Patent Publication Number: US-2020294523-A1

Title: System and Method for Network Bandwidth Management for Adjusting Audio Quality

Description:
PRIORITY INFORMATION 
     The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/586,432, filed May 4, 2017, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/087,814, filed Nov. 22, 2013, now U.S. patent Ser. No. 14/087,814, issued May 9, 2017, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     1. Technical Field 
     The present disclosure relates to speech processing and more specifically to suppressing ambient noise to improve audio quality for speech processing. 
     2. Introduction 
     Most, if not all, current Human-Computer Interface (HCI) systems and/or audio-enabled communication devices, such as cell-phones or conference systems, provide some sort of signal processing during the audio capture stage to suppress ubiquitous ambient noise. Suppressing ambient noise can enhance audio quality and clarity. However, when suppressing ambient noise, special care should be taken to ensure that the signal processing does not negatively impact performance of speech-related services based on Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Thus, devices attempt to suppress noise as much as possible without deteriorating audio quality. On-device audio processing presents additional challenges relating to energy consumption, computational efficiency, and device capabilities. Many different devices use different noise reduction algorithms or different degrees of noise reduction even if using identical algorithms, which can lead multiple device-specific ASR models to increase performance. This approach creates significant duplication of effort and increases costs. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  illustrates an example system architecture for generating a user profile; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates an example system architecture for enhancing audio using a user profile; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates an example mobile device with multiple speakers; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates an example method embodiment; and 
         FIG. 5  illustrates an example system embodiment. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The approach disclosed herein enhances captured audio over a network with personalization. At first, a training phase is required for the proposed system to “learn” and record the speech characteristics of any first-time user as a user profile.  FIG. 1  illustrates an example system architecture  100  for learning about users and generating user profiles. The profile training system  108  can perform this training or user registration process once (or more than once) for each new or unregistered user  102 . The system either provides a user ID  110  to a communication device  104  of the user  102  over a network  106 , or prompts the user  102 , via an audio signal  112  or displayed text, to enter a user ID  110 . Then the profile training system  108  prompts the registering user  102  to read aloud a predefined text  122  to generate an audio signal  112  sent back to the training system  108 . The predefined text can be suitably selected to contain all of the existing phonetic units. During this training phase, the profile training system  108  learns the phonetic units uttered and adjusts the configuration of the spectral analysis  114  and feature extraction  118  accordingly to let this specific user&#39;s signal “pass” unaltered through the process while suppressing every other sound source. The profile training system  108  can also gather and store user information  120  such as contact information, demographic data, credentials, address, personal data, and so forth, from the user  102 . The profile training system  108  can reside across a network operated or maintained by a service provider  116 , and can be completely transparent to the user, who only reads aloud the provided text  122  through the communication device  104  and then continues to use the communication device  104  as usual. Therefore, the learning process is device-independent and can be initialized by any device capable of capturing audio, such as a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer, wearable computing device, and so forth. The profile training service or system can also reside in the user&#39;s device wholly or partially. 
     More than one user can register using the same device, but each user should independently identify themselves accordingly. Alternatively, the communication device  104  or a server can perform speaker identification between a small group of users to determine which, if any, of the users is speaking. The profile training system  108  generates and stores user profiles  124  for later use. The system can use user profiles  124  regardless of the end-point device, provided that the respective user&#39;s profile information is available to the communication server. After the above registration process, the system can be used at will, or engaged automatically when needed, such as when the user is speaking in a noisy environment like an airport terminal or a construction site. The user can control and engage the speech processing enhancements on-demand, such as by pressing a button. 
     User&#39;s voices may change over time, such as due to short-term voice changes by a cold or flu, or long-term voice changes due to aging or more permanent diseases. The system can transparently add features to the training speech segments whenever the registered user&#39;s raw speech is considered of high quality, thus, keeping track of any voice changes. The system can update the users&#39; profile every time a significant change of the respective user&#39;s voice is perceived. For example, when speech above a certain clarity or quality is received, the system can add that speech to the user profile or replace lower quality speech with the new speech. The system can add to a user&#39;s profile all received speech above a certain clarity threshold and/or quality threshold. Further, a user can initiate at will a re-profiling/retraining process, such as via a button press, selecting an option via a menu, or configuring a setting in the local device or a network-based server. For example, the user can read a predefined text passage, covering all necessary phonetic units, so the system can learn the user&#39;s voice characteristics, and set up a dedicated personalized speech profile. From this point on, the system can treat all other audio components as noise and suppress them accordingly. 
