Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Machio Moriuchi

Hiroya Tanigawa

Gen Suzuki

Syunsuke Konagai

Shigeki Masaki

Shohei Sugawara

Yasuyuki Kiyosue

Yasuhiro Nakajima

Hiroyuki Arita

Yoshio Nagashima

Yumi Murakami

The objective of the present invention is to enable a speaker to visually confirm whether or not his voice has reached a listener. In order to achieve this objective, in the present invention, the listener terminal generates a reception result for voice data, and the talker terminal displays the reception state based on this reception result. It is a further objective of the present invention to enable conversational timing to be achieved easily. In order to achieve this objective, in the present invention, the talker terminal sends utterance data prior to sending voice data, this utterance data being shorter than the voice data. The listener terminal displays the talker terminal's utterance based on this utterance data. Another objective of the present invention is to deliver voice data from the talker terminal to a particular listener terminal only, without having to form a private group. In order to achieve this objective, in the present invention, the server stores permission or denial for sending data from an optional terminal to another optional terminal, and distributes the voice data based on this storage.

Voice communications method, voice communications system and recording medium therefor

A plurality of terminals are connected to a server via a communication network and share a predetermined common virtual space. The terminals each send to the server the position coordinates of the viewing point and direction of eyes of its user in the virtual space, and the visual field image viewed from that viewing point is displayed on a display. Based on the position coordinates and direction of eyes of the avatar each of the other terminals received from each of the other terminals via the server, each terminal generates an avatar image in the specified direction and at the specified position and displays it in the visual field. The server is always supplied with the latest position information of the avatar from every terminal and, when the distance between two arbitrary avatars becomes smaller than a threshold value, connects speech channels of the two terminals corresponding to these avatars.

Virtual space apparatus with avatars and speech

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Machio Moriuchi