Patents by Inventor Francoise Beaufays
Francoise Beaufays has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 8571860Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving an audio signal and initiating speech recognition tasks by a plurality of speech recognition systems (SRS's). Each SRS is configured to generate a recognition result specifying possible speech included in the audio signal and a confidence value indicating a confidence in a correctness of the speech result. The method also includes completing a portion of the speech recognition tasks including generating one or more recognition results and one or more confidence values for the one or more recognition results, determining whether the one or more confidence values meets a confidence threshold, aborting a remaining portion of the speech recognition tasks for SRS's that have not generated a recognition result, and outputting a final recognition result based on at least one of the generated one or more speech results.Type: GrantFiled: January 25, 2013Date of Patent: October 29, 2013Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Olivier Siohan
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Publication number: 20130238336Abstract: Speech recognition systems may perform the following operations: receiving audio; recognizing the audio using language models for different languages to produce recognition candidates for the audio, where the recognition candidates are associated with corresponding recognition scores; identifying a candidate language for the audio; selecting a recognition candidate based on the recognition scores and the candidate language; and outputting data corresponding to the selected recognition candidate as a recognized version of the audio.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 26, 2012Publication date: September 12, 2013Inventors: Yun-hsuan Sung, Francoise Beaufays, Brian Strope, Hui Lin, Jui-Ting Huang
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Patent number: 8503629Abstract: In one implementation a computer-implemented method includes generating a group of telephone contacts for a first user, wherein the generating includes identifying a second user as a contact of the first user based upon a determination that the second user has at least a threshold email-based association with the first user; and adding the identified second user to the group of telephone contacts for the first user. The method further includes receiving a first request to connect a first telephone device associated with the first user to a second telephone device associated with the second user. The method also includes identifying a contact identifier of the second telephone device using the generated group of telephone contacts for the first user, and initiating a connection between the first telephone device and the second telephone device using the identified contact identifier.Type: GrantFiled: March 26, 2010Date of Patent: August 6, 2013Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Hy Murveit
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Publication number: 20130138440Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving an audio signal and initiating speech recognition tasks by a plurality of speech recognition systems (SRS's). Each SRS is configured to generate a recognition result specifying possible speech included in the audio signal and a confidence value indicating a confidence in a correctness of the speech result. The method also includes completing a portion of the speech recognition tasks including generating one or more recognition results and one or more confidence values for the one or more recognition results, determining whether the one or more confidence values meets a confidence threshold, aborting a remaining portion of the speech recognition tasks for SRS's that have not generated a recognition result, and outputting a final recognition result based on at least one of the generated one or more speech results.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 25, 2013Publication date: May 30, 2013Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Olivier Siohan
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Patent number: 8364481Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving an audio signal and initiating speech recognition tasks by a plurality of speech recognition systems (SRS's). Each SRS is configured to generate a recognition result specifying possible speech included in the audio signal and a confidence value indicating a confidence in a correctness of the speech result. The method also includes completing a portion of the speech recognition tasks including generating one or more recognition results and one or more confidence values for the one or more recognition results, determining whether the one or more confidence values meets a confidence threshold, aborting a remaining portion of the speech recognition tasks for SRS's that have not completed generating a recognition result, and outputting a final recognition result based on at least one of the generated one or more speech results.Type: GrantFiled: July 2, 2008Date of Patent: January 29, 2013Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Olivier Siohan
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Patent number: 8238531Abstract: In one implementation a computer-implemented method includes generating a group of telephone contacts for a first user, wherein the generating includes identifying a second user as a contact of the first user based upon a determination that the second user has at least a threshold email-based association with the first user; and adding the identified second user to the group of telephone contacts for the first user. The method further includes receiving a first request to connect a first telephone device associated with the first user to a second telephone device associated with the second user. The method also includes identifying a contact identifier of the second telephone device using the generated group of telephone contacts for the first user, and initiating a connection between the first telephone device and the second telephone device using the identified contact identifier.Type: GrantFiled: September 30, 2011Date of Patent: August 7, 2012Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Hy Murveit
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Publication number: 20120020254Abstract: In one implementation a computer-implemented method includes generating a group of telephone contacts for a first user, wherein the generating includes identifying a second user as a contact of the first user based upon a determination that the second user has at least a threshold email-based association with the first user; and adding the identified second user to the group of telephone contacts for the first user. The method further includes receiving a first request to connect a first telephone device associated with the first user to a second telephone device associated with the second user. The method also includes identifying a contact identifier of the second telephone device using the generated group of telephone contacts for the first user, and initiating a connection between the first telephone device and the second telephone device using the identified contact identifier.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 30, 2011Publication date: January 26, 2012Applicant: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Hy Murveit
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Patent number: 8041568Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes prompting a user to provide a type of business and an identifier of a specific business, receiving from the user a speech input having information about the type of business and the identifier, and recognizing, using a speech recognition module, the identifier based on the type of business.Type: GrantFiled: October 13, 2006Date of Patent: October 18, 2011Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Publication number: 20110235790Abstract: In one implementation a computer-implemented method includes generating a group of telephone contacts for a first user, wherein the generating includes identifying a second user as a contact of the first user based upon a determination that the second user has at least a threshold email-based association with the first user; and adding the identified second user to the group of telephone contacts for the first user. The method further includes receiving a first request to connect a first telephone device associated with the first user to a second telephone device associated with the second user. The method also includes identifying a contact identifier of the second telephone device using the generated group of telephone contacts for the first user, and initiating a connection between the first telephone device and the second telephone device using the identified contact identifier.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 26, 2010Publication date: September 29, 2011Applicant: GOOGLE INC.Inventors: Brian Strope, Francoise Beaufays, Hy Murveit
