System and method for selective audible rendering of data to a user based on user input

• US 7,548,858 B2
• Filed: 03/05/2003
• Issued: 06/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Kuansan
• Primary Examiner(s): Smits; Talivaldis Ivars
• Application Number:
  US10/382,121
• Publication Number:
  US 20040176954A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,295 Days
• Field of Search: 704/9, 704/10, 707/5, 707/4
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A method of rendering information is provided and includes rendering data to a user, identifying a first object and a second object in a query, and accessing the document to identify semantic tags associated with text in the document. The first object and second object are associated with a first semantic tag corresponding to a first portion of stored text and a second semantic tag corresponding to a second portion of stored text. At least one of the first portion and second portion of stored text is associated with the data that was rendered. A third portion of stored text that is associated with both the first portion and the second portion is identified and selectively audibly rendered. In one example, a data output is generated as a function of values relative to first and second portions of stored information based on a data operation associated with a command object.

Claims

1. A method of rendering information in a document to a user based on a query, comprising:

rendering data in a document to a user;

identifying a first object and a second object from the query;

accessing the document to identify semantic tags associated with text in the document;

associating the first object with a first semantic tag corresponding to a first portion of stored text within the document and the second object with a second semantic tags corresponding to a second portion of stored text in the document, wherein at least one of the first portion and second portion of stored text is associated with the data in the document that was rendered;

identifying a third portion of stored text that is associated with both the first portion and the second portion; and

selectively audibly rendering the third portion of stored text.

2. The method of claim 1 and further comprising:

receiving a second query; and

identifying a navigation object from the second query containing information to navigate within the stored text.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the query further includes a command object containing information for performing a selected command on the stored text.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying includes using a language model to identify the first object and the second object.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein identifying further includes using a style control to recognize alternative phrases for the first object and the second object.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the stored text is arranged in a multi-dimensional structure and wherein at least one of the first object and the second object correspond to at least one dimension in the multi-dimensional structure.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the multi-dimensional structure is a table including a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns and wherein the first object includes information pertaining to a particular row and the second object includes information pertaining to a particular column.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein selectively rendering the portion of stored text is based on at least one of the first object and the second object.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein selectively rendering the portion of stored text includes rendering the portion of stored text in combination with a stored context based on the first object and the second object.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the query is an utterance of speech.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the query includes handwriting input.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein selectively rendering the portion of stored text includes executing a script to render the portion.

13. A method of rendering information to a user based on a voice query, comprising:

accessing stored text comprising a paragraph with a plurality of sentences that are arranged in a plurality of rows;

audibly rendering a segment of the stored text to a user, wherein the segment comprises at least a portion of a selected row of the plurality of rows and wherein the selected row is analyzed to identify a plurality of semantic tags corresponding to columns within the selected row;

receiving a voice query from the user and identifying at least one semantic object from the voice query while the segment of the stored text is being audibly rendered;

associating the at least one semantic object with at least one of the semantic tags identified from the selected row, the at least one semantic tag corresponding to a portion of the selected row including one or more of the columns that has been audibly rendered; and

audibly rendering the portion of the selected row corresponding to the at least one semantic tag.

14. The method of claim 13 and further comprising analyzing the segment to identify semantic tags of relevant information within the segment.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the segment of text is speech data.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein the segment of text is a sentence and the tags correspond to data within the sentence.

17. The method of claim 13 wherein at least one tag corresponds to a proper name.

18. The method of claim 13 wherein at least one tag corresponds to a number.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the at least one tag corresponds to a phone number.

20. The method of claim 13 wherein at least one tag corresponds to a portion of driving directions.

21. The method of claim 13 wherein audibly rendering the portion of the segment includes rendering the portion of the segment in combination with a stored context based on a first object and a second object from the query.

22. The method of claim 13 wherein the query includes handwriting input.

23. The method of claim 13 wherein selectively rendering the portion includes executing a script.

24. A method for providing information to a user, comprising:

identifying a first object, a second object and a command object from a user voice query;

accessing stored information and associating the first object and the second object with tags corresponding to a first portion of stored information and a second portion of stored information; and

generating a data output as a function of values related to the first and second portions of stored information based on a data operation associated with the command object identified from the user voice query, the data output not being directly found in the stored information; and

audibly rendering the generated data output.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the operation comprises adding the first portion and the second portion.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the operation comprises subtracting the first portion from the second portion.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the operation comprises calculating a percentage based on the first portion and the second portion.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein associating comprises:

accessing a database comprising a plurality of stored information including the first and second portions of stored information, wherein the plurality of stored information includes values stored in a relational table in the database, the tags corresponding to columns and rows of the table.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the first and second portions of stored information comprise first and second numerical values stored in the table, and wherein the data operation comprises a mathematical operation performed with the first and second numerical values to form a resultant numerical value.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein audibly rendering the generated data output comprises audibly rendering the resultant numerical value.

31. The method of claim 28, and further comprising:

identifying a navigation object from the user voice query; and

identifying a tag corresponding to information stored in the table based on the navigation object and, in response, audibly rendering the information stored in the table.