     Once the profile training system  108  generates the profile  124 , that profile  124  is provided to a personalized speech enhancement system  208 , as shown in the example architecture of  FIG. 2 . A smart bandwidth manager (SBM)  214  can reconfigure the audio transmission details, such as the amount of coding, the number of transmitted audio channels  216  (or even a single audio channel), which codecs are used, etc., in real-time based on the ambient noise conditions, the need for enhanced speech quality, or the network load  212  at any given moment. These factors can change over time, and so thus can the SBM  214  adapt any factor of the audio accordingly. For example, if the amount of available bandwidth suddenly decreases, such as when the user  202  moves the device  204  out of LTE cellular reception to an area of 3G cellular reception, the SBM  214  can reduce the number of audio channels transmitted to the personalize speech enhancement system  208 . Conversely, if the user  202  is interacting with an app or service that has higher audio accuracy requirements, the SBM  214  can increase the number of audio channels, increase the quality of the coding, use a higher-quality codec, and so forth, for the duration of the use of that app or service. The personalized speech enhancement system  208  can include a module or processor for multi-channel audio processing  218  and for real time audio streaming  220 . 
     The SBM  214  can transmit a user ID  210  to the personalized speech enhancement system  208  to identify which user profile  124  to apply to the multi-channel audio  216 . The personalized speech enhancement system  208  can look up a configuration  222  based on the user profile  124 . In another example, a speech-based service, such as an ASR-based mobile search application, can choose to bypass user-defined options in the user profile  124  for the audio-enhancing service in order to get the best-available audio quality, ensuring the best possible ASR performance. The system can override user preferences based on settings in an application, based on location, based on time, etc. In one example the system can increase the number of audio channels for locations and times that are known or expected to be extremely loud, such as in a sports arena during a game. Such an application or situational trigger can establish a “full-throttle” data channel where all the available audio channels and audio enhancing modules have been activated regardless of available bandwidth or user settings. 
     The personalized speech enhancement system  208  can provide improved audio quality based on a personalized speech enhancement module. The same system guarantees that this improved audio quality is achieved with the least possible bandwidth consumption. The SBM  214  can communicate with or monitor the network to determine network load  212  information. Network load  212  information can include processing load of the personalized speech enhancement module  208  as well as available bandwidth, latency, and other communication characteristics. The SBM  214  can change the location of the acoustic or other processing tasks from the device  204  to the network-based personalized speech enhancement system  208  or vice versa in order to maximize user experience, reduce network traffic, or to increase handheld device battery life. 
     As soon as the system is trained, the user can activate the personalized speech enhancement system in real-time. In order to take advantage of device-independence, the user profile  124  can be stored in a network-based location so the personalized speech enhancement system  208  can access it for any user device  204 . Therefore, the user  202  can switch devices  204  without retraining his or her user profile  124 . Because the system resides in a network, the on-device footprint is minimal. Thus, the speech enhancements can be scaled up easily. Finally, the SBM  214  can track the noise conditions at the user  202  and device  204  and decide how many of the available audio channels should be transmitted to the personalized speech enhancement system  208 . The SBM  214  can determine that it is not necessary to transmit more than one channel when noise levels are very low, allowing the allocation of the available bandwidth to other services or saving bandwidth in the network for other demands. Further, The SBM  214  can reconfigure in real-time other audio capturing parameters, such as the amount of compression/coding, the sampling frequency (broadband vs. narrowband audio), and so forth. 
     Disclosed herein are systems and methods for suppressing ambient noise and enhancing audio quality, such as in audio captured at a mobile device. An example system can simultaneously capture and combine individual audio channels to mitigate ambient noise conditions and enhance the user&#39;s speech signal using only a minimum number of necessary audio channels to ensure acceptable audio quality. Further, handling noise suppression in the same way for all devices, for example, “centrally” in the network, can provide other benefits. Many mobile devices, such as the example mobile device  300  shown in  FIG. 3 , include more than one microphone  302 ,  304 ,  306 ,  308 ,  310  to enable simultaneous audio capture and enhanced audio quality from combining individual audio channels. The example mobile device  300  shows example locations for the microphones, but additional microphones or fewer microphones can be used. One or more of the microphones can also be in another position. The microphones can be located within the device, or can be located within other nearby ‘companion’ devices, such as in a car, a desktop computer, or a nearby user&#39;s device. In order for a central, network-based recognizer to take advantage of the multiple microphones, the recognizer would need access to the audio signal of each microphone. Thus, the device can provide the audio channels to the recognizer as multichannel audio in combined data streams, which would require increased bandwidth. 
