Computer-based multifunction personal communications system

Claim 1

A multifunction communication system for use with a personal computer, the personal computer having a processor, a memory, and a peripheral data store, comprising: a communications module connected to the personal computer, the module comprising: communications interface means connected for communicating to the personal computer for transferring data between the personal computer and the communications module; telephone line interface means for connection to a telephone line; telephone voice interface means for receiving local voice signals from a local user and for conveying remote voice signals from a remote user to the local user; full-duplex conversion means for converting the local voice signals into outgoing digital voice data and for converting incoming digital voice data into the remote voice signals; compression means for compressing the outgoing digital voice data into compressed outgoing digital voice data and for decompressing compressed incoming digital voice data into the incoming digital voice data; main control means for receiving the compressed outgoing digital voice data from the compression means, for receiving outgoing conventional digital data from the personal computer through the communications interface means, and for multiplexing the compressed outgoing digital voice data and the conventional digital data to produced multiplexed outgoing data; the main control means further for receiving multiplexed incoming data which contains incoming conventional digital data multiplexed with the compressed incoming digital voice data, for demultiplexing the incoming conventional digital data and the compressed incoming digital voice data, and for sending the incoming conventional digital data to the personal computer through the communications interface means and for sending the compressed incoming digital voice data to the compression means; the personal computer executing software to communicate with the communications module through the communications interface and operable for initiating a telephone call to a remote site in response to the commands by the local user and for causing the main control means of the communications module to perform multiplexing and demultiplexing; and the personal computer further operable for receiving and storing the incoming conventional digital data received from the communications module over the communications interface and for transmitting the outgoing conventional digital data to the communications module over the communications interface.

Claim 20

A system for performing voice compression, comprising: voice interface means including a voice input device for receiving voice signals from a user; conversion means for converting the voice signals into digital voice data; means for dividing the digital voice signal into segments and for serially producing therefrom a current voice segment and a past voice segment; means for determining the predicted gain of the current voice segment; means for determining the pitch values of the current voice segment; coding means for predictive coding on the current voice segment by predicting the current voice segment as best as possible based on past recreated voice segments and for producing a difference signal value in response thereto; means including a code book stored in a memory for comparing the difference signal value to stored difference values stored in the memory and for locating the memory address of the closest match between the difference signal value and the stored difference values; and output means for providing a compression packet for each of the segments, the packet including the memory address of the closest match between the difference signal value and the stored difference values, the predicted gain and the pitch values for each voice segment.

Claim 21

A method for compression speech information, comprising the steps of: receiving a speech signal from a person, sampling and digitizing the speech signal and dividing the digitized speech signal into a continuous stream of speech segments having a plurality of digital samples; selecting a current speech segment from the continuous stream of speech segments and reconstructing a past speech segment from a previously compressed past segment to produce a reconstructed past segment; comparing the current segment on a sample by sample basis to the reconstructed past segment to obtain innovation information and an indicator of the error in the comparing; and storing the innovation information and the indicator of the error in the comparing in a data packet as a compressed data packet.

Claim 23

A system for performing acoustic path echo cancellation, comprising: voice interface means including input means for receiving local voice signals from a local user and including output means for conveying remote voice signals from a remote user to the local user, the voice interface means having an acoustic path between the input means and the output means; full-duplex conversion means connected to the voice interface means for converting the local voice signals into outgoing digital voice data and for converting incoming digital voice data into the remote voice signals; digital signal processor means connected to the full-duplex conversion means for receiving the outgoing digital voice data from the full-duplex conversion means, for receiving the incoming digital voice data and for removing at least a portion of the incoming digital voice data from the outgoing digital voice data for acoustic echo cancellation.

Claim 25

A system for performing line echo cancellation on a telephone line having a telephone line path, comprising: telephone line interface means for full-duplex transmission and reception of outgoing analog voice signals and incoming analog voice signals; first conversion means connected to the telephone line interface means for converting the incoming analog voice signals into incoming digital voice signals; second conversion means connected to the telephone line interface means for converting the outgoing digital voice signals into outgoing analog voice signals; digital signal processor means connected for removing at least a portion of the incoming digital voice data from the outgoing digital voice data for line echo cancellation.

