Method and apparatus for telephonically accessing and navigating the internet
View Patent ↗A method for accessing and browsing the internet through the use of a telephone and the associated DTMF signals is disclosed. The preferred embodiment provides a system that converts the information content of a web page from text to speech (voice signals), signals the hyperlink selections of a web page in an audio manner, and allows selection of the hyperlinks through the use of DTMF signals generated from a telephone keypad. Upon receiving a DTMF signal corresponding to a hyperlink, the corresponding web page is fetched and again delivered to the user via one of the available delivery methods such as voice, fax-on-demand, electronic mail, or regular mail.
1. A method comprising:
receiving a request transmitted from a telephone, the request comprising a unique address of a data file residing on a computer network;
transmitting a response corresponding to text stored in the data file;
generating a voice signal corresponding to the response; and
transmitting an electronic mail message containing the text stored in the data file.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the unique address is generated using a voice user interface.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the unique address is a uniform resource locator (URL).
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer network is coupled to the Internet.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data file is a web page.