     The system can incorporate audio streams from other devices, as well. For example, in a car-scenario, the system can incorporate audio streams from in-car microphones as well as in-device microphones. In an office environment, the system can incorporate audio streams from a desk phone, a microphone from a webcam, as well as microphones in a mobile device. Similarly, in a living room environment, the system can incorporate audio streams from microphones attached to or associated with a gaming console, in-home monitoring, intercom, or surveillance equipment, tablets, other smart phones, and so forth. The system can determine which microphones are nearby, and determine network conditions for each microphone separately. For example, data from a microphone integrated into a smartphone will travel through a different network than data captured from a webcam through a computer with a wired internet connection. Thus, the amount of audio channels, the types and amount of coding, and other characteristics for transmitting the audio data may vary for each microphone. In some cases, the network conditions may vary so much that the system can redirect traffic from one network connection to another. For example, if the cellular connection is particularly bad, but a reliable and fast wired connection is available via a nearby desktop computer with a microphone, the system can arrange for the cell phone to record multiple audio channels, and relay the audio data to the desktop computer, such as via Bluetooth or other networking technology, for transmission to the personalized speech enhancement system  208 . 
     The example communication server operates not on the local device gathering the audio, but on a computing device or server residing across the network from the local device, and can act as an intermediate system between the end-device that captures the audio and the server that establishes the bidirectional communication channel. When the communication server recognizes or registers the user and estimates the ambient noise conditions and characteristics, the communication server can adapt its configuration accordingly, to enhance the user&#39;s speech signal using just the necessary channels of audio to ensure acceptable audio quality. Thereby, the communication server can greatly reduce the required channel bandwidth. For example, if one of the audio channels is not needed, the device can withhold that audio channel, and reduce the required bandwidth to transmit audio to the system. In addition, the communication server can reconfigure the consumed bandwidth based on the current network load, by either enhancing or degrading the audio quality accordingly. 
     The example communication server can include a “Smart Bandwidth Manager” (SBM), and a “Personalized Speech Enhancer” (PSE). The SBM can decide the audio coding configuration and how many of the available audio channels should be transmitted to the communication server. The communication server can determine that audio quality improves with an increased number of microphones used, with great dependence on the actual noise conditions. The PSE is trained to enhance the user&#39;s speech as well as to suppress the rest of the audio noise components, and thus, greatly improve the captured speech quality. Because the communication server performs audio processing in the network, the speech enhancement algorithms can be faster, more scalable, and more easily reconfigurable and upgradeable, thus prolonging the device&#39;s battery life and reducing demands for bandwidth, while significantly reducing the end-device&#39;s processing requirements compared to doing all the processing on-device. 
     This solution can ensure that the quality of processed audio is more consistent across different devices and noise conditions because the audio processing is device-independent and can provide increased performance of ASR services without costly individualized ASR models. 
     Four scenarios are provided to illustrate example usage scenarios for the personalized speech enhancement system  208 . In a first scenario, a user buys a new LTE smartphone  300  with  5  microphones, as shown in  FIG. 3 , and sets up the audio enhancing service with the personalized speech enhancement system  208 . Then, the user reads 10 lines of text provided to the screen of the smartphone  300  while the device captures and processes the audio to create the training data set. When the training phase is finished, a network-based storage stores the user&#39;s profile and makes the profile available to the personalized speech enhancement system  208 . Later, the user is in a noisy metropolitan environment, such as Manhattan, for business purposes. He starts a call while in a taxi. The noise level is quite low and the SBM  214  configures the device to transmit only one channel to the server, thus conserving link bandwidth. The personalized speech enhancement system  208  is able to deal with this level of noise, delivering crystal-clear audio to the other end of the line via the real time audio streaming module  220 . During the call, the user steps out of the taxi and starts walking on the sidewalk. 
