Patent Publication Number: US-2015088640-A1

Title: Voice to text conversion

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     Customized advertising is well known in the art. The practice of analyzing text, determining keywords and delivering advertising based on the content is a mainstay of current advertising based system such as Google online advertising. 
     While there is a large volume of content that is available for analysis and conversion into advertising opportunities there are some forms of content that need further processing before they can be used in this manner. 
     For example since audio such as phone calls and people talking are not in text form they are not in themselves available for conversion into advertising opportunities. 
     Systems for converting audio and spoken word are available but have not been integrated with applications that allow relevant and value driven advertising to be shown to the user as the spoken or other audio content is produced. 
     The described invention is designed to address these issues. 
     Notes 
     The term “comprising” (and grammatical variations thereof) is used in this specification in the inclusive sense of “having” or “including”, and not in the exclusive sense of “consisting only of”. 
     The above discussion of the prior art in the Background of the invention, is not an admission that any information discussed therein is citable prior art or part of the common general knowledge of persons skilled in the art in any country. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION 
     Accordingly in one broad form of the invention there is provided a method of generating an event on a digital device; the event derived from a cycle of communication between the digital device and at least one other digital device; said method comprising: 
     recording at least a portion of the cycle of communication on the digital device; 
     processing the at least a portion of the cycle of communication thereby to generate at least one event signal; 
     comparing the event signal with one or more available events and selecting an event which best matches with the event signal; 
     executing the event on the digital device. 
     Preferably the event is an advertisement. 
     Preferably the step of processing includes applying speech recognition thereby to generate word data. 
     Preferably one or more words from the word data are associated with an event. 
     Preferably the step of association is performed by means of a lookup table. 
     Preferably the cycle of communication comprises voice communication. 
     Preferably the step of processing is carried out on the digital device. 
     Preferably the step of processing is carried out on a processor located remote from the digital device. 
     Preferably the digital device communicates with the processor in part via the mobile telecommunications system. 
     Preferably the digital device communicates with the processor in part via the Internet. 
     Preferably data recorded by said step of recording is stored on said digital device. 
     Preferably data recorded by said step of recording is retained only for a predetermined period of time and then deleted. 
     In yet a further broad form of the invention there is provided a system for generating an event on a digital device; the event derived from a cycle of communication between the digital device and at least one other digital device; said system comprising 
     a recording device which records at least a portion of the cycle of communication on the digital device; 
     a processing device which processes the at least a portion of the cycle of communication thereby to generate at least one event signal; 
     a comparing devices which compares the event signal with one or more available events and selecting an event which best matches with the event signal; 
     an event execution processor which executes the event on the digital device. 
     Preferably the event is an advertisement. 
     Preferably the step of processing includes applying speech recognition thereby to generate word data. 
     Preferably one or more words from the word data are associated with an event. 
     Preferably the step of association is performed by means of a lookup table. 
     Preferably the cycle of communication comprises voice communication. 
     Preferably the step of processing is carried out on the digital device. 
     Preferably the step of processing is carried out on a processor located remote from the digital device. 
     Preferably the digital device communicates with the processor in part via the mobile telecommunications system. 
     Preferably the digital device communicates with the processor in part via the Internet. 
     Preferably data recorded by said step of recording is stored on said digital device. 
     Preferably data recorded by said step of recording is retained only for a predetermined period of time and then deleted. 
     In yet a further broad form of the invention there is provided media having program steps recorded thereon which, when executed by a digital processor, perform the method described above. 
    
