Abstract: An image capture device is described having a remote photograph mode in which images can be captured without physical contact with the device. The device is activated by the user speaking a keyword. The image capturing device is arranged so that after being initialized in the remote capture mode of operation, it enters a standby state for a period of time in which it is unresponsive to utterances and, after a period of time sets itself into a listening state in which it can capture images in response to detecting spoken keywords.

Abstract: A voice activated camera is described which allows users to take remote photographs by speaking one or more keywords. In a preferred embodiment, a speech processing unit is provided which is arranged to detect extended periodic signals from a microphone of the camera. A control unit is also provided to control the taking of a photograph when such an extended periodic component is detected by the speech processing unit.

Abstract: A model generation unit (17) is provided. The model generation unit includes an alignment module (80) arranged to receive pairs of sequences of parameter frame vectors from a buffer (16) and to perform dynamic time warping of the parameter frame vectors to align corresponding parts of the pair of utterances. A consistency checking module (82) is provided to determine whether the aligned parameter frame vectors correspond to the same word. If this is the case the aligned parameter frame vectors are passed to a clustering module (84) which groups the parameter frame vectors into a number of clusters. Whilst clustering the parameter frame vectors, the clustering module (80) determines for each grouping an objective function calculating the best fit of a model to the clusters per degrees of freedom of that model.

Abstract: A speech recognition method and apparatus is disclosed in which outputs a confidence score indicative of the posterior probability of an utterance being correctly matched to a word model. The confidence score for the matching of an utterance to a word model is determined directly from the generated values indicative of the goodness of match between the utterance and stored word models utilizing the following equation: confidence = exp ? ( - 2 ? ? S ? ( x | w ) ) ? words ? exp ? ( 2 ? ? S ? ( x | w ) ) where S(x|w) is the match score for the correlation between a signal x and word w and ? is an experimentally determined constant.

Abstract: A speech processing apparatus and method are provided for processing an input speech signal to compensate for the effects of noise in the input speech signal. The method and apparatus divide the input speech signal into a plurality of sequential time frames and a set of spectral parameters are extracted for each time frame, which parameters are representative of the input signal during the time frame. The system then processes the input speech by scaling the parameters for each frame in dependence upon a measure of the signal to noise ratio for the input frame. In this way, the effects of additive noise on the input signal can be reduced.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided for detecting the presence of speech within an input speech signal. Speech is detected by treating the average frame energy of an input speech signal as a sampled signal and looking for modulations within the sampled signal that are characteristic of speech.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided for detecting the presence of speech within an input speech signal. Speech is detected by treating the average frame energy of an input speech signal as a sampled signal and looking for modulations within the sampled signal that are characteristic of speech.

Abstract: A model generation unit (17) is provided. The model generation unit includes an alignment module (80) arranged to receive pairs of sequences of parameter frame vectors from a buffer (16) and to perform dynamic time warping of the parameter frame vectors to align corresponding parts of the pair of utterances. A consistency checking module (82) is provided to determine whether the aligned parameter frame vectors correspond to the same word. If this is the case the aligned parameter frame vectors are passed to a clustering module (84) which groups the parameter frame vectors into a number of clusters. Whilst clustering the parameter frame vectors, the clustering module (80) determines for each grouping an objective function calculating the best fit of a model to the clusters per degrees of freedom of that model.

Abstract: A speech recognition method and apparatus is disclosed in which outputs a confidence score indicative of the posterior probability of an utterance being correctly matched to a word model.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided for detecting the presence of speech within an input speech signal. Speech is detected by treating the average frame energy of an input speech signal as a sampled signal and looking for modulations within the sampled signal that are characteristic of speech.