Patent Application
20080075237
For a more complete understanding of the invention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which:
Referring initially to
The illustrated telephonic device 100 includes a speech recognition subsystem 110 for recognizing at least one spoken word of a user of the device 100. Those skilled in the pertinent art will understand that the speech recognition subsystem 110 can be a software program installed in the memory of the telephonic device 100 or it may be a separate component or subsystem within the telephonic device 100. While the user continues his or her use of the telephonic device 100, the search recognition subsystem 110 formulates a search query 115 based on the recognition of at least one spoken word.
The telephonic device 100 includes a search subsystem 120 that searches for available data 130 based on the search query 115 and displays the results of such search query 115 by creating a hyperlink 155 to a data item 140. The illustrated telephonic device 100 shows available data 130 as data within the telephonic device 100. In the case of a mobile phone with email capability, for example, the data item 140 could be an email stored within the mobile phone's memory. In some mobile communications devices, as noted above, it could be any one of a number of data files that can be stored in current handheld devices. As will be hereinafter illustrated, available data 130 can also include data from any device capable of electronically storing data that can be accessed, directly or indirectly, by the telephonic device 100. The data item 140 can be a document, a drawing, a spreadsheet, or any type of data capable of being stored electronically.
A hyperlink 155 to the data item 140 will then be displayed on a screen 150 of the telephonic device 100, which data item 140 can be displayed by the user clicking on the hyperlink 155. Thus, if the data item 140 is in a document, the entire document will be displayed when the hyperlink 155 is selected by the user. The illustrated embodiment of a telephonic device 100 shows available data 130 within the telephonic device 100 itself. However, another embodiment of the invention provides for available data 130 to reside in a device other than the user's telephonic device 100.
Turning now to
In another embodiment of the invention, the speech recognition subsystem 110 recognizes a plurality of words and formulates a search query 115 based on such plurality. Because most telephone conversations will include a number of words of little or no value in constructing the search query 115, one embodiment of the invention provides for the identification of words deemed insignificant or trivial by eliminating certain predetermined words from the search query. This feature of the invention can be a separate subsystem or it can be included as a feature included in either the search subsystem or the speech recognition subsystem. It is readily apparent that this embodiment will reduce the number of words a system must parse through in order to identify the important words to be included in a search query 115 that will most likely produce a useful result. For example, this embodiment could be structured so that words such as “the”, “and”, “of”, “is” and so on are not included in the search query 115. In many cases the words to be excluded will share the common characteristic of being both short and common. The system could also be structured to permit a user to program the system so that any words he or she considers to be trivial are not considered in the formulation of a search query 115. Those words included in the search query 115 and not screened out as common or trivial, or both, will be considered non-trivial and included in the search query 115.
Another useful embodiment of the invention provides for words to be added to the search query 115 during the course of a conversation. Thus, as the conversation progresses, the search query 115 will be continually modified; the search subsystem 120 will continue to perform new searches; and hyperlinks 155 to data items 140 will be continuously updated. The updated search query 115 may relate to the original subject matter of the telephone conversation or it may relate to an entirely new topic that produces hyperlinks 155 unrelated to the original topic. Thus, as will be readily understood by those of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, the process of identifying words; formulating a search query 115; conducting a search of available data 130; and displaying a hyperlink 140 to data items 1140 will be an ongoing process during the entire course of a user's telephone conversation.
The utility of the present invention is illustrated by considering a telephone conversation between two or more engineers discussing ongoing technical problems with respect to one or more projects. As words are recognized during the course of the conversation, search queries are constructed, databases are searched; and hyperlinks to pertinent documents are displayed. The user can click on a hyperlink to a pertinent document and display the document as the conversation is taking place. If the conversation switches to another topic or project, spoken words relevant to such other topic or project will be recognized, new searches will be made, and different hyperlinks will be displayed. The user can access the new data by clicking on the appropriate hyperlink to recall relevant data.
Turning now to
Although the present invention has been described in detail, those skilled in the pertinent art should understand that they can make various changes, substitutions and alterations herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention in its broadest form.
