Patents Examined by Eric Yen
  • Patent number: 10891969
    Abstract: A technique is described herein for transforming audio content into images. The technique may include: receiving the audio content from a source; converting the audio content into a temporal stream of audio features; and converting the stream of audio features into one or more images using one or more machine-trained models. The technique generates the image(s) based on recognition of: semantic information that conveys one or more semantic topics associated with the audio content; and sentiment information that conveys one or more sentiments associated with the audio content. The technique then generates an output presentation that includes the image(s), which it provides to one or more display devices for display thereat. The output presentation serves as a summary of salient semantic and sentiment-related characteristics of the audio content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2021
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Li Huang, Houdong Hu, Congyong Su
  • Patent number: 10885279
    Abstract: Disclosed in some examples are methods, systems, devices, and machine-readable mediums for determining states of content characteristics of electronic messages. In some embodiments, the probability of the states of the content characteristics of electronic messages are determined. Some embodiments determine a scores for states of content characteristics. Some embodiments determine a score for electronic messages for content characteristic diversity and inclusion based on a probability of a gender-bias state, a probability of a gender-neutral state, and a probability of not applicable to gender-bias state or gender-neutral state. In some embodiments the probabilities are determined based on a natural language model that is trained with data structures that relate training phrases to states of content characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 8, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventor: Gajendra Kasturchand Barachha
  • Patent number: 10885912
    Abstract: Methods and systems for providing a correct voice command. One system includes a communication device that includes an electronic processor configured to receive a first voice command via a microphone and analyze the first voice command using a first type of voice recognition. The electronic processor determines that an action to be performed in accordance with the first voice command is unrecognizable based on the analysis using the first type of voice recognition. The electronic processor transmits the first voice command to a remote electronic computing device accompanying a request requesting that the first voice command be analyzed using a second type of voice recognition different from the first type of voice recognition. The electronic processor receives, from the remote electronic computing device, a second voice command corresponding to the action and different from the first voice command, and outputs, with a speaker, the second voice command.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC.
    Inventors: Ming Yeh Koh, Hee Tat Goey, Bing Qin Lim, Yan Pin Ong
  • Patent number: 10878824
    Abstract: A method of generating text from speech using video-speech matching from a primary user is disclosed herein. The method requires first receiving a video and audio input. The video and audio inputs are then segmented into a plurality of video and audio features, respectively. The plurality of video and audio features are then matched according to their similarities. A primary speaker is then determined from one of the matched video and audio features. The primary speaker's matched video and audio features are then used to generate a text representative of the primary speaker's speech.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignee: Valyant Al, Inc.
    Inventors: Robley Carpenter, II, Benjamin Thielker
  • Patent number: 10878193
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes a processor that executes an information processing program to operate as a text obtaining unit that obtains a text indicating an issue occurred in an electronic apparatus, a keyword extracting unit that tokenizes the text, and filters words obtained by tokenizing the text to extract a keyword, a maintenance-information obtaining unit that obtains a maintenance-information-item or a plurality of maintenance-information-items in association with the keyword from a database that stores a plurality of maintenance-information-items, each of the plurality of maintenance-information-item being information about a solution to an issue occurred in the electronic apparatus, and a maintenance-information providing unit that provides the obtained maintenance-information-item or the plurality of obtained maintenance-information-items to a user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignee: KYOCERA DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS INC.
