachment-type identifier data, the audio attachment-type identifier data being an announcement of the existence and type of an attachment to the e-mail; and a memory configured to store the e-mail data and the audio data, wherein the communication connector operates to transmit the audio data to a client upon the client's request, and wherein the e-mail data further includes gender information and the audio data generator is configured to generate an audio signal in a male voice if the gender information identifies that a sender of the e-mail data is a male sender registered in an e-mail address list, and to generate the audio signal in a female voice if the gender information identifies that the sender of the e-mail data is a female sender registered in the e-mail address list.