Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: The systems, devices, and processes described herein may identify a beam of a voice-controlled device that is directed toward a reflective surface, such as a wall. The beams may be created by a beamformer. An acoustic echo canceller (AEC) may create filter coefficients for a reference sound. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to identify beams that include multiple peaks. The multiple peaks may indicate presence of one or more reflective surfaces. Using the amplitude and the time delay between the peaks, the device may determine that it is close to a reflective surface in a direction of the beam.

Abstract: Techniques for receiving user input and soliciting responses from one or more users are described. A user may speak a question to a system. The system may determine that various question and answering content sources cannot provide an answer to the question. The system may then store data representing the question in a dedicated storage. The system may a topic, to which the question relates and provide the question to users having knowledge on the topic.

Abstract: The systems, devices, and processes described herein may identify a beam of a voice-controlled device that is directed toward a reflective surface, such as a wall. The beams may be created by a beamformer. An acoustic echo canceller (AEC) may create filter coefficients for a reference sound. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to identify beams that include multiple peaks. The multiple peaks may indicate presence of one or more reflective surfaces. Using the amplitude and the time delay between the peaks, the device may determine that it is close to a reflective surface in a direction of the beam.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for generating predictive personal natural language processing models based on user-specific profile information. The predictive personal models can provide broader coverage of the various terms, named entities, and/or intents of an utterance by the user than a personal model, while providing better accuracy than a general model. Profile information may be obtained from various data sources. Predictions regarding the content or subject of future user utterances may be made from the profile information. Predictive personal models may be generated based on the predictions. Future user utterances may be processed using the predictive personal models.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: Techniques for receiving user input and soliciting responses from one or more users are described. A user may speak a question to a system. The system may determine that various question and answering content sources cannot provide an answer to the question. The system may then store data representing the question in a dedicated storage. The system may a topic, to which the question relates and provide the question to users having knowledge on the topic.

Abstract: The systems, devices, and processes described herein may identify a beam of a voice-controlled device that is directed toward a reflective surface, such as a wall. The beams may be created by a beamformer. An acoustic echo canceller (AEC) may create filter coefficients for a reference sound. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to identify beams that include multiple peaks. The multiple peaks may indicate presence of one or more reflective surfaces. Using the amplitude and the time delay between the peaks, the device may determine that it is close to a reflective surface in a direction of the beam.

Abstract: Techniques for receiving user input and soliciting responses from one or more users are described. A user may speak a question to a system. The system may determine that various question and answering content sources cannot provide an answer to the question. The system may then store data representing the question in a dedicated storage. The system may a topic, to which the question relates and provide the question to users having knowledge on the topic.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: A voice-controlled question answering system that is capable of answering questions using both a knowledge base and a search engine. The knowledge base is used to answer questions when answers to those questions are contained in the knowledge base. If an answer using the knowledge base is unavailable, and if the question is suitable for answering using an unstructured search approach, the system may obtain an answer using a search engine. The search engine results may be processed to obtain an answer to the question suitable for output using a voice user interface.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for generating predictive personal natural language processing models based on user-specific profile information. The predictive personal models can provide broader coverage of the various terms, named entities, and/or intents of an utterance by the user than a personal model, while providing better accuracy than a general model. Profile information may be obtained from various data sources. Predictions regarding the content or subject of future user utterances may be made from the profile information. Predictive personal models may be generated based on the predictions. Future user utterances may be processed using the predictive personal models.

Abstract: An audio device may be configured to produce output audio and to capture input audio for speech recognition. In some cases, a second device may also be used to capture input audio to improve isolation of input audio with respect to the output audio. In addition, acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) may be used to remove components of output audio from input signals of the first and second devices. AEC may be implemented by an adaptive filter based on dynamically optimized filter coefficients. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to detect situations in which the first and second devices are too close to each other, and the user may then be prompted to increase the distance between the two devices.

Abstract: Features are disclosed for generating predictive personal natural language processing models based on user-specific profile information. The predictive personal models can provide broader coverage of the various terms, named entities, and/or intents of an utterance by the user than a personal model, while providing better accuracy than a general model. Profile information may be obtained from various data sources. Predictions regarding the content or subject of future user utterances may be made from the profile information. Predictive personal models may be generated based on the predictions. Future user utterances may be processed using the predictive personal models.

Abstract: The systems, devices, and processes described herein may identify a beam of a voice-controlled device that is directed toward a reflective surface, such as a wall. The beams may be created by a beamformer. An acoustic echo canceller (AEC) may create filter coefficients for a reference sound. The filter coefficients may be analyzed to identify beams that include multiple peaks. The multiple peaks may indicate presence of one or more reflective surfaces. Using the amplitude and the time delay between the peaks, the device may determine that it is close to a reflective surface in a direction of the beam.

Abstract: A system matches text-to-speech (TTS) or other output to a quality of an input spoken utterance. The system uses trained models to detect a speech quality and generates an indicator of the speech quality. The speech quality may be determined from audio or non-audio data. The indicator is sent to downstream components of the system such as a command processor or TTS system. The output of the system is then determined using the indicator of speech quality, thus customizing an output of the system to the manner in which the utterance was spoken.

Abstract: An acoustic device captures sound using two or more microphones and filters the sound into a plurality of sub-bands. For each of the plurality of sub-bands, the device identifies sound captured by the microphones from at least two directions and attenuates the sound captured by the microphones, within each of the sub-bands, in substantially one of the directions.

Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for transitioning an electronic device between device states. In one example, a voice-controlled device is configured to transition from a low power state to an interactive state in response to identifying a user speaking a defined utterance. If, however, the device determines that the user has spoken an utterance that is close, but not equivalent to, the defined utterance, then the device may lower a threshold for subsequent speech such that the device is more likely to determine that the subsequent speech is equivalent to the defined utterance.