Voice Signal Technologies, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Other

Jordan Cohen

Daniel Lawrence Roth

David F Johnston

Laurence Steven Gillick

Edward W Porter

Manfred G Grabherr

Michael D Edgington

Igor Zlokarnik

Mark Furnari

Chris Reiner

William Folwell Barton

Douglas Ely

Elias Behrakis

Dennis Gonzalez

John Ploumis

Elias P Behrakis

A system for detecting how many users are watching a given media device, including audio/visual output means such as a television or computer monitor, a monitoring device such as a television or computer monitor, a video capturing device, server means, and a programmable database that registers the users watching a given media content during a predetermined time in a given space. Monitoring means continuously scans the given space for new, unregistered users to charge them for viewing the media content. Once users have registered and paid for the media content, the content is released from the system's servers or a third party's servers and displayed on the audio/visual output means.

System for capturing and monitoring the amount of users watching a media device

A method and apparatus for synthesizing audible phrases (words) that includes capturing a spoken utterance, which may be a word, and extracting prosodic information (parameters) there from, then applying the prosodic parameters to a synthesized (nominal) word to produce a prosodic mimic word corresponding to the spoken utterance and the nominal word.

Prosodic mimic method and apparatus

A mobile device, such as a cellular telephone includes a voice interface that includes one part that may not be specific to a particular carrier, and a second part that provides an interface to services that are specific to a carrier or to service or information providers that are not necessarily available with all carriers. A voice command interface provides easy access to the carrier services. The set of carrier services is optionally extendible by the carrier.

Extendable voice commands

In one aspect, a method of processing a voice signal to extract information to facilitate training a speech synthesis model is provided. The method comprises acts of detecting a plurality of candidate features in the voice signal, performing at least one comparison between one or more combinations of the plurality of candidate features and the voice signal, and selecting a set of features from the plurality of candidate features based, at least in part, on the at least one comparison. In another aspect, the method is performed by executing a program encoded on a computer readable medium. In another aspect, a speech synthesis model is provided by, at least in part, performing the method.

Methods and apparatus for formant-based voice synthesis

Methods and apparatus for formant-based voice systems

The invention is a method of improving the performance of a speech recognizer. The method generally involves: providing a lexicon for the speech recognizer; monitoring a user's interaction with a network; accessing a plurality of words associated with the monitored interaction; and including the plurality of words in the lexicon.

Methods and apparatus for automatically extending the voice vocabulary of mobile communications devices

A mobile voice communication device including a wireless transceiver circuit for transmitting and receiving voice communications and for receiving data; a digital processor; and a memory storing application program code which when executed on the digital processor causes the mobile voice communication device to provide predetermined functionality to the user of the mobile voice communication device. The predetermined functionality includes basic features and it includes enhanced features that are in addition to the basic features. The application program code has a deactivated state in which the mobile voice communication device provides the basic features to the user without providing the enhanced features and an activated state in which the mobile voice communication device provides the enhanced features. Toggling between the deactivated and activated states is accomplished by receiving through the wireless transceiver circuit a transmitted key that was sent by a remote source to that mobile voice communication device.

Provider-activated software for mobile communication devices

One aspect of the invention involves word recognition that uses scrollable choice lists in which choices are listed in character-order. Another aspect relates to a scrollable, visually-displayed word recognition choice list, where the recognition candidates on the choice list are each associated with a choice-selecting symbol the user can use to select a desired recognition candidate by pressing an associated button, and where the same choice-selecting symbol is used for different choices displayed on the display at different times as a result of scrolling. Another aspect of the invention relates to providing a choice list of best scoring characters for a particular character position in the spelling of a filter that is used to filter word recognition. Another aspect of the invention relates to a choice list used in word recognition in which the choice list can be scrolled horizontally.

Word recognition using choice lists

Channel normalization for automatic speech recognition is provided. Statistics are measured from an initial portion of a speech utterance. Feature normalization parameters are estimated based on the measured statistics and a statistically derived mapping relating measured statistics and feature normalization parameters. In some examples, the measured statistics comprise measures of an energy from the initial portion of the speech utterance. In some examples, measures of the energy comprise extreme values of the energy.

Automatic speech recognition channel normalization based on measured statistics from initial portions of speech utterances

Large vocabulary speech recognition can automatically turn recognition off in one or more ways. A user command can turn on recognition that is automatically turned off after the next end of utterance. A plurality of buttons can each be associated with a different speech mode and the touch of a given button can turn on, and then automatically turn off, the given button's associated speech recognition mode. These selectable modes can include large vocabulary and alphabetic entry modes, or continuous and discrete modes. A first user input can start recognition that allows a sequence of vocabulary words to be recognized and a second user input can start recognition that turns off after one word has been recognized. A first user input can start recognition that allows a sequence of utterances to be recognized and a second user input can start recognition that allows only a single utterance to be recognized.

Speech recognition using automatic recognition turn off

Word recognition enables a user to have a selected transformation performed on a given word produced by word recognition. In one aspect of the invention, a selectable transformation changes the given word to a differently spelled word having the same word root. In another, a selectable transformation changes a given word to one or more of its homonyms. In yet another, a selectable transformation changes the given word between a representation that spells the word with letters and one that does not. In one aspect of the invention a user can select to display a choice list of transformed words corresponding to a given recognized word and then select to have one of the listed transformed words replace the given word. In another aspect of the invention word recognition favors recognition of words corresponding to a user selected part of speech.

Word recognition using word transformation commands

Text-to-speech (TTS) generation is used in conjunction with large vocabulary speech recognition to say words selected by the speech recognition. The software for performing the large vocabulary speech recognition can share speech modeling data with the TTS software. TTS or recorded audio can be used to automatically say both recognized text and the names of recognized commands after their recognition. The TTS can automatically repeats text recognized by the speech recognition after each of a succession of end of utterance detections. A user can move a cursor back or forward in recognized text, and the TTS can speak one or more words at the cursor location after each such move. The speech recognition can be used to produces a choice list of possible recognition candidates and the TTS can be used to provide spoken output of one or more of the candidates on the choice list.

Combined speech recognition and text-to-speech generation

A method and a system for testing a voice enabled application on a target device, the method including conducting one or more interactions with the target device, at least some of the interactions including presenting an acoustic utterance in an acoustic environment to the target device, receiving an output of the target device in response to the acoustic utterance, and comparing the output to an output expected from the acoustic utterance.

Automated testing of voice recognition software

Alphabetic filtering of the speech recognition of words uses a key press to indicate a desired character in an alphabetic filter string, where each key press represents two or more letters. The key presses can be disambiguated by recognizing a key-disambiguation utterance in association with a given key press. A user can select a desired recognition candidate from a choice list produced by such filtered word recognition. Ambiguous alphabetic filtering can be performed iteratively in response to the addition of successive ambiguous key presses. A user can select to re-recognize the utterance using filtering based on ambiguous key input after seeing the results of recognition without such filtering. Unambiguous alphabetic filtering can be performed by using multiple presses of an ambiguous key to disambiguate which letter is intended. A user can select between entering text by either large vocabulary speech recognition or by spelling text by pressing phone keys.

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Gloucester, MA, United States of America

Jordan Cohen