Methods for using simultaneous speech inputs to determine an electronic competitive challenge winner

• US 9,789,394 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2016
• Issued: 10/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Human Differential Intelligence, LLC
• Original Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
• Inventors: Gross, John Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): McCulloch, Jr., William H
• Application Number:
  US15/268,309
• Publication Number:
  US 20170001104A1
• Time in Patent Office: 396 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/215 comprising means for detecting acoustic signals, e.g. using a microphone
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/332 using wireless networks, e.g. cellular phone networks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/338 using television networks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/424 involving acoustic input signals, e.g. by using the results of pitch or rhythm extraction or voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/44 involving timing of operations, e.g. performing an action within a time slot
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/52 involving aspects of the displayed game scene
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/795 for finding other players; for building a team; for providing a buddy list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/80 Special adaptations for executing a specific game genre or game mode
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/847 Cooperative playing, e.g. requiring coordinated actions from several players to achieve a common goal
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2009/0661 Making a drawing
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/558 by assessing the players' skills or ranking
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/572 Communication between players during game play of non game information, e.g. e-mail, chat, file transfer, streaming of audio and streaming of video
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/638 according to the timing of operation or a time limit
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8094 Unusual game types, e.g. virtual cooking
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 3/0423 Word games, e.g. scrabble electric A63F3/0421; two-dimensional puzzles with rotating rings or discs A63F9/0811, A63F9/0819
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2133 : Verifying human interaction, e.g., Captcha
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3241 : Security aspects of a gaming system, e.g. detecting cheating, device integrity, surveillance computer security G06F21/00

Abstract

An electronic competitive challenge is disclosed. A prompt is presented to a group of participants. A computer system with a speech recognition module listens for multiple, simultaneous speech utterances from the group of participants. Each speech utterance is decoded, assigned a priority or timing, and associated with one of the participants. Based on the priority or timing, the content of the utterances, and a predefined rule set, one of the participants is identified as the competitive challenge winner. The prompt may be an electronic image, and the utterances may relate to a concept associated with or reflected in the image. The image may be drawn by a human and presented in a visual sequence that tracks its original creation, or it may be an image that is automatically degraded using image processing to disguise its content.

Claims

1. An automated method of using decoded speech inputs to determine an electronic competitive challenge winner, comprising:

presenting a prompt using a first computing system;

listening for multiple, simultaneous speech utterances from a plurality of competitive challenge participants on at least one channel with a speech recognition module running on the first computing system or a second computing system in communication with the first computing system;

decoding the speech utterances using the speech recognition module to create one or more decoded speech utterances and automatically associating each of the decoded speech utterances with one of the plurality of contest participants;

determining a priority or a relative time of utterance for each of the one or more decoded speech utterances;

based on a predefined rule set, content of the one or more decoded speech utterances, and the priority or the relative time of utterance for each of the one or more decoded speech utterances, identifying one of the plurality of participants as the winner; and

informing the plurality of participants of the winner using the first computing system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

soliciting a calibration set of speech utterances from the plurality of participants; and

based on the calibration set of speech utterances, creating a set of voice prints or templates to distinguish between each of the plurality of participants.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said creating further comprises examining the calibration set of speech utterances for prosodic features.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said creating further comprises compensating for background noise.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the predefined rule set includes one or more words or phrases associated with a correct answer to the prompt.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said identifying comprises matching content of the one or more decoded speech utterances with the one or more phrases associated with the correct answer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the group of participants is distributed amongst different physical locations.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the at least one communication channel comprises multiple communication channels, each of the multiple communication channels being associated with one of the different physical locations.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein dedicated speech recognition resources are allocated to each of the multiple communication channels using the speech recognition module.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the prompt is an electronic image.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said presenting comprises presenting the electronic image in a graphical user interface of the first computing system.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the electronic image is presented in a visual sequence that substantially tracks a rendering of such image by a human composer.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the predefined rule set identifies a concept associated with the electronic image.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the predefined rule set comprises one or more words associated with the concept.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising, prior to said presenting, generating different degraded versions of the electronic image automatically by performing image processing on the electronic image.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the image processing comprises at least one of altering a pixelation, noise, or resolution of the electronic image such that the concept is less detectable in the different degraded versions.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said presenting comprises presenting the electronic image in a visual sequence that varies using the different degraded versions of the electronic image, so that content is gradually revealed for the electronic image during a first time period.