Abstract: In a sinusoidal audio encoder it is known to use different time scales for analyzing different parts of the frequency spectrum. In prior art encoders sub-band filtering is used to split the input signal into a number of sub bands. By splitting the input signal into sub-bands, it can happen that a signal component at the boundary of two sub-bands results in a representation in both sub-band signals. This double representation of signal components can lead to several problems when coding these components. According to the present invention it is proposed to use preventing means (46, 48, 58, 68; 88, 92, 96) to avoid signal components to have multiple representations.

Abstract: A subscriber unit for use with a program guide selection system is described. The program guide selection system provides program guide information which is communicated over a communication network and includes operating characteristics of a communication system and selection codes which are associated with the operating characteristics of the communication system.

Abstract: An interactive voice response unit which provides beneficial operation by including means to handle unconstrained input such as natural speech and to allow barge-in includes a prompter, a recognizer of speech signals, a meaningful phrase detector and classifier, and a turn-taking module, all under control of a dialog manager. In the course of listening to user input while outputting a voiced message, the voice response unit processes the received signal and ascertains whether it is receiving an utterance that is intended to interrupt the prompt, or merely noise or an utterance that is not meant to be used by the arrangement. The unit is sensitive to the speed and context of the speech provided by the user and is thus able to distinguish between a situation where a speaker is merely pausing and a situation where a speaker is done speaking.

Abstract: A pair of sensors are used for detecting an air pressure change signal within an ear of a person caused by the person's initiating action (thought, movement, biological function and/or speech). One of the microphones is placed at least partially within an ear of the person and the other is placed adjacent to and external to the ear, to produce two electrical signals, respectively corresponding to internally detected and to externally detected changes in air pressure. Comparison of the unmodified signal strength difference between these two signals is used to distinguish an initiating action component of each signal from an external source component of each signal. The electrical signals are processed to produce an output signal corresponding to the initiating action, which signal is then recognized by a neural network or speech recognizer, and used for control or communication.

Abstract: A system is disclosed for playing prerecorded audio encoded in a fault tolerant manner as a series of infra-red ink dots printed along with a photographic image using an ink jet printing system, the system comprising an infra-red scanner for scanning the infra-red (IR) form of the prerecorded audio; a processor interconnected to the IR scanner for decoding the scanned audio encoding to produce a corresponding audio signal; and an audio emitter interconnected to the processor for emitting or playing the corresponding audio signal on demand. The encoding can include Reed-Solomon encoding of the prerecorded audio and can comprise an array of infra-red ink dots which are high frequency modulated to aid scanning. The system can include a wand-like arm having a slot through which the photograph is inserted.

Abstract: A method and apparatus utilizes a personal speech recognition system to enable data retrieval assistance operators to retrieve customer requested information from an information database based upon a voiced inquiry by the operator. Instead of requiring an operator to interpret a calling customer's request and communicate the same to a computer via a number of keyboard strokes, the live operator may submit the same or equivalent inquiry via a voice utterance that is recognized by the searching computer as a searchable inquiry by a speech recognition system, which is preferably trained to recognize the particular voice of the live operator. Only the voice of the live operator needs to be identified by the voice recognition unit, and the incorporation of the voice recognition technology into the system is thus transparent to the requesting customer.

Abstract: The invention provides a perceptual audio signal compression system and method. One aspect of the invention described herein includes transforming the signal into a plurality of bi-orthogonal modified discrete cosine transform (BMDCT) frequency coefficients using a bi-orthogonal modified discrete cosine transform; quantizing the BMDCT frequency coefficients to produce a set of integer numbers which represent the BMDCT frequency coefficients; and encoding the set of integer numbers to lower the number of bits required to represent the BMDCT frequency coefficients.

Abstract: Reducing mismatch between HMMs trained with clean speech and speech signals recorded under background noise can be approached by distribution adaptation using parallel model combination (PMC). Accurate PMC has no closed-form expression, therefore simplification assumptions must be made in implementation. Under a new log-max assumption, adaptation formula for log-spectral parameters are presented, both for static and dynamic parameters.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method for detecting a voice presence/absence state of a frame which is obtained by dividing a voice signal into frames, comprising steps of: dividing the frame into sub-frames; calculating a physical amount of the voice signal energy in each sub-frame; and determining whether the frame is in a voice presence state or a voice absence state on the basis of a degree of variation of energy among multiple adjoining pairs of the sub-frames.

Abstract: A method for calculating a postfilter frequency response for filtering digitally processed speech, the method comprising identifying at least one format of a speech spectrum of the digitally processed speech; and normalizing points of the speech spectrum with respect to an identified format.

Abstract: In a text-to-speech conversion system, the intonation of a word is controlled by modifying a point pitch pattern of the word. The modification is made in relation to a pitch slope line joining the first point pitch to the last point pitch of the word, these two point pitches being left invariant. Alternatively, the modification is made in relation to a typical speech pitch, which is left invariant. The modification may also be made by classifying the point pitches as high and low, and applying separate shifts to the high and low pitches. These methods avoid the generation of extremely high or low pitches, and avoid the unwanted alteration of the average pitch level.

