CLIENT-SIDE PERSONAL VOICE WEB NAVIGATION

• US 20150277846A1
• Filed: 03/31/2014
• Published: 10/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Reneris, Kenneth, Morris, Charles, Yen, Cheng-Yi, Liddell, Derek, Rindle, Dieter, Surti, Tanvi, Stephens, Michael, Tjung, Eka
• Granted Patent: US 9,547,468 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A system running on a mobile device such as a smartphone is configured to expose a user interface (UI) to enable a user to specify web pages that can be pinned to a start screen of the device. Once pinned, the user may launch a web page by voice command from any location on the UI or from within any experience that is currently being supported on the device. Thus, the user can be on a call with a friend talking about a new video game and then use a voice command to launch a web browser application on the mobile device that navigates to a pinned web page having information about the game'"'"'s release date. Web pages can be readily pinned and unpinned from the start screen through the UI. When a web page is unpinned from the start screen, the system disables voice web navigation for it.

Claims

1. A method performed on a mobile device with a user interface (UI) and a web browser application, the mobile device having access to a network including one of Wi-Fi network or mobile operator network, comprising:

receiving an input from a user to navigate to a web page on the web browser;

exposing a control for enabling the user to pin the web page to a start screen that is supported on the UI;

pinning the selected web page to the start screen responsively to user manipulation of the control;

displaying a token on the start screen to represent the pinned web page, the displayed token including a text-based name; and

processing a voice command from the user to navigate to the pinned web page on the web browser using voice web navigation, the voice command using a syntax that includes the text-based name of the token displayed on the start screen.

2. The method of claim 1 further including configuring the mobile device so that the UI is supported on a touchscreen.

3. The method of claim 1 further including exposing a second control for enabling the user to unpin the web page from the start screen.

4. The method of claim 3 further including disabling voice web navigation when the web page is unpinned from the start screen.

5. The method of claim 1 further including using a name for the displayed token that is provided by an application developer associated with the web page or using a name for the displayed token that is selected by the user.

6. The method of claim 1 further including parsing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) associated with the web page to select a name of the displayed token.

7. The method of claim 1 further including launching a virtual personal assistant, the virtual personal assistant being adapted for interacting with the user by voice command and for triggering actions responsively to the voice command.

8. The method of claim 1 further including enabling the user to opt-in for voice web navigation only for web pages that are pinned to the start screen.

9. A mobile device having connectivity to a network including one of Wi-Fi network or mobile operator network, comprising:

one or more processors;

a display that supports a user interface (UI) for conveying information to a user of the mobile device; and

a memory device storing computer-readable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, perform a method comprising the steps of;

providing a start screen on the UI, the start screen including one or more tiles that represent user experiences accessible on the mobile device,

displaying one or more tokens as tiles in the start screen, each token being associated with respective web pages and each token having a unique name,

exposing a virtual personal assistant being adapted for interacting with the user by voice command and for triggering navigation to a user-selected web page responsively to the voice command, the voice command using a syntax that includes the unique name of the token associated with the user-selected web page, and

launching a web browser on the mobile device and displaying the user-selected web page responsively to the voice command.

10. The mobile device of claim 9 further including configuring the virtual personal assistant to be launched from within any user experience currently being supported on the mobile device.

11. The mobile device of claim 9 further including providing controls for the user to pin and unpin web pages to the start screen, pinned web pages having associated displayed tokens on the start screen and unpinned web pages having voice command navigation capabilities disabled.

12. The mobile device of claim 9 further including directly navigating to the selected web page upon voice command without initiating an intermediate search on a remote service.

13. The mobile device of claim 9 further including communicating with an external service provider to receive data used by the virtual personal assistant.

14. The mobile device of claim 13 further including receiving a unique name for one or more of the displayed tokens from the external service provider, the external service provider parsing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) associated with the selected web page to generate the unique name.

15. The mobile device of claim 9 further including converting portions of text on the user-selected page to speech and playing the speech on an audio endpoint that is operatively coupled to the mobile device.

16. The mobile device of claim 9 further including configuring the virtual personal assistant to utilize data from internal sources instantiated on the mobile device, the data including at least geolocation data.

17. A method for providing a service to a mobile device over a network, comprising:

receiving, from a system executing on the mobile device, a request for a unique name for a token associated with a web page, the token being displayed by the mobile device on a start screen shown on a user interface, the token indicating that the web page is pinned to the start screen;

if a unique name is not specified by a developer of the web page, then parsing a URL associated with the web page to select a unique name, otherwise selecting the specified name as the unique name; and

in response to the request, sending the unique name over the network to the mobile device.

18. The method of claim 17 in which the system executing on the mobile device includes a virtual personal assistant, the virtual personal assistant including at least one functionality selected from a group consisting of interacting with the user using voice commands, performing tasks, providing services, gathering information, or operating the mobile device.

19. The method of claim 17 further including receiving a request for information from the system and providing information responsive to the request.

20. The method of claim 17 further including performing code execution remotely from the mobile device to implement one or more functionalities supported by the system executing on the mobile device.