Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for discovering trending terms in automatic speech recognition. Candidate terms (e.g., words, phrases, etc.) not yet found in a speech recognizer vocabulary or having low language model probability can be identified based on trending usage in a variety of electronic data sources (e.g., social network feeds, news sources, search queries, etc.). When candidate terms are identified, archives of live or recent speech traffic can be searched to determine whether users are uttering the candidate terms in dictation or speech requests. Such searching can be done using open vocabulary spoken term detection to find phonetic matches in the audio archives. As the candidate terms are found in the speech traffic, notifications can be generated that identify the candidate terms, provide relevant usage statistics, identify the context in which the terms are used, and the like.

Abstract: An interaction assistant conducts multiple turn interaction dialogs with a user in which context is maintained between turns, and the system manages the dialog to achieve an inferred goal for the user. The system includes a linguistic interface to a user and a parser for processing linguistic events from the user. A dialog manager of the system is configured to receive alternative outputs from the parser, and selecting an action and causing the action to be performed based on the received alternative outputs. The system further includes a dialog state for an interaction with the user, and the alternative outputs represent alternative transitions from a current dialog state to a next dialog state. The system further includes a storage for a plurality of templates, and wherein each dialog state is defined in terms of an interrelationship of one or more instances of the templates.

Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for discovering trending terms in automatic speech recognition. Candidate terms (e.g., words, phrases, etc.) not yet found in a speech recognizer vocabulary or having low language model probability can be identified based on trending usage in a variety of electronic data sources (e.g., social network feeds, news sources, search queries, etc.). When candidate terms are identified, archives of live or recent speech traffic can be searched to determine whether users are uttering the candidate terms in dictation or speech requests. Such searching can be done using open vocabulary spoken term detection to find phonetic matches in the audio archives. As the candidate terms are found in the speech traffic, notifications can be generated that identify the candidate terms, provide relevant usage statistics, identify the context in which the terms are used, and the like.

Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for discovering trending terms in automatic speech recognition. Candidate terms (e.g., words, phrases, etc.) not yet found in a speech recognizer vocabulary or having low language model probability can be identified based on trending usage in a variety of electronic data sources (e.g., social network feeds, news sources, search queries, etc.). When candidate terms are identified, archives of live or recent speech traffic can be searched to determine whether users are uttering the candidate terms in dictation or speech requests. Such searching can be done using open vocabulary spoken term detection to find phonetic matches in the audio archives. As the candidate terms are found in the speech traffic, notifications can be generated that identify the candidate terms, provide relevant usage statistics, identify the context in which the terms are used, and the like.

Abstract: A method for configuring an automated dialogue system uses traces of interactions via a graphical user interface (GUI) for an application. Each trace includes interactions in the context of a plurality of presentations of the GUI. Elements of one or more presentations of the GUI are identified, and templates are associated with portions of the trace. Each template has one or more defined inputs and a defined output. For each template of the plurality of templates, the portions of the traces are processed to automatically configure the template by specifying a procedure for providing values of inputs to the template via the GUI and obtaining a value of an output. The automated dialogue system is configured with the configured templates, thereby avoiding manual configuration of the dialogue system.

Abstract: An approach to providing communication assistance to an operator of a vehicle makes use software having a first component executing on a personal device of the operator as well as a second component executing on a server in communication with the personal device. In some implementations, handling a call involves establishing a first two-way audio link between the server and the calling device is established, and a second two-way audio link between a server and the user device. The server passes some of the audio from the calling device to the user device, and monitors a user's voice input, of lack thereof, to determine how to handle the call.

Abstract: Systems and processes are disclosed for discovering trending terms in automatic speech recognition. Candidate terms (e.g., words, phrases, etc.) not yet found in a speech recognizer vocabulary or having low language model probability can be identified based on trending usage in a variety of electronic data sources (e.g., social network feeds, news sources, search queries, etc.). When candidate terms are identified, archives of live or recent speech traffic can be searched to determine whether users are uttering the candidate terms in dictation or speech requests. Such searching can be done using open vocabulary spoken term detection to find phonetic matches in the audio archives. As the candidate terms are found in the speech traffic, notifications can be generated that identify the candidate terms, provide relevant usage statistics, identify the context in which the terms are used, and the like.

Abstract: A method for a portable device includes receiving a spoken utterance of a word or phrase, generating a plurality of alternative pronunciations of the spoken utterance, scoring one or more pronunciations of the plurality of alternative pronunciations using the spoken utterance, and updating a lexicon with at least one scored pronunciation.

Abstract: A method of generating an alternative pronunciation for a word or phrase, given an initial pronunciation and a spoken example of the word or phrase, includes providing the initial pronunciation of the word or phrase, and generating the alternative pronunciation by searching a neighborhood of pronunciations about the initial pronunciation via a constrained hypothesis, wherein the neighborhood includes pronunciations that differ from the initial pronunciation by at most one phoneme. The method further includes selecting a highest scoring pronunciation within the neighborhood of pronunciations.

Abstract: A method for speech recognition. The method uses a single pronunciation estimator to train acoustic phoneme models and recognize utterances from multiple languages. The method includes accepting text spellings of training words in a plurality of sets of training words, each set corresponding to a different one of a plurality of languages. The method also includes, for each of the sets of training words in the plurality, receiving pronunciations for the training words in the set, the pronunciations being characteristic of native speakers of the language of the set, the pronunciations also being in terms of subword units at least some of which are common to two or more of the languages. The method also includes training a single pronunciation estimator using data comprising the text spellings and the pronunciations of the training words.

