Nuance Communications, Inc. (NUAN)

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Nuance Communications : Patent Issued for Configuring a Speech Engine for a Multimodal Application Based on Location

01/29/2015 | 12:51am US/Eastern
By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Journal of Engineering -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews journalists, a patent by the inventors Cross, Jr., Charles W. (Wellington, FL); Jablokov, Igor R. (Charlotte, NC), filed on February 27, 2007, was published online on January 20, 2015.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 8938392, is Nuance Communications, Inc. (Burlington, MA).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for configuring a speech engine for a multimodal application based on location.

"User interaction with applications running on small devices through a keyboard or stylus has become increasingly limited and cumbersome as those devices have become increasingly smaller. In particular, small handheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs serve many functions and contain sufficient processing power to support user interaction through multimodal access, that is, by interaction in non-voice modes as well as voice mode. Devices which support multimodal access combine multiple user input modes or channels in the same interaction allowing a user to interact with the applications on the device simultaneously through multiple input modes or channels. The methods of input include speech recognition, keyboard, touch screen, stylus, mouse, handwriting, and others. Multimodal input often makes using a small device easier.

"Multimodal applications are often formed by sets of markup documents served up by web servers for display on multimodal browsers. A `multimodal browser,` as the term is used in this specification, generally means a web browser capable of receiving multimodal input and interacting with users with multimodal output, where modes of the multimodal input and output include at least a speech mode. Multimodal browsers typically render web pages written in XHTML+Voice (`X+V`). X+V provides a markup language that enables users to interact with an multimodal application often running on a server through spoken dialog in addition to traditional means of input such as keyboard strokes and mouse pointer action. Visual markup tells a multimodal browser what the user interface is look like and how it is to behave when the user types, points, or clicks. Similarly, voice markup tells a multimodal browser what to do when the user speaks to it. For visual markup, the multimodal browser uses a graphics engine; for voice markup, the multimodal browser uses a speech engine. X+V adds spoken interaction to standard web content by integrating XHTML (eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language) and speech recognition vocabularies supported by VoiceXML. For visual markup, X+V includes the XHTML standard. For voice markup, X+V includes a subset of VoiceXML. For synchronizing the VoiceXML elements with corresponding visual interface elements, X+V uses events. XHTML includes voice modules that support speech synthesis, speech dialogs, command and control, and speech grammars. Voice handlers can be attached to XHTML elements and respond to specific events. Voice interaction features are integrated with XHTML and can consequently be used directly within XHTML content.

"In addition to X+V, multimodal applications also may be implemented with Speech Application Tags (`SALT`). SALT is a markup language developed by the Salt Forum. Both X+V and SALT are markup languages for creating applications that use voice input/speech recognition and voice output/speech synthesis. Both SALT applications and X+V applications use underlying speech recognition and synthesis technologies or `speech engines` to do the work of recognizing and generating human speech. As markup languages, both X+V and SALT provide markup-based programming environments for using speech engines in an application's user interface. Both languages have language elements, markup tags, that specify what the speech-recognition engine should listen for and what the synthesis engine should `say.` Whereas X+V combines XHTML, VoiceXML, and the XML Events standard to create multimodal applications, SALT does not provide a standard visual markup language or eventing model. Rather, it is a low-level set of tags for specifying voice interaction that can be embedded into other environments. In addition to X+V and SALT, multimodal applications may be implemented in Java with a Java speech framework, in C++, for example, and with other technologies and in other environments as well.

"Current multimodal applications support a voice mode of user interaction using a speech engine. A speech engine provides recognition and generation or `synthesis` of human speech. Speech engines may be optimized for use with particular a language or dialect to better support user interaction in a particular part of the world. The drawback to current multimodal architectures, however, is that they do not provide a mechanism for seamlessly reconfiguring a speech engine as the multimodal device moves from one location to another. As such, readers will therefore appreciate that room for improvement exists for configuring a speech engine for a multimodal application based on location."

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, VerticalNews editors also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for configuring a speech engine for a multimodal application based on location. The multimodal application operates on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of user interaction with the multimodal application, including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes. The multimodal application is operatively coupled to a speech engine. Configuring a speech engine for a multimodal application based on location includes: receiving a location change notification in a location change monitor from a device location manager, the device location manager operatively coupled to a position detection component of the multimodal device, the location change notification specifying a current location of the multimodal device; identifying, by the location change monitor in a configuration parameter repository, location-based configuration parameters for the speech engine in dependence upon the current location of the multimodal device, the location-based configuration parameters specifying a configuration for the speech engine at the current location; and updating, by the location change monitor, a current configuration for the speech engine according to the identified location-based configuration parameters.

"The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular descriptions of exemplary embodiments of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein like reference numbers generally represent like parts of exemplary embodiments of the invention."

For more information, see this patent: Cross, Jr., Charles W.; Jablokov, Igor R.. Configuring a Speech Engine for a Multimodal Application Based on Location. U.S. Patent Number 8938392, filed February 27, 2007, and published online on January 20, 2015. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8938392.PN.&OS=PN/8938392RS=PN/8938392

Keywords for this news article include: Technology, Nuance Communications Inc..

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