ENHANCED VOICE CONFERENCING

• US 20130144619A1
• Filed: 01/23/2012
• Published: 06/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lowell L. Wood Jr, William H. Gates
• Inventors: Lord, Richard T., Lord, Robert W., Myhrvold, Nathan P., Tegreene, Clarence T., Hyde, Roderick A., Wood, Lowell L. Jr., Ishikawa, Muriel Y., Wood, Victoria Y.H., Whitmer, Charles, Bahl, Paramvir, Chandra, Ranveer, Gates, William H. III, Holman, Paul, Kare, Jordin T., Mundie, Craig J., Paek, Tim, Tan, Desney S., Zhong, Lin, Dyor, Matthew G., Burger, Doughlas C.
• Application Number:
  US13/356,419
• Publication Number:
  US 20130144619A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/02 Methods for producing synthetic speech; Speech synthesisers
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5081 Inform conference party of participants, e.g. of change of participants
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/568 audio processing specific to telephonic conferencing, e.g. spatial distribution, mixing of participants echo suppression in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/02; sound field processing per se H04S7/30

Abstract

Techniques for ability enhancement are described. Some embodiments provide an ability enhancement facilitator system (“AEFS”) configured to enhance voice conferencing among multiple speakers. In one embodiment, the AEFS receives data that represents utterances of multiple speakers who are engaging in a voice conference with one another. The AEFS then determines speaker-related information, such as by identifying a current speaker, locating an information item (e.g., an email message, document) associated with the speaker, or the like. The AEFS then informs a user of the speaker-related information, such as by presenting the speaker-related information on a display of a conferencing device associated with the user.

Claims

1. A method for ability enhancement, the method comprising:

receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers, wherein the multiple speakers include at least three speakers;

determining speaker-related information associated with each of the multiple speakers, based on the data representing speech signals from the voice conference; and

presenting the speaker-related information via a conferencing device associated with a user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers, wherein the multiple speakers are remotely located from one another.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

as each of the multiple speakers takes a turn speaking during the voice conference, presenting speaker-related information associated with the speaker.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

in response to one of the speakers beginning to speak during the voice conference, presenting the speaker-related information associated with the speaker.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

presenting the speaker-related information during a telephone conference call amongst the multiple speakers.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting, while a current speaker is speaking, speaker-related information on a display device of the user, the displayed speaker-related information identifying the current speaker.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

receiving audio data from a telephone conference call that includes the multiple speakers, the received audio data representing utterances made by at least one of the multiple speakers.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

receiving audio data from an online audio chat that includes the multiple speakers, the received audio data representing utterances made by at least one of the multiple speakers.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

receiving audio data from a video conference that includes the multiple speakers, the received audio data representing utterances made by at least one of the multiple speakers.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers includes:

receiving data representing speech signals from the at least three speakers, the data obtained at the conferencing device.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining which one of the multiple speakers is speaking during a time interval.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining which one of the multiple speakers is speaking during a time interval includes:

associating a first portion of the received data with a first one of the multiple speakers.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the associating a first portion of the received data with a first one of the multiple speakers includes:

receiving the first portion of the received data along with an identifier associated with the first speaker.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the receiving the first portion of the received data along with an identifier associated with the first speaker includes:

receiving a network identifier associated with the first speaker.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the receiving the first portion of the received data along with an identifier associated with the first speaker includes:

receiving from a conferencing system the identifier associated with the first speaker, the conferencing system configured to facilitate a conference call among the multiple speakers.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the associating a first portion of the received data with a first one of the multiple speakers includes:

selecting the first portion based on the first portion representing only speech from the one speaker and no other of the multiple speakers.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining that two or more of the multiple speakers are speaking concurrently.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining which one of the multiple speakers is speaking during a time interval includes:

performing voice identification to select which one of multiple previously analyzed voices is a best match for the one speaker who is speaking during the time interval.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining which one of the multiple speakers is speaking during a time interval includes:

performing voice identification based on the received data to identify one of the multiple speakers.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the performing voice identification includes:

comparing properties of the speech signal with properties of previously recorded speech signals from multiple persons.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the performing voice identification includes:

processing telephone voice messages stored by a voice mail service.

23. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining which one of the multiple speakers is speaking during a time interval includes:

performing speech recognition to convert the received data into text data; and

identifying one of the multiple speakers based on the text data.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the identifying one of the multiple speakers based on the text data includes:

finding an information item that references the one speaker and that includes one or more words in the text data.

27. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

retrieving information items that reference the text data; and

informing the user of the retrieved information items.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein the performing speech recognition includes:

performing speech recognition based at least in part on a language model associated with the one speaker, wherein the language model is based on information items generated by the one speaker, the information items including at least one of emails transmitted by the one speaker, documents authored by the one speaker, and/or social network messages transmitted by the one speaker.

31. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving data representing a speech signal that represents an utterance of the user; and

identifying one of the multiple speakers based on the data representing a speech signal that represents an utterance of the user, by determining whether the utterance of the user includes a name of the one speaker.

39. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

developing a corpus of speaker data by recording speech from multiple persons; and

identifying one of the multiple speakers based at least in part on the corpus of speaker data.

42. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

presenting the speaker-related information on a display of the conferencing device.

43. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

presenting the speaker-related information on a display of a computing device that is distinct from the conferencing device.

44. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

determining a display to serve as a presentation device for the speaker-related information, selecting one display from multiple displays, based at least in part on whether each of the multiple displays is capable of displaying all of the speaker-related information.

48. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

audibly notifying the user to view the speaker-related information on a display device.

49. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

informing the user of an identifier of each of the multiple speakers.

52. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

informing the user of a previously transmitted communication referencing one of the multiple speakers.

54. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

informing the user of an event involving the user and one of the multiple speakers.

56. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining speaker-related information includes:

accessing information items associated with one of the multiple speakers.

61. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the speaker-related information includes:

transmitting the speaker-related information from a first device to a second device having a display.

67. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing the receiving data representing speech signals from a voice conference amongst multiple speakers, the determining speaker-related information, and/or the presenting the speaker-related information on a mobile device that is operated by the user.

70. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining to perform at least some of determining speaker-related information or presenting the speaker-related information on another computing device that has available processing capacity.

80. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

translating an utterance of one of the multiple speakers in a first language into a message in a second language, based on the speaker-related information; and

presenting the message in the second language.

101. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recording history information about the voice conference; and

presenting the history information about the voice conference.

102. The method of claim 101, wherein the presenting the history information about the voice conference includes:

presenting the history information to a new participant in the voice conference, the new participant having joined the voice conference while the voice conference was already in progress.

103. The method of claim 101, wherein the presenting the history information about the voice conference includes:

presenting the history information to a participant in the voice conference, the participant having rejoined the voice conference after having left the voice conference for a period of time.

104. The method of claim 101, wherein the presenting the history information about the voice conference includes:

presenting at least one of a transcription of utterances made by speakers during the voice conference, indications of topics discussed during the voice conference, and/or indications of information items related to subject matter of the voice conference.

105. The method of claim 101, wherein the recording history information about the voice conference includes:

recording the data representing speech signals from the voice conference.

106. The method of claim 101, wherein the recording history information about the voice conference includes:

recording a transcription of utterances made by speakers during the voice conference.

107. The method of claim 101, wherein the recording history information about the voice conference includes:

recording indications of topics discussed during the voice conference.

108. The method of claim 101, wherein the recording history information about the voice conference includes:

recording indications of information items related to subject matter of the voice conference.

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