    Inventor: Naohiko Kosaka
  • Patent number: 10867615
    Abstract: Systems, devices, and methods are described for reducing degradation of a voice recognition input. An always listening device may always be listening for voice commands via a microphone and may experience interference from unwanted audio such as from the output audio of television speakers. The always listening device may receive data associated with the output audio over a first communications channel. The always listening device may also receive, on a second communications channel, timing information associated with data. The always listening device may adjust admission of the audio received by the microphone to enable it to arrive at approximately the same time as the data received via the first communications channel. The unwanted output audio included in the audio received via the microphone may then be determined and may be removed so that a voice command in the audio received by the microphone may be processed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2020
    Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Ross Gilson, Michael Sallas, Scott David Kurtz, Gary Skrabutenas, Christopher Stone
  • Patent number: 10861458
    Abstract: A response sentence generation apparatus includes a conversion device for converting an input voice of a user into text information, an extraction device for extracting prosodic information from the input voice, a specifying device for specifying an emotion occurrence word indicating an occurrence of an emotion of the user based on the text information and the prosodic information, and a generation device for selecting a character string including the specified emotion occurrence word from the text information and generating a response sentence by performing predetermined processing on the selected character string.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Narimasa Watanabe
  • Patent number: 10853584
    Abstract: Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products are described herein that are configured to express a time in an output text. In some example embodiments, a method is provided that comprises identifying a time period to be described linguistically in an output text. The method of this embodiment may also include identifying a communicative context for the output text. The method of this embodiment may also include determining one or more temporal reference frames that are applicable to the time period and a domain defined by the communicative context. The method of this embodiment may also include generating a phrase specification that linguistically describes the time period based on the descriptor that is defined by a temporal reference frame of the one or more temporal reference frames. In some examples, the descriptor specifies a time window that is inclusive of at least a portion of the time period to be described linguistically.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: ARRIA DATA2TEXT LIMITED
    Inventors: Gowri Somayajulu Sripada, Neil Burnett
  • Patent number: 10847169
    Abstract: An audio signal encoding method is provided comprising: receiving first and second audio signal frames; processing a second portion of the first audio signal frame and a first portion of the second audio signal frame using an orthogonal transformation to determine in part a first intermediate encoding result; and processing the first intermediate encoding result using an orthogonal transformation to determine a set of spectral coefficients that corresponds to at least a portion of the first audio signal frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: DTS, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael M. Goodwin, Antonius Kalker, Albert Chau
  • Patent number: 10839157
    Abstract: Candidate identification and matching for professional positions, and associated systems and methods are disclosed herein. A representative method includes obtaining first key phrase groups based on textual input, converting the first key phrase groups into vectors defined in accordance with a collection of key phrases, generating a set of topics based on the vectors, generating second key phrase groups based on an association between individual topics of the set of topics and the collection of key phrases, and identifying documentation associated with one or more candidates for a professional position based on the second key phrase groups.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Talentful Technology Inc.
    Inventor: Jia Chen
  • Patent number: 10831442
    Abstract: An approach is provided that receives, from a user, an amalgamation at a digital assistant. The amalgamation includes one or more words spoken by the user that are captured by a digital microphone and a set of digital images corresponding to one or more gestures that are performed by the user with the digital images captured by a digital camera. The system then determines an action that is responsive to the amalgamation and then performs the determined action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jeremy R. Fox, Gregory J. Boss, Kelley Anders, Sarbajit K. Rakshit
  • Patent number: 10825461
    Abstract: An audio encoder for encoding an audio signal having a lower frequency band and an upper frequency band includes: a detector for detecting a peak spectral region in the upper frequency band of the audio signal; a shaper for shaping the lower frequency band using shaping information for the lower band and for shaping the upper frequency band using at least a portion of the shaping information for the lower band, wherein the shaper is configured to additionally attenuate spectral values in the detected peak spectral region in the upper frequency band; and a quantizer and coder stage for quantizing a shaped lower frequency band and a shaped upper frequency band and for entropy coding quantized spectral values from the shaped lower frequency band and the shaped upper frequency band.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Markus Multrus, Christian Neukam, Markus Schnell, Benjamin Schubert
  • Patent number: 10818305
    Abstract: A method of encoding an audio signal is provided comprising: applying multiple different time-frequency transformations to an audio signal frame; computing measures of coding efficiency across multiple frequency bands for multiple time-frequency resolutions; selecting a combination of time-frequency resolutions to represent the frame at each of the multiple frequency bands based at least in part upon the computed measures of coding efficiency; determining a window size and a corresponding transform size; determining a modification transformation; windowing the frame using the determined window size; transforming the windowed frame using the determined transform size; modifying a time-frequency resolution within a frequency band of the transform of the windowed frame using the determined modification transformation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: DTS, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael M. Goodwin, Antonius Kalker, Albert Chau
