Abstract: There is provided a method for accessing at least one digital file from a collection comprising more than one digital file in an electronic device, including: generating one index comprising of information entries obtained from each of the more than one digital file in the collection, with each digital file in the collection information being linked to at least one information entry; receiving a speaker independent speech input in at least one language during a speech reception mode; determining a language of the speech input; and setting the speech reception mode to the language of the speech input; comparing the speech input received during the speech reception mode with the entries in the index. The file may advantageously be accessed when the speech input coincides with at least one of the information entries in the index. The digital files may be stored in the electronic device, any device functionally connected to the electronic device or a combination of the aforementioned.

Abstract: A system and method for speaker independent speech recognition is provided that integrates spectral and tonal analysis in a sequential architecture. The system analyzes the spectral content of a spoken syllable, or group of syllables, (18) and generates a spectral score for each of a plurality of predicted syllables (46, 22). Time alignment information (36) for the predicted syllable(s) is then sequentially passed to a tonal modeling block (14) which performs an iterative fundamental frequency contour estimation for the spoken syllable(s). The tones of adjacent syllables, as well as the rate of change of the tonal information, is then used to generate a tonal score for each of the plurality of predicted syllables. The tonal score (34) is then arithmetically combined with (40) the spectral score (32) in order to generate an output prediction.