Abstract: A speech synthesiser is provided with a dialog-style selection arrangement responsive to a factor affecting intelligibility of speech output by the apparatus to select a dialog style intended to provide at least a minimum level of intelligibility of speech output by the synthesiser. The selected dialog style is used by a speech-application text provider when generating text-form utterances for a current speech application, these text-form utterances then being converted into speech form by a text-to-speech converter. The factor affecting intelligibility may be a measure of the intelligibility of the speech-form output or an environmental factor such as background noise in the user's environment.

Abstract: Items are represented to a user through a user interface with each item having a respective perceivable range value and associated label by which the item can be addressed. To address a particular item, the user speaks its label at a loudness indicative of its perceived range. A loudness-to-range function of the interface determines on the basis of the loudness of the user input, a range gate expected to encompass the range value of the addressed item. A speech recogniser is used to recognise the spoken label and thus the addressed item, the label search space of the recogniser being restricted to exclude the labels of items having a range value outside of the determined ranch gate. In one embodiment, the user interface is an audio interface in which the items are represented in an audio field through corresponding synthesized sound sources, the depth at which each sound source is rendered in the audio field being the range value associated with the corresponding item.

Abstract: A method is provided of setting the voice personality of a voice service site. A user browsing a voice web visits a voice site where the voice output of the site is presented using a set of voice personality characterisers with which the user is particularly comfortable. The user, in subsequently transferring to another voice service site, opts to have the voice personality that was embodied in the set of voice personality characterisers used by the site being left, transfer with the user to the new site. This transfer will typically be subject to permissions set by both the site being left and the site about to be visited.

Abstract: A voice service system is provided with an interactive voice response unit for interactively dealing with a call from a human caller, an operator subsystem by which a human operator can verbally interact with the caller, and a routing manager for transferring handling of the call between the voice response unit and the operator subsystem. The operator's verbal interaction with the caller is done through a synthesized voice in order to mask from the caller that they are now talking to a human operator. This permits the operator to return handling of a call back to the voice response unit without offending the caller.

Abstract: A local entity without its own means of voice communication is provided with the semblance of having a voice interaction capability. This is done by providing a beacon device at or near the entity, the beacon device transmitting, over a short-range communication link, contact data identifying a voice service associated with, but hosted separately from, the entity. The transmitted contact data is picked up by equipment carried by a nearby person and used to contact the voice service over a wireless network. The person then interacts with the voice service, the latter acting as a voice proxy for the local entity. The contact data can be presented to the user in other ways, for example, by being inscribed on the local entity for scanning or user input into the equipment.

Abstract: A local entity without its own means of voice communication is provided with the semblance of having a voice interaction capability. This is done by detecting the location of a user wishing to communicate with such entities, and comparing the user's location with the known locations of entities having associated voice services. The voice services are separately hosted from the entities themselves. Upon the user being determined to be close to a voice-enabled entity, contact is initiated between the user and the voice service associated with the local entity; for example, contact data for the voice service is passed to user equipment from where it is sent to a network voice browser and used by the latter to contact the voice service. The user then interacts with the voice service, the latter acting as a voice proxy for the local entity with voice output from the service being controlled to appear to emanate from the local entity.

Abstract: A local entity without its own means of voice communication is provided with the semblance of having a voice interaction capability. This is done by providing a receiving device at or near the entity, for picking up contact data transmitted by a nearby person wanting to talk to the local entity. This contact data is used by the receiving device to establish communication between a voice service associated with the local entity and equipment carried by the user. The voice service is hosted separately from the local entity, and takes the form, for example, of pages marked up with voice-markup tags for interpretation by a voice browser.

Abstract: A local entity without its own means of voice communication is provided with the semblance of having a voice interaction capability. This is done by providing an associated voice service hosted separately from the entity, the service being initiated when a user comes near the entity. The service uses audio input and output devices that are located either in user-carried equipment or in the locality of the entity. The voice service can be delivered to multiple users simultaneously with the users being joined into the same communication session with the voice service so that all users hear at least some of the same service output. The voice service can be arranged to serve a group of associated entities, not necessarily near each other.

Abstract: When a person first enters an unfamiliar work space, it is useful for that person to know what devices are present in the space and often the person will spend the first few minutes looking around, effectively carrying out an inventory of the devices present. In order to simplify this process the devices are arranged to announce their existence by sound in response to a prompt, such as a handclap. To avoid the announcements being made all at once in an unintelligible manner, the devices interact with each other to order their announcements so that each device announcement is, at least in due course, made uninterrupted by announcements from other devices. Typically, this interaction involves the devices using a collision-detection and back-offprotocol applied to the announcements themselves.

Abstract: Content received from a content server is presented to a user with at least one attribute of the presentation, other than the content itself and language in which it is presented, set in dependence on the user's current locality or a locality indicated in locality data received with the content. Thus, where the content is presented by voice, the accent of the voice is set to reflect a regional accent appropriate to the controlling locality. The content is, for example, provided in the form of content pages intended for use with a style sheet, the style sheet being selected according to the controlling locality.

Abstract: Many network addresses on the public or private networks are currently expressed and passed verbally in domain name format because this is a much easier for humans than using a numeric address form. However, verbal expression and recognition of network addresses in domain name form is a non-trivial task for machines and this hinders the adoption of speech interfaces for the passing of addresses. Therefore, in order to facilitate passing addresses in speech form to and from machines, the machines are enabled speak their addresses in number form with their speech synthesis and recognition vocabularies being correspondingly restricted.