Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language translation, and audio compression/decompression inventions 03/06

20060069545 - Method and apparatus for transducer-based text normalization and inverse text normalization: A method and apparatus are provided that perform text normalization and inverse text normalization using a single grammar. During text normalization, a finite state transducer identifies a second string of symbols from a first string of symbols it receives. During inverse text normalization, the context free transducer identifies the first...

20060069546 - Autonomous response engine: The present invention is an autonomous response engine and method that can more successfully mimic a human conversational exchange. In an exemplary, preferred embodiment of the invention, the response engine has a statement-response database that is autonomously updated, thus enabling a database of significant size to be easily created and...

20060069547 - Creating a speech recognition grammar for alphanumeric concepts: A method and system to generate a grammar adapted for use by a speech recognizer includes receiving a representation of an alphanumeric expression. For instance, the representation can take the form of a regular expression or a mask. The grammar is generated based on the representation....

20060069548 - Audio output apparatus and audio and video output apparatus: The present invention relates to an audio output apparatus and an audio and video output apparatus which enable a user to recognize output speech even when ambient noise increases or when a loud irregular noise occurs. The audio and video output apparatus includes an audio unit for supplying sound including...

20060069549 - Updating of a buried data channel: The present invention relates to methods, devices, a media signal as well as a recorded medium relating to a media signal having audio samples including a buried data channel (30, 32, 34, 36). The buried data channel (30, 32, 34, 36) provided in the audio samples of a media signal...

20060069550 - Continuous backup audio: A digital audio encoder receives PCM encoded audio information and encodes it with first and second types of digital audio coding, the encoded audio information having self-contained data units, wherein corresponding pairs of self-contained data units encoded with the first type and second type of digital audio coding represent the...

20060069551 - Operating method for voice activity detection/silence suppression system: A VAD/SS system is connected to a channel of a transmission pipe. The channel provides a pathway for the transmission of energy. A method for operating a VAD/SS system includes detecting the energy on the channel, and activating or suppressing activation of the VAD/SS system depending upon the nature of...

20060069552 - Apparatus and method for displaying signals of a detector: An analytical element is disclosed for indicating concentration of a target analyte. The analytic element includes a transparent layer having a first side and a second side. A reactive layer faces the first side of the transparent layer. This reactive layer changes colorimetrically in response to concentration of the target...

20060069553 - Methods and arrangements for adaptive thresholds in codec selection: A method and arrangement for dynamically adapting thresholds used for selecting a codec mode to be used is presented. Thresholds are adapted in response to the current received signal quality. An estimate of actual prevailing received signal quality is obtained on which the adaptation is based. The present invention can...

20060069554 - Rew parametric vector quantization and dual-predictive sew vector quantization for waveform interpolative coding: An enhanced analysis-by-synthesis waveform interpolative speech coder able to operate at 2.8 kbps. Novel features include dual-predictive analysis-by-synthesis quantization of the slowly-evolving waveform, efficient parametrization of the rapidly-evolving waveform magnitude, and analysis-by-synthesis vector quantization of the rapidly evolving waveform parameter. Subjective quality tests indicate that it exceeds G.723.1 at 5.3...

20060069556 - Method and system for active noise cancellation: A method and system for active noise cancellation is provided. The system employs subband processing, and preferably implements over-sampled filterbank. The system is applicable to adaptive noise cancellation, adaptive echo cancellation for portable listening devices, such as headsets and other similar listening devices....

20060069555 - Method, system and apparatus for allocating bits in perceptual audio coders: A non-iterative and computationally efficient bit allocation technique for perceptual audio coders employing uniform quantization schemes. This is achieved by computing a target MNR for all critical bands in a frame using a target bit rate and associated SMRs. Associated SNRs are then computed for the critical bands using the...

20060069557 - Microphone setup and testing in voice recognition software: Systems, devices, and methods for performing a microphone test routine are disclosed during an initial setup of a speech recognition program and at a predetermined time intervals during use of the speech recognition program to detect recognition errors associated with the microphone....

