Portable device and associated software to enable voice-controlled navigation of a digital audio player

• US 20080243281A1
• Filed: 03/03/2008
• Published: 10/02/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Daniel Robert Feldman, Neena Sujata Kadaba
• Original Assignee: Daniel Robert Feldman, Neena Sujata Kadaba
• Inventors: Kadaba, Neena Sujata, Feldman, Daniel Robert
• Application Number:
  US12/074,375
• Publication Number:
  US 20080243281A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D

Abstract

Methods are disclosed to describe a portable device that enables the user to navigate the menus of a digital audio player using a set of simple voice commands. The system is comprised of a microcontroller, serial flash memory device, on-board microphone, volume controller, a connector for headphones or external audio amplifier and a connector for an external microphone. Power is supplied by the digital audio device via a connector. The device is loaded with necessary software to interface with the digital audio player using Transistor-Transistor-Logic-level serial commands. The loaded software allows for a search for playlists, artists, albums, genres, or songs, which is accomplished via an extremely low memory ASCII character comparison with sublinear performance functionality.

Claims

1. A portable, hand-held voice-controlled computer file navigator comprising:

an input for receiving an audio segment of information from a user;

a microcontroller communicatively connected with the input for;

receiving the segment and recognizing and mapping the segment to an electronic segment representative of the audio information such that;

when the audio segment represents a command, executing the command; and

when the audio segment represents an alpha-numerical symbol, collecting a set of alpha-numerical symbols and searching a database of computer files based on the set of alpha-numerical symbols to find a closest match; and

an output connected with the microcontroller for transmitting the results of the microcontroller database search to the user.

2. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer files accessed are audio files stored on a digital audio player, and where the microcontroller is connected with the digital audio player to provide Transistor-Transistor Logic (TTL) voltage level commands thereto.

3. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 2, wherein the search performed by the microcontroller is an extremely low memory string comparison search.

4. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 3, wherein the extremely low memory string comparison search performed by the microcontroller is selected from a group consisting of a linear search and a hash-table based search.

5. A portable handheld device as set forth in claim 4, wherein the device has a size not to exceed 4.5 inches by 2.5 inches by 1 inch.

6. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer files accessed are audio files stored on a digital audio player, and where the microcontroller is connected with the digital audio player to provide Transistor-Transistor Logic voltage level commands thereto.

7. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 1, wherein the search performed by the microcontroller is an extremely low memory string comparison search.

8. A voice-controlled computer file navigator as set forth in claim 1, wherein the search performed by the microcontroller is selected from a group consisting of a linear search and a hash-table based search.

9. A portable handheld device as set forth in claim 1, wherein the device has a size not to exceed 4.5 inches by 2.5 inches by 1 inch.

10. A method for controlling navigation of a computer file system comprising acts of:

receiving an audio segment of information from a user;

recognizing and mapping the segment to an electronic segment representative of the audio information such that;

when the audio segment represents a command, executing the command; and

when the audio segment represents an alpha-numerical symbol, collecting a set of alpha-numerical symbols and searching a database of computer files based on the set of alpha-numerical symbols to find all matches possessing the desired set of alpha-numerical symbols; and

signaling the digital audio player to transmit the selection to the user.

11. A computer program product comprising computer-readable instructions for causing a microcontroller to perform operations of:

receiving an audio segment of information from a user;

recognizing and mapping the segment to an electronic segment representative of the audio information such that;

when the audio segment represents a command, executing the command; and

when the audio segment represents an alpha-numerical symbol, collecting a set of alpha-numerical symbols and searching a database of computer files based on the set of alpha-numerical symbols to find all matches possessing the desired set of alpha-numerical symbols; and

signaling the digital audio player to transmit the selection to the user.