SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATICALLY CONNECTING A USER OF A HANDS-FREE INTERCOMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20150222757A1
• Filed: 02/06/2014
• Published: 08/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elwha LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Elwha LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Cheatham, Jesse R. III, Hyde, Roderick A., Ishikawa, Muriel Y., Kare, Jordin T., Mundie, Craig J., Myhrvold, Nathan P., Petroski, Robert C., Rudder, Eric D., Tan, Desney S., Tegreene, Clarence T., Whitmer, Charles, Wilson, Andrew, Wing, Jeannette M., Wood, Lowell L. Jr., Wood, Victoria Y.H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,131,068 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/025 Door telephones adapted for television H04N7/186

Abstract

A hands-free intercom may include a user-tracking sensor, a directional microphone, a directional sound emitter, and a communication interface. The user-tracking sensor may determine a location of a user so the directional microphone can measure vocal emissions by the user and the directional sound emitter can deliver audio to the user. The directional sound emitter may emit ultrasonic waves configured to frequency convert to produce the audio. The communication interface may be configured to identify an entity of interest with which the user wishes to interact based on gestures and/or vocal emissions by the user and may automatically communicatively couple the user to the entity of interest. The hands-free intercom may determine whether remote entities requesting to communicatively couple with the user should be allowed to couple. The hands-free intercom may detect eavesdroppers and warn the user of the detected eavesdroppers.

Claims

1. A hands-free intercommunication system for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the system comprising:

a user-tracking sensor configured to determine a location of the user;

a directional microphone configured to measure vocal emissions by the user;

a directional sound emitter configured to deliver audio from the entity of interest to the user by emitting ultrasonic sound waves configured to frequency convert to produce the audio; and

a communication interface configured to communicatively couple the directional microphone and the directional sound emitter to a communication device of the entity of interest,

wherein the communication interface is configured to identify the entity of interest based on the vocal emissions,

wherein the communication interface is configured to determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on which location the user is occupying, and

wherein the communication interface selects the entity of interest from among one or more entities on a contact list.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is further configured to record the vocal emissions and deliver the recorded vocal emissions after identification of the entity of interest.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the directional sound emitter is configured to deliver an audio indication to the user prior to delivery of the recorded vocal emissions to the entity of interest.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the vocal emissions comprise a spoken command from which the communication interface identifies the entity of interest.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the vocal emissions comprise a name of the entity of interest.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is configured to identify the entity of interest based on a tone of voice of the user.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is configured to identify the entity of interest based on information gathered from a website.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface identifies the entity of interest based on a recency in time of a previous conversation.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is configured to identify the entity of interest based on a subject matter of the vocal emissions.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the communication interface tracks one or more previous subject matters of a previous conversation.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the communication interface stores one or more keywords from a previous conversation.

35. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is configured to determine whether the entity of interest is within a listening range of the user, and wherein the communication interface is configured to communicatively couple the user to the entity of interest if the entity of interest is not within the listening range.

45. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface selects the entity of interest from among a user-identified set of entities from the contact list.

46. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface selects the entity of interest from among family members of the user.

48. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface selects the entity of interest from among frequently contacted entities.

49. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface selects the entity of interest based upon a calendar of the user.

53. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface locates the entity of interest using the user-tracking sensor.

57. The system of claim 53, wherein the user-tracking sensor identifies the entity of interest using facial recognition.

58. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication interface locates the entity of interest based on a location of a mobile communication device.

64. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more sensors configured to detect passage of the entity of interest through one or more doorways, wherein the communication interface locates the entity of interest by tracking which doorways the entity of interest has traversed.

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140. A hands-free intercommunication system for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the system comprising:

a user-tracking sensor configured to;

determine a location of the user,

identify a non-tactile gesture by the user, and

determine the entity of interest based on the gesture;

a directional microphone configured to measure vocal emissions by the user;

a directional sound emitter configured to deliver audio from the entity of interest to the user by emitting ultrasonic sound waves that produce the audio by beating a plurality of ultrasonic sound waves together, downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves in the air, downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves in a material on the user, or downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves on a material on the user; and

a communication interface configured to communicatively couple the directional microphone and the directional sound emitter to the entity of interest.

141. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program code configured to cause a processor to perform a method for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the method comprising:

determining a location of the user;

measuring vocal emissions by the user using a directional microphone;

identifying the entity of interest based on the vocal emissions by the user;

determining whether to forward the request to a user device when the user is out of range of a sound emitter;

communicatively coupling the user to a communication device of the entity of interest; and

delivering audio from the entity of interest to the user by emitting ultrasonic sound waves configured to frequency convert to produce the audio.

226. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 141, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a request from a remote entity to communicatively couple to the user; and

determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user.

227. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 226, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on one or more access rules.

228. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on which room the user is occupying.

230. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on an activity of the user.

231. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on a time of day.

233. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein the access rules include room-specific time restrictions.

234. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on an identity of the remote entity.

240. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on urgency level.

241. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 227, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on a subject matter.

246. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 226, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on whether the user is alone.

247. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 226, wherein determining whether to couple comprises determining whether to couple the remote entity to the user based on an identity of a person near the user.

251. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 141, wherein determining whether to forward comprises determining whether to forward the request based on an identity of the remote entity.

254. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 141, wherein the method further comprises detecting an eavesdropper within a listening range of a location of the user.

255. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 254, wherein the method further comprises warning the user of the eavesdropper.

260. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 254, wherein the method further comprises refusing to communicatively couple the user while the eavesdropper is present.

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279. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program code configured to cause a processor to perform a method for automatically connecting a user to an entity of interest, the method comprising:

determining a location of the user,

communicatively coupling the user to the entity of interest;

measuring vocal emissions by the user using a directional microphone;

delivering the measured vocal emissions to the entity of interest; and

delivering audio from the entity of interest to the user by emitting ultrasonic sound waves that produce the audio by beating a plurality of ultrasonic sound waves together, downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves in the air, downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves in a material on the user, or downshifting the ultrasonic sound waves on a material on the user.