VOICE ASSIGNMENT FOR TEXT-TO-SPEECH OUTPUT

• US 20120265533A1
• Filed: 04/18/2011
• Published: 10/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Honeycutt, Jonathan David
• Application Number:
  US13/088,661
• Publication Number:
  US 20120265533A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser
• 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

Abstract

Text can be obtained at a device from various forms of communication such as e-mails or text messages. Metadata can be obtained directly from the communication or from a secondary source identified by the directly obtained metadata. The metadata can be used to create a speaker profile. The speaker profile can be used to select voice data. The selected voice data can be used by a text-to-speech (TTS) engine to produce speech output having voice characteristics that best match the speaker profile.

Claims

1. A method performed by a device, the method comprising:

obtaining a communication including text;

obtaining metadata based on the communication;

creating a speaker profile based on the metadata;

selecting voice data based on the speaker profile; and

converting the text to speech based on the selected voice data, where the method is performed by one or more hardware processors of the device.

2. The method of claim 1, where the communication is e-mail.

3. The method of claim 1, where obtaining metadata based on the communication, further comprises:

obtaining metadata directly from the communication;

determining that additional metadata is available from the obtained metadata; and

obtaining the additional metadata.

4. The method of claim 2, where obtaining metadata based on the communication, further comprises:

determining gender and dialect based on at least a portion of the e-mail address.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining that additional metadata is available based on at least a portion of the e-mail address; and

obtaining the additional metadata from an address book.

6. The method of claim 5, where the address book is located on a network external to the device.

7. The method of claim 1, creating a speaker profile based on the metadata, further comprises:

determining at least one of gender, dialect and age from the metadata.

8. The method of claim 1, where selecting voice data based on the speaker profile, further comprises:

comparing the speaker profile with attribute-value pairs in a database table; and

selecting voice data associated with an attribute-value pair that best matches the speaker profile.

9. The method of claim 8, where the voice data includes recorded speech having voice characteristics that best matches the speaker profile.

10. The method of claim 9, where the recorded speech is organized or indexed in a database based on information contained in the speaker profile.

11. The method of claim 10,

forming the speaker profile into a query of search terms;

and

searching a database for recorded speech that best matches the query.

12. The method of claim 11, converting the text to speech based on the selected voice data, further comprises:

concatenating the recorded speech resulting from the search.

13. The method of claim 1, converting the text to speech based on the selected voice data, further comprises:

creating synthetic speech using the selected voice data, the selected voice data modeling a human vocal tract or other human voice characteristics.

14. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory storing instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

obtaining a communication including text;

obtaining metadata based on the communication;

creating a speaker profile based on the metadata;

selecting voice data based on the speaker profile; and

converting the text to speech based on the selected voice data.

15. The system of claim 14, where the communication is e-mail.

16. The system of claim 14, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

obtaining metadata directly from the communication;

determining that additional metadata is available from the obtained metadata; and

obtaining the additional metadata.

17. The system of claim 15, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

determining gender and dialect based on at least a portion of the e-mail address.

18. The system of claim 17, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

determining that additional metadata is available based on at least a portion of the e-mail address; and

obtaining the additional metadata from an address book.

19. The system of claim 18, where the address book is located on a network external to the device.

20. The system of claim 14, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

determining at least one of gender, dialect and age from the metadata.

21. The system of claim 14, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

comparing the speaker profile with attribute-value pairs in a database table; and

selecting voice data associated with an attribute-value pair that best matches the speaker profile.

22. The system of claim 21, where the voice data includes recorded speech having voice characteristics that best matches the speaker profile.

23. The system of claim 22, where the recorded speech is organized or indexed in a database based on information contained in the speaker profile.

24. The system of claim 23, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

forming the speaker profile into a query of search terms; and

searching a database for recorded speech that best matches the query.

25. The system of claim 24, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

concatenating the recorded speech resulting from the search.

26. The system of claim 14, where the instructions cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

creating synthetic speech using the selected voice data, the selected voice data modeling a human vocal tract or other human voice characteristics.