Abstract: A system and method are provided for receiving speech and/or non-speech communications of natural language questions and/or commands and executing the questions and/or commands. The invention provides a conversational human-machine interface that includes a conversational speech analyzer, a general cognitive model, an environmental model, and a personalized cognitive model to determine context, domain knowledge, and invoke prior information to interpret a spoken utterance or a received non-spoken message. The system and method creates, stores and uses extensive personal profile information for each user, thereby improving the reliability of determining the context of the speech or non-speech communication and presenting the expected results for a particular question or command.

Abstract: A system for generating a lexicon of words, organized into weighted categories, from a user defined set of example documents for detecting suspicious e-mails from a mail archive is provided. The system uses a set of example documents and e-mails given by the user to probabilistically find possible lists of critical words. The obtained list is now applied on an archive of e-mails. The system generates an inverted index on the mails from the archive to facilitate search for the key phrases. User feedback is taken on the results obtained and corrections in the lexicon made if necessary. Thus, the mails are scanned based on user feedback, user defined words and automatically generated word list. These lists constantly adapt as e-mails in the archive change. The system then combines all these to present the user with several possible sets of keywords and their relative importance that can be used as a policy for a desired level of accuracy. The system also shows the user any change if the set is modified.

Abstract: A wireless communication device is disclosed that accepts recorded audio data from an end-user. The audio data can be in the form of a command requesting user action. Likewise, the audio data can be converted into a text file. The audio data is reduced to a digital file in a format that is supported by the device hardware, such as a .wav, .mp3, .vnf file, or the like. The digital file is sent via secured or unsecured wireless communication to one or more server computers for further processing. In accordance with an important aspect of the invention, the system evaluates the confidence level of the of the speech recognition process. If the confidence level is high, the system automatically builds the application command or creates the text file for transmission to the communication device.

Abstract: Methods and systems to exchange and display data among a plurality of devices in response to one or more of user input and context-based information. User input may include one or more of motion, speech, text, pointing, and touch-selecting. Context-based information may include one or more of user location, which may be relative to one or more devices, background audio, information related to one or more products and/or services, and user-based context information. User context-based information may correspond one or more of prior transactions, prior activities, prior content exposure, and demographic information. Also disclosed herein are methods and systems to correlate user speech to one or more of commands and data objects, with respect to context-based information. Methods and systems to recognize speech may be implemented in combination with methods and systems to exchange and/or display of data among a plurality of devices, and in other environments.

Abstract: A sound processor including a microphone (1), a pre-amplifier (2), a bank of N parallel filters (3), means for detecting short-duration transitions in the envelope signal of each filter channel, and means for applying gain to the outputs of these filter channels in which the gain is related to a function of the second-order derivative of the slow-varying envelope signal in each filter channel, to assist in perception of low-intensity sort-duration speech features in said signal.

Abstract: An approach is disclosed for providing a managed language translation service. A request, from a source station, is received, at a switch, to establish a voice call with a destination station. A determination is made whether the request includes an indicator specifying invocation of a translation service managed by a service provider. If the request includes the indicator, the voice call is directed to a gateway that transmits the voice call over a data network to a translation application. The translation application translates, in real-time, speech associated with the voice call from a first language to a second language. The translated speech is transmitted to the destination station.

Abstract: An apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention for mixing a first frame of a first input data stream and a second frame of a second input data stream has a processing unit adapted to generate an output frame, wherein the output frame has output spectral data describing a lower part of an output spectrum up to an output cross-over frequency, and wherein the output frame further has output SBR-data describing a higher part of the output spectrum above the output cross-over frequency by way of energy-related values in an output time/frequency grid resolution.

Abstract: An apparatus, method, and a computer program product are provided for improving the translation quality of text when a text sequence, such as a sentence, includes a parenthetical part delimited by a separator or separators, such as parentheses, quotation marks, or the like. The apparatus applies an algorithm which is configured for using several methodologies in sequence to identify an optimum position for insertion of the translated parenthetical in the main part of the translated text sequence. As a result, the translated parenthetical is more likely to be correctly delimited by separators and more likely to be correctly placed in the main part than in a conventional translation system which automatically translates each sentence as a whole.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for automatically building a native phonetic lexicon for a speech-based application trained to process a native (base) language, wherein the native phonetic lexicon includes native phonetic transcriptions (base forms) for non-native (foreign) words which are automatically derived from non-native phonetic transcriptions of the non-native words.

Abstract: Methods, systems and processor-readable media for providing instant/real-time voice alerts automatically to remote electronic devices. An activity can be detected utilizing one or more sensors. A text message indicative of the activity can be generated and converted into a digitized voice alert. The activity can also be a live utterance (e.g., a live announcement), which can then be instantly converted into a digitized voice alert for automatic delivery in a selected series of languages following the base language (e.g., English). The combined digitized voice alert can then be instantly transmitted through a network for broadcast of consecutive alerts (e.g., English followed by Spanish followed by Vietnamese, etc.) to one or more remote electronic devices that communicate with the network for an automatic audio announcement of the digitized voice alert through the one or more remote electronic devices.