     On the sidewalk, the noise from the traffic, other people talking, and general ambient noise is so prominent that the other party on the call can hardly hear him talking. Immediately, the SBM  214  decides that all 5 audio channels should be transmitted to increase call clarity. Perhaps 2, 3, or 4 channels are all that is needed for an acceptable level of performance or call clarity. As soon as these channels reach the PSE  208 , the PSE  208  filters out the noise and again, only the user&#39;s voice is clearly audible at the other end. The PSE  208  can actively filter out all other sound signals but the user&#39;s voice so the other party can clearly hear him. In a second scenario, the user downloads a new application to be used as a “Virtual Assistant”, where the user utters a command and the device performs the requested action. Such applications are usually employed while walking or driving or in other “hands-free” settings, where background noise can greatly deteriorate ASR performance. In this scenario, the virtual assistant application “knows” the user&#39;s speech profile, which can contain information about the user&#39;s speech “fingerprint”. The virtual assistant applicant can automatically retrieve the speech profile  124  and enable or signal the PSE  208  to use the speech profile  124 . Eventually the user will decide to upgrade his mobile phone and buy a different or newer model. Because the speech profile  124  resides in a network-based location and is device-independent, the virtual assistant application does not need to be altered or retrained. The ASR performance of the virtual assistant application remains unaffected, even on the new phone, or a replacement or a secondary device. As long as the PSE  208  improves audio quality and the ASR performance is improved, the user remains satisfied with his experience and he continues using the virtual assistant application. 
     In a third scenario, the user uses his smartphone during a time when the network is not fully loaded. The SBM  214  consults with the network to determine the network load  212 , and then determines to increase the number of channels, increase sampling rates, and/or reduce the compression/coding in order to provide increased audio performance to the user. In this way, the SBM  214  can take advantage of available network capacity to provide enhanced services, and can reduce network usage in times of congestion for applications that do not require heightened clarity or for users in environments that are sufficiently quiet or clear. 
     In a fourth scenario, the user uses his smartphone. The SBM  214  makes a determination to change processing tasks (acoustic or other) from a network-based recognizer via the PSE  208  to the device  204  or from the device  204  to a network-based recognizer via the PSE  208 . The SBM  214  can make decisions to transfer recognition or other speech processing tasks based on available resources or capabilities of the device  204 , such as battery life, available codecs, CPU type, storage space, available RAM, and so forth. For example, the SBM  214  can shift speech processing tasks away from the device  204  in order to maximize handheld battery life. In another aspect, the system can record on the device  300  audio from one or more of the microphones and transmit it serially (rather than in parallel) to an ASR server for processing the audio command. That way all of the audio data is used, but there is a delay. Having disclosed some basic system components and concepts, the disclosure now turns to the exemplary method embodiment shown in  FIG. 4 . For the sake of clarity, the method is described in terms of an exemplary system  500  as shown in  FIG. 5  configured to practice the method. The steps outlined herein are exemplary and can be implemented in any combination thereof, including combinations that exclude, add, or modify certain steps. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates an example method embodiment for processing speech. An example system configured to practice the method can receive audio at a device to be transmitted to a remote speech processing system ( 402 ). The remote speech processing system can perform speech recognition, natural language understanding, speaker recognition, or other tasks related to speech processing. The system can analyze one of noise conditions, need for an enhanced speech quality, and network load to yield an analysis ( 404 ). The analysis can be based on a user profile stored in a network, a network status, a device battery level, capabilities and/or features of the device, and so forth. The analysis can produce a composite score that weights multiple factors that are important to a particular task. For example, the analysis can be based on data associated with a sampling rate and level of data compression. Based on the analysis, the system can determine to bypass user-defined options for enhancing audio for speech processing ( 406 ). The system can modify, based on the analysis, an audio transmission parameter used to transmit the audio from the device to the remote speech processing system ( 408 ). Audio transmission parameters can include an amount of coding, a chosen codec, codec settings, a number of audio channels, which audio channels to use, whether to transmit audio data from multiple microphones, whether to transmit data in serial or in parallel, and so forth. In one embodiment, the system can select audio channels in a symmetric manner, so that an even amount of bandwidth is used for or a same or similar codecs and codec settings are applied to each channel. In another embodiment, the system can select audio channels in an asymmetric manner. For example, the system can determine that a particular audio channel may be more valuable or may provide more useful information that should be preserved when coding. Thus, the system can devote additional bandwidth for that audio channel while still transmitting a reduced bandwidth version of one or more other audio channels or data from other microphones. The system can apply this approach to other audio transmission parameters as well, so that different audio channels are transmitted with different audio transmission parameters according to their various priority levels. The system can determine a respective priority level for each of a set of audio channels from separate microphones, and encode each of the set of audio channels according to the respective priority level. Further audio data from different microphones can be transmitted with separate coding features in a serial or parallel fashion. 
     The PSE  208  can track users&#39; voices over time and adjust or retrain their respective user profiles when substantial changes in their voices are detected. For example, when the audio is a voice of a user, the system can track the voice of the user over time, and adjust a profile of the user upon detecting a change in the voices that exceeds a threshold. 
