Speechworks International, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Vlingo Corporation

The Affinity Project, Inc.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Applied Language Technologies, Inc.

Research in Motion Corporation

John N Nguyen

Michael Stuart Phillips

Stephen Richard Springer

Mark Fanty

Han Shu

Ronald Steven Suskind

Joseph P Cerra

Stuart R Patterson

Gill A Pratt

Thomas Jay Leonard

David Grannan

Matthew T Marx

William Stuart Meisel

Stephen A Ward

Mark Arthur Holthouse

John S Pezaris

Roman V Kishchenko

Norman H Margolus

Matthew D Crane

Erik Martin Gregory

Alexandra Beth Mischke

Methods and apparatus for communicating between virtual agents associated with users of electronic devices connected via at least one network. A first user may instruct an associated first virtual agent to invoke a communication session with a second virtual agent associated with a second user. To invoke the communication session, the first virtual agent may send an outgoing communication to the second virtual agent and the outgoing communication may instruct the second virtual agent to perform at least one action on behalf of the first user. Virtual agents associated with different users may alternatively communicate with each other in the absence of user interaction to perform a collaborative action.

Virtual agent communication for electronic device

The operation of an application on a first device may be guided by a user operating a second device. The application on the first device may present a character on a display of the first device and obtain an audio signal of speech of a user of the first device. Audio data may be transmitted to the second device and corresponding audio may be played from speakers of the second device. The second device may present suggestions of phrases to be spoken by the character displayed on the first device. A user of the second device may select a phrase to be spoken by the character. Phrase data may be transmitted to the first device, and the first device may generate audio of the character speaking the phrase using a text-to-speech voice associated with the character.

Guided personal companion

A service may be provided that allows interacting users to interact with characters presented by devices of the interacting users. The operation of the character presented to an interacting user may be customized for that interacting user. For example, a first controlling user may specify first information for configuring or controlling the operation of the character when the character is interacting with a first interacting user, and a second controlling user may specify second information for configuring or controlling the operation of the character when the character is interacting with a second interacting user. The information provided by a controlling user may be used to select a segment to be used for a session between an interacting user and the character.

Configuring a virtual companion

Speech recorded by an audio capture facility of a music facility is processed by a speech recognition facility to generate results that are provided to the music facility. When information related to a music application running on the music facility are provided to the speech recognition facility, the results generated are based at least in part on the application related information. The speech recognition facility uses an unstructured language model for generating results. The user of the music facility may optionally be allowed to edit the results being provided to the music facility. The speech recognition facility may also adapt speech recognition based on usage of the results.

Using speech recognition results based on an unstructured language model with a music system

A first user of a first device may interact with a character presented on the first device where the character presented on the first device is guided by a second user of a second device. To begin a communications session, the first user may request to communicate with the character. A server may process the request to speak with the character and identify the second user from a plurality of guiding users, where the second user is identified by comparing profile information of the first user with profile information of the second user. The server may then send a request to the second device of the second user to guide the character presented by the first device. The first user may then communicate with the character with the guidance of the second user.

On demand guided virtual companion

A user of a device may interact with a character presented by the device. A session between the user and the character may be started by a user, may be triggered by an event, or may be started in other ways. The user of the of the device may be associated with one or more trigger events. Information about the trigger events may be obtained and processed to determine when a trigger event has occurred. When a trigger event has occurred, a session may be started on the device with the character. A segment may be selected to be presented during the session, and an interaction corresponding to the segment may be presented by the character to the user. For example, the character may speak a phrase using a text-to-speech voice.

Triggering a session with a virtual companion

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for multiple web-based content category searching for web content on a mobile communication facility comprising capturing speech presented by a user using a resident capture facility on the mobile communication facility; transmitting at least a portion of the captured speech as data through a wireless communication facility to a speech recognition facility; generating speech-to-text results for the captured speech utilizing the speech recognition facility; and transmitting the text results and a plurality of formatting rules specifying how search text may be used to form a query for a search capability on the mobile communications facility, wherein each formatting rule is associated with a category of content to be searched.

Multiple web-based content category searching in mobile search application

In embodiments of the present disclosure, capabilities are described for interacting with a mobile communication facility, which may include receiving a switch activation from a user to initiate a speech recognition recording session, recording the speech recognition recording session using a mobile communication facility resident capture facility, recognizing a portion of the voice command as an indication that user speech for recognition will begin following the end of the portion of the voice command, recognizing the recorded speech using a speech recognition facility to produce an external output, and using the selected output to perform a function on the mobile communication facility. The speech recognition recording session may include a voice command from the user followed by the speech to be recognized from the user.

Dealing with switch latency in speech recognition

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for a mobile environment speech processing facility. The present invention may provide for the entering of text into a software application resident on a mobile communication facility, where recorded speech may be presented by the user using the mobile communications facility's resident capture facility. Transmission of the recording may be provided through a wireless communication facility to a speech recognition facility, and may be accompanied by information related to the software application. Results may be generated utilizing the speech recognition facility that may be independent of structured grammar, and may be based at least in part on the information relating to the software application and the recording. The results may then be transmitted to the mobile communications facility, where they may be loaded into the software application. In addition, the speech recognition facility may be adapted based on usage.

Speech recognition text entry for software applications

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for interacting with a mobile communication facility comprising receiving a switch activation from a user to initiate a speech recognition recording session, wherein the speech recognition recording session comprises a voice command from the user followed by the speech to be recognized from the user; recording the speech recognition recording session using a mobile communication facility resident capture facility; recognizing at least a portion of the voice command as an indication that user speech for recognition will begin following the end of the at least a portion of the voice command; recognizing the recorded speech using a speech recognition facility to produce an external output; and using the selected output to perform a function on the mobile communication facility.

A method and system for entering information into a software application resident on a mobile communication facility is provided. The method and system may include recording speech presented by a user using a mobile communication facility resident capture facility, transmitting the recording through a wireless communication facility to a speech recognition facility, transmitting information relating to the software application to the speech recognition facility, generating results utilizing the speech recognition facility using an unstructured language model based at least in part on the information relating to the software application and the recording, transmitting the results to the mobile communications facility, loading the results into the software application and simultaneously displaying the results as a set of words and as a set of application results based on those words.

Growing community of inventors

Belmont, MA, United States of America

John N Nguyen