Apparatus and methods for notification of a party in a telephone conference
View Patent ↗Systems, methods, and machine-readable articles of manufacture enable private notification of a participant in a telephone conference. In representative embodiments, a system receives a telephone call intended for a first conference participant, generates an informative announcement containing information regarding the call, mixes the informative announcement with the conference audio, and privately plays the mixed audio to the first participant. In other representative embodiments, the system concurrently generates a non-informative announcement, mixes the non-informative announcement with the conference audio, and plays the second mixed audio to the other conference participant or participants. In this way, the first participant is notified of the incoming call while simultaneously listening to the conference audio, and the information regarding the call is not shared with the other conference participant or participants.
1. A call management system, comprising:
a first computer telephony device coupled to a first telephone device;
a second computer telephony device coupled to a second telephone device;
an audio bus device coupled to the first and second computer telephony devices to provide a patching framework;
a first audio buffer coupled to the second computer telephony device to receive audio data generated by a conferee at the second telephone device;
a first announcement generator configured to generate a first announcement; and
a first mixer coupled to the first announcement generator, the first audio buffer, and the first computer telephony device, the first mixer being configured to mix the first announcement and the audio data generated at the second telephone device to obtain a first mixed audio stream, and providing the first nixed audio stream to the first telephone device via the first computer telephony device;
wherein the second computer telephony device, the audio bus device, the first audio buffer, the first announcement generator, and the first mixer are configured so that the first announcement is not provided to the second telephone device.
2. A call management system according to claim 1 , wherein the first announcement generator generates the first announcement in response to receiving a call directed to the first telephone device, wherein the first announcement comprises call information obtained from the call.
3. A call management system according to claim 2 , wherein the first announcement comprises name of a person associated with a telephone number from which the call originated.
4. A call management system according to claim 2 , wherein the first announcement comprises a number of the telephone from which the call originated.
5. A call management system according to claim 2 , wherein:
the second computer telephony device comprises a conference resource configured to provide conferencing services between the first telephone device, the second telephone device, and at least one third telephone device.
6. A call management system according to claim 2 , further comprising:
a second audio buffer coupled to the first computer telephony device to receive audio data generated at the first telephone device;
a second announcement generator configured to provide a second announcement; and
a second mixer coupled to the second announcement generator, the second audio buffer, and the second computer telephony device, the second mixer being configured to mix the second announcement and the audio data generated at the first telephone device to obtain a second mixed audio stream, and providing the second mixed audio stream to the second telephone device via the first computer telephony device.
7. A call management system according to claim 6 , wherein:
the second computer telephony device comprises a conference resource configured to provide conferencing services between the first telephone device, the second telephone device, and at least one third telephone device, and the second mixer is timber configured to provide the second mixed audio stream to the at least one third telephone device.
8. A call management system according to claim 1 , wherein the first announcement generator generates the first announcement in response to a message meeting a predetermined criterion.
9. A call management system according to claim 1 wherein the first announcement generator generates the first announcement in response to an email message meeting a predetermined criterion.
10. A call management system according to claim 1 , wherein the first announcement generator generates the first announcement in response to occurrence of a financial, event meeting a predetermined criterion.
11. A call management system comprising:
a first computer telephony device coupled to a first telephone device;
a second computer telephony device configured to provide a conference resource;
an audio bus device coupled to the first and second computer telephony devices and one or more third computer telephony devices to provide a patching framework;
at least one audio buffer coupled to the first computer telephony device;
an announcement generator configured to generate an announcement; and
a mixer coupled to the at least one audio buffer and to the announcement generator to combine announcements generated by the announcement generator and audio signals received from the at least one audio buffer;
wherein:
the conference resource is configured to combine audio generated at the first telephone device and one or more third telephone devices coupled to the one or more third computer telephony devices, thereby resulting in a conference audio stream;
the first computer telephony device is configured to receive the conference audio stream;
provide the conference audio stream to the first telephone device in the absence of an announcement generated by the announcement generator;
provide the conference audio stream to the mixer via the at least one audio butler when the announcement generator generates the announcement: and
receive from the mixer conference audio stream combined with the announcement and provide the audio stream received from the mixer to the first telephone device.