20060069558 - Sentence level analysis: A method and related system, computer program product and device for interactively tracking oral reading of text from a document includes recording audio for a sentence read by a user and determining when the user has reached the last word of the sentence. The method also includes providing visual feedback...

20060069559 - Information transmission device: An information transmission device which analyzes a diction of a speaker and provides an utterance in accordance with the diction of the speaker, and which has a microphone detecting a sound signal of the speaker, a feature extraction unit extracting at least one feature value of the diction of the...

20060069561 - Intelligent tutoring feedback: Methods and related computer program products, systems, and devices for providing intelligent feedback to a user based on audio input associated with a user reading a passage are disclosed. The method can include assessing a level of fluency of a user's reading of the sequence of words using speech recognition...

20060069560 - Method and apparatus for controlling recognition results for speech recognition applications: A diagnostic tool for speech recognition applications is provided, which enables a person to edit results achieved by a speech recognizer, during runtime, to determine results of various inputs. The results that can be altered are the speech recognition result, the confidence levels of the output, the N-Best list and...

20060069562 - Word categories: A computer based method and related system, device, and computer program product for analyzing reading fluency includes categorizing at least some words in a passage into word categories. The word category for a particular word can be based on its difficulty relative to the reading level of the passage, or...

20060069563 - Constrained mixed-initiative in a voice-activated command system: A method of allowing a user to provide constrained, mixed-initiative utterances in order to improve accuracy and avoid disambiguation dialogs when recognition of a user's audible input would otherwise render a number of possible selections from the database or list is provided. A grammar is adapted to include additional information...

20060069564 - Method of weighting speech recognition grammar responses using knowledge base usage data: A method of speech recognition is provided for use in searching a knowledge database. A spoken command is communicated to a system. The spoken command is responded to with a set comprising a plurality of keywords. The plurality of keywords is arranged in a best possible set of matches which...

20060069565 - Compressed data processing apparatus and method and compressed data processing program: A compressed data processing apparatus, a method thereof and a compressed data processing program that are capable of reducing a processing load and enhancing processing speed. A multitrack decompression apparatus 30 comprises compressed audio data read-in section 31, decompression processing sections 34, 35, and 37, and synthesis processing section 36....

20060069567 - Methods, systems, and products for translating text to speech: Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for translating text to speech. One such method receives content for translation to speech, identifies a textual sequence in the content, and correlates the textual sequence to a phrase. A voice file storing multiple phrases is accessed, with the voice file mapping each phrase...

20060069566 - Segment set creating method and apparatus: A segment set before updating is read, and clustering considering a phoneme environment is performed to it. For each cluster obtained by the clustering, a representative segment of a segment set belonging to the cluster is generated. For each cluster, a segment belonging to the cluster is replaced with the...

20060069568 - Method and apparatus for recording/replaying application execution with recorded voice recognition utterances: A diagnostic tool for speech recognition applications is provided, which enables a administrator to collect multiple recorded speech sessions. The administrator can then search for various failure points common to one or more of the recorded sessions in order to get a list of all sessions that have the same...

20060069570 - System and method for defining and executing distributed multi-channel self-service applications: A system and method are provided for defining and executing distributed multi-channel self-service communication systems. A voice system is provided that will assist a user of the system to query the system and receive feedback from the system which can lead to additional queries of the system in order for...

20060069569 - System and method for optimizing prompts for speech-enabled applications: A computer-implemented method is described for optimizing prompts for a speech-enabled application. The speech-enabled application is operable to receive communications from a number of users and communicate one or more prompts to each user to illicit a response from the user that indicates the purpose of the user's communication. The...

20060069571 - Systems and methods for managing interactions from multiple speech-enabled applications: Systems and methods are described for speech systems that utilize an interaction manager to manage interactions—also known as dialogues—from one or more applications. The interactions are managed properly even if multiple applications use different grammars. The interaction manager maintains an interaction list. An application wishing to utilize the speech system...

