Patents by Inventor Ralf Kompe

Ralf Kompe 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).

  • Patent number: 8635065
    Abstract: The present invention discloses an apparatus for automatic extraction of important events in audio signals comprising: signal input means for supplying audio signals; audio signal fragmenting means for partitioning audio signals supplied by the signal input means into audio fragments of a predetermined length and for allocating a sequence of one or more audio fragments to a respective audio window; feature extracting means for analyzing acoustic characteristics of the audio signals comprised in the audio fragments and for analyzing acoustic characteristics of the audio signals comprised in the audio windows; and important event extraction means for extracting important events in audio signals supplied by the audio signal fragmenting means based on predetermined important event classifying rules depending on acoustic characteristics of the audio signals comprised in the audio fragments and on acoustic characteristics of the audio signals comprised in the audio windows, wherein each important event extracted
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2014
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy-Thomae, Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Yin Hay Lam, Krzysztof Marasek, Raquel Tato
  • Patent number: 8200488
    Abstract: The invention provides a method for processing speech comprising the steps of receiving a speech input (SI) of a speaker, generating speech parameters (SP) from said speech input (SI), determining parameters describing an absolute loudness (L) of said speech input (SI), and evaluating (EV) said speech input (SI) and/or said speech parameters (SP) using said parameters describing the absolute loudness (L). In particular, the step of evaluation (EV) comprises a step of emotion recognition and/or speaker identification. Further, a microphone array comprising a plurality of microphones is used for determining said parameters describing the absolute loudness. With a microphone array the distance of the speaker from the microphone array can be determined and the loudness can be normalized by the distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 12, 2012
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Raquel Tato
  • Patent number: 7970762
    Abstract: A user profile and/or the suggestions computed based thereon are obtained taking a special set of user features into account. The user features are defined to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user in respect to the application where the user profile is used. In other words, for each application where a user profile is used a special set of user features are defined which are able to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user. Based on these user features the weights in the list of word-weight pairs or weighted keywords which represents the user profile are computed or influenced during the creation of the user profile, and/or a mufti-user profile is split during the creation of an individual user profile from a mufti-user profile, and/or during specification of a suggestion a user history which is used to create the user profile, and/or the user profile, and/or the suggestion results are filtered.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 28, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Ralf Kompe, Christian Hying, Zica Valsan, Robert Mencl, Helmut Wais, Thomas Kemp, Sunna Torge, Martin Emele
  • Patent number: 7962330
    Abstract: An apparatus for automatic dissection of segmented audio signals, wherein at least one information signal for identifying programs included in said audio signals and for identifying contents included in said programs. Content detection device detects programs and contents belonging to the respective programs in the information signal. Program weighting device weights each program includes in the information signal based on the contents of the respective program detected by the content detection device. Program ranking device indentifies programmers of the same category and ranking said programs based on a weighting result for each program provided by the program weighting device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Yin Hay Lam, Krzysztof Marasek, Raquel Tato
  • Patent number: 7890862
    Abstract: An apparatus for entering data into a computing device includes a graphical user interface that presents hierarchically organized information in a menu structure of at least two hierarchy levels, including a topmost hierarchy level and at least one further hierarchy level. The apparatus also includes at least two haptic keys, each having more than one state of activation. Each of the haptic keys is assigned to a particular hierarchy level. A first haptic key is assigned to the topmost hierarchy level. A menu on the topmost hierarchy level is directly accessible using the first haptic key. A menu on a hierarchy level higher than one that is currently presented on the graphical user interface is directly accessible using a haptic key assigned to the menu on the higher level, when a hierarchy level of the currently presented menu is one of the at least one further hierarchy level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Jason Williams
  • Patent number: 7769588
    Abstract: The method of operating a man-machine interface unit includes classifying at least one utterance of a speaker to be of a first type or of a second type. If the utterance is classified to be of the first type, the utterance belongs to a known speaker of a speaker data base, and if the utterance is classified to be of the second type, the utterance belongs to an unknown speaker that is not included in the speaker data base. The method also includes storing a set of utterances of the second type, clustering the set of utterances into clusters, wherein each cluster comprises utterances having similar features, and automatically adding a new speaker to the speaker data base based on utterances of one of the clusters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 3, 2010