  • Patent number: 10810367
    Abstract: In one implementation, a content processing system includes a computing platform having a hardware processor and a system memory storing a content classification software code, a natural language processor, and a computer vision analyzer. The hardware processor executes the content classification software code to receive content inputs from multiple content sources, and, for each content input, to parse the content input for metadata describing the content input, obtain a description of language-based content included in the content input from the natural language processor, and obtain a description of visual content included in the content input from the computer vision analyzer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Concetta Maratta, Brian Kennedy, Zachary Toback, Jared L. Wiener, Fabian Westerwelle
  • Patent number: 10803857
    Abstract: The invention discloses systems and methods for enhancing the sound of vocal utterances of interest in an acoustically cluttered environment. The system generates canceling signals (sound suppression signals) for an ambient audio environment and identifies and characterizes desired vocal signals and hence a vocal stream or multiple streams of interest. Each canceling signal, or collectively, the noise canceling stream, is processed so that signals associated with the desired audio stream or streams are dynamically removed from the canceling stream. This modified noise canceling stream is combined (electronically or acoustically) with the ambient to effectuate a destructive interference of all ambient sound except for the removed audio streams, thus “enhancing” the vocal streams with respect to the unwanted ambient sound. Cepstral analysis may be used to identify a fundamental frequency associated with a voiced human utterance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Inventor: James Jordan Rosenberg
  • Patent number: 10789953
    Abstract: A system and method for providing a voice assistant including receiving, at a first device, a first audio input from a user requesting a first action; performing automatic speech recognition on the first audio input; obtaining a context of user; performing natural language understanding based on the speech recognition of the first audio input; and taking the first action based on the context of the user and the natural language understanding.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: XBrain, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory Renard, Mathias Herbaux
  • Patent number: 10783903
    Abstract: A sound collection apparatus includes: a sound collection unit including a microphone configured to collect sound; a noise determination unit configured to determine noise in dictation based on voice collected by the sound collection unit; and a presentation unit configured to perform presentation based on a determination result by the noise determination unit. With this configuration, presentation is performed to indicate environmental noise at sound collection for dictation, which leads to improved efficiency of dictation work.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: OLYMPUS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kazutaka Tanaka, Osamu Nonaka, Kazuhiko Osa
  • Patent number: 10783872
    Abstract: A speech-enabled dialog system responds to a plurality of wake-up phrases. Based on which wake-up phrase is detected, the system's configuration is modified accordingly. Various configurable aspects of the system include selection and morphine of a text-to-speech voice; configuration of acoustic model, language model, vocabulary, and grammar; configuration of a graphic animation; configuration of virtual assistant personality parameters; invocation of a particular user profile; invocation of an authentication function; and configuration of an open sound. Configuration depends on a target market segment. Configuration also depends on the state of the dialog system, such as whether a previous utterance was an information query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: SoundHound, Inc.
    Inventors: Monika Almudafar-Depeyrot, Keyvan Mohajer, Mark Stevans
  • Patent number: 10777187
    Abstract: A sound collection apparatus includes: a sound collection unit including a microphone configured to collect sound; and a recording unit configured to record a personal dictionary used in voice recognition processing at dictation of voice collected by the sound collection unit. The sound collection apparatus further includes: a control unit configured to control provision of the personal dictionary to an information processing apparatus configured to execute dictation of voice collected by the sound collection unit; and a communication unit configured to transmit voice collected by the sound collection unit to the information processing apparatus and transmit, under control of the control unit, the personal dictionary to the information processing apparatus. This configuration achieves improved voice recognition performance even when a computer other than an exclusively used personal computer is used.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: OLYMPUS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Tsunehito Seki
  • Patent number: 10776581
    Abstract: Approaches for multitask learning as question answering include an input layer for encoding a context and a question, a self-attention based transformer including an encoder and a decoder, a first bi-directional long-term short-term memory (biLSTM) for further encoding an output of the encoder, a long-term short-term memory (LSTM) for generating a context-adjusted hidden state from the output of the decoder and a hidden state, an attention network for generating first attention weights based on an output of the first biLSTM and an output of the LSTM, a vocabulary layer for generating a distribution over a vocabulary, a context layer for generating a distribution over the context, and a switch for generating a weighting between the distributions over the vocabulary and the context, generating a composite distribution based on the weighting, and selecting a word of an answer using the composite distribution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
    Assignee: salesforce.com, inc.
    Inventors: Bryan McCann, Nitish Shirish Keskar, Caiming Xiong, Richard Socher