Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Speech signal processing – Application
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-20
2003-11-25
{haeck over (S)}mits, T{overscore (a)}livaldis Ivars (Department: 2654)
Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language
Speech signal processing
Application
C704S275000, C704S273000, C382S115000, C725S039000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06654721
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to communication systems generally and more particularly to television and pay television systems and to methods and devices which are employed to operate various functions in television and pay television systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are known in the art voice activation devices which are used to activate various apparatus and systems. Typically, the voice activation devices are employed to turn on and off an appliance, such as a lighting system, a security system and a personal terminal.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,199,080 and 5,226,090 describe a voice-operated remote control system which transmits a remote control signal in response to a voice command. The remote control of U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,080 has a speech recognition circuit for recognizing the voice command. The remote control system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,090 further includes a detector for detecting whether a voice command is received or not.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,111 describes a customized personal terminal device which is capable of operating in response to input data peculiar to the operator and comprises a speech recognition unit for recognizing inputted speech, an image recognition unit for recognizing inputted image, and an instruction recognition unit for recognizing an inputted instruction.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,960 describes an electronic facial tracking and detection system and method and apparatus for automated speech recognition which includes circuitry for obtaining a video image of an individual's face, circuitry for electronically locating and tracking a first feature, such as the nostrils, of the facial image for use as reference coordinates, and circuitry responsive to the reference coordinates for locating and tracking a second facial feature, such as the mouth, of the facial image with respect to the first feature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,385 describes a system and a method for providing an expandable home automation controller which supports multiple numbers and multiple different types of data communications with both appliances and subsystems within the home as well as systems external to the home. The system allows for the input of commands by a variety of means such as touchscreens, voice recognition systems, telephones, custom switches or any device capable of providing an input to a computer system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,149 describes a voice-recognition camera for taking photographs by voice recognition operations. The camera comprises a microphone through which voiced command words of an operator are registered in a computer as a form of digital data.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,121 describes a system which controls a television receiver to allow user selection of broadcast programs from schedule information.
In an article entitled “Vision system finds faces in a crowd” on pages 52-56 in the Laser Focus Magazine of November 1996, a vision system which includes a software called Facelt published by Visionics Corporation of Metuchen, N.J. is described. The system won a competition that was part of a program named FERET which is funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In the competition various automated face recognition systems were tested using a single database of thousands of faces that includes a wide range of ages races and poses.
Conventional voice recognition systems are described in a book entitled “Automatic Speech Recognition, The Development of the SPHINX System”, by Kai-Fu Lee, Kluwer Academic Publishers, on pp. 1-5, and in a book entitled “Digital Speech Processing, Synthesis, and Recognition”, by Sadaoki Fururi, Marcel Dekker, Inc. Publishing, in Chapter 8.
The disclosures of all references mentioned above and throughout the specification are incorporated herein by reference.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention seeks to provide voice activation devices and methods which are employed to operate various functions in entertainment and information communication systems, such as television and pay television systems.
There is thus provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a program guide selection system including:
a communication network for communicating program guide information and selection codes which enable selections of operating characteristics of a communication system from the program guide information, the selection codes being associated with the operating characteristics; and
a multiplicity of subscriber units, each including:
a receiver for receiving the program guide information and the selection codes associated with the operating characteristics;
a display for displaying the program guide information and the selection codes to a subscriber;
a microphone which is responsive to a voice expression spoken by the subscriber upon identification, on the display, of a selection code which is associated with a requested one of the operating characteristics, wherein the voice expression includes the selection code; and
a speech recognition unit which is coupled to the microphone and is operative to select the requested one of the operating characteristics in response to the voice expression.
Preferably, the communication network includes at least one of the following: a computer network, a television network, a cable television network, a satellite communication network, a telephone network, and a videophone network.
There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a subscriber unit for use with a program guide selection system in which program guide information is communicated over a communication network, wherein the program guide information includes operating characteristics of a communication system and selection codes which are associated with the operating characteristics of the communication system, the subscriber unit including:
a receiver for receiving the program guide information and the selection codes associated with the operating characteristics;
a display for displaying the program guide information and the selection codes to a subscriber;
a microphone which is responsive to a voice expression spoken by the subscriber upon identification, on the display, of a selection code which is associated with a requested one of the operating characteristics, wherein the voice expression includes the selection code; and
a speech recognition unit which is coupled to the microphone and is operative to select the requested one of the operating characteristics in response to the voice expression.
Preferably, the speech recognition unit includes an external removable speech recognition module, the subscriber unit includes an interface unit, and the external removable speech recognition module is operative to select the requested one of the operating characteristics via the interface unit.
Additionally, the subscriber unit may include:
a memory which is coupled to the speech recognition unit and is operative to store speech characteristics of the subscriber, and wherein
the speech recognition unit is operative to compare characteristics of the voice expression to the speech characteristics of the subscriber, and to select the requested one of the operating characteristics only when the characteristics of the voice expression substantially matches the speech characteristics of the subscriber.
Preferably, the program guide information is compressed prior to transmission over the communication network, and the subscriber unit includes a compressor/decompressor which is operative to decompress the program guide information, to compress the speech characteristics of the subscriber prior to storage in the memory, and to decompress the speech characteristics of the subscriber upon retrieval from the memory.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention there is also provided a program guide selection system including:
a communication network for communicating program guide information and selection codes which enable selections of operating characteristics of a communication system from the program guide informa
Azad Abul K.
Ladas & Parry
News Datacom Limited
{haeck over (S)}mits T{overscore (a)}livaldis Ivars
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