20060069572 - Apparatus for producing sound in phone and method of doing the same: An apparatus for producing sound in an electronic device which has a function of making communication with another electronic device or to which a function of making communication with another electronic device can be applied, includes a first mixer for mixing sound transmitted from a sound source with voices with...

20060069573 - Speech controls for use with a speech system: Systems and methods are described for a speech system that includes one or more speech controls incorporated into one or more speech-enabled applications that run on the speech system. The controls allow applications to be developed with minimal programming effort to incorporate common speech-enabled application functions. A question control provides...

20060058995 - Handheld electronic device with text disambiguation: In view of the foregoing, an improved handheld electronic device includes a keypad in the form of a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with disambiguation software. As a user enters keystrokes, the device provides output in the form of a default output and a number of variants from which...

20060058996 - Word competition models in voice recognition: A system and method relate to voice recognition software, and more particularly to voice recognition tutoring software to assist in reading development....

20060058997 - Audio signal identification method and system: A method for identifying an audio signal from a set of audio signals. A user preference (106) is received (104). The set of audio signals is concurrently received (108), for example from a number of radio sources. The audio signals are analysed (110) to extract features (112). Audio signals are...

20060058998 - Indexing apparatus and indexing method: An indexing apparatus includes an acquiring unit that acquires an acoustic signal; a dividing unit that divides the acoustic signal into a plurality of segments; an acoustic model producing unit that produces an acoustic model for each of the segments; a reliability determining unit that determines reliability of the acoustic...

20060058999 - Voice model adaptation: Voice recognition tutoring software to assist in reading development includes method and system for generating a custom voice model....

20060059000 - Speech synthesis using concatenation of speech waveforms: The invention relates to a method of synthesizing of a speech signal, the speech signal having at least a first speech unit and a second speech unit, the method comprising the steps of: providing a first speech unit signal, the first speech unit signal having an end interval, providing a...

20060059001 - Method of embedding sound field control factor and method of processing sound field: A method of embedding sound field control factors (SFC factors) into a sound source. The method includes coding sound field factors and sound field information to obtain sound field control factors for the sound source in a binary data type, and the sound field factors represent an acoustic characteristic of...

20060053000 - Natural language question answering system and method utilizing multi-modal logic: A multi-modal natural language question answering system and method comprises receiving a question logic form, at least one answer logic form, and utilizing semantic relations, contextual information, and adaptable logic....

20060053001 - Writing assistance using machine translation techniques: A system is configured to provide writing assistance within a monolingual input environment based on statistical machine translation techniques typically utilized to translate from an input language to a different target language....

20060053002 - System and method for speech processing using independent component analysis under stability restraints: A system and method for separating a mixture of audio signal into desired audio signals (430) (e.g., speech) and a noise sign (440) is disclosed. Microphones (310, 320) are positioned to receive the mixed audio signals, and an independent component analysis (ICA) processes (212) the sound mixture using stability constraints....

20060053003 - Acoustic interval detection method and device: There is provided a harmonic structure acoustic signal detection device not depending on the level fluctuation of the input signal, having an excellent real time property and noise resistance. The device includes: an FFT unit (200) which performs FFT on an input signal and calculates a power spectrum component for...

20060053004 - Fast codec with high compression ratio and minimum required resources: This invention provides a novel single-pass and multi-pass synchronized encoder and decoder, performing order(s) of magnitude faster data compression and decompression, at any compression ratio with the higher or the same perceived and measured decompressed image quality in comparison with the best state-of-the-art compression methods, using order(s) of magnitude less...

20060053005 - Detecting events of interest using quantum resonance interferometry: Incoming data from, for example, an array of detectors, may be received. A dynamical system may be initialized corresponding to a modality of the incoming data so that a measurement probe based on the initialized dynamical system may be generated. Such a measurement probe may be injected into a quantum...

