Lars Cristian Almstrand

7447635, Nov 4, 2008

Oct 19, 2000

09/692846

Courtney C. Konopka - Carlsbad CA, US
Lars Cristian Almstrand - San Diego CA, US

Sony Corporation - Tokyo
Sony Electronics Inc. - Park Ridge NJ

G10L 11/00

704275, 704231, 704251, 704 9

A natural language interface control system for operating a plurality of devices consists of a first microphone array, a feature extraction module coupled to the first microphone array, and a speech recognition module coupled to the feature extraction module, wherein the speech recognition module utilizes hidden Markov models. The system also comprises a natural language interface module coupled to the speech recognition module and a device interface coupled to the natural language interface module, wherein the natural language interface module is for operating a plurality of devices coupled to the device interface based upon non-prompted, open-ended natural language requests from a user.

20030036903, Feb 20, 2003

Aug 16, 2001

09/932760

Courtney Konopka - Carlsbad CA, US
Lars Almstrand - Del Mar CA, US

Sony Corporation

G10L017/00
G10L015/00

704/249000

A technique is provided for updating speech models for speech recognition by identifying, from a class of users, speech data for a predetermined set of utterances that differ from a set of stored speech models by at least a predetermined amount. The identified speech data for similar utterances from the class of users is collected and used to correct the set of stored speech models. As a result, the corrected speech models are a closer match to the utterances than were the set of stored speech models. The set of speech models are subsequently updated with the corrected speech models to provide improved speech recognition of utterances from the class of users. For example, the corrected speech models may be processed and stored at a central database and returned, via a suitable communications channel (e.g. the Internet) to individual user sites to update the speech recognition apparatus at those sites.

20030229495, Dec 11, 2003

Jun 9, 2003

10/457153

Lars Almstrand - San Diego CA, US
Courtney Konopka - Carlsbad CA, US

G10L015/00

704/255000

A 3D microphone array is provided for, e.g., sending sound to a speech recognition (SR) engine. To increase SNR while minimizing the computational load on the SR engine, the array processor compares received time-frequency profiles from various sources of sound to a model hypothesis provided by the SR engine, and sends on to the SR engine only those profiles that are similar to the model hypothesis. If desired, sources of sound can also be discriminated against on the basis of energy level and spatial location within a room.

20080059188, Mar 6, 2008

Oct 31, 2007

11/932771

Courtney KONOPKA - Carlsbad CA, US
Lars ALMSTRAND - San Diego CA, US

SONY CORPORATION - Tokyo
SONY ELECTRONICS INC. - Parkridge NJ

G10L 15/00

704257000, 704E15001

A search is performed in a network for an attention word based on a first context including a first set of models, grammars, and lexica. Upon finding the attention word, a switch is performed to a second context to search for an open-ended user request. The second context includes a second set of models, grammars, and lexicons and the open-ended user request does not follow a predetermined format.