US 11,853,650 B2
Audio presentation of conversation threads
August Kathryn Niehaus, Bellevue, WA (US); Saurabh Choudhury, Bothell, WA (US); Eugene Y. Suh, Bellevue, WA (US); and Gunjan Sood, Bellevue, WA (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Feb. 9, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/650,491.
Application 17/650,491 is a continuation of application No. 16/436,608, filed on Jun. 10, 2019, granted, now 11,269,590.
Prior Publication US 2022/0269479 A1, Aug. 25, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 3/16 (2006.01); H04L 51/216 (2022.01)
CPC G06F 3/167 (2013.01) [H04L 51/216 (2022.05)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computing system of one or more computing devices, comprising:
a logic subsystem; and
a storage subsystem having instructions stored thereon executable by the logic subsystem to:
receive an instruction to initiate an audio presentation of electronic communications for a recipient;
responsive to the instruction, audibly output unreviewed electronic communications for the recipient according to a presentation order in which the unreviewed electronic communications are grouped into a plurality of conversation threads;
wherein the presentation order progresses thread-by-thread through the plurality of conversation threads by:
for each of the plurality of conversation threads, audibly outputting at least a portion of text content of a message of each unreviewed electronic communication of that conversation thread before progressing to another of the plurality of conversation threads,
for any of the plurality of conversation threads that includes a plurality of unreviewed electronic communications for the recipient, progressing in a chronological-sequential order from an oldest to a most-recent unreviewed electronic communication of that conversation thread, and
for each of the plurality of conversation threads:
convert at least the portion of the text content of the message of each unreviewed electronic communication of that conversation thread to audio content,
determine an estimated duration of time for the computing system to audibly output the unreviewed electronic communications of that conversation thread based on the audio content, and
audibly output a thread summary that identifies the determined estimated duration of time before text content of any message of that conversation thread is audibly output.