Simultaneous multi-user real-time voice recognition system

• US 7,603,273 B2
• Filed: 05/15/2006
• Issued: 10/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: SynKloud Technologies, LLC (SY Ventures)
• Original Assignee: Darrell A. Poirier
• Inventors: Poirier, Darrell A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sked, Matthew J
• Application Number:
  US11/383,435
• Publication Number:
  US 20060271369A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,247 Days
• Field of Search: 704/270
• US Class Current: 704/235
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/34 Adaptation of a single recogniser for parallel processing, e.g. by use of multiple processors or cloud computing

Abstract

This invention is a combination of software and hardware components and methodologies that enable voice recognition for multiple users simultaneously. It introduces the concept of a “conversational voice log” and how voice logs are combined to represent the spoken words of a meeting or group conversations. It defines the components needed, command set for control, text output features, and usage of such a system.

Claims

1. A system for creating and enhancing a transcript of a conversation between two separate persons, the conversation consisting of a series of audio statements each of which is spoken by one of the persons, comprising:

(a) a first input device adapted to receive a series of audio statements from the first person and convert them into a first analog audio signal,

(b) a second input device adapted to receive a series of audio statements from the second person and convert them into a second analog audio signal,

(c) an analog-to-digital converter adapted to convert the first analog audio signal to a first digital audio signal, and the second analog audio signal to a second digital audio signal,

(d) a splitter that duplicates the first digital audio signal into two identical digital audio signals, a third digital audio signal and a fourth digital audio signal, respectively, and that duplicates the second digital audio signal into two identical digital audio signals, a fifth digital audio signal and a sixth digital audio signal, respectively,

(e) a first divider for dividing the third digital audio signal into audio segments to form a third segmented digital audio signal wherein each audio segment is time indexed, and the audio segments of the third segmented digital audio signal are bounded by two ascertainable events, said events being selected from the group of events comprising when one of the persons initiates use of the input device by starting with the conversation, when a second person answers start of the conversation, when a person starts or stops speaking during the conversation, when a second person speaks while the first person is speaking (considered as three separate events) during the conversation, when audio volume of one of the audio signals increases (either mechanically or by a person raising the loudness of their voice), when audio volume of one of the audio signals decreases, when a button on an input device is pressed, when an input device line is muted or unmuted, when a collect conversation is accepted, when a specific word or phrase is spoken, when a playback of an automatic recorded message occurs, when a input device number is verified, and when actions are taken based on a recorded message,

(f) a second divider for dividing the fifth digital audio signal into audio segments to form a fifth segmented digital audio signal, wherein each audio segment is time indexed, and the audio segments of the fifth segmented digital audio signal are bounded by two ascertainable events, said events being selected from the group of events comprising when one of the persons initiates use of the input device by starting with the conversation, when a second person answers start of the conversation, when a person starts or stops speaking during the conversation, when a second person speaks while the first person is speaking (considered as three separate events) during the conversation, when audio volume of one of the audio signals increases (either mechanically or by a person raising the loudness of their voice), when audio volume of one of the audio signals decreases, when a button on an input device is pressed, when an input device line is muted or unmuted, when a collect conversation is accepted, when a specific word or phrase is spoken, when a playback of an automatic recorded message occurs, when a input device number is verified, and when actions are taken based on a recorded message,

(g) a first audio storage device adapted to store the third segmented digital audio signal,

(h) a second audio storage device adapted to store the fifth segmented digital audio signal,

(i) a first audio-to-text converter adapted to transcribe the fourth digital audio signal to a first raw transcript of the conversation, the first raw transcript including a plurality of text words, each text word in the fourth digital audio signal being indexed to the audio segment in the third segmented audio signal to which it relates,

(j) a first text storage device adapted to store the first raw transcript produced by the first audio-to-text converter,

(k) a first text-to-audio associator adapted to associate each text word in the first raw transcript directly with the audio segment from which the text word was transcribed,

(l) a viewer adapted to display the text located in the first text storage device, in the form of the first raw transcript of the conversation,

(m) a highlighter associated with the viewer and adapted to specify a first specific text word in the first raw transcript displayed in the viewer,

(n) an audio player associated with the viewer and adapted to employ the text-to-audio associator to audibility play back the audio segment associated with the first specific text word,

(o) a manual editor associated with the viewer and adapted to correct the first specific text word, based on the use of the audio player, to enhance the first raw transcript to a first enhanced transcript, and

(p) a second text storage device adapted to store the first enhanced transcript produced by the manual editor.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the input device is selected from the group consisting of telephones, microphones, audio files, audio streams, radio transceiver audio stream, and cell phone audio.

3. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the words are divided and then the audio streams are split.

4. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein a chronological voice log is formed and is comprised of events and is called a Multi-Voice Log created from the system.

5. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein a non-verbal software command set is formed as part of the Multi-Voice Log that represents status and provides control of an output viewer that is a representation of the time and status occurrences of a human conversation including commands:

start meeting, stop meeting, recognize user, recognize group, pause meeting, print meeting, index (item), start mute, stop mute, start recognize, stop recognize, on record, off record, play voice reference, display name, list-corrected, list-uncorrected, mark-corrected.

6. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein an event contains audio, text, transcript protocol control, status, specific speaker information, and indexing.

7. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein a log file of indexed events called a Multi-Voice Log as provided and provides control for replay information flow.

8. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein a single compressed file that specifically includes a Multi-Voice Log is provided, also called a Multi-Voice-log Compressed or .MVC file.

9. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein an accuracy measurement rating is provided that is a combination of computation time of a speech recognition program to determine a spoken word without error.