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Thomas Kemp
  • Patent number: 7752044
    Abstract: To increase the robustness and/or the recognition rate of methods for recognizing speech it is proposed to include phone boundary verification measure features in the process of obtaining and/or generating confidence measures obtained recognition results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: July 6, 2010
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Yin Hay Lam, Ralf Kompe
  • Patent number: 7680654
    Abstract: An audio data segmentation apparatus for segmenting of audio data including for supplying audio data, dividing the audio data supplied into audio clips of a predetermined length, discriminating the audio clips into predetermined audio classes, the audio classes identifying a kind of audio data included in the respective audio clip and segmenting for segmenting the audio data into audio meta patterns based on a sequence of audio classes of consecutive audio clips, each meta pattern being allocated to a predetermined type of contents of the audio data. It is difficult to achieve good results with known methods for segmentation of audio data into meta patterns since the rules for the allocation of the meta patterns are dissatisfying.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2010
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Yin Hay Lam, Krzysztof Marasek, Raquel Tato
  • Patent number: 7620547
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method for operating and/or for controlling a man-machine interface unit (MMI) for a finite user group environment. Utterances out of a group of user are repeatedly received. A process of user identification is carried out based on said received utterances. The process of user identification comprises a set of clustering so as to enable an enrolment-free performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2009
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Thomas Kemp
  • Publication number: 20090282034
    Abstract: A user profile and/or the suggestions computed based thereon are obtained taking a special set of user features into account. The user features are defined to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user in respect to the application where the user profile is used. In other words, for each application where a user profile is used a special set of user features are defined which are able to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user. Based on these user features the weights in the list of word-weight pairs or weighted keywords which represents the user profile are computed or influenced during the creation of the user profile, and/or a mufti-user profile is split during the creation of an individual user profile from a mufti-user profile, and/or during specification of a suggestion a user history which is used to create the user profile, and/or the user profile, and/or the suggestion results are filtered.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 22, 2009
    Publication date: November 12, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Deutschland GMBH
    Inventors: Silke GORONZY, Ralf Kompe, Christian Hying, Zica Valsan, Robert Mencl, Helmut Wais, Thomas Kemp, Sunna Torge, Martin Emele
  • Patent number: 7593921
    Abstract: A user profile and/or the suggestions computed based thereon are obtained taking a special set of user features into account. The user features are defined to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user in respect to the application where the user profile is used. In other words, for each application where a user profile is used a special set of user features are defined which are able to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user. Based on these user features the weights in the list of word-weight pairs or weighted keywords which represents the user profile are computed or influenced during the creation of the user profile, and/or a multi-user profile is split during the creation of an individual user profile from a multi-user profile, and/or during specification of a suggestion a user history which is used to create the user profile, and/or the user profile, and/or the suggestion results are filtered.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2003
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2009
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Ralf Kompe, Christian Hying, Zica Valsan, Robert Mencl, Helmut Wais, Thomas Kemp, Sunna Torge, Martin Emele
  • Publication number: 20080319747
    Abstract: The method of operating a man-machine interface unit includes classifying at least one utterance of a speaker to be of a first type or of a second type. If the utterance is classified to be of the first type, the utterance belongs to a known speaker of a speaker data base, and if the utterance is classified to be of the second type, the utterance belongs to an unknown speaker that is not included in the speaker data base. The method also includes storing a set of utterances of the second type, clustering the set of utterances into clusters, wherein each cluster comprises utterances having similar features, and automatically adding a new speaker to the speaker data base based on utterances of one of the clusters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 20, 2008
    Publication date: December 25, 2008
    Applicant: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Thomas Kemp
  • Patent number: 7373301
    Abstract: To reduce the error rate when classifying emotions from an acoustical speech input (SI) only, it is suggested to include a process of speaker identification to obtain certain speaker identification data (SID) on the basis of which the process of recognizing an emotional state is adapted and/or configured. In particular, speaker-specific feature extractors (FE) and/or emotion classifiers (EC) are selected based on said speaker identification data (SID).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 13, 2008
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Raquel Tato