     In one variation, the SBM  214  can continuously track noise levels and decide whether to transmit more audio channels to the PSE  208  to enhance audio signal clarity. Further, the SBM  214  can alter the audio capturing configuration on the device  204  in order to send a smaller amount of data to the PSE  208 , thereby conserving additional channel bandwidth. This can be important when the network load is high. A speech-based application on the device  204  can request “speech fingerprints” transparently to the user, or without requiring the user to take any further action. Since the stored user profile  124  is device independent, this service can improve the interaction between any registered users with other systems such as in-car communication, voice interactive television set-top boxes, “ambient house” systems, and so forth. The PSE  208  can improve the signal clarity or quality of captured speech based on a user  124  profile that is stored in the network-based location, which can be retrieved each time the user attempts to communicate with other users or with speech-enabled systems. In other words, the improved signal clarity or quality can provide benefits to other entities with which the user is speaking via the device  204 , whether the other entities are other humans or some kind of automatic dialog system. 
     Various embodiments of the disclosure are described in detail herein. While specific implementations are described, it should be understood that this is done for illustration purposes only. Other components and configurations may be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. A brief description of a basic general purpose system or computing device in  FIG. 5  which can be employed to practice the concepts, methods, and techniques disclosed is illustrated. 
     An exemplary system and/or computing device  500  includes a processing unit (CPU or processor)  520  and a system bus  510  that couples various system components including the system memory  530  such as read only memory (ROM)  540  and random access memory (RAM)  550  to the processor  520 . The system  500  can include a cache of high speed memory connected directly with, in close proximity to, or integrated as part of the processor  520 . The system  500  copies data from the memory  530  and/or the storage device  560  to the cache for quick access by the processor  520 . In this way, the cache provides a performance boost that avoids processor  520  delays while waiting for data. These and other modules can control or be configured to control the processor  520  to perform various operations or actions. Other system memory  530  may be available for use as well. The memory  530  can include multiple different types of memory with different performance characteristics. It can be appreciated that the disclosure may operate on a computing device  500  with more than one processor  520  or on a group or cluster of computing devices networked together to provide greater processing capability. The processor  520  can include any general purpose processor and a hardware module or software module, such as module  5   562 , module  2   564 , and module  3   566  stored in storage device  560 , configured to control the processor  520  as well as a special-purpose processor where software instructions are incorporated into the processor. The processor  520  may be a self-contained computing system, containing multiple cores or processors, a bus, memory controller, cache, etc. A multi-core processor may be symmetric or asymmetric. The processor  120  can include multiple processors, such as a system having multiple, physically separate processors in different sockets, or a system having multiple processor cores on a single physical chip. Similarly, the processor  120  can include multiple distributed processors located in multiple separate computing devices, but working together such as via a communications network. Multiple processors or processor cores can share resources such as memory  130  or the cache  122 , or can operate using independent resources. The processor  120  can include one or more of a state machine, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or a programmable gate array (PGA) including a field PGA. 
     The system bus  510  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. A basic input/output (BIOS) stored in ROM  540  or the like, may provide the basic routine that helps to transfer information between elements within the computing device  500 , such as during start-up. The computing device  500  further includes storage devices  560  or computer-readable storage media such as a hard disk drive, a magnetic disk drive, an optical disk drive, tape drive, solid-state drive, RAM drive, removable storage devices, a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), hybrid storage device, or the like. The storage device  560  can include software modules  562 ,  564 ,  566  for controlling the processor  520 . The system  500  can include other hardware or software modules. The storage device  560  is connected to the system bus  510  by a drive interface. The drives and the associated computer-readable storage media or devices provide nonvolatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computing device  500 . In one aspect, a hardware module that performs a particular function includes the software component stored in a tangible computer-readable storage medium or device in connection with the necessary hardware components, such as the processor  520 , bus  510 , display  570 , and so forth, to carry out a particular function. In another aspect, the system can use a processor and computer-readable storage medium or device to store instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform a method or other specific actions. The basic components and appropriate variations can be modified depending on the type of device, such as whether the device  500  is a small, handheld computing device, a desktop computer, or a computer server. When the processor  120  executes instructions to perform “operations”, the processor  120  can perform the operations directly and/or facilitate, direct, or cooperate with another device or component to perform the operations. 
     Although the exemplary embodiment(s) described herein employs the hard disk  560 , other types of computer-readable storage devices which can store data that are accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks (DVDs), cartridges, random access memories (RAMs)  550 , read only memory (ROM)  540 , a cable containing a bit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operating environment. Tangible computer-readable storage media, computer-readable storage devices, or computer-readable memory devices, expressly exclude media such as transitory waves, energy, carrier signals, electromagnetic waves, and signals per se. 
