Abstract: Methods and devices for providing a user of a mobile communications device with mobile voice-mediated search capability. The methods and devices involve receiving an utterance from a user of the mobile device, the utterance including a search request; using the speech recognition functionality to recognize that the utterance includes a search request; as a result of recognizing that the utterance includes a search request, establishing a wireless data connection to a remote server; sending a representation of the search request to the remote server over the wireless data connection; receiving search results that are responsive to the search request; and presenting the search results on the mobile device.

Abstract: The present invention relates to speech recognition using selectable recognition modes. This includes innovations such as: large vocabulary speech recognition programming that supplies recognized words to external program as they are recognized, and allows a user to select between large vocabulary recognition of an utterance with and without language context from the prior utterance independently of state of the external program; allowing a user to select between continuous and discrete speech recognition that use substantially the same vocabulary; allowing a user to select between continuous and discrete large-vocabulary speech recognition modes; allowing a user to select between at least two different alphabetic entry speech recognition modes; and allowing a user to select from among four or more of the following recognitions modes when creating text: a large-vocabulary mode, an alphabetic entry mode, a number entry mode, and a punctuation entry mode.

Abstract: The present invention relates to: speech recognition using selectable recognition modes; using choice lists in large-vocabulary speech recognition; enabling users to select word transformations; speech recognition that automatically turns recognition off in one or more specified ways; phone key control of large-vocabulary speech recognition; speech recognition using phone key alphabetic filtering and spelling: speech recognition that enables a user to perform re-utterance recognition; the combination of speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) generation; the combination of speech recognition with handwriting and/or character recognition; and the combination of large-vocabulary speech recognition with audio recording and playback.

Abstract: In one aspect, a method of processing a voice signal to extract information to facilitate training a speech synthesis model is provided. The method comprises acts of detecting a plurality of candidate features in the voice signal, performing at least one comparison between one or more combinations of the plurality of candidate features and the voice signal, and selecting a set of features from the plurality of candidate features based, at least in part, on the at least one comparison. In another aspect, the method is performed by executing a program encoded on a computer readable medium. In another aspect, a speech synthesis model is provided by, at least in part, performing the method.

Abstract: A new word model is trained from synthetic word samples derived by Monte Carlo techniques from one or more prior word models. The prior word model can be a phonetic word model and the new word model can be a non-phonetic, whole-word, word model. The prior word model can be trained from data that has undergone a first channel normalization and the synthesized word samples from which the new word model is trained can undergo a different channel normalization similar to that to be used in a given speech recognition context. The prior word model can have a first model structure and the new word model can have a second, different, model structure. These differences in model structure can include, for example, differences of model topology; differences of model complexity; and differences in the type of basis function used in a description of such probability distributions.

Abstract: A method of extracting a subset of speech units from a larger set of speech units for use by a speech synthesizer in synthesizing speech, wherein the speech units are stored in a compressed encoded representation that was generated by a codec, the method comprising: selecting members of the subset of speech units based on an overall cost associated with using the speech synthesizer to synthesize a test set of speech, wherein the overall cost includes at least one error introduced by using the codec to decode the stored representations of the speech units; and storing the selected subset of speech units on a speech-enabled device.

Abstract: A method of sending a voice message via a mobile communication device, said method involving: receiving an utterance from a user of the mobile communication device; generating a non-text representation of the received utterance; inserting the non-text representation into a body of a text message; and sending the text message over a wireless messaging channel from the mobile communication device to a recipient's device.

Abstract: According to certain aspects of the invention a mobile voice communication device includes a wireless transceiver circuit for transmitting and receiving auditory information and data, a processor, and a memory storing executable instructions which when executed on the processor causes the mobile voice communication device to provide a selectable personality associated with a user interface to a user of the mobile voice communication device. The executable instructions include implementing on the device a user interface that employs the different user prompts having the selectable personality, wherein each selectable personality of the different user prompts is defined and mapped to data stored in at least one database in the mobile voice communication device. The mobile voice communication device may include a decoder that recognizes a spoken user input and provides a corresponding recognized word, and a speech synthesizer that synthesizes a word corresponding to the recognized word.

Abstract: A method of operating a mobile communication device having a set of one or more applications, each with its own associated user-configurable customization, the method comprising detecting whether the user-configurable customization of any of the applications has changed since an earlier time, and for all applications for which the user-configurable customization has changed since said earlier time, wirelessly transmitting those changes to a remote server. The method further comprises maintaining a set of flags indicating whether changes have occurred to the user-configurable customization, wherein detecting whether the user-configurable customization of any of the applications has changed since said earlier time includes reading the set of flags. The remote server is one of a carrier server and a third party provider server.

Abstract: A handheld device with both large-vocabulary speech recognition and audio recoding allows users to switch between at least two of the following three modes: (1) recording audio without corresponding speech recognition; (2) recording with speech recognition; and (3) speech recognition without audio recording. A handheld device with both large-vocabulary speech recognition and audio recoding enables a user to select a portion of previously recorded sound and have speech recognition performed upon it. A system enables a user to search for a text label associated with portions of unrecognized recorded sound by uttering the label's words. A large-vocabulary system allows users to switch between playing back recorded audio and speech recognition with a single input, with successive audio playbacks automatically starting slightly before the end of prior playback. And a cell phone that allows both large-vocabulary speech recognition and audio recording and playback.