20060053006 - Audio encoding method and apparatus capable of fast bit rate control: Provided are an audio encoding method and apparatus capable of fast bit rate control. The audio encoding method includes: converting audio sampling data into frequency domain data; adjusting a scalefactor value in each predetermined frequency band based on an available bits and allowed distortion of a psychoacoustic model to allocate...

20060053007 - Detection of voice activity in an audio signal: A device comprising a voice activity detector for detecting voice activity in a speech signal using digital data formed on the basis of samples of an audio signal. The voice activity detector comprises a first element adapted to examine whether the signal has a highpass nature. The voice activity detector...

20060053009 - Distributed speech recognition system and method: A distributed speech recognition system and method thereof in accordance with the present invention enables a word and a natural language to be recognized using detection of a pause period in a speech period in an inputted speech signal, and various groups of recognition vocabulary (for example, a home speech...

20060053008 - Noise robust speech recognition with a switching linear dynamic model: A unified, nonlinear, non-stationary, stochastic model is disclosed for estimating and removing effects of background noise on speech cepstra. Generally stated, the model is a union of dynamic system equations for speech and noise, and a model describing how speech and noise are mixed. Embodiments also pertain to related methods...

20060053010 - System and method of analyzing communications between a calling party and a called party: A system and method of analyzing communications between a calling party and a called party is disclosed. In an embodiment of a method of the present invention, the method includes receiving a communication at a service provider network, recording the communication, analyzing a voice content portion of the recorded communication...

20060053011 - Baseband modem for speech recognition and mobile communication terminal using the same: A baseband modem and method for voice recognition and a mobile communication terminal using the baseband modem and method are disclosed. A speech recognition rate may be increased by selecting a sampling rate suitable for speech recognition and portions of the speech recognition process may be implemented in hardware. The...

20060053012 - Speech mapping system and method: A speech mapping system and method for assisting a user in the learning of a second language, comprising an extractor for extracting a first set of acoustic data from a monitored speech; said first set of acoustic data comprising aspiration, voicing, allophone/diphong timing and amplitude of the monitored speech; and...

20060053013 - Selection of a user language on purely acoustically controlled telephone: The user language of a device can be set to a user language by speaking the designation of the user language to be set....

20060053014 - Standard model creating device and standard model creating method: The standard model creating apparatus which provides a high-precision standard model used for: pattern recognition such as speech recognition, character recognition, or image recognition using a probability model based on a hidden Markov model, Bayesian theory, or linear discrimination analysis; intention interpretation using a probability model such as a Bayesian...

20060053015 - Method, apparatus and system for building a compact language model for large vocabulary continous speech recognition (lvcsr) system: According to one aspect of the invention, a method is provided in which a set of probabilistic attributes in an N-gram language model is classified into a plurality of classes. Each resultant class is clustered into a plurality of segments to build a code-book for the respective class using a...

20060053016 - Systems and methods for managing multiple grammars in a speech recognition system: Systems and methods are described for a speech system that manages multiple grammars from one or more speech-enabled applications. The speech system includes a speech server that supports different grammars and different types of grammars by exposing several methods to the speech-enabled applications. The speech server supports static grammars that...

20060053017 - Method of synthesizing of an unvoiced speech signal: The present invention relates to a method of synthesizing a signal comprising th steps of: a) determining of a required pitch bell location on the signal to be synthesized. b) mapping of the required pitch bell location onto an original signal to provide a first pitch bell location, c) randomizing...

20060053018 - Advanced processing based on a complex-exponential-modulated filterbank and adaptive time signalling methods: A synthesizer for generating a decorrelation signal using an input signal is operative on a plurality of subband signals, wherein a subband signal includes a sequence of at least two subband samples, the sequence of the subband samples representing a bandwidth of the subband signal, which is smaller than a...

20060053019 - Recording and reproducing apparatus for use with optical recording medium having real-time, losslessly encoded data: A lossless encoding and/or decoding apparatus which encodes audio data on a real-time basis includes a lossless compression unit which losslessly compression encodes the audio data stored in an input buffer in units of predetermined data and outputs the encoded data in sequence, and an output buffer which stores the...

