PERSONAL VOICE-BASED INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM

• US 20100232580A1
• Filed: 05/26/2010
• Published: 09/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Parus Holdings, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Parus Interactive Holdings
• Inventors: KURGANOV, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 9,377,992 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/88.10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/638 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/02 Feature extraction for speech recognition; Selection of recognition unit
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/08 Speech classification or search
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/24 the user being prompted to utter a password or a predefined phrase
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/54 for retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/39 using speech synthesis speech synthesis per se G10L13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/405 involving speaker-dependent recognition adaptation to speaker for speech recognition G10L15/07
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/40 terminals with audio html browser
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system for retrieving information from a network such as the Internet. A user creates a user-defined record in a database that identifies an information source, such as a web site, containing information of interest to the user. This record identifies the location of the information source and also contains a recognition grammar based upon a speech command assigned by the user. Upon receiving the speech command from the user that is described within the recognition grammar, a network interface system accesses the information source and retrieves the information requested by the user.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving information via a phone in an audio format from a pre-defined portion of a pre-selected web site, said pre-selected web site being periodically updated such that said information is moved from said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site, said method comprising the steps of:

providing a server operatively connected to the Internet and said phone, said server being operatively connected to a speech recognition engine and to a speech synthesis engine;

providing a first instruction set stored on said server, said first instruction set configured to identify said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site containing the information to be retrieved from the web site, said first instruction set comprising;

a uniform resource locator address for said web site; and

a named object associated with the content of the information to be retrieved;

providing a second instruction set stored on said server, said second instruction set configured to generate a regular expression based on said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site and said named object, said regular expression corresponding to said content of said information to be retrieved, wherein said regular expression is a text string used for describing a search pattern;

providing a speech command to said speech recognition engine, said speech command corresponding to said instruction set;

said speech recognition engine assigning said speech command to a recognition grammar, said speech command and said recognition grammar corresponding to each said instruction set;

transmitting said speech command to said speech recognition engine;

said speech recognition engine receiving said speech command and selecting the corresponding recognition grammar;

said server retrieving each said instruction set corresponding to said recognition grammar;

said server accessing said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site defined by said instruction set;

said server searching said pre-selected website to locate said requested information based on said regular expression;

said speech synthesis engine converting the retrieved information from said pre-selected web site into an audio message; and

said speech synthesis engine transmitting said audio message to said user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of providing at least one instruction set to the server comprises the steps of:

displaying the web site on a graphical display operatively connected to the server; and

using computer software to select the pre-defined portion of the pre-selected web site which contains the information to be retrieved.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the named object is selected from the group consisting of:

“

weather”

, “

forecast”

, “

high”

, “

low”

, “

radar”

, “

temp”

, “

temperature”

, “

humidity”

, “

humidity level”

, “

wind”

, “

wind speed”

, “

wind direction”

, “

pressure”

, “

sunrise”

, “

sunset”

, “

time”

, “

month”

, “

day”

, “

stock”

, “

stock quote”

, “

news”

, “

news reel”

, “

airline”

, “

carrier”

, “

flight”

, and “

flight number”

.

4. A method for retrieving information via a phone in an audio format from a pre-defined portion of a pre-selected web site, said pre-selected web site being periodically updated such that said information is moved from said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site, said method comprising the steps of:

providing a server operatively connected to the Internet and said phone, said server being operatively connected to a speech recognition engine and to a speech synthesis engine;

providing a first instruction set stored on said server, said first instruction set configured to identify said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site containing the information to be retrieved from the web site, said first instruction set comprising;

a uniform resource locator address for said web site; and

a named object associated with the content of the information to be retrieved;

providing a second instruction set stored on said server, said second instruction set configured to generate a regular expression based on said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site and said named object, said regular expression corresponding to said content of said information to be retrieved, wherein said regular expression is a text string used for describing a search pattern;

providing a speech command to said speech recognition engine, said speech command corresponding to said instruction set;

said speech recognition engine assigning said speech command to a recognition grammar, said speech command and said recognition grammar corresponding to each said instruction set;

transmitting said speech command to said speech recognition engine;

said speech recognition engine receiving said speech command and selecting the corresponding recognition grammar;

said server retrieving each said instruction set corresponding to said recognition grammar;

said server accessing said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site defined by said instruction set and locating said information defined by said instruction set based on said regular expression;

said speech synthesis engine converting the retrieved information from said pre-selected web site into an audio message; and

said speech synthesis engine transmitting said audio message to said user.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the step of providing at least one instruction set to the server comprises the steps of:

displaying the web site on a graphical display operatively connected to the server; and

using computer software to select the pre-defined portion of the pre-selected web site which contains the information to be retrieved.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the named object is selected from the group consisting of:

“

weather”

, “

forecast”

, “

high”

, “

low”

, “

radar”

, “

temp”

, “

temperature”

, “

humidity”

, “

humidity level”

, “

wind”

, “

wind speed”

, “

wind direction”

, “

pressure”

, “

sunrise”

, “

sunset”

, “

time”

, “

month”

, “

day”

, “

stock”

, “

stock quote”

, “

news”

, “

news reel”

, “

airline”

, “

carrier”

, “

flight”

, and “

flight number”

.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising the step of said server searching said pre-selected website to locate the requested information.

8. A system for retrieving information via a phone in an audio format from a pre-defined portion of a pre-selected web site, said pre-selected web site being periodically updated such that said information is moved from said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site, said system comprising:

a server, said server operatively connected to the internet and to said phone;

a first instruction set stored on said server, said first instruction set configured to identify said pre-defined portion of the pre-selected web site and for identifying a named object associated with the content of the information to be retrieved, said pre-defined portion containing the information to be retrieved from the web site, said first instruction set comprising;

a uniform resource locator address for said web site; and

the named object associated with the content of the information to be retrieved;

a second instruction set stored on said server, said second instruction set configured to generate a regular expression based on said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site and said named object, said regular expression corresponding to said content of said information to be retrieved, wherein said regular expression is a text string used for describing a search pattern;

a recognition grammar corresponding to each said instruction set and corresponding to a speech command;

a speech recognition engine operatively connected to said server, said speech recognition engine configured to receive said speech command and to select the corresponding recognition grammar, said speech recognition engine further configured to retrieve each said instruction set corresponding to said recognition grammar upon receiving said speech command;

a web browser operatively connected to said server, said web browser configured to access said pre-defined portion of said web site defined by said instruction set and to locate said information defined by said instruction set based on said regular expression;

a speech synthesis engine operatively connected to said server, said speech synthesis engine configured to convert the retrieved information from said pre-defined portion of said pre-selected web site into an audio message, and said speech synthesis engine further configured to transmit said audio message to said user.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the phone is a landline telephone.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the phone is a wireless telephone.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the phone is an interne protocol telephone.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the server is operatively connected to a local area network.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the server is operatively connected to a wide area network.

14. The system of claim 8 wherein the server is operatively connected to the Internet.