Remote control of an appliance using a multimodal browser

• US 20060229880A1
• Filed: 03/30/2005
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Paull, Jeff, White, Marc
• Application Number:
  US11/093,545
• Publication Number:
  US 20060229880A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4131 home appliance, e.g. lighting, air conditioning system, metering devices home automation data switching networks exchanging configuration information on appliance services H04L12/2807
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42206 characterized by hardware details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4227 Providing Remote input by a user located remotely from the client device, e.g. at work
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43637 involving a wireless protocol, e.g. Bluetooth, RF or wireless LAN [IEEE 802.11] arrangements for wireless networking or broadcasting of information in indoor or near-field type systems H04B10/114
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612

Abstract

A system, a method and machine readable storage for remotely controlling an appliance using multimodal access. The system can include a multimodal control device having a multimodal user interface, which receives at least one user input comprising a spoken utterance. The system also can include a wireless transmitter that propagates an appliance control command correlating to the user input to remotely control the appliance. The method can include receiving at least one user input comprising a spoken utterance via a multimodal user interface, and propagating from a wireless transmitter an appliance control command correlating to the user input to remotely control the appliance.

Claims

1. A method for remotely controlling an appliance, comprising:

receiving at least one user input comprising a spoken utterance via a multimodal user interface; and

propagating from a wireless transmitter an appliance control command correlating to the user input to remotely control the appliance.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

propagating a control device command correlating to the user input to a server; and

propagating a server command correlating to the user input to the wireless transmitter.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of defining the appliance to be an entertainment center.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said propagating step further comprises initiating a channel change in the entertainment center.

5. The method according to claim 3, further comprising:

selecting a group of channels; and

initiating sequential channel changes through channels contained in the selected group of channels.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

displaying a user adjustable timer in the multimodal user interface; and

receiving a timer adjustment input from the user to establish a channel display time;

wherein the sequential channel changes occur at a rate defined by the channel display time.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising the step of halting the sequential channel changes in response to a stop channel change user input.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein said user input further comprises a non-speech input.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

prior to said receiving at least one user input step, defining the appliance control command to correspond to the spoken utterance.

10. A system for remotely controlling an appliance, comprising:

a multimodal control device comprising multimodal user interface that receives at least one user input comprising a spoken utterance; and

a wireless transmitter that propagates an appliance control command correlating to the user input to remotely control the appliance.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a server that receives a multimodal control device command from the multimodal control device and propagates a server command to the wireless transmitter, wherein both the multimodal control device command and the server command correlate to the user input.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein said appliance is an entertainment center.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the appliance control command initiates a channel change in the entertainment center.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein in response to the appliance control command a group of channels is selected, and sequential channel changes through channels contained in the selected group of channels is initiated.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the multimodal user interface displays a user adjustable timer and receives a timer adjustment input from the user to establish a channel display time, and the channels are changed at a rate defined by the channel display time.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein sequential channel changes are halted in response to a stop channel change user input.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the system further comprises a speech recognition system, and the multimodal interface receives the spoken utterance from the user and propagates data corresponding to the spoken utterance to the speech recognition system.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the user input further comprises a non-speech input.

19. A machine readable storage, having stored thereon a computer program having a plurality of code sections executable by a machine for causing the machine to perform the steps of:

receiving at least one user input comprising a spoken utterance via a multimodal user interface; and

propagating from a wireless transmitter an appliance control command correlating to the user input to remotely control the appliance.

20. The machine readable storage of claim 19, further causing the machine to perform the steps of:

propagating a multimodal control device command correlating to the user input to a server; and

propagating a server command correlating to the user input to the wireless transmitter.