Abstract: A method of operating a mobile communication device having a set of one or more applications, each with its own associated user-configurable customization, the method comprising detecting whether the user-configurable customization of any of the applications has changed since an earlier time, and for all applications for which the user-configurable customization has changed since said earlier time, wirelessly transmitting those changes to a remote server. The method further comprises maintaining a set of flags indicating whether changes have occurred to the user-configurable customization, wherein detecting whether the user-configurable customization of any of the applications has changed since said earlier time includes reading the set of flags. The remote server is one of a carrier server and a third party provider server.

Abstract: Channel normalization for automatic speech recognition is provided. Statistics are measured from an initial portion of a speech utterance. Feature normalization parameters are estimated based on the measured statistics and a statistically derived mapping relating measured statistics and feature normalization parameters. In some examples, the measured statistics comprise measures of an energy from the initial portion of the speech utterance. In some examples, measures of the energy comprise extreme values of the energy.

Abstract: A method for speech recognition. The method uses a single pronunciation estimator to train acoustic phoneme models and recognize utterances from multiple languages. The method includes accepting text spellings of training words in a plurality of sets of training words, each set corresponding to a different one of a plurality of languages. The method also includes, for each of the sets of training words in the plurality, receiving pronunciations for the training words in the set, the pronunciations being characteristic of native speakers of the language of the set, the pronunciations also being in terms of subword units at least some of which are common to two or more of the languages. The method also includes training a single pronunciation estimator using data comprising the text spellings and the pronunciations of the training words.

Abstract: A method of constructing a list of alternate transcripts from a recognized transcript includes generating a list of close call records, matching partial sub-histories from the recognized transcript with one of the history pairs stored in each of the records, and substituting the other of the history pairs for the partial sub-history of the recognized transcript. A close call record is generated each time a pair of partial hypotheses attempt to seed a common word. Each close call record includes history information and scoring information associated with a particular pair of partial hypotheses seeding a common word. Alternate transcripts are constructed by substituting close call histories for partial histories of the recognized transcripts, and also by substituting close call histories for partial histories of other alternate transcript.

Abstract: The error rate of a pronunciation guesser that guesses the phonetic spelling of words used in speech recognition is improved by causing its training to weigh letter-to-phoneme mappings used as data in such training as a function of the frequency of the words in which such mappings occur. Preferably the ratio of the weight to word frequency increases as word frequencies decreases. Acoustic phoneme models for use in speech recognition with phonetic spellings generated by a pronunciation guesser that makes errors are trained against word models whose phonetic spellings have been generated by a pronunciation guesser that makes similar errors. As a result, the acoustic models represent blends of phoneme sounds that reflect the spelling errors made by the pronunciation guessers. Speech recognition enabled systems are made by storing in them both a pronunciation guesser and a corresponding set of such blended acoustic models.

Abstract: Methods and systems for providing voice-mediated search capability to a mobile communications device involve receiving a signal from the mobile device that includes a representation of a spoken search request from a user of the mobile device, using speech recognition software to convert the search request into a text search request, extracting side information contained implicitly within the received signal, using the extracted side information to assign the user to a category, sending the text search request and the user category to content providers, receiving from the content providers content that is responsive to the text search request and the user category, and sending to the mobile device search results that are based on content from content providers. The methods and systems further involve sending searches and user categories to advertising providers, and sending advertisements returned by the advertising providers to the mobile device along with the search results.

Abstract: A method implemented on a mobile device that includes speech recognition functionality involves presenting to a user of the mobile device a voice-control interface that supports two types of commands at a common level of the interface, the two types of commands including a first type and a second type, the first type being command and control commands and the second type being search request commands. The method further involves: receiving an utterance from the user that corresponds to a command of either of the first type or the second type; recognizing the utterance; if the received utterance is a command of the first type, performing a corresponding command and control function; and if the received utterance is a command of the second type, generating a representation of a corresponding search request and then using the representation to request a search that is responsive to the search request.

Abstract: A method implemented on a mobile device that includes speech recognition functionality involves: receiving an utterance that includes a search request from a user of the device; recognizing that the utterance includes a search request; sending a representation of the search request to a remote server over a wireless data connection; receiving information over the wireless data connection that is responsive to the search request; presenting the information on the mobile device; receiving an input from the user selecting an item present in the received information, the item identifying a remote resource; using the selected item to connect to the remote resource, the connection to the remote resource not involving the remote server; and sending to the remote server an indication that a connection was made to the resource identified by the selected item. The method further involves storing a log of the user's connection to remote resources and sending the log to the server.

Abstract: A method implemented on a mobile device that includes speech recognition functionality involves: receiving an utterance from a user of the mobile device, the utterance including a spoken search request; recognizing that the utterance includes a spoken search request; sending a representation of the spoken search request to a remote server over a wireless data connection; receiving search results over the wireless data connection that are responsive to the search request; storing the results on the mobile device; receiving a subsequent search request; performing a subsequent search responsive to the subsequent search request to generate subsequent search results, the subsequent search including searching the stored search results; and presenting the subsequent results on the mobile device.

Abstract: Methods and devices for providing a user of a mobile communications device with mobile voice-mediated search capability. The methods and devices involve receiving an utterance from a user of the mobile device, the utterance including a search request; using the speech recognition functionality to recognize that the utterance includes a search request; as a result of recognizing that the utterance includes a search request, establishing a wireless data connection to a remote server; sending a representation of the search request to the remote server over the wireless data connection; receiving search results that are responsive to the search request; and presenting the search results on the mobile device.