Method, system, and apparatus for a voice markup language interpreter and voice browser

• US 7,925,512 B2
• Filed: 05/19/2004
• Issued: 04/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Muschett, Brien H., Cross, Charles W. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Yen; Eric
• Application Number:
  US10/849,642
• Publication Number:
  US 20050261908A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,519 Days
• Field of Search: 704270-275
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

The present invention can include a method of allocating an interpreter module within an application program. The application program can create one or more interpreter module instances. The method also can include updating a property descriptor of the interpreter module instance and directing the interpreter module instance to allocate speech and audio resources. Content then can be loaded into the interpreter module instance and run.

Claims

1. A method of providing an application, which presents a visual interface to a human user, without voice processing functionality with access to voice processing functionality that is provided by at least one system that comprises at least one speech resource and/or at least one audio resource via a voice markup language interpreter the method comprising:

receiving, at the voice markup language interpreter, a first request from the application to create a first interpreter instance, the first request specifying a first property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with first interpreter instance;

creating the first interpreter instance;

receiving, at the voice markup language interpreter, a second request from the application to create a second interpreter instance, the second request specifying a second property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with the second interpreter instance;

creating the second interpreter instance so that the first interpreter instance and second interpreter instance run concurrently;

receiving, at the first interpreter instance, voice markup content from the application; and

in response to receiving the voice markup content, loading input from the application into the at least one speech resource and/or the at least one audio resource.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring event listeners for the first interpreter instance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a visual browser and the interpreter provides voice processing functionality for the visual browser.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a voice server and the interpreter is a voice browser.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said loading step comprises allocating a text-to-speech component, an automatic speech recognition component, and/or an audio processing subsystem, wherein the audio processing subsystem is distinct from the text-to-speech component and the automatic speech recognition component.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the audio processing subsystem records audio for the automatic speech recognition component and plays audio for the text-to-speech component.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the audio processing subsystem further records user speech received via a communications link.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a threading policy within the application for operation of the first and second interpreter instances, wherein each of the first and second interpreter instances operates asynchronously from the other.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the interpreter receives the first and second requests from the application via an application programming interface (API) and wherein the method further comprises:

detecting by the application a need for voice processing functionality; and

in response to detecting the need, sending the first request via the API.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one system that comprises at least one speech resource and/or at least one audio resource comprises at least one speech resource.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one system that comprises at least one speech resource and/or at least one audio resource comprises at least one audio resource.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a browser.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the browser is a visual browser.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the browser is a multimodal browser.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the application directly presents the visual interface to the human user.

16. At least one tangible computer readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on a computer system, perform a method of providing an application, which presents a visual interface to a human user, without voice processing functionality with access to voice processing functionality that is provided by at least one speech resource and at least one audio resource via a voice markup language interpreter the method comprising:

receiving, at the voice markup language interpreter, a first request from the application to create a first interpreter instance, the first request specifying a first property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with first interpreter instance;

creating the first interpreter instance;

receiving, at the voice markup language interpreter, a second request from the application to create a second interpreter instance, the second request specifying a second property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with the second interpreter instance;

creating the second interpreter instance so that the first interpreter instance and second interpreter instance run concurrently;

receiving, at the first interpreter instance, voice markup content from the application; and

in response to receiving the voice markup content, loading input from the application the at least one speech resource and/or the at least one audio resource.

17. A computer, having an application, which presents a visual interface to a human user, executing thereon, the computer comprising:

at least one memory that stores computer-executable instructions for a voice markup language interpreter; and

at least one processor, coupled to the at least one memory, that executes the computer-executable instructions for the voice markup language interpreter to;

receive, at the voice markup language interpreter, a first request from the application to create a first interpreter instance, the first request specifying a first property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with first interpreter instance;

creating the first interpreter instance;

receive, at the voice markup language interpreter, a second request from the application to create a second interpreter instance, the second request specifying a second property descriptor indicative of a desired listening mode and language for interacting with the second interpreter instance;

create the second interpreter instance so that the first interpreter instance and second interpreter instance run concurrently;

receive, at the first interpreter instance, voice markup content from the application; and

in response to receiving the voice markup content, load input from the application into at least one speech resource and/or at least one audio resource.