Apple Inc.

Nynex Science & Technology, Inc.

Kim Silverman

Devang Kalidas Naik

Jerome Rene Bellegarda

Thomas Bonura

Kevin Lenzo

Matthew Lee Rogers

Benjamin A Rottler

Donald James Lindsay

Caroline G Henton

Kevin Bartlett Aitken

Jennifer Lauren Moore

Matthias Neeracher

Ashok Kalyanswamy

Sara Basson

Dina Yashchin

Methods and systems for providing graphical user interfaces are described. Overlaid, information-bearing windows whose contents remain unchanged for a predetermined period of time become translucent. The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.

Graduated visual and manipulative translucency for windows

Techniques for providing semantic search of a data store are disclosed. A similarity metric of a document comprising the data store to a concept represented in a semantic model derived at least in part from a reference source that includes content not included in the data store is determined. A relevance metric of a search query to the concept is computed. The similarity metric and the relevance metric are used to determine, at least in part, a ranking of the document with respect to the search query.

Semantic search using a single-source semantic model

Algorithms for synthesizing speech used to identify media assets are provided. Speech may be selectively synthesized form text strings associated with media assets. A text string may be normalized and its native language determined for obtaining a target phoneme for providing human-sounding speech in a language (e.g., dialect or accent) that is familiar to a user. The algorithms may be implemented on a system including several dedicated render engines. The system may be part of a back end coupled to a front end including storage for media assets and associated synthesized speech, and a request processor for receiving and processing requests that result in providing the synthesized speech. The front end may communicate media assets and associated synthesized speech content over a network to host devices coupled to portable electronic devices on which the media assets and synthesized speech are played back.

Systems and methods for selective text to speech synthesis

Methods for beat synchronization between media assets are described. In one embodiment, beat synchronized media mixes can be automatically created. By way of example, a beat synchronized event mix can be created by selecting a plurality of media assets, arranging the media assets into an unsynchronized media mix, determining the a profile of each of the media assets in the media mix, automatically beatmatching the beats of adjacent media assets in the media mix, and automatically beatmixing the beats of adjacent beatmatched media assets to create the beat-synchronized media mix. The media assets that can be used include both audio and video media. Media assets are selected based on a specific set of media asset selection criteria, which can include music speed or tempo, music genre, music intensity, media asset duration, user rating, and music mood.

Method for creating a beat-synchronized media mix

Systems and methods of detecting language and natural language strings for text to speech synthesis

Systems and methods for concatenation of words in text to speech synthesis

Systems and methods for text normalization for text to speech synthesis

Systems and methods for selective rate of speech and speech preferences for text to speech synthesis

Systems and methods for text to speech synthesis

Methods for beat synchronization between media assets are described. In one embodiment, beat synchronized media mixes can be automatically created. By way of example, a beat synchronized event mix can be created by selecting a plurality of media assets, arranging the media assets into an unsynchronized media mix, determining the a profile of each of the media assets in the media mix, automatically beatmatching the beats of adjacent media assets in the media mix, and automatically beatmixing the beats of adjacent beatmatched media assets to create the beat-synchronized media mix. The media assets that can be used include both audio and video media. Media assets are selected based on a specific set of media asset selection criteria, which can include music speed or tempo, music genre, music intensity, media asset duration, user rating, and music mood. A beat synchronized event mix can be subdivided into one or more event mix segments. Each event mix segment can have its own selection criteria.

A method and apparatus for speech synthesis in a computer-user interface using random paralinguistic variation is described herein. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for synthesizing speech comprises generating synthesized speech having certain prosodic features. The synthesized speech is further processed by applying a random paralinguistic variation to the acoustic sequence representing the synthesized speech without altering the linguistic prosodic features. According to one aspect of the present invention, the application of the paralinguistic variation is correlated with a previously applied paralinguistic variation to reflect a gradual change in the computer voice, while still maintaining a random quality.

Method and apparatus for speech synthesis using paralinguistic variation

A speech recognition device with a frequency range with an upper frequency limit fis provided. The speech recognition device has more than two microphones with distances between the microphones, wherein the greatest common factor of the distances between the microphones is less than the speed of sound divided by f. More particularly, where the microphones are spaced a total distance, the number of the more than two microphones is less than the one half the total distance times the upper frequency limit divided by the speed of sound.

Spacing for microphone elements

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Kim Silverman