20060053020 - Quality and rate control strategy for digital audio: An audio encoder regulates quality and bitrate with a control strategy. The strategy includes several features. First, an encoder regulates quantization using quality, minimum bit count, and maximum bit count parameters. Second, an encoder regulates quantization using a noise measure that indicates reliability of a complexity measure. Third, an encoder...

20060047497 - Method and system for prioritizing communications based on sentence classifications: A method and system for prioritizing communications based on classifications of sentences within the communications is provided. A sentence classification system may classify sentences of communications according to various classifications such as “sentence mode.” The sentence classification system trains a sentence classifier using training data and then classifies sentences using...

20060047498 - System and method for multilanguage text input in a handheld electronic device: A system provides multilanguage text input in a handheld electronic device. The system includes one or more applications implemented in the handheld electronic device. The applications include a text input application requiring access to language data usable thereby. One or more language databases contain language data from a plurality of...

20060047499 - Methods, systems and computer program products for national language support using a multi-language property file: National language support for an application is provided by recording translations of a text string in corresponding different languages in a single property file so as to allow display of the translations in the property file. One of the translations of the text string recorded in the property file is...

20060047501 - Method and system for producing variable length context models: Various embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for determining, representing, and using variable-length contexts in a variety of different computational applications. In one embodiment of the present invention, a balanced tree is used to represent all possible contexts of a fixed length, where the depth of the...

20060047500 - Named entity recognition using compiler methods: Methods of identifying named entities in natural language text using machine or computer compiler tools are provided. A lexical analyzer generator such as Flex or Lex or an equivalent tool can be used to generate a recognizer for named entities, such as digits, date expressions, and email or web addresses....

20060047502 - Method and apparatus for building semantic structures using self-describing fragments: A method and apparatus for identifying a semantic structure from text includes processing the input text to identify self-describing fragments of the input text based on a hierarchical schema defining a domain with at least one top-level node and child nodes. Each identified self-describing fragment includes hierarchical context of a...

20060047505 - Electronic device: A disk device and microphone are arranged in a device main body. The case of the disk device includes a first shell having a bottom, and a second shell having a top cover. A disk-shaped recording medium is contained in the case. The microphone is positioned closer to the top...

20060047504 - Electronic-book read-aloud device and electronic-book read-aloud method: A control unit of an electronic-book read-aloud device reads book data and electronic-book data from an electronic bookmark and stores the read data in a storage unit. Further, the control unit sets a read-aloud-start position based on the electronic-bookmark data, reads the book data after the read-aloud-start position from the...

20060047503 - System and method for controlling sound data: A system and method for controlling access to parameter blocks of a sound processor. According to the method and system disclosed herein, the present invention includes a host, a sound processor coupled to the host, and at least two copies of a parameter block associated with the sound data. The...

20060047506 - Greedy algorithm for identifying values for vocal tract resonance vectors: A method and apparatus identify values for components of a vocal tract resonance vector by sequentially determining values for each component of the vocal tract resonance vector. To determine a value for a component, the other components are set to static values. A plurality of values for a function are...

20060047507 - Device and method for noise suppression: An analog signal is sampled to provide a digitized signal and the resultant digitized signal is output to a delay element, which provides a delayed digital signal. The analog signal is also input to an analog noise detector, which provides a noise detector output signal to a digital logic unit....

20060047508 - Speech processing apparatus and method: A speech processing apparatus and method for restricting use of generated speech data for purposes other than a particular purpose. An adder adds predetermined audio data within audio-frequency band excluding predetermined frequency band, to input speech data. A band limiting filter limits the speech data to which the predetermined audio...

20060047509 - Eliminating interference of noisy modality in a multimodal application: Aspects of the present invention provide for ranking various input modalities relative to each other and processing recognition results received through these input modalities based in part on the ranking....

