Other

Dragon Systems, Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Okappi, Inc.

Janet M Baker

James K Baker

Laurence Steven Gillick

Robert S Roth

Peter J Sprague

Jonathan P Yamron

Dean G Sturtevant

Wayne D Boyle

The present universal wearable computing device relates to a hearing assistance system, device, method, and apparatus that provide a discreet approach to user hearing assistance, without relying on a conventional hearing aid. The hearing assistance system and the requisite electronics may be incorporated into frames that also function as eyeglasses with earphone(s) that may be connected to the frame to assist user hearing. An earphone may be configured with minimal electronics, such that a power source enable sound transmissions to the ear, is provided by a connection to the frame of the eyeglasses. In another example, the earphone is configured without any electronics and sound is transmitted to the user/listener's ear(s) via a psychoacoustic system. The sound quality of the transmissions to the earphones may be optimized using a tuning/equalizer application operating from a computing device, such as an app on a mobile device. The tuning/equalizer application can be used by the user/listener to optimize volume input levels to the earphone(s). The hearing assistance system may also protect from damaging environmental noise, provide heightened hearing capabilities, collect and process physiological and physical measurements, and provide communication capabilities for interacting with other computing devices.

Hearing assistance systems configured to detect and provide protection to the user from harmful conditions

A cup for persons with tremors, or other difficulty holding the cup steady, has a lid with an opening from which to drink, to prevent spilling or splashing. The lid is removably attached by a strap or band to the neck or rim of the associated cup. The cup, lid, and strap are all formed of a durable, food-grade plastic material. The strap has a ring that fits over the neck of the cup and can be rotated on and off. This arrangement allows the cup and lid to remain attached through a wash cycle and during storage.

Cup and lid for persons with drink difficulties

A sip cup for persons with a swallowing disorder has a sip lid with sip spout, and the lid is removably attached by a strap or band to the neck or rim of the associated cup. The cup, lid, and strap are all formed of a durable, food-grade plastic material. The strap has a ring that fits over the neck of the cup and can be rotated on and off. This arrangement allows the cup and lid to remain attached through a wash cycle and during storage.

Sip cup for persons with dysphagia

In one aspect, the invention provides word recognition systems that operate to recognize an unrecognized or ambiguous word that occurs within a passage of words. The system can offer several words as choice words for inserting into the passage to replace the unrecognized word. The system can select the best choice word by using the choice word to extract from a reference source, sample passages of text that relate to the choice word. For example, the system can select the dictionary passage that defines the choice word. The system then compares the selected passage to the current passage, and generates a score that indicates the likelihood that the choice word would occur within that passage of text. The system can select the choice word with the best score to substitute into the passage. The passage of words being analyzed can be any word sequence including an utterance, a portion of handwritten text, a portion of typewritten text or other such sequence of words, numbers and characters. Alternative embodiments of the present invention are disclosed which function to retrieve documents from a library as a function of context.

Systems and methods for word recognition

A method is provided for deriving acoustic word representations for use in speech recognition. Initial word models are created, each formed of a sequence of acoustic sub-models. The acoustic sub-models from a plurality of word models are clustered, so as to group acoustically similar sub-models from different words, using, for example, the Kullback-Leibler information as a metric of similarity. Then each word is represented by cluster spelling representing the clusters into which its acoustic sub-models were placed by the clustering. Speech recognition is performed by comparing sequences of frames from speech to be recognized against sequences of acoustic models associated with the clusters of the cluster spelling of individual word models. The invention also provides a method for deriving a word representation which involves receiving a first set of frame sequences for a word, using dynamic programming to derive a corresponding initial sequence of probabilistic acoustic sub-models for the word independently of any previously derived acoustic model particular to the word, using dynamic programming to time align each of a second set of frame sequences for the word into a succession of new sub-sequences corresponding to the initial sequence of models, and using these new sub-sequences to calculate new probabilistic sub-models.

Method for representing word models for use in speech recognition

A speech recognition system is disclosed which employs a network of elementary local decision modules for matching an observed time-varying speech pattern against all possible time warpings of the stored prototype patterns. For each elementary speech segment, an elementary recognizer provides a score indicating the degree of correlation of the input speech segment with stored spectral patterns. Each local decision module receives the results of the elementary recognizer and, at the same time, receives an input from selected ones of the other local decision modules. Each local decision module specializes in a particular node in the network wherein each node matches the probability of how well the input segment of speech matches the particular sound segments in the sounds of the words spoken. Each local decision module takes the prior decisions of all preceding sound segments which are input from the other local decision modules and makes a selection of the locally optimum time warping to be permitted. By this selection technique, each speech segment is stretched or compressed by an arbitrary, nonlinear function based on the control of the interconnections of the other local decision modules to a particular local decision module. Each local decision module includes an accumulator memory which stores the logarithmic probabilities of the current observation which is conditional upon the internal event specified by a word to be matched or identifier of the particular pattern that corresponds to the subject node for that particular pattern. For each observation, these probabilities are computed and loaded into the accumulator memory of all the modules and, the result of the locally optimum time warping representing the accumulated score or network path to a node for the word with the highest probability is chosen.

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West Newton, MA, United States of America

Janet M Baker