Patents by Inventor John Bridle

John Bridle has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20230111509
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. In accordance with one example, a method includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors, memory, and a plurality of microphones, sampling, at each of the plurality of microphones of the electronic device, an audio signal to obtain a plurality of audio signals; processing the plurality of audio signals to obtain a plurality of audio streams; and determining, based on the plurality of audio streams, whether any of the plurality of audio signals corresponds to a spoken trigger. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals corresponds to the spoken trigger, initiating a session of the digital assistant; and in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals does not correspond to the spoken trigger, foregoing initiating a session of the digital assistant.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2022
    Publication date: April 13, 2023
    Inventors: Yoon KIM, John BRIDLE, Joshua D. ATKINS, Feipeng LI, Mehrez SOUDEN
  • Patent number: 11532306
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. In accordance with one example, a method includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors, memory, and a plurality of microphones, sampling, at each of the plurality of microphones of the electronic device, an audio signal to obtain a plurality of audio signals; processing the plurality of audio signals to obtain a plurality of audio streams; and determining, based on the plurality of audio streams, whether any of the plurality of audio signals corresponds to a spoken trigger. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals corresponds to the spoken trigger, initiating a session of the digital assistant; and in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals does not correspond to the spoken trigger, foregoing initiating a session of the digital assistant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yoon Kim, John Bridle, Joshua D. Atkins, Feipeng Li, Mehrez Souden
  • Publication number: 20210097998
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. In accordance with one example, a method includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors, memory, and a plurality of microphones, sampling, at each of the plurality of microphones of the electronic device, an audio signal to obtain a plurality of audio signals; processing the plurality of audio signals to obtain a plurality of audio streams; and determining, based on the plurality of audio streams, whether any of the plurality of audio signals corresponds to a spoken trigger. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals corresponds to the spoken trigger, initiating a session of the digital assistant; and in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals does not correspond to the spoken trigger, foregoing initiating a session of the digital assistant.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 3, 2020
    Publication date: April 1, 2021
    Inventors: Yoon KIM, John BRIDLE, Joshua D. ATKINS, Feipeng LI, Mehrez SOUDEN
  • Publication number: 20200312315
    Abstract: An acoustic environment aware method for selecting a high quality audio stream during multi-stream speech recognition. A number of input audio streams are processed to determine if a voice trigger is detected, and if so a voice trigger score is calculated for each stream. An acoustic environment measurement is also calculated for each audio stream. The trigger score and acoustic environment measurement are combined for each audio stream, to select as a preferred audio stream the audio stream with the highest combined score. The preferred audio stream is output to an automatic speech recognizer. Other aspects are also described and claimed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Publication date: October 1, 2020
    Inventors: Feipeng Li, Mehrez Souden, Joshua D. Atkins, John Bridle, Charles P. Clark, Stephen H. Shum, Sachin S. Kajarekar, Haiying Xia, Erik Marchi
  • Patent number: 10789041
    Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for dynamically adjusting a speech trigger threshold, which can be used in triggering a virtual assistant. Audio input can be received via a microphone. The received audio input can be sampled, and a confidence level can be determined of whether the sampled audio input includes a portion of a spoken trigger. In response to the confidence level exceeding a threshold, a virtual assistant can be triggered to receive a user command from the audio input. The threshold can be dynamically adjusted in response to perceived events (e.g., events indicating a user may be more or less likely to initiate speech interactions, events indicating a trigger may be difficult to detect, events indicating a trigger was missed, etc.), thereby minimizing both missed triggers and false positive triggering events.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yoon Kim, Thomas R. Gruber, John Bridle
  • Publication number: 20190074009
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. In accordance with one example, a method includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors, memory, and a plurality of microphones, sampling, at each of the plurality of microphones of the electronic device, an audio signal to obtain a plurality of audio signals; processing the plurality of audio signals to obtain a plurality of audio streams; and determining, based on the plurality of audio streams, whether any of the plurality of audio signals corresponds to a spoken trigger. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals corresponds to the spoken trigger, initiating a session of the digital assistant; and in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals does not correspond to the spoken trigger, foregoing initiating a session of the digital assistant.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 5, 2018