  • Patent number: 7113908
    Abstract: To increase the recognition rate and quality in a process of recognizing speech an approximative set of pronunciation rules (APR) for a current pronunciation (CP) of a current speaker is determined in a given pronunciation space (PS) and then applied to a current pronunciation lexicon (CL) so as to perform a speaker specific adaptation of said current lexicon (CL).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 26, 2006
    Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Ralf Kompe
  • Publication number: 20060156326
    Abstract: A user profile and/or the suggestions computed based thereon are obtained taking a special set of user features into account. The user features are defined to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user in respect to the application where the user profile is used. In other words, for each application where a user profile is used a special set of user features are defined which are able to represent a typical general behaviour of an individual user. Based on these user features the weights in the list of word-weight pairs or weighted keywords which represents the user profile are computed or influenced during the creation of the user profile, and/or a multi-user profile is split during the creation of an individual user profile from a multi-user profile, and/or during specification of a suggestion a user history which is used to create the user profile, and/or the user profile, and/or the suggestion results are filtered.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 27, 2003
    Publication date: July 13, 2006
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Ralf Kompe, Christian Hying, Zica Valsan, Robert Mencl, Helmut Wais, Thomas Kemp, Sunna Torge, Martin Emele
  • Patent number: 6999929
    Abstract: A method for recognizing speech is proposed wherein the process of recognition is started using the starting acoustic model (SAM) and wherein the current acoustic model (CAM) is modified by removing or cancelling model function mixture components (MFMjk) which are negligible for the description of the speaking behavior and quality of the current speaker. Therefore, the size of the acoustic model (SAM, CAM) is reduced by adaptation to the current speaker enabling fast performance and increased recognition efficiency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2006
    Assignee: Sony International (Europe) GmbH
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Silke Goronzy
  • Publication number: 20050184959
    Abstract: The present invention provides an apparatus for entering data into a computing device. The apparatus comprises at least two haptic keys having more than one state of activation, a graphical user interface for presenting hierarchically organised information to a user of the computing device, and a control means for controlling the generation of input data with respect to a haptic key selected, the current state of activation of the selected haptic key, and the information presented by the graphical user interface.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2005
    Publication date: August 25, 2005
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Jason Williams
  • Publication number: 20050187770
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method for operating and/or for controlling a man-machine interface unit (MMI) for a finite user group environment. Utterances out of a group of user are repeatedly received. A process of user identification is carried out based on said received utterances. The process of user identification comprises a set of clustering so as to enable an enrolment-free performance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 24, 2005
    Publication date: August 25, 2005
    Inventors: Ralf Kompe, Thomas Kemp
  • Publication number: 20050160449
    Abstract: Apparatus and method for automatic dissection of segmented audio signals According to the present invention, an apparatus for automatic dissection of segmented audio signals, wherein at least one information signal for identifying programmes included in said audio signals and for identifying contents included in said programmes is provided, comprises: content detection means for detecting programmes and contents belonging to the respective programmes in the information signal; programme weighting means for weighting each programme comprised in the information signal based on the contents of the respective programme detected by the content detection means; and programme ranking means for identifying programmes of the same category and ranking said programmes based on a weighting result for each programme provided by the programme weighting means.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 10, 2004
    Publication date: July 21, 2005
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Yin Lam, Krzysztof Marasek, Raquel Tato
  • Publication number: 20050131688
    Abstract: An apparatus for classifying audio signals comprises audio signal clipping means for partitioning audio signals into audio clips, and class discrimination means for discriminating the audio clips provided by the audio signal clipping means into predetermined audio classes based on predetermined audio class classifying rules, by analysing acoustic characteristics of the audio signals comprised in the audio clips, wherein a predetermined audio class classifying rule is provided for each audio class, and each audio class represents a respective kind of audio signals comprised in the corresponding audio clip. The determination process to find acceptable audio class classifying rules for each audio class according to the prior art is depending on both the used raw audio signals and the personal experience of the person conducting the determination process. Thus, the determination process usually is very difficult, time consuming and subjective.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 10, 2004
    Publication date: June 16, 2005
    Inventors: Silke Goronzy, Thomas Kemp, Ralf Kompe, Yin Lam, Krzysztof Marasek, Raquel Tato