Speech Recognition for Context Switching

• US 20130090930A1
• Filed: 10/10/2011
• Published: 04/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Monson, Matthew J., Giese, William P., Greenawalt, Daniel J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,256,396 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6045 for mapping control signals received from the input arrangement into game commands
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6072 of an input signal, e.g. pitch and rhythm extraction, voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/088 Word spotting
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

Various embodiments provide techniques for implementing speech recognition for context switching In at least some embodiments, the techniques can enable a user to switch between different contexts and/or user interfaces of an application via speech commands. In at least some embodiments, a context menu is provided that lists available contexts for an application that may be navigated to via speech commands. In implementations, the contexts presented in the context menu include a subset of a larger set of contexts that are filtered based on a variety of context filtering criteria. A user can speak one of the contexts presented in the context menu to cause a navigation to a user interface associated with one of the contexts.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

presenting, in response to a recognition of a spoken trigger word, a context menu in a user interface associated with a first application context for an application, the context menu including at least one other application context that may be navigated to via a speech command;

recognizing, within a specific time interval after said recognition of the spoken trigger word, a speech input of a context word associate with the at least one other application context; and

navigating from the user interface associated with the first application context to a user interface associated with the at least one other application context in response to said recognition of the speech input of the context word.

2. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the application comprises a game application, and wherein the user interface associated with the first application context comprises a different set of game functionality than does the user interface associated with the at least one other application context.

3. A method as described in claim 1, wherein said presenting comprises filtering a set of application contexts based on one or more context-specific criteria to determine the at least one other application context.

4. A method as described in claim 3, wherein the context-specific criteria comprise one or more of attributes of the application, attributes of a device on which the application is executing, or attributes of a user of the device.

5. A method as described in claim 4, wherein the attributes of the application comprise a version of the application.

6. A method as described in claim 4, wherein the attributes of the device comprise one or more of a network connectivity status of the device or processing capabilities of the device.

7. A method as described in claim 4, wherein the attributes of the user comprise one or more of an account membership level for the application associated with the user, access permissions associated with the user, or an age of the user.

8. A method as described in claim 1, wherein said navigating occurs in response to said recognition and independent of additional input from a user.

9. A computer-implemented method comprising:

filtering a set of context options for an application based on at least one of attributes of the application, attributes of a device on which the application is executing, or attributes of a user of the device;

generating a set of available context options for the application based on said filtering, the set of available context options comprising a subset of the set of context options; and

enabling one or more available context options of the set of available context options to be selectable via a speech command to navigate from a user interface associated with a first context of the application to a user interface associated with a second context of the application.

10. A method as described in claim 9, wherein said filtering occurs in response to a speech recognition of a trigger word associated with the application.

11. A method as described in claim 9, wherein said enabling comprises causing a context menu to be displayed that includes the one or more available context options of the set of available context options.

12. A method as described in claim 11, wherein said causing comprises causing the context menu to be displayed as part of the user interface associated with the first context.

13. A method as described in claim 9, wherein said enabling comprises enabling the one or more available context options to be selectable independent of the one or more available context options being displayed.

14. A method as described in claim 9, wherein the application comprises a game application, and wherein the user interface associated with the first context is associated with a different set of game functionality than is the user interface associated with the second context.

15. A method as described in claim 9, further comprising:

recognizing a speech selection of one of the available context options; and

navigating from the user interface associated with the first context of the application to the user interface associated with the second context of the application, wherein said navigating occurs in response to said recognizing and independent of additional input from the user of the device.

16. One or more computer-readable storage media comprising a game application that, when executed by a computing device, causes the computing device to:

receive an indication of a speech input of a trigger word while a user interface associated with a first game context of the game application is displayed;

filter a set of game contexts using one or more filtering criteria for the game application to generate a set of one or more available game contexts;

cause the set of one or more available game contexts to be displayed as a part of the user interface associated with the first game context; and

navigate to a user interface associated with a second game context of the game application in response to an indication of a speech selection of one or more of the available game contexts and independent of additional user input.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 16, wherein one of the first game context or the second game context is associated with game customization functionality, and wherein the other of the first game context or the second game context is associated with game play functionality.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 16, wherein the filtering criteria are based on one or more of attributes of the computing device or attributes of a user of the computing device.

19. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 16, wherein the filtering criteria comprise a network connectivity status of the computing device.

20. One or more computer-readable storage media as described in claim 16, wherein the filtering criteria comprise one or more of an account membership level for the game application associated with a user, access permissions associated with the user, or an age of the user.