     To enable user interaction with the computing device  500 , an input device  590  represents any number of input mechanisms, such as a microphone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphical input, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. An output device  570  can also be one or more of a number of output mechanisms known to those of skill in the art. In some instances, multimodal systems enable a user to provide multiple types of input to communicate with the computing device  500 . The communications interface  580  generally governs and manages the user input and system output. There is no restriction on operating on any particular hardware arrangement and therefore the basic hardware depicted may easily be substituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they are developed. 
     For clarity of explanation, the illustrative system embodiment is presented as including individual functional blocks including functional blocks labeled as a “processor” or processor  520 . The functions these blocks represent may be provided through the use of either shared or dedicated hardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capable of executing software and hardware, such as a processor  520 , that is purpose-built to operate as an equivalent to software executing on a general purpose processor. For example the functions of one or more processors presented in  FIG. 5  may be provided by a single shared processor or multiple processors. (Use of the term “processor” should not be construed to refer exclusively to hardware capable of executing software.) Illustrative embodiments may include microprocessor and/or digital signal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM)  540  for storing software performing the operations described below, and random access memory (RAM)  550  for storing results. Very large scale integration (VLSI) hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSI circuitry in combination with a general purpose DSP circuit, may also be provided. 
     The logical operations of the various embodiments are implemented as: (1) a sequence of computer implemented steps, operations, or procedures running on a programmable circuit within a general use computer, (2) a sequence of computer implemented steps, operations, or procedures running on a specific-use programmable circuit; and/or (3) interconnected machine modules or program engines within the programmable circuits. The system  500  shown in  FIG. 5  can practice all or part of the recited methods, can be a part of the recited systems, and/or can operate according to instructions in the recited tangible computer-readable storage devices. Such logical operations can be implemented as modules configured to control the processor  520  to perform particular functions according to the programming of the module. For example,  FIG. 5  illustrates three modules Mod 1   562 , Mod 2   564  and Mod 3   566  which are modules configured to control the processor  520 . These modules may be stored on the storage device  560  and loaded into RAM  550  or memory  530  at runtime or may be stored in other computer-readable memory locations. 
     One or more parts of the example computing device  100 , up to and including the entire computing device  100 , can be virtualized. For example, a virtual processor can be a software object that executes according to a particular instruction set, even when a physical processor of the same type as the virtual processor is unavailable. A virtualization layer or a virtual “host” can enable virtualized components of one or more different computing devices or device types by translating virtualized operations to actual operations. Ultimately however, virtualized hardware of every type is implemented or executed by some underlying physical hardware. Thus, a virtualization compute layer can operate on top of a physical compute layer. The virtualization compute layer can include one or more of a virtual machine, an overlay network, a hypervisor, virtual switching, and any other virtualization application. 
     The processor  120  can include all types of processors disclosed herein, including a virtual processor. However, when referring to a virtual processor, the processor  120  includes the software components associated with executing the virtual processor in a virtualization layer and underlying hardware necessary to execute the virtualization layer. The system  100  can include a physical or virtual processor  120  that receive instructions stored in a computer-readable storage device, which cause the processor  120  to perform certain operations. When referring to a virtual processor  120 , the system also includes the underlying physical hardware executing the virtual processor  120 . 
     Embodiments within the scope of the present disclosure may also include tangible and/or non-transitory computer-readable storage devices for carrying or having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon. Such tangible computer-readable storage devices can be any available device that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer, including the functional design of any special purpose processor as described above. By way of example, and not limitation, such tangible computer-readable devices can include RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other device which can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions, data structures, or processor chip design. When information or instructions are provided via a network or another communications connection (either hardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to a computer, the computer properly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of the computer-readable storage devices. 
     Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions and data which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions. Computer-executable instructions also include program modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or network environments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, objects, and the functions inherent in the design of special-purpose processors, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of the program code means for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps. 
     Other embodiments of the disclosure may be practiced in network computing environments with many types of computer system configurations, including personal computers, handheld devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by local and remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwired links, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices. 
     The various embodiments described above are provided by way of illustration only and should not be construed to limit the scope of the disclosure. Various modifications and changes may be made to the principles described herein without following the example embodiments and applications illustrated and described herein, and without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Claim language reciting “at least one of” a set indicates that one member of the set or multiple members of the set satisfy the claim.