Apparatus and methods for providing network-based information suitable for audio output

• US 20070213980A1
• Filed: 05/03/2007
• Published: 09/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Martin, Steven, Danner, Ryan, Barban, Susan
• Granted Patent: US 8,032,577 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/16 Payments settled via telecommunication systems

Abstract

The invention is directed to techniques for navigating a network based on audio input to retrieve information from a network. A user enters audio commands into a two-way communication device to access information located on a network, such as the Internet. For example, a user enters a voice request for a web page into a telephone, which sends the request to a proxy browser for the World Wide Web which in turn provides the request to a web navigation application executing on an application server. The web navigation application generates a text-based request based on the voice request and retrieves a web page from the World Wide Web based on the text-based request. The web navigation application uses a script or an XML page to generate a file suitable for audio output from the retrieved web page. The web navigation application then produces an audio output file from the generated file, which it sends to the proxy browser to provide audio output signals to the user over the telephony connection to the user'"'"'s telephone.

Claims

1. A method for providing information suitable for audio output comprising:

receiving an application defining document associated with a tagged document, the application defining document including a first set of information, over a network based on a request for the first set of information;

accessing the tagged document in response to receiving the first set of information, the tagged document defined as an XML filtering document;

selecting, based on predetermined expected patterns in the filtering document, at least one portion of the first set of information that is suitable for audio output; and

generating a second set of information suitable for audio output based on selecting the at least one portion of the first set of information and the tagged document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the first set of information based on a request for the first set of information comprises the steps of:

receiving speech information specifying the first set of information;

generating a text request for the first set of information based on an acoustic speech recognition (ASR) technique applied to the speech information, and

submitting the text request over the network.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of generating the text request comprises interpreting at least one primitive construct based on the speech information.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of generating at least one additional primitive construct based on a request for a user-defined command.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein:

receiving the first set of information comprises receiving a web page based on a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) request for the web page;

accessing the tagged document comprises accessing an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document; and

generating the second set of information comprises generating filtered web content suitable for audio output based on the web page and the XML document.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of generating the text request comprises applying a case-logic technique to the speech information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of accessing the tagged document in response to receiving the first set of information comprises:

determining an identity of the request for the first set of information; and

accessing the tagged document based on the identity of the request.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the identity of the request is based on at least one of an identifier for an originator of the request and an identifier for a destination of the request.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of generating the second set of information suitable for audio output comprises:

selecting at least one portion of the first set of information that is suitable for audio output; and

generating the second set of information based on selecting the at least one portion of the first set of information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of generating the second set of information suitable for audio output comprises:

generating text data suitable for audio output based on the first set of information and the tagged document; and

generating audio data based on the text data.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of generating the text data suitable for audio output comprises generating at least one response and the step of generating the audio data based on the text data comprises applying a text-to-speech (TTS) technique to the at least one response.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of accessing the tagged document is performed based on the request for the first set of information and approximately concurrently with the step of receiving the first set of information.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein each of the first set of information, the tagged document, and the second set of information is at least one of a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) page, a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) page, and a Standard Generic Markup Language (SGML) page.

14. A system for providing information suitable for audio output, the system comprising:

a document database configured for storing a plurality of tagged documents; and

a server comprising an executable resource, wherein the executable resource is operable to;

receive a first set of information over a network based on a request for the first set of information;

access a tagged document from the document database based on receiving the first set of information, the tagged document defined as an XML filtering document;

select, based on predetermined expected patterns in the filtering document, at least one portion of the first set of information that is suitable for audio output; and

generate the second set of information suitable for audio output based on the selected portion of the first set of information and the tagged document.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the first set of information is a web page based on a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) request for the web page;

the tagged document is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document; and

the second set of information is filtered web content suitable for audio output based on the web page and the XML document.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the executable resource:

receives speech information specifying the first set of information;

generates a text request for the first set of information based on an acoustic speech recognition (ASR) technique applied to the speech information; and

submits the text request over the network.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the executable resource interprets at least one primitive construct based on the speech information, and further generates at least one additional primitive construct based on a request for a user-defined command.

18. A computer program product having computer program code encoded as a set of processor based instructions on a computer readable storage medium for performing for voice-based navigation in a server configured to execute voice web applications comprising:

requesting a web page using a text-based web request by posting a generated URL to a web server to execute the request for the web page, the text based request operable to navigate the web and identify the requested web page;

receiving the requested web page from the web server;

accessing a filtering document page from an application document database using an application-defining document associated with the voice-based request, the filtering document page employing a markup language and operable to filter the retrieved web page to provide generated content suitable for audio output, the requesting the web page and accessing the filtering document occurring in a substantially concurrent time frame;

generating the filtered web content from the retrieved web page and the filtering document page indicated by the application-defining document associated with the voice-based request;

generating at least one audio output file based on the filtered web content via a text-to-speech (TTS) technique operable to convert the text in the filtered web content to audio output files; and

sending the signals via a network connection to the user audio communication device.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

receiving a voice-based request to navigate the web from an audio communication device operable to provide the voice-based request in response to a menu generated based on a specific application-defining document operable to provide parameters and options;

associating the voice-based request with the specific application-defining document;

searching for primitive constructs in the voice-based request;

constructing a text-based request based on the primitive constructs identified from the voice-based request; and

generating the text-based request to navigate the web based on the primitive constructs in the voice-based request from at least one of a database and a proxy server.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the voice based request is operative to identify a particular user via a user identifier number indicative of an LDAP resource having personal data and class of data information on individual users.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein a web navigation application uses a case-match approach to interpret the primitive constructs and determine web navigation commands are included in the text-based request.

22. The method of claim 21 further comprising sending the filtered web content in an HTML page to an intermediary proxy browser operable to generate signals which the user audio communication device converts to audible sound.