    Publication date: March 7, 2019
    Inventors: Yoon KIM, John BRIDLE, Joshua D. ATKINS, Feipeng LI, Mehrez SOUDEN
  • Publication number: 20180336892
    Abstract: Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant are provided. In accordance with one example, a method includes, at an electronic device with one or more processors, memory, and a plurality of microphones, sampling, at each of the plurality of microphones of the electronic device, an audio signal to obtain a plurality of audio signals; processing the plurality of audio signals to obtain a plurality of audio streams; and determining, based on the plurality of audio streams, whether any of the plurality of audio signals corresponds to a spoken trigger. The method further includes, in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals corresponds to the spoken trigger, initiating a session of the digital assistant; and in accordance with a determination that the plurality of audio signals does not correspond to the spoken trigger, foregoing initiating a session of the digital assistant.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 13, 2018
    Publication date: November 22, 2018
    Inventors: Yoon KIM, John BRIDLE, Joshua D. ATKINS, Feipeng LI, Mehrez SOUDEN
  • Publication number: 20180218735
    Abstract: A system and method of speech recognition involving a mobile device. Speech input is received (202) on a mobile device (102) and converted (204) to a set of phonetic symbols. Data relating to the phonetic symbols is transferred (206) from the mobile device over a communications network (104) to a remote processing device (106) where it is used (208) to identity at least one matching data item from a set of data items (114). Data relating to the at least one matching data item is transferred (210) from the remote processing device to the mobile device and presented (214) thereon.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 27, 2018
    Publication date: August 2, 2018
    Inventors: Melvyn HUNT, John BRIDLE
  • Patent number: 9959870
    Abstract: A system and method of speech recognition involving a mobile device. Speech input is received (202) on a mobile device (102) and converted (204) to a set of phonetic symbols. Data relating to the phonetic symbols is transferred (206) from the mobile device over a communications network (104) to a remote processing device (106) where it is used (208) to identify at least one matching data item from a set of data items (114). Data relating to the at least one matching data item is transferred (210) from the remote processing device to the mobile device and presented (214) thereon.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2018
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Melvyn Hunt, John Bridle
  • Publication number: 20160077794
    Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for dynamically adjusting a speech trigger threshold, which can be used in triggering a virtual assistant. Audio input can be received via a microphone. The received audio input can be sampled, and a confidence level can be determined of whether the sampled audio input includes a portion of a spoken trigger. In response to the confidence level exceeding a threshold, a virtual assistant can be triggered to receive a user command from the audio input. The threshold can be dynamically adjusted in response to perceived events (e.g., events indicating a user may be more or less likely to initiate speech interactions, events indicating a trigger may be difficult to detect, events indicating a trigger was missed, etc.), thereby minimizing both missed triggers and false positive triggering events.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 24, 2015
    Publication date: March 17, 2016
    Inventors: Yoon KIM, Thomas R. GRUBER, John BRIDLE
  • Publication number: 20110307254
    Abstract: A system and method of speech recognition involving a mobile device. Speech input is received (202) on a mobile device (102) and converted (204) to a set of phonetic symbols. Data relating to the phonetic symbols is transferred (206) from the mobile device over a communications network (104) to a remote processing device (106) where it is used (208) to identify at least one matching data item from a set of data items (114). Data relating to the at least one matching data item is transferred (210) from the remote processing device to the mobile device and presented (214) thereon.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 10, 2009
    Publication date: December 15, 2011
    Inventors: Melvyn Hunt, John Bridle
  • Publication number: 20080033723
    Abstract: A speech recognition method, medium, and system. The method includes detecting an energy change of each frame making up signals including speech and non-speech signals, and identifying a speech segment corresponding to frames that include only speech signals from among the frames based inclusive of the detected energy change.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 1, 2007
    Publication date: February 7, 2008
    Applicants: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., NOVAURIS TECHNOLOGIES LTD
    Inventors: Giljin Jang, Jeongsu Kim, John Bridle, Melvyn Hunt