Abstract: The invention relates to the combination of speech recognition with handwriting and/or character recognition. This includes the innovation of selecting one or more best-scoring recognition candidates as a function of recognition of both handwritten and spoken representations of a sequence of one or more words to be recognized. It also includes the innovation of using character or handwriting recognition of one or more letters to alphabetically filter speech recognition of one or more words. It also includes the innovations of using speech recognition of one or more letter-identifying words to alphabetically filter handwriting recognition, and of using speech recognition to correct handwriting recognition of one or more words.

Abstract: The present invention relates to speech recognition that enables a user to perform re-utterance recognition, in which speech recognition is performed upon both a second saying of a sequence of one or more words and upon an earlier saying of the same sequence to help the speech recognition better select one or more best scoring text sequences for the utterances.

Abstract: A method of operating a mobile communication device that includes a speaker independent recognizer and a memory storing phonebook including a plurality of names, the method involving: generating a first voice signal from a first voice input received from a user, the first voice input specifying a selected one of a plurality of names; comparing the first voice signal to a plurality of voice tags that are stored in the device to identify the selected name in the phonebook; generating a second voice signal from a second speech input received from the user, the second voice input specifying a selected one of a plurality of phone number types; using the speaker independent recognizer to identify the selected phone number type; retrieving a phone number that is stored in association with the identified type for the identified name; and initiating a call to the phone number associated with the identified type for the identified name.

Abstract: A method of constructing a text message on a mobile communications device, the method involving: storing a plurality of text phrases; for each of the text phrases, storing a representation that is derived from that text phrase; receiving a spoken phrase from a user; from the received spoken phrase generating an acoustic representation thereof; based on the acoustic representation, searching among the stored representations to identify a stored text phrase that best matches the spoken phrase; and inserting into an electronic document the text phrase that is identified from searching.

Abstract: A method of operating a device that includes speech recognition capabilities includes implementing on a device a plurality of user interfaces, wherein at least one said user interfaces is a voice interface. The method also includes launching a first application, and as part of launching the first application, launching a second application, the second application optionally presenting to a user at least one query using the voice interface and populating an address field in the first application in response to the query using the speech recognition capabilities. The second application is launched either simultaneously or subsequent to the launching of the first application. Populating the address field comprises accessing address information from a plurality of databases resident in the device.

Abstract: A method including: providing a mobile device (e.g. cellular phone) with a core engine for performing speech recognition; providing a plurality of sets of language-specific modules, each set of the plurality of sets for enabling the core engine to recognize a different language; selecting one set of language-specific modules among the plurality of sets of language-specific modules; and loading into memory within the mobile communication device the selected set of language-specific modules so as to enable the mobile communication device to recognize speech spoken in the language of the selected set.

Abstract: The apparatus and methods for using earcons as user prompts in mobile communication devices described herein are directed to implementing a mode of communication in these communication devices having speech recognition capabilities wherein spoken prompts are disabled and replaced with short identifiable sound prompts such as the earcons.

Abstract: The present invention relates to speech recognition using selectable recognition modes. This includes innovations such as: large vocabulary speech recognition programming that supplies recognized words to external program as they are recognized, and allows a user to select between large vocabulary recognition of an utterance with and without language context from the prior utterance independently of state of the external program; allowing a user to select between continuous and discrete speech recognition that use substantially the same vocabulary; allowing a user to select between continuous and discrete large-vocabulary speech recognition modes; allowing a user to select between at least two different alphabetic entry speech recognition modes; and allowing a user to select from among four or more of the following recognitions modes when creating text: a large-vocabulary mode, an alphabetic entry mode, a number entry mode, and a punctuation entry mode.

Abstract: Alphabetic filtering of the speech recognition of words uses a key press to indicate a desired character in an alphabetic filter string, where each key press represents two or more letters. The key presses can be disambiguated by recognizing a key-disambiguation utterance in association with a given key press. A user can select a desired recognition candidate from a choice list produced by such filtered word recognition. Ambiguous alphabetic filtering can be performed iteratively in response to the addition of successive ambiguous key presses. A user can select to re-recognize the utterance using filtering based on ambiguous key input after seeing the results of recognition without such filtering. Unambiguous alphabetic filtering can be performed by using multiple presses of an ambiguous key to disambiguate which letter is intended. A user can select between entering text by either large vocabulary speech recognition or by spelling text by pressing phone keys.

Abstract: One aspect of the invention involves word recognition that uses scrollable choice lists in which choices are listed in character-order. Another aspect relates to a scrollable, visually-displayed word recognition choice list, where the recognition candidates on the choice list are each associated with a choice-selecting symbol the user can use to select a desired recognition candidate by pressing an associated button, and where the same choice-selecting symbol is used for different choices displayed on the display at different times as a result of scrolling. Another aspect of the invention relates to providing a choice list of best scoring characters for a particular character position in the spelling of a filter that is used to filter word recognition. Another aspect of the invention relates to a choice list used in word recognition in which the choice list can be scrolled horizontally.