Providing speech recognition data to a speech enabled device when providing a new entry that is selectable via a speech recognition interface of the device

• US 8,010,345 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2007
• Issued: 08/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Alewine, Neal J., Badt, Daniel E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo; Huyen X.
• Application Number:
  US11/958,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20090157392A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,351 Days
• Field of Search: 704/251, 704/231, 704/243, 704/244, 704/250, 704/255, 704/256, 704/270.1, 704/235, 704/257, 704/201, 370/352
• US Class Current: 704/201
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/183 using context dependencies, e.g. language models

Abstract

The present invention discloses a solution for providing a phonetic representation for a content item along with a content item delivered to a speech enabled computing device. The phonetic representation can be specified in a manner that enables it to be added to a speech recognition grammar of the speech enabled computing device. Thus, the device can recognize speech commands using the newly added phonetic representation that involve the content item. Current implementations of speech recognition systems of this type rely internal generation of speech recognition data that is added to the speech recognition grammar. Generation of speech recognition data can, however, be resource intensive, which can be particularly problematic when the speech enabled device is resource limited. The disclosed solution offloads the task of providing the speech recognition data to an external device, such as a relatively resource rich server or a desktop device.

Claims

1. A method for integrating new content into a speech enabled device comprising:

transmitting, from a speech enabled device comprising software and hardware, a request for at least one content item from a source external to the speech enabled device;

the source external to the speech enabled device determining an identifier for the content item, at a computing device comprising hardware and software, an identifier for the content item, dynamically creating speech recognition data for the identifier if no pre-existing speech recognition data for the identifier exists, and transmitting the content item and the dynamically created speech recognition data to the speech enabled device;

receiving, at the speech enabled device, the requested content item along with the speech recognition data associated with the content item;

adding the received speech recognition data to a speech recognition grammar of the speech enabled device; and

adding the content item to a data store of the speech enabled device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving speech input;

speech recognizing, at the speech enabled device, the received speech input using the speech recognition grammar, wherein results from the speech recognizing step are derived from the added speech recognition data and indicate that an operation related to the content item is to be performed; and

executing programmatic action involving the content item.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the speech enabled device is a music playing device, and wherein the content item is a digitally encoded song.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of the content item, where the transmitting step is performed responsive to the receiving of the user selection, wherein said user selection explicitly requests the content item but fails to explicitly request the speech recognition data for the content item, which is provided automatically by a content source remote from the speech enabled device along with the content item.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the source is a Web server, said method further comprising:

connecting the speech enabled device to the Web server over a network;

presenting a set of available content of a Web site managed by the Web server via an interface of the speech enabled device to a user of the speech enabled device;

receiving user input of a selection of the set of content, wherein the selection comprises the at least one content item; and

responsive to the user input, the speech enabled device performing the requesting step.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the source is a desktop computer, and wherein said speech enabled device is a portable computing device, said method further comprising:

connecting the speech enabled device to the desktop computer using a direct communication link, which is at least one of a serial link and a radio frequency link.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a computing device remote from the speech enabled device compiles the speech recognition grammar containing the added speech recognition data, wherein the compiled speech recognition grammar is conveyed in a digitally encoded form from the remote computing device to the speech enabled device, and wherein the speech enabled device thereafter stores the compiled speech recognition grammar in a local data store and performs speech recognition based on the compiled speech recognition grammar.

8. A method of providing content to a speech enabled device along with associated speech recognition data comprising:

receiving, at a computing device comprising hardware and software, a request for a content item from a remotely located speech enabled device;

the computing device determining an identifier for the content item;

identifying speech recognition data representing a recognition grammar entry for the identifier;

the computing device dynamically creating speech recognition data for the identifier if no speech recognition data is identified; and

the computing device conveying the content item and the identified or dynamically created speech recognition data to the speech enabled device.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

the computing device querying a data store containing a plurality of identifiers and associated speech recognition data entries; and

the computing device receiving said speech recognition data from the data store responsive to the querying step.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

compiling a speech recognition grammar comprising the identified speech recognition data, wherein said conveying step conveys the content item and said compiled speech recognition grammar to the speech enabled device.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

the computing device adding an entry to a data store external to the remotely located speech enabled device for the created speech recognition data and an associated entry for the identifier, wherein said added entry is utilized by the method to respond to future requests for the content item so that the dynamically creating step is unnecessary for these future requests.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

the computing device identifying a set of device specific parameters for the speech enabled device; and

the computing device formatting the speech recognition data in accordance with a speech grammar specification standard compatible with the device specific parameters.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

the computing device identifying a set of user specific parameters for a user of the speech enabled device, wherein said user specific parameters comprise speech characteristics of the associated user; and

the computing device customizing the speech recognition data during the dynamically creating step in accordance with the speech characteristics of the associated user.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein a Web server performs said steps of claim 8 in accordance with a set of programmatic instructions executed by the Web server that are stored in a non-transitory machine readable storage medium, and wherein said speech enabled device is a client communicating with the Web server over a network, wherein said content item is one of a plurality of user selectable content items available for downloading to said client.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein said steps of claim 8 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program stored in a non-transitory computer readable storage media, said computer programming having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

16. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer useable storage medium having computer usable program embodied therewith, wherein the computer usable program code when executed on a computing device comprising hardware and software causes the computing device to:

receive, at the computing device comprising hardware and software, a request for a content item from a remotely located speech enabled device;

determine, at the computing device, an identifier for the content item;

identify, at the computing device, speech recognition data representing a recognition grammar entry for the identifier;

dynamically create, at the computing device, speech recognition data for the identifier if no speech recognition data is identified; and

conveying, at the computing device, the content item and the identified or dynamically created speech recognition data to the speech enabled device.