Abstract: A method for speech enabling labeless controls in an existing graphical user interface can comprise the steps of: identifying controls in a window contained in the graphical user interface; testing each identified control for an associated label; for each identified control having an associated label, adding the associated label to an active grammar of a speech recognition system; for each identified control not having an associated label, creating a label based upon an object property of a contextually relevant user interface object; and, further adding each created label to the active grammar. In testing each identified control for an associated label, an accessibility interface query can be applied to each identified control in the window. In addition, in creating the label, each contextually relevant object can be searched for an object property descriptive of the identified control not having an associated label.

Abstract: An electronic financial accounting system for tracking financial transactions, applying electronic coupons, and facilitating updating of financial records, includes a financial record keeping unit having ports for battery power, hardwire inputting and outputting of data, and infrared transfer of data. Multiple functional keys and a scroll key are used for controlling functions displayed on a display screen. One of the functional keys being an update key wherein stored financial records of a financial record keeping unit are compared to financial records of an input source for identification of financial records recorded in the input unit since a last update of said stored financial records. The unit is designed to interact with other machines such as home computers and cash registers for automatically debiting accounts, tracking and updating financial records, and automatically applying electronic coupons to purchases.

Abstract: Efficiently encoded signals wherein the compression ration can be high without a corresponding degradation of signal quality. The range of values of subband-based signal components for quantization to zero, to which a short codelength is given, is set so as to be larger. Consequently the ratio of the subband-based signal components quantized to values of a shorter codelength will become higher than if the subband-based signal components are quantized in such a manner as to minimize the total quantization error energy in each frequency band.

Abstract: A method, in accordance with the present invention, which may be implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform steps for providing emotions for a conversational system, includes representing each of a plurality of emotions as an entity. A level of each emotion is updated responsive either user stimuli or internal stimuli or both. When a threshold level is achieved for each emotion, the user stimuli and internal stimuli are reacted to by notifying components subscribing to each emotion to take appropriate action.

Abstract: A voice controlled surgical suite is provided for controlling a plurality of surgical apparatus by a single human. The system includes a voice recognition device adapted to recognize a plurality of predetermined speech commands from a single human and to generate a corresponding set of command output signals. A surgical table is operatively connected with the voice recognition device and is responsive to a first set of the command output signals to initiate selected surgical table movements. A surgical lighthead is similarly connected with the voice recognition system and is responsive to a second set of the command output signals to initiate selected surgical lighthead operations. In addition, surgical camera and task light devices are included in the system and are responsive to fourth and third sets of command output signals, respectively, generated by the voice recognition device to initiate selected surgical camera and surgical task light operations.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for determining parameters for coupling of channels in a digital audio encoder. A frequency range of two audio channels is coupled together in a coupling channel, and a systematic method of determining optimum coupling parameters is employed. Sub-bands of the channels are processed individually, and a measure of the power of each sub-band is used to determine a coupling coefficient generation scheme for each individual sub-band. Adjacent ones of the sub-bands using the same coupling scheme are combined to form bands in the coupling channel, which dictate the generation of the coupling coordinates for the audio channels. The arrangement of the sub-bands in bands also facilitates the generation of phase flags for each band, on the basis of the coupling scheme used in the band.

Abstract: A system transmits two audio services, each related to a different video program, within the bandwidth typically reserved for a single audio channel. Each audio service may be processed as a mono, stereo or encrypted signal prior to modulation onto its own audio carrier. The two audio carriers are summed together and applied to an RF modulator. The frequencies of the audio carriers are selected to ensure that the quality of the video program is not degraded, the video channel mask bandwidth is not exceeded and interference from the unselected audio carrier is negligible.

Abstract: An apparatus for quantizing the phase of a speech signal using a perceptual weighting function and a method therefor are provided. The apparatus for quantizing the phase of a speech signal using a perceptual weighting function includes a phase information extractor for obtaining the phase of each harmonic frequency in a speech signal represented by the discrete sum of periodic signals having different harmonic frequency components, a quantization noise shaping unit for controlling the amount of quantization noise of each phase using a perceptual weighting function, which makes quantization noise less than a predetermined just noticeable difference (JND) of the phase, a quantization bit assigner for assigning quantization bits to each phase according to the controlled amount of quantization noise, and a scalar quantizer for quantizing each phase by the assigned quantization bits. It is possible to improve the quality of encoded speech by quantizing phase information using a perceptual weighting function.

Abstract: A method for permitting a user to create a plurality of outbound communication paths to a plurality of communication devices from a unified messaging system, the creating the plurality of the outbound communication paths being performed responsive to verbal input from a user through a telephone. The method includes receiving at the unified messaging system the verbal input from the user through the telephone. There is also included recognizing an action word from the verbal input which includes an action word and called party identity or contacting data. An calendar database for the callee, external to the caller's unified messaging system, is accessed via a network to determine whether a calendar entry therein temporally overlaps a time of the verbal command creating the end-to-end connection. The ascertained availability information may be provided to the caller for input whether to contact the callee.