TECHNIQUES TO PROVIDE A STANDARD INTERFACE TO A SPEECH RECOGNITION PLATFORM

• US 20100324910A1
• Filed: 06/19/2009
• Published: 12/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wong, Annie, Ho, Andrew, Philander, Rod, Bodell, Michael, Anderson, Corby, Luong, Daphne, Gozali, Faustinus K., Chambers, Robert L.
• Granted Patent: US 9,570,078 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/270.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• 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 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/221 Announcement of recognition results

Abstract

Techniques and systems to provide speech recognition services over a network using a standard interface are described. In an embodiment, a technique includes accepting a speech recognition request that includes at least audio input, via an application program interface (API). The speech recognition request may also include additional parameters. The technique further includes performing speech recognition on the audio according to the request and any specified parameters; and returning a speech recognition result as a hypertext protocol (HTTP) response. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

accepting a speech recognition request, comprising audio input, via an application program interface (API);

performing speech recognition on the audio according to the request; and

returning a speech recognition result as a hypertext protocol (HTTP) response.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the speech recognition request is formatted as at least one of:

an HTTP query string;

an HTTP POST entity body;

or

at least one HTTP POST entity body part.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the speech recognition request comprises parameters including at least one of:

an in-line grammar;

a uniform resource identifier (URI) link to a grammar;

an in-line audio input;

a URI link to an audio input;

a grammar weight;

a timeout;

a finalize timeout;

a confidence level;

a sensitivity level;

a speed level;

an accuracy level;

a speaker parameter;

or

a recognizer specific parameter.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising accepting the request as a streamed request.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising returning the speech recognition result as a streamed result.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning the speech recognition result as an extensible markup language (XML) document.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising formatting the XML document in extensible multimedia annotation (EMMA) format.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the EMMA format includes a status flag indicating an overall success or failure of the speech recognition.

9. An article comprising a storage medium containing instructions that when executed enable a system to:

provide an application program interface (API) operative to receive a speech recognition request comprising an audio input; and

return a speech recognition result, from a speech recognition engine, as a hypertext protocol (HTTP) response.

10. The article of claim 9, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to recognize speech from the audio input according to the speech recognition request.

11. The article of claim 10, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to recognize speech according to at least one parameter in the speech recognition request, the at least one parameter comprising at least one of:

an in-line grammar;

a uniform resource identifier (URI) link to a grammar;

an in-line audio input;

a URI link to an audio input;

a grammar weight;

a timeout;

a finalize timeout;

a confidence level;

a sensitivity level;

a speed level;

an accuracy level;

a speaker parameter;

or

a recognizer specific parameter.

12. The article of claim 9, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to accept the request as a streamed request.

13. The article of claim 9, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to return the speech recognition result as a streamed result.

14. The article of claim 9, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to return a speech recognition result from a request comprising at least one of an HTTP query string;

an HTTP POST entity body;

or at least one HTTP POST entity body part.

15. The article of claim 9, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to:

return the speech recognition result as an XML document formatted in an EMMA format.

16. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor;

an application program interface (API) operative to provide an interface for building a speech recognition request comprising audio input;

a speech recognition (SR) component operative on the processor to receive the speech recognition request, to convert the audio input to a recognition result according to the speech recognition request, and to return the recognition result as a hypertext protocol (HTTP) response.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the API comprises a wrapper for building a speech recognition request.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the SR component is operative to at least one of:

receive the speech recognition request as a streamed request;

or

return the recognition result as a streamed result.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the speech recognition request comprises at least one of:

an in-line grammar;

a uniform resource identifier (URI) link to a grammar;

an in-line audio input;

a URI link to an audio input;

a grammar weight;

a timeout;

a finalize timeout;

a confidence level;

a sensitivity level;

a speed level;

an accuracy level;

a speaker parameter;

or

a recognizer specific parameter.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein at least one of the in-line grammar or the grammar referred to by the URI link includes a reference to another grammar, and wherein the SR component is operative to retrieve said another grammar.