Multi-modal input on an electronic device

• US 9,031,830 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2010
• Issued: 05/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Ballinger, Brandon M., Schalkwyk, Johan, Cohen, Michael H., Byrne, William J., Hafsteinsson, Gudmundur, LeBeau, Michael J.
• Primary Examiner(s): ADESANYA, OLUJIMI A
• Application Number:
  US12/977,003
• Publication Number:
  US 20110153325A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,602 Days
• Field of Search: 704/8, 704/10, 704/251, 704/257
• US Class Current: 704/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/005 Language recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/183 using context dependencies, e.g. language models
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/197 Probabilistic grammars, e.g. word n-grams
• 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 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

A computer-implemented input-method editor process includes receiving a request from a user for an application-independent input method editor having written and spoken input capabilities, identifying that the user is about to provide spoken input to the application-independent input method editor, and receiving a spoken input from the user. The spoken input corresponds to input to an application and is converted to text that represents the spoken input. The text is provided as input to the application.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented input-method editor process comprising:

receiving a request from a user of an electronic device for an application-independent input method editor having written and spoken input capabilities, wherein the application-independent input method editor is configured to receive input for a plurality of applications executable by the electronic device;

identifying that the user is about to provide spoken input to the application-independent input method editor;

receiving a spoken input from the user, wherein the spoken input corresponds to an input to an application from the plurality of applications;

identifying, with the electronic device, an application from the plurality of applications to which the spoken input was addressed by (i) identifying an application type for the application that identifies an application category for the application, wherein each application category is capable of including a plurality of applications, and (ii) matching one or more utterances in the spoken input to one or more stored terms that are associated with the application type;

providing the spoken input and information indicating the application type to a server, that is remote form the electronic device and includes a speech recognition system configured to access one or more language models for recognizing text based on the spoken input and the information indicating the application type;

receiving text from the remote server, wherein the text represents a translation of the spoken input;

selecting an application from the plurality of applications to receive the text, based on the identifying of the application; and

providing the text as the input to the application.

2. The process of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting a list of candidates of text representing the spoken input to the user; and

receiving a selection from the user of a candidate from the list;

wherein providing the text to the application as user input comprises providing the selection of the candidate from the list to the application.

3. The process of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a written input from the user;

determining a language of the written input; and

providing a language indicator to the remote server based on the determined language indicating the language of the spoken input.

4. The process of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a context indicator to the remote server such that the speech recognition system can select a language model from a plurality of language models based on the context indicator, where the context indicator specifies the context in which the user input is received.

5. The process of claim 4, wherein the context indicator specifies a webpage in which the user input is received.

6. The process of claim 4, wherein the context indicator specifies an application in which the user input is received.

7. The process of claim 4, wherein the context indicator specifies a web form in which the user input is received.

8. The process of claim 7, wherein the context indicator further specifies a field in the web form in which the user input is received.

9. The process of claim 8, wherein the context indicator further specifies metadata associated with the field in the web form.

10. The process of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a written input from the user in a first writing system; and

presenting one or more candidates in a second writing system based on the written input in the first writing system.

11. The process of claim 10, wherein the first writing system is Pinyin and the second writing system is Hanzi.

12. The process of claim 1, further comprising:

performing intermediate processing on the received spoken input;

wherein providing the spoken input to a remote server comprises providing the intermediately processed spoken input to the remote server.

13. A system comprising:

a data processing apparatus; and

a data store coupled to the data processing apparatus, in which is stored;

an application-independent input method editor configured to receive input for a plurality of applications executable by an electronic device, the application-independent input method editor operable to;

receive spoken input from a user of the electronic device in an application of the plurality of applications;

identify an application from the plurality of applications to which the spoken input was addressed by (i) identifying an application type for the application that identifies an application category for the application, wherein each application category is capable of including a plurality of applications, and (ii) matching one or more utterances in the spoken input to one or more stored terms that are associated with the application type;

provide the spoken input and information indicating the application type to a server that is remote from the electronic device and includes a speech recognition system configured to access one or more language models for recognizing text based on the spoken input and the information indicating the application type;

receive text from the remote server, wherein the text represents the spoken input;

select an application from the plurality of applications to receive the text, based on the identifying of the application; and

provide the text as input to the application.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the application-independent input method editor is further operable to:

receive a written input from the user;

determine a language of the written input; and

provide a language indicator to the remote server based on the determined language indicating the language of the spoken input.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the application-independent input method editor is further operable to:

provide a context indicator to the remote server such that the speech recognition system can select a language model from a plurality of language models based on the context indicator, where the context indicator specifies the context in which the user input is received.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the context indicator specifies an application from the plurality of applications in which the user input is received.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the application-independent input method editor is further operable to:

perform intermediate processing on the received spoken input;

wherein providing the spoken input to a remote server comprises providing the intermediately processed spoken input to the remote server.

18. A computer-readable storage device encoded with a computer program product, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receive spoken input from a user of an electronic device in an application of the plurality of applications;

identify an application from the plurality of applications to which the spoken input was addressed by (i) identifying an application type for the application that identifies an application category for the application, wherein each application category is capable of including a plurality of applications, and (ii) matching one or more utterances in the spoken input to one or more stored terms that are associated with the application type;

provide the spoken input and information indicating the application type to a server that is remote from the electronic device and includes a speech recognition system configured to access one or more language models for recognizing text based on the spoken input and the information indicating the application type;

receive text from the remote server, wherein the text represents the spoken input;

select an application from the plurality of applications to receive the text, based on the identifying of the application; and

provide the text as input to the application.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further operable to:

receive a written input from the user;

determine a language of the written input; and

provide a language indicator to the remote server based on the determined language indicating the language of the spoken input.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further operable to:

provide a context indicator to the remote server such that the speech recognition system can select a language model from a plurality of language models based on the context indicator, where the context indicator specifies the context in which the user input is received.

21. The computer-readable storage device of claim 20, wherein the context indicator specifies an application from the plurality of applications in which the user input is received.

22. The computer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further operable to:

perform intermediate processing on the received spoken input;

wherein providing the spoken input to a remote server comprises providing the intermediately processed spoken input to the remote server.