Patent ID: 9424843
Filing Date: 2016-08-23
CPC Classification: G10L,H04L,H04R,H04W

Claim Text:
1. A portable computing device for operation by a user, comprising: processing circuitry for executing programmed instructions with a display and user input interfaced thereto; a radio-frequency transceiver interfaced to the processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to transmit and receive information-carrying signals to and from other portable devices; wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive audio signals from one or more microphones associated with the device, referred to as associated microphones, via wired or wireless connections, including a hearing aid microphone of the user; wherein the processing circuitry is programmed to operate in a signal sharing mode in a signal sharing group made up of one or more other devices also operating in the signal sharing mode; wherein the processing circuitry is further programmed to: enter the signal sharing mode when access is granted to another device in response to a request to join a signal sharing group received from that device or when a signal sharing request is transmitted to another device and an access grant is received from that device; receive one or more audio signals from an associated microphone or another device of the signal sharing group, select a received audio signal and perform speech recognition processing on the selected audio signal to generate closed-captioning text corresponding thereto, and transmit the closed-captioning text to the other devices of the signal sharing group; receive closed-captioning texts from other devices of the signal sharing group; display generated and received closed-captioning texts; and, enable the user to temporarily disable viewing of the closed captioning texts from devices in the signal sharing group without stopping the signal sharing mode when the user converses with an individual outside of the signal sharing group.