Patents Assigned to Promptu Systems Corporation
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Patent number: 9449599Abstract: Various embodiments contemplate systems and methods for performing automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU) that enable high accuracy recognition and understanding of freely spoken utterances which may contain proper names and similar entities. The proper name entities may contain or be comprised wholly of words that are not present in the vocabularies of these systems as normally constituted. Recognition of the other words in the utterances in question—e.g., words that are not part of the proper name entities—may occur at regular, high recognition accuracy. Various embodiments provide as output not only accurately transcribed running text of the complete utterance, but also a symbolic representation of the meaning of the input, including appropriate symbolic representations of proper name entities, adequate to allow a computer system to respond appropriately to the spoken request without further analysis of the user's input.Type: GrantFiled: May 30, 2014Date of Patent: September 20, 2016Assignee: PROMPTU SYSTEMS CORPORATIONInventor: Harry William Printz
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Patent number: 9305549Abstract: A method and apparatus to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are present in a repository and to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are not present in the repository, uses information from external data sources, notably the text used in non-speech, text-based searches, to expand the search terms. The expansion takes place in two forms: (1) finding plausible linguistic variants of existing search terms that are already comprehended in the repository, but that are present under slightly different names; and (2) expanding the existing search term list with items that should be there by virtue of their currency in popular culture, but which for whatever reason have not yet been reflected with content items in the repository.Type: GrantFiled: October 13, 2014Date of Patent: April 5, 2016Assignee: PROMPTU SYSTEMS CORPORATIONInventors: Joseph Bruce Stampleman, Harry Printz
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Patent number: 8983838Abstract: A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.Type: GrantFiled: September 17, 2013Date of Patent: March 17, 2015Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Adam Jordan, Scott Lynn Maddux, Tim Plowman, Victoria Stanbach, Jody Williams
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Patent number: 8959019Abstract: Efficient empirical determination, computation, and use of an acoustic confusability measure comprises: (1) an empirically derived acoustic confusability measure, comprising a means for determining the acoustic confusability between any two textual phrases in a given language, where the measure of acoustic confusability is empirically derived from examples of the application of a specific speech recognition technology, where the procedure does not require access to the internal computational models of the speech recognition technology, and does not depend upon any particular internal structure or modeling technique, and where the procedure is based upon iterative improvement from an initial estimate; (2) techniques for efficient computation of empirically derived acoustic confusability measure, comprising means for efficient application of an acoustic confusability score, allowing practical application to very large-scale problems; and (3) a method for using acoustic confusability measures to make principledType: GrantFiled: October 31, 2007Date of Patent: February 17, 2015Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Harry Printz, Narren Chittar
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Patent number: 8862596Abstract: A method and apparatus to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are present in a repository and to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are not present in the repository, uses information from external data sources, notably the text used in non-speech, text-based searches, to expand the search terms. The expansion takes place in two forms: (1) finding plausible linguistic variants of existing search terms that are already comprehended in the repository, but that are present under slightly different names; and (2) expanding the existing search term list with items that should be there by virtue of their currency in popular culture, but which for whatever reason have not yet been reflected with content items in the repository.Type: GrantFiled: November 2, 2012Date of Patent: October 14, 2014Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Joseph Bruce Stampleman, Harry Printz
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Patent number: 8818804Abstract: A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.Type: GrantFiled: March 6, 2013Date of Patent: August 26, 2014Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Adam Jordan, Scott Lynn Maddux, Tim Plowman, Victoria Stanbach, Jody Williams
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Patent number: 8812326Abstract: A computer-driven device assists a user in self-regulating speech control of the device. The device processes an input signal representing human speech to compute acoustic signal quality indicators indicating conditions likely to be problematic to speech recognition, and advises the user of those conditions.Type: GrantFiled: August 6, 2013Date of Patent: August 19, 2014Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Naren Chittar, Vikas Gulati, Matthew Pratt, Harry Printz
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Patent number: 8793127Abstract: In addition to conveying primary information, human speech also conveys information concerning the speaker's gender, age, socioeconomic status, accent, language spoken, emotional state, or other personal characteristics, which is referred to as secondary information. Disclosed herein are both the means of automatic discovery and use of such secondary information to direct other aspects of the behavior of a controlled system. One embodiment of the invention comprises an improved method to determine, with high reliability, the gender of an adult speaker. A further embodiment of the invention comprises the use of this information to display a gender-appropriate advertisement to the user of an information retrieval system that uses a cell phone as the input and output device.Type: GrantFiled: October 31, 2007Date of Patent: July 29, 2014Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Harry Printz, Vikas Gulati
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Patent number: 8565789Abstract: A system and method are provided for improving efficiency of operation and convenience of access to a fleet of taxis, or other service vehicles, requiring rapid, on-demand dispatch to customer-determined locations. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) and/or radiolocation technology are used to automate the entry of the customer pickup location, and optionally the dropoff location and other relevant information as well. A customer speaks the pickup location into a cellular telephone which then digitizes and transmits it as a data communication to an ASR system. The ASR system decodes the digitized utterance into a pickup location which is passed to a vehicle matching and dispatch system. The vehicle matching and dispatch system matches a taxi and dispatches it to the pickup location. In one embodiment, the identified pickup location is transmitted to the customer's cellular telephone for confirmation or correction, before dispatch of the requested taxi.Type: GrantFiled: June 24, 2011Date of Patent: October 22, 2013Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Giuseppe Staffaroni, Matteo Monteverdi, John A. Lynch, Harry W. Printz