Abstract: A multiple audio/video data stream simulation method and system. A computing system receives first audio and/or video data streams. The first audio and/or video data streams include data associated with a first person and a second person. The computing system monitors the first audio and/or video data streams. The computing system identifies emotional attributes comprised by the first audio and/or video data streams. The computing system generates second audio and/or video data streams associated with the first audio and/or video data streams. The second audio and/or video data streams include the first audio and/or video data streams data without the emotional attributes. The computing system stores the second audio and/or video data streams.

Abstract: An apparatus for sound enhancement has at least two microphones (9) that provide a directional microphone array which is arranged to be pointed in the direction of a sound source. The directional microphone array thereby receives sound emitted by the sound source and generates sound signals. A processor (20) processors the sound signals generated by the microphone array to enhance the sound received by the directional microphone array from the sound source relative to other sound received by the directional microphone array. The processor (20) generates a corresponding enhanced signal (ES). Loud speakers (22) reproduce the enhanced signal as audible sound. Furthermore, sound suppression devices (7, 7a) are provided to suppress ambient should from reaching the eardrums of the user. This sound suppression acts in conjunction with the directional microphone array and the processor (20) which enhance the SOI to provide a listening environment in which the SOI is enhanced.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and software is disclosed for transforming a natural language request for modifying a set of subscriptions for a publish/subscribe topic string in which a predetermined element in the request is transformed into a publish/subscribe symbol in the topic string.

Abstract: A system and method of operating an automatic speech recognition application over an Internet Protocol network is disclosed. The ASR application communicates over a packet network such as an Internet Protocol network or a wireless network. A grammar for recognizing received speech from a user over the IP network is selected from a plurality of grammars according to a user-selected application. A server receives information representing speech over the IP network, performs speech recognition using the selected grammar, and returns information based upon the recognized speech. Sub-grammars may be included within the grammar to recognize speech from sub-portions of a dialog with the user.

Abstract: A method of searching music using speech recognition in a mobile device, the method including: recognizing a speech signal uttered by a user as a phoneme sequence; and searching music information by performing partial symbol matching between the recognized phoneme sequence and a standard pronunciation sequence.

Abstract: Methods and devices provide improved perceived quality of an audio (or other) coded signal at a low bit-rate. An input signal may be split into an outlier portion and a stationary portion. The outlier portion of the input signal may be encoded. The stationary portion may be divided into subvectors. Each subvector may be classified as trivial or non-trivial. Each trivial subvector may be encoded using a pre-defined pattern. Each non-trivial subvector may be encoded with at least one location of at least one significant sample and a sign of the significant sample.

Abstract: A computer implemented method, data processing system, apparatus and computer program product for determining current behavioral, psychological and speech styles characteristics of a speaker in a given situation and context, through analysis of current speech utterances of the speaker. The analysis calculates different prosodic parameters of the speech utterances, consisting of unique secondary derivatives of the primary pitch and amplitude speech parameters, and compares these parameters with pre-obtained reference speech data, indicative of various behavioral, psychological and speech styles characteristics. The method includes the formation of the classification speech parameters reference database, as well as the analysis of the speaker's speech utterances in order to determine the current behavioral, psychological and speech styles characteristics of the speaker in the given situation.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods for analyzing and improving document readability. For example, a method of automatic text evaluation is disclosed. The method can include the following steps: detecting whether a particular writing problem exists in text that is technically grammatically correct; scanning for at least one sign that indicates the possible occurrence or absence of the writing problem, the at least one sign comprising the term “that”; and implementing correction logic for correcting the problem. The correction logic can specify a proposed edit, which can include, for example: deleting text; adding text; and/or reordering text. Various other rules for improving text are also disclosed.

Abstract: Improved systems, methods and apparatuses are provided for fast beam-search decoding for phrasal statistical machine translation. The provided techniques incorporate a front-loaded distortion penalty estimate for future estimated distortion penalty and/or early pruning to reduce the search space. The improvements result in up to an order of magnitude increase in translation speed for statistical machine translation systems. The disclosed details enable various refinements and modifications according to decoder and system design considerations.

Abstract: Multiple microphone noise suppression apparatus and methods are described herein. The apparatus and methods implement a variety of noise suppression techniques and apparatus that can be selectively applied to signals received using multiple microphones. The microphone signals received at each of the multiple microphones can be independently processed to cancel echo signal components that can be generated from a local audio source. The echo cancelled signals may be processed by some or all modules within a signal separator that operates to separate or otherwise isolate a speech signal from noise signals. The signal separator can include a pre-processing de-correlator followed by a blind source separator. The output of the blind source separator can be post filtered to provide post separation de-correlation. The separated speech and noise signals can be non-linearly processed for further noise reduction, and additional post processing can be implemented following the non-linear processing.