Claim 27

A method of performing acoustic path echo cancellation, comprising the steps of: receiving a local speech signal from a local person, sampling and digitizing the local speech signal into a continuous stream of local digital samples; receiving a remote speech signal from a remote person over a telephone line, sampling and digitizing the remote speech signal into a continuous stream of remote digital samples; filtering the remote digital samples using a finite impulse response filter having an impulse response approximately equal to a predetermined acoustic path length and producing therefrom filtered remote digital samples; subtracting the filtered remote digital samples from the local digital samples and producing therefrom echo-cancelled local digital samples; converting the remote digital samples into an analog remote voice signal and broadcasting the analog remote voice signal to the local person such that a portion of the analog remote voice signal is included in the local speech signal.

Claim 28

A method of performing telephone line path echo cancellation, comprising the steps of: receiving a local speech signal from a local person, sampling and digitizing the local speech signal into a continuous stream of local digital samples; receiving a remote speech signal from a remote person over a telephone line, sampling and digitizing the remote speech signal into a continuous stream of remote digital samples; filtering the local digital samples using a finite impulse response filter having an impulse response approximately equal to a predetermined telephone line path length and producing therefrom filtered local digital samples; subtracting the filtered local digital samples from the remote digital samples and producing therefrom echo-cancelled remote digital samples; converting the echo-cancelled remote digital samples into an analog remote voice signal and broadcasting the analog remote voice signal to the local person.

Claim 29

A system for full-duplex transmission of voice and data information for use with a personal computer, comprising: data interface means connected for transferring data to and from the personal computer; telephone line interface means for connection to a telephone line; voice interface means for receiving local voice signals from a local user and for conveying remote voice signals from a remote user to the local user; full-duplex conversion means connected to the voice interface means for converting the local voice signals into outgoing digital voice data and for converting incoming digital voice data into the remote voice signals; voice compression means connected to the full-duplex conversion means for compressing the outgoing digital voice data into compressed outgoing digital voice data and for decompressing compressed incoming digital voice data into the incoming digital voice data; quiet detection means for detecting quiet periods in which no voice signals are received by the voice interface means and for producing therefrom a quiet signal; main control means connected for receiving the compressed outgoing digital voice data from the digital signal processor means, connected for receiving outgoing conventional digital data from the personal computer through the data interface means, and for multiplexing and transmitting compressed outgoing digital voice data and outgoing conventional digital data when the quiet signal indicates the presence of voice information and for transmitting only outgoing conventional digital data when the quiet signal indicates the absence of voice information; and the main control means further operable for receiving multiplexed incoming data which contains incoming conventional digital data multiplexed with the compressed incoming digital voice data, for demultiplexing the incoming conventional digital data and the compressed incoming digital voice data, and for sending the incoming conventional digital data to the personal computer through the data interface means and for sending the compressed incoming digital voice data to the digital signal processor means.

Claim 31

A method of communicating both control information and data between a communications module and a personal computer without the need for mode control, comprising the steps of: creating a data packet having a data packet identifier, a length indicator and a variable amount of data; creating a voice packet having a voice packet identifier and a fixed amount of data; creating a qualified packet having a qualified packet identifier and a plurality of command identifiers; transmitting the data packet, the voice packet and the qualified packet in any order; receiving the data packet, the voice packet and the qualified packet; and switching between data, voice or control mode depending upon the type of packet received.

Claim 32

A method of maintaining a data link over a telephone line which includes a cellular telephone link, comprising the steps of : periodically transmitting a cellular supervisory packet on the telephone line; maintaining the data link over the telephone line if the remote site acknowledges receipt of the cellular supervisory packet within a predetermined period of time; and dropping the data link over the telephone line if the remote site fails to acknowledges receipt of the cellular supervisory packet within a predetermined period of time.

Claim 33

A method of controlling a personal communication system comprising the steps of: (a) initializing communication port, telephone call, voice mail, PBX, fax, multi-media mail, and show and tell functions; (b) configuring the personal communication system to send and receive telephone calls, and providing for the operation of call functions; (c) editing, sending, and receiving voice mail messages; (d) configuring fax functions, and sending and receiving fax transmissions; (e) configuring multi-media mail functions, and sending and receiving multi-media mail messages; (f) creating, storing, retrieving, and editing multi-media mailing lists; (g) providing a terminal emulation when connecting the personal communication system to a remote computing device over a telephone line; and (h) creating, storing, retrieving, and editing address book entries.