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Patent number: 8521537Abstract: A computer-driven device assists a user in self-regulating speech control of the device. The device processes an input signal representing human speech to compute acoustic signal quality indicators indicating conditions likely to be problematic to speech recognition, and advises the user of those conditions.Type: GrantFiled: April 3, 2007Date of Patent: August 27, 2013Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Naren Chittar, Vikas Gulati, Matthew Pratt, Harry Printz
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Publication number: 20130211836Abstract: A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 6, 2013Publication date: August 15, 2013Applicant: PROMPTU SYSTEMS CORPORATIONInventor: PROMPTU SYSTEMS CORPORATION
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Patent number: 8457963Abstract: Audio input to a user device is captured in a buffer and played back to the user while being sent to and recognized by an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. Overlapping the playback with the speech recognition processing masks a portion of the true latency of the ASR system thus improving the user's perception of the ASR system's responsiveness. Further, upon hearing the playback, the user is intuitively guided to self-correct for any defects in the captured audio.Type: GrantFiled: March 30, 2010Date of Patent: June 4, 2013Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventor: Laurent Charriere
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Patent number: 8407056Abstract: A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.Type: GrantFiled: July 8, 2011Date of Patent: March 26, 2013Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Adam Jordan, Scott Lynn Maddux, Tim Plowman, Victoria Stanbach, Jody Williams
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Publication number: 20130060789Abstract: A method and apparatus to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are present in a repository and to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are not present in the repository, uses information from external data sources, notably the text used in non-speech, text-based searches, to expand the search terms. The expansion takes place in two forms: (1) finding plausible linguistic variants of existing search terms that are already comprehended in the repository, but that are present under slightly different names; and (2) expanding the existing search term list with items that should be there by virtue of their currency in popular culture, but which for whatever reason have not yet been reflected with content items in the repository.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 2, 2012Publication date: March 7, 2013Applicant: PROMPTU SYSTEMS CORPORATIONInventor: Promptu Systems Corporation
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Patent number: 8321427Abstract: A method and apparatus to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are present in a repository, and place them into a grammar, and to identify names, personalities, titles, and topics that are not present in the repository, and place them into a grammar, uses information from external data sources, notably the text used in non-speech, text-based searches, to expand the search terms entered into the ASR grammars. The expansion takes place in two forms: (1) finding plausible linguistic variants of existing search terms that are already comprehended in the repository, but that are present under slightly different names; and (2) expanding the existing search term list with items that should be there by virtue of their currency in popular culture, but which for whatever reason have not yet been reflected with content items in the repository.Type: GrantFiled: October 31, 2007Date of Patent: November 27, 2012Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Joseph Bruce Stampleman, Harry Printz
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Patent number: 8185390Abstract: The invention comprises a method for lossy data compression, akin to vector quantization, in which there is no explicit codebook and no search, i.e. the codebook memory and associated search computation are eliminated. Some memory and computation are still required, but these are dramatically reduced, compared to systems that do not exploit this method. For this reason, both the memory and computation requirements of the method are exponentially smaller than comparable methods that do not exploit the invention. Because there is no explicit codebook to be stored or searched, no such codebook need be generated either. This makes the method well suited to adaptive coding schemes, where the compression system adapts to the statistics of the data presented for processing: both the complexity of the algorithm executed for adaptation, and the amount of data transmitted to synchronize the sender and receiver, are exponentially smaller than comparable existing methods.Type: GrantFiled: April 23, 2009Date of Patent: May 22, 2012Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventor: Harry Printz
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Publication number: 20110320232Abstract: A system and method are provided for improving efficiency of operation and convenience of access to a fleet of taxis, or other service vehicles, requiring rapid, on-demand dispatch to customer-determined locations. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) and/or radiolocation technology arc used to automate the entry of the customer pickup location, and optionally the dropoff location and other relevant information as well. A customer speaks the pickup location into a cellular telephone which then digitizes and transmits it as a data communication to an ASR system. The ASR system decodes the digitized utterance into a pickup location which is passed to a vehicle matching and dispatch system. The vehicle matching and dispatch system matches a taxi and dispatches it to the pickup location. In one embodiment, the identified pickup location is transmitted to the customer's cellular telephone for confirmation or correction, before dispatch of the requested taxi.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 24, 2011Publication date: December 29, 2011Applicant: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Giuseppe Staffaroni, Matteo Monteverdi, John A. Lynch, Harry W. Printz
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Patent number: 8005488Abstract: A system and method are provided for improving efficiency of operation and convenience of access to a fleet of taxis, or other service vehicles, requiring rapid, on-demand dispatch to customer-determined locations. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) and/or radiolocation technology are used to automate the entry of the customer pickup location, and optionally the dropoff location and other relevant information as well. A customer speaks the pickup location into a cellular telephone which then digitizes and transmits it as a data communication to an ASR system. The ASR system decodes the digitized utterance into a pickup location which is passed to a vehicle matching and dispatch system. The vehicle matching and dispatch system matches a taxi and dispatches it to the pickup location. In one embodiment, the identified pickup location is transmitted to the customer's cellular telephone for confirmation or correction, before dispatch of the requested taxi.Type: GrantFiled: December 15, 2008Date of Patent: August 23, 2011Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Giuseppe Staffaroni, Matteo Monteverdi, John A. Lynch, Harry W. Printz
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Patent number: 8005679Abstract: A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.Type: GrantFiled: October 31, 2007Date of Patent: August 23, 2011Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Adam Jordan, Scott Lynn Maddux, Tim Plowman, Victoria Stanbach, Jody Williams
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Patent number: RE44326Abstract: A method and system of speech recognition presented by a back channel from multiple user sites within a network supporting cable television and/or video delivery is disclosed.Type: GrantFiled: November 3, 2011Date of Patent: June 25, 2013Assignee: Promptu Systems CorporationInventors: Theodore Calderone, Paul M. Cook, Mark J. Foster