Interactive voice recognition and response over the internet

• US 8,126,719 B1
• Filed: 11/09/2010
• Issued: 02/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Pearson Education Incorporated (Pearson plc)
• Original Assignee: GlobalEnglish Corporation (Pearson plc)
• Inventors: Jochumson, Christopher S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lerner, Martin
• Application Number:
  US12/942,834
• Time in Patent Office: 476 Days
• Field of Search: 704/231, 704/235, 704/260, 704/270, 704/270.1, 704/275, 704/201, 704/258
• US Class Current: 704/270.1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/00 Speech recognition G10L17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/00 Speech or audio signals analysis-synthesis techniques for redundancy reduction, e.g. in vocoders; Coding or decoding of speech or audio signals, using source filter models or psychoacoustic analysis in musical instruments G10H
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/0018 Speech coding using phonetic or linguistical decoding of the source; Reconstruction using text-to-speech synthesis

Abstract

Methods and systems for handling speech recognition processing in effectively real-time, via the Internet, in order that users do not experience noticeable delays from the start until they receive responsive feedback. A user uses a client to access the Internet and a server supporting speech recognition processing. The user inputs speech to the client, which transmits the user speech to the server in approximate real-time. The server evaluates the user speech, and provides responsive feedback to the client, again, in approximate real-time, with minimum latency delays. The client upon receiving responsive feedback from the server, displays, or otherwise provides, the feedback to the user.

Claims

1. A system supporting speech recognition comprising:

two or more clients, each client comprising the capability to receive audio speech from a user, store the audio speech in one or more buffers in an uncompressed audio format, each buffer comprising a portion of the received audio speech, encode the stored audio speech in the one or more buffers before all of the audio speech is received, package the encoded audio speech into one or more packets to be transmitted over the Internet before all of the audio speech is received, and transmit a packet of encoded audio speech over the Internet before all of the audio speech is received;

a server, the server comprising the capability to receive packets of encoded audio speech from at least two clients, decode each of the packets of audio speech and store the resultant speech into one or more buffers for the respective client, and evaluate the resultant speech received from each of the at least two clients,

wherein the server further comprises the capability to transmit a response to a client, the response a result of the server'"'"'s evaluation of the resultant speech received from the client, and the server alters a processing time used to evaluate the resultant speech based on a value communicated between the client and the server, and

a client of the two or more clients further comprises the capability to receive the response from the server.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein based on a URL sent by the client, the server determines whether to expect speech data for processing from the client.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the response is in text format, and a client of the two or more clients comprises a text-to-speech engine which converts a text format response to audio data, and an audio output device that the client uses to output the audio data to a user.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the server further comprises two or more stored text format files, and the server selects a stored text format file to transmit to a client of the two or more clients as a result of the server'"'"'s evaluation of the resultant speech received from the client.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the server further comprises the capability to partition a stored text format file into two or more packets for the transmission over the Internet, and to transmit each packet over the Internet to a client.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein a client further comprises an audio output device, and the capability to receive the packets of text format, convert the packets of text format to audio data and play the audio data to a user.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more buffers comprises a linked list of buffers.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more buffers comprises at least two sets of a linked list of buffers.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more buffers comprises a predefined number of buffers.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the encoded audio speech is in a compressed format.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more packets are TCP packets.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the server, based on its evaluation of the resultant speech from a first client of the at least two clients, generates a textual response and sends the textual response to the first client over the Internet.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the value comprises at least one numerical value.

26. The system of claim 1 wherein the value comprises at least one numerical value.

14. A system supporting speech recognition comprising:

two or more clients, each client comprising the capability to receive audio speech from a user in an uncompressed audio format, encode the audio speech before all of the audio speech is received and storing the encoded speech in one or more buffers, package the encoded audio speech into one or more packets to be transmitted over the Internet before all of the audio speech is received, and transmit a packet of encoded audio speech over the Internet before all of the audio speech is received; and

a server, the server comprising the capability to receive packets of encoded audio speech from at least two clients, decode each of the packets of audio speech and store the resultant speech into one or more buffers for the respective client, and evaluate the resultant speech received from each of the at least two clients,

wherein the server further comprises the capability to transmit a response to a client, the response a result of the server'"'"'s evaluation of the resultant speech received from the client, and the server alters a processing time used to evaluate the resultant speech based on a value communicated between the client and the server, and

a client of the two or more clients further comprises the capability to receive the response from the server.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein based on a URL sent by the client, the server determines whether to expect speech data for processing from the client.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the response is in text format, and a client of the two or more clients comprises a text-to-speech engine which converts a text format response to audio data, and an audio output device that the client uses to output the audio data to a user.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein the server further comprises two or more stored text format files, and the server selects a stored text format file to transmit to a client of the two or more clients as a result of the server'"'"'s evaluation of the resultant speech received from the client.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the server further comprises the capability to partition a stored text format file into two or more packets for the transmission over the Internet, and to transmit each packet over the Internet to a client.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein a client further comprises an audio output device, and the capability to receive the packets of text format, convert the packets of text format to audio data and play the audio data to a user.

20. The system of claim 14 wherein the one or more buffers comprises a linked list of buffers.

21. The system of claim 14 wherein the one or more buffers comprises at least two sets of a linked list of buffers.

22. The system of claim 14 wherein the one or more buffers comprises a predefined number of buffers.

23. The system of claim 14 wherein the encoded audio speech is in a compressed format.

24. The system of claim 14 wherein the one or more packets are TCP packets.

25. The system of claim 14 wherein the server, based on its evaluation of the resultant speech from a first client of the at least two clients, generates a textual response and sends the textual response to the first client over the Internet.