20060047510 - Method and system of building a grammar rule with baseforms generated dynamically from user utterances: A method (200) of building a grammar with baseforms generated dynamically from user utterances can include the steps of recording (205) a user utterance, generating (210) a baseform using the user utterance, creating or adding to (215) a grammar rule using the baseform, and binding (230) the grammar rule in...

20060047511 - System, method, and computer program product for content delivery in a push-to-talk communication system: A system, method, and computer program product for real-time content delivery in a communication system utilizing push-to-talk wireless capabilities for voice interaction with a wide range of data processing system applications. By utilizing a vocalizer voice-to-text translation system, various embodiments allow real-time, push-to-talk interaction with conventional voice-response systems, conventional data...

20060047512 - System, device, and methods for updating system-monitoring models: A system for updating a plurality of monitoring models is provided. The system includes a model association module that, for each of a plurality of monitored systems determines, an association between a particular monitored system and at least one of a plurality of estimation models. Each estimation model is based...

20060047513 - Voice-activated remote control system and method: A wireless remote control system and method, by which a user may handle devices with different communication interfaces in voice, has been disclosed. The control system includes: a receiver, which receives a user's voice order. A voice process and recognition system, which recognizes the contents of the voice order to...

20060047514 - Method and apparatus for synthesizing speech: A method for synthesizing speech includes an obtaining step of obtaining a speech message, and a resuming step of resuming speech output of the speech message according to resumption data representing a resumption mode of the speech message when the speech output of the speech message is suspended in the...

20060047515 - Analyzing human movement patterns: Movement analysis is expanded to assist not just in determining the emotional, cognitive, and performance processes of subjects, but to also predict and explain a subject's actions. The analysis is particularly applicable to leaders, but may be applied to other subjects. Additionally, non-expert practitioners may more readily benefit from analyzing...

20060047516 - Method for processing audio data on a network and device therefor: A method of processing a data stream comprising audio data exchanged over a network between a server (SERV) and at least one telephone terminal, the data stream corresponding to a telephone call from said terminal during which a user has produced at least one event. The method comprises a step...

20060047517 - Audio watermarking: A method of watermarking audio tracks and a method of detection of such watermarks. A watermark is applied to an audio track by inverting the audio signal between two points on the audio track. Inversion of an audio signal results in no perceivable change in the audio characteristics of the...

20060047518 - Interface for management of multiple auditory communications: A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for presenting a plurality of auditory communications having associated data representing at least one term identified in the communication is disclosed. In an embodiment, this comprises providing a visual representation of the term, providing links associated with occurrences of the term in the...

20060047520 - Behavioral contexts: Methods and systems, including computer program products, for speech animation. The system includes a speech animation server and one or more speech animation clients. The speech animation server generates speech animation content that drives the expressions and behaviors of talking agents displayed by the speech animation clients. The data used...

20060047519 - Sound processor architecture: A system and method for implementing a sound processor. The sound processor includes a first voice engine, a second voice engine, and at least one single-port memory unit. An operation of the first voice engine and an operation of the second voice engine are time offset, wherein the time offset...

20060047521 - Method and apparatus for mp3 decoding: A memory optimization method for a MP3 decoder. In a pipeline structure for speeding matrix calculation in Mp3 decoding, an output sequence of IMDCT calculation is altered so that matrix calculation is activated before completing the IMDCT calculation. A decoding control method allows pipeline processing in MP3 decoding, with decoding...

20060047522 - Method, apparatus and computer program to provide predictor adaptation for advanced audio coding (aac) system: This invention provides a method, an apparatus and a computer program to process an audio signal. The method includes encoding an audio signal in accordance with a first type of encoding at least in part by operating a predictor to generate, in each of a plurality of audio frequency bands,...

20060047523 - Processing of encoded signals: The invention relates in general to a method for combining frequency domain encoded signals from at least two signal sources. To allow combining signals without decoding the signals entirely, the invention provides decoding the encoded signals obtaining quantized spectral components, inverse quantizing the quantized spectral component of the decoded signals...