    
     
       DRAWINGS 
       Embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein: 
       FIG.  1 —Main components of the example embodiment 
       FIG.  2 —Interaction example between users and the example embodiment 
       FIG.  3 —A control process for the example embodiment 
     
    
    
     DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION 
     An example embodiment of the invention discloses an application that allows users of mobile phones to talk to each other and at the same time have keyword and key expression generated relevant advertising pushed to them as a result of their spoken conversation. 
       FIG. 1  shows the main components of the example embodiment comprising an initiating user&#39;s device  10  that starts a call across the cellular network  12  to a receiving user&#39;s device  11 . 
     An application on each of the devices  10   11  manages the call and also connects the users  10   11  to a voice to text application  14  over the internet  13 . 
     In this embodiment the voice to text conversion is a private service that does the audio to text conversion and then sends the converted text back to the user  10   11  with a set of keywords derived from the converted speech. The text is not stored in this case. In the example embodiment it is assumed that the user&#39;s  10   11  have chosen to maintain their privacy and not have the text version of their conversation stored. 
     Subsequently an interaction occurs between the users devices  10   11  and an advertising service  15  where key words and expressions are derived from the converted speech and used to select advertising and or related information that may be of use to the users  10   11  in the context of their conversation. 
       FIG. 2  discloses an example of part of a conversation between two users who are using the example embodiment. The initiating user  20  initiates the call with the receiving user  21  and conversation starts  22 . The receiving user responds  23  and subsequently a text representation  22   23   24   25  is displayed to the users as their respective segments of speech are converted to text and sent back to the users respective screens. 
     During the conversation keywords  29   30  emerge that can be analyzed and submitted to an advertising service that would in turn deliver advertising  22  back to the user that may be of interest or useful to the user. 
     In this example the keywords “decent”  29  and “hotel”  30  in the context of a location namely “San Fran”  31  means that an advertisement  22  for a hotel in San Francisco  28  may have a high likelihood of being helpful to the users in the conversation. 
     The result of this process is that relevant advertising is presented to the users based on their conversation using a conversion of their speech into text that is searched for key words and expressions. 
       FIG. 3  discloses a control process of the example embodiment. This process comprises an initiating user device  40 , a receiving user and device  43 , a speech to text conversion service  41 , and an advertising selection and submission service  42 . 
     The initiating user  44  starts a call with the receiving user  45 . Both of the users are using an application on their devices that records speech and routes it as needed. 
     The initiating user starts talking  46  and a cycle of listening and responding on the behalf of both the initiating user  53  and the responding user  47  are conducted until the conversation ends and the users terminate the call. 
     During the cycle of conversation  46   47   53 , the monitored speech of the conversation is sent to a speech to text service  41  for analysis and conversion into text  48 . 
     The text may be returned to the users for viewing on their respective devices  40   43 . From the converted text  48  key words and expressions are analyzed  49  and these are submitted to an advertising selection and submission service  42  where relevant advertisements are selected  50 . 
     In the example embodiment, the keywords are returned to the users devices  40   43  and then resent to the advertising selection and submission service  42 . 
     Once relevant advertisements are selected  50  based on the keywords and expressions made by the users, the relevant advertisements are shown to each user  52   51  on their own devices  43   40 . 
     The result is a voice to text based advertising selection system that uses converted spoken conversation to select relevant advertising to be displayed to the persons in the conversation. 
     ALTERNATIVE EMBODIMENTS 
     The example embodiment discloses two people in a conversation using mobile phones and an application on each device that links the conversation to a speech to text service over the Internet and the redirection of keywords and expressions from that conversion to an advertising service that displays relevant advertising to the users of the devices during or after their conversation. 
     An alternative embodiment could involve any number of members of a conversation on unlimited number of devices, where the speech can be in the form of real time conversation between people or recorded speech. An alternative embodiment could complete the speech to text using an application on the user&#39;s device rather than on a service accessed over the Internet. 
     An alternative embodiment may use surrogate keywords or category type identifiers to select relevant advertisements in the event the user does not want to share actual keywords or parts of their conversation with the advertising server. 
     The example embodiment uses a remote service to conduct the speech to text conversion capability and the resulting conversion is deleted once the converted text has been returned to the user. An alternative embodiment could store for a time or indefinitely store and archive conversations made by the user at the user&#39;s discretion. 
     The example embodiment uses key words and expressions to generate relevant advertising that is shown to the user. An alternative embodiment could use key words and expressions to generate links to non advertising based information such as links to locations on a map or a link to a persons contact details on the phone. 
     In preferred forms the event may be displayed after the cycle of communication terminates.