Abstract: A depth sensing drill bit chuck can measure the depth of a drilled hole in real time as a hole is being drilled. A depth sensing drill bit chuck can use speed and/or force measurements to determine the moment a drill bit tip passes out of a target object, and the depth sensing drill bit chuck can determine the hole depth at the moment the drill bit tip passes out of the target object.

Abstract: The invention is directed to techniques for providing an audibly controlled interface for a user of a limited audio-based communication device, for example, a telephony device such as a desktop telephone or a cellular telephone. The communication device has an interface connection with a proxy browser. The user initially accesses the device, such as by picking up the handset, and the proxy browser provides a communication path over a network to a call services application on an application server. The application server provides a response to the initial access signal. The proxy browser receives the response from the application server and plays back an audio output based on the response to the communication device for the user. The user can then respond with a request to the call services application to place an outbound call or to initiate another service provided by the application server via the proxy browser.

Abstract: The invention is directed to techniques for navigating a network based on audio input to retrieve information from a network. A user enters audio commands into a two-way communication device to access information located on a network, such as the Internet. For example, a user enters a voice request for a web page into a telephone, which sends the request to a proxy browser for the World Wide Web which in turn provides the request to a web navigation application executing on an application server. The web navigation application generates a text-based request based on the voice request and retrieves a web page from the World Wide Web based on the text-based request. The web navigation application uses a script or an XML page to generate a file suitable for audio output from the retrieved web page.

Abstract: The invention is directed to techniques for providing an event notification string over a network to a notification server. An application server includes a notifying application that monitors, or otherwise determines, the occurrence of an event of interest to a target user who uses a device that can receive notification of the event. The notifying application generates an event notification string that indicates that a notification to the target user should be made. The notifying application then sends the event notification string over a network, such as an IP (Internet Protocol) network, to a notification server, which provides an event notification application that processes the event notification string. The event notification application determines the identity of the target user, if the event notification string does not provide this information itself, and which devices accessed by the target user should receive the notification.

Abstract: A unified web-based voice messaging system uses an application server, configured for executing a voice application defined by XML documents, that accesses subscriber attributes from a standardized information database server (such as LDAP), and messages from a standardized messaging server (such as IMAP), regardless of message format. The application server, upon receiving a request from a browser serving a user, accesses the standardized database server to obtain attribute information for responding to the voice application operation request. The application server generates an HTML document having media content and control tags for personalized execution of the voice application operation based on the attribute information obtained from the standardized database server. The application server also is configured for storing messages for a called party in the standardized messaging server by storing within the message format information that specifies the corresponding message format.

Abstract: A unified web-based voice messaging system provides voice application control between a web browser and an application server via an hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) connection on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The application server executes the voice-enabled web application by runtime execution of a first set of extensible markup language (XML) documents that define the voice-enabled web application to be executed. In addition, control data for the voice-enabled web application, and log files that record events that occur during execution of the voice-enabled web application, are generated and processed using an XML tag format. A second set of XML documents specify application parameters and control information to be used by the application runtime environment for execution of the first set of XML documents.

Abstract: A unified web-based voice messaging system provides voice application control between a web browser and an application server via an hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) connection on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The application server, configured for executing a voice application defined by XML documents, selects an XML document for execution of a corresponding voice application operation based on a determined presence of a user-specific XML document that specifies the corresponding voice application operation. The application server, upon receiving a voice application operation request from a browser serving a user, determines whether a personalized, user specific XML document exists for the user and for the corresponding voice application operation.