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Publication number: 20110047139Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes receiving category-business pairs, each category-business pair including a business category and a specific business, and establishing a data structure having nodes based on the category-business pairs. Each node of the data structure is associated with one or more business categories and a speech recognition language model for recognizing specific businesses associated with the one or more businesses categories.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 27, 2010Publication date: February 24, 2011Applicant: GOOGLE INC.Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Patent number: 7890326Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes selecting a subset of speech recognition language models from a larger set of speech recognition language models based on a type of business provided by a user, identifying weight values for the selected language models, and recognizing an identifier of a specific business in a speech input from the user based on the selected language models and the weight values.Type: GrantFiled: October 13, 2006Date of Patent: February 15, 2011Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Patent number: 7840407Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes receiving category-business pairs, each category-business pair including a business category and a specific business, and establishing a data structure having nodes based on the category-business pairs. Each node of the data structure is associated with one or more business categories and a speech recognition language model for recognizing specific businesses associated with the one or more businesses categories.Type: GrantFiled: October 13, 2006Date of Patent: November 23, 2010Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Publication number: 20100004930Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving an audio signal and initiating speech recognition tasks by a plurality of speech recognition systems (SRS's). Each SRS is configured to generate a recognition result specifying possible speech included in the audio signal and a confidence value indicating a confidence in a correctness of the speech result. The method also includes completing a portion of the speech recognition tasks including generating one or more recognition results and one or more confidence values for the one or more recognition results, determining whether the one or more confidence values meets a confidence threshold, aborting a remaining portion of the speech recognition tasks for SRS's that have not completed generating a recognition result, and outputting a final recognition result based on at least one of the generated one or more speech results.Type: ApplicationFiled: July 2, 2008Publication date: January 7, 2010Inventors: BRIAN STROPE, FRANCOISE BEAUFAYS, OLIVIER SIOHAN
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Publication number: 20080091435Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes selecting a subset of speech recognition language models from a larger set of speech recognition language models based on a type of business provided by a user, identifying weight values for the selected language models, and recognizing an identifier of a specific business in a speech input from the user based on the selected language models and the weight values.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 13, 2006Publication date: April 17, 2008Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Publication number: 20080091443Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes prompting a user to provide a type of business and an identifier of a specific business, receiving from the user a speech input having information about the type of business and the identifier, and recognizing, using a speech recognition module, the identifier based on the type of business.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 13, 2006Publication date: April 17, 2008Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Publication number: 20080091412Abstract: A method of operating a voice-enabled business directory search system includes receiving category-business pairs, each category-business pair including a business category and a specific business, and establishing a data structure having nodes based on the category-business pairs. Each node of the data structure is associated with one or more business categories and a speech recognition language model for recognizing specific businesses associated with the one or more businesses categories.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 13, 2006Publication date: April 17, 2008Inventors: Brian Strope, William J. Byrne, Francoise Beaufays
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Publication number: 20080071544Abstract: A computer-implemented method includes receiving a voice search request from a client device, identifying an entity responsive to the voice search request and contact information for the entity, and automatically adding the contact information to a contact list of a user associated with the client device.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 14, 2007Publication date: March 20, 2008Applicant: Google Inc.Inventors: Francoise Beaufays, Brian Strope, William Byrne
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Publication number: 20070239531Abstract: A request for listing information is received, and if the request is determined to be for an unspecific listing, a number of ads are served prior to delivery of the requested listings. If the request is determined to not be for an unspecific business, a lesser number (or zero) ads are served prior to delivery of the requested listings. The determination of the request as being unspecific can be made by comparing the request to a list of unspecific requests, determining if the request exactly matches a listing, or by other means. Ads served result in the advertiser being assessed a per-impression charge.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 30, 2006Publication date: October 11, 2007Inventors: Francoise Beaufays, William J. Byrne, Brian Strope
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Patent number: 7280963Abstract: A computerized method is provided for generating pronunciations for words and storing the pronunciations in a pronunciation dictionary. The method includes graphing sets of initial pronunciations; thereafter in an ASR subsystem determining a highest-scoring set of initial pronunciations; generating sets of alternate pronunciations, wherein each set of alternate pronunciations includes the highest-scoring set of initial pronunciations with a lowest-probability phone of the highest-scoring initial pronunciation substituted with a unique-substitute phone; graphing the sets of alternate pronunciations; determining in the ASR subsystem a highest-scoring set of alternate pronunciations; and adding to a pronunciation dictionary the highest-scoring set of alternate pronunciations.Type: GrantFiled: September 12, 2003Date of Patent: October 9, 2007Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc.Inventors: Francoise Beaufays, Ananth Sankar, Mitchel Weintraub, Shaun Williams
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Patent number: 7266495Abstract: A computerized pronunciation system is provided for generating pronunciations for words and storing the pronunciations in a pronunciation dictionary. The system includes a word list including at least one word; transcribed acoustic data including at least one waveform for the word and transcribed text associated with the waveform; a pronunciation-learning module configured to accept as input the word list and the transcribed acoustic data, the pronunciation-learning module including: sets of initial pronunciations of the word, a scoring module configured score pronunciations and to generate phone probabilities, and a set of alternate pronunciations of the word, wherein the set of alternate pronunciations include a highest-scoring set of initial pronunciations with a highest-scoring substitute phone substituted for a lowest-probability phone; and a pronunciation dictionary configured to receive the highest-scoring set of initial pronunciations and the set of alternate pronunciations.Type: GrantFiled: September 12, 2003Date of Patent: September 4, 2007Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc.Inventors: Francoise Beaufays, Ananth Sankar, Mitchel Weintraub, Shaun Williams