Management of voice commands for devices in a cloud computing environment

• US 9,472,192 B2
• Filed: 08/24/2015
• Issued: 10/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ding, Chandler F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Augustin, Marcellus
• Application Number:
  US14/834,212
• Publication Number:
  US 20160098996A1
• Time in Patent Office: 421 Days
• Field of Search: 704 2- 9, 704203-277
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/22 Interactive procedures; Man-machine interfaces

Abstract

Provided is a lightweight computational device that is configured to be in communication with a cloud both directly and via a smart computational device. The lightweight computational device receives a voice command from a user, wherein the lightweight computational device does not have adequate processing power to convert the voice command to a text command. The voice command is transmitted from the lightweight computational device to a smart computational device, wherein the smart computational device uses voice recognition to convert the voice command to a text command in the smart computational device, and transmits the text command for being processed by that cloud that provides at least one of voice recognition service and other services. The lightweight computational device receives a data response for the user from the cloud, via the smart computational device, based on the other services provided by the cloud.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

configuring a first computational device to be in communication with a cloud both directly and via a second computational device;

receiving, by the first computational device, a voice command from a user, wherein the first computational device does not have adequate processing power to convert the voice command to a text command;

transmitting, by the first computational device to the second computational device, the voice command, wherein the second computational device uses voice recognition to convert the voice command to a text command in the second computational device, and then transmits the text command to the cloud for processing, wherein the cloud provides at least one of voice recognition service and other services;

receiving, by the first computational device via the second computational device, a data response for the user from the cloud, based on the other services provided by the cloud;

receiving, by the first computational device, another voice command from the user;

transmitting, by the first computational device directly to the cloud, the other voice command, wherein the other voice command is converted to another text command in the cloud via the voice recognition services, wherein one or more of the other services provided by the cloud are used to generate another data response by executing the other text command; and

receiving, by the first computational device directly from the cloud, the other data response.

2. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

using, the other services provided by the cloud to generate the data response by executing the text command received from the second computational device; and

transmitting, by the cloud, the data response to the second computational device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the cloud is comprised of one or more computational devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first computational device is an in-car voice interaction system; and

the second computational device is a smartphone that interacts with the cloud via a wireless communications protocol.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein computational devices that provide the at least one of voice recognition services and the other services in the cloud have a relatively greater processing power than the first computational device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first computational device is a lightweight computational device, and wherein the second computational device is a smart computational device that has relatively greater processing power than the lightweight computational device.

7. A first computational device, comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by the processor to cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising;

configuring the first computational device to be in communication with a cloud both directly and via a second computational device;

receiving, by the first computational device, a voice command from a user, wherein the first computational device does not have adequate processing power to convert the voice command to a text command;

transmitting, by the first computational device to the second computational device, the voice command, wherein the second computational device uses voice recognition to convert the voice command to a text command in the second computational device, and then transmits the text command to the cloud for processing, wherein the cloud provides at least one of voice recognition service and other services;

receiving, by the first computational device via the second computational device, a data response for the user from the cloud, based on the other services provided by the cloud;

receiving, by the first computational device, another voice command from the user;

transmitting, by the first computational device directly to the cloud, the other voice command, wherein the other voice command is converted to another text command in the cloud via the voice recognition services, wherein one or more of the other services provided by the cloud are used to generate another data response by executing the other text command; and

receiving, by the first computational device directly from the cloud, the other data response.

8. The first computational device of claim 7, the operations further comprising:

using, the other services provided by the cloud to generate the data response by executing the text command received from the second computational device; and

transmitting, by the cloud, the data response to the second computational device.

9. The first computational device of claim 7, wherein:

the cloud is comprised of one or more computational devices.

10. The first computational device of claim 7, wherein:

the first computational device is an in-car voice interaction system; and

the second computational device is a smartphone that interacts with the cloud via a wireless communications protocol.

11. The first computational device of claim 7, wherein computational devices that provide the at least one of voice recognition services and the other services in the cloud have a relatively greater processing power than the first computational device.

12. The first computational device of claim 7, wherein the first computational device is a lightweight computational device, and wherein the second computational device is a smart computational device that has relatively greater processing power than the lightweight computational device.

13. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor included in a first computational device to cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

configuring the first computational device to be in communication with a cloud both directly and via a second computational device;

receiving, by the first computational device, a voice command from a user, wherein the first computational device does not have adequate processing power to convert the voice command to a text command;

transmitting, by the first computational device to the second computational device, the voice command, wherein the second computational device uses voice recognition to convert the voice command to a text command in the second computational device, and then transmits the text command to the cloud for processing, wherein the cloud provides at least one of voice recognition service and other services;

receiving, by the first computational device via the second computational device, a data response for the user from the cloud, based on the other services provided by the cloud;

receiving, by the first computational device, another voice command from the user;

transmitting, by the first computational device directly to the cloud, the other voice command, wherein the other voice command is converted to another text command in the cloud via the voice recognition services, wherein one or more of the other services provided by the cloud are used to generate another data response by executing the other text command; and

receiving, by the first computational device directly from the cloud, the other data response.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the operations performed by the processor further comprises:

using, the other services provided by the cloud to generate the data response by executing the text command received from the second computational device; and

transmitting, by the cloud, the data response to the second computational device.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

the cloud is comprised of one or more computational devices.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

the first computational device is an in-car voice interaction system; and

the second computational device is a smartphone that interacts with the cloud via a wireless communications protocol.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein computational devices that provide the at least one of voice recognition services and the other services in the cloud have a relatively greater processing power than the first computational device.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the first computational device is a lightweight computational device, and wherein the second computational device is a smart computational device that has relatively greater processing power than the lightweight computational device.