Patent ID: 7447635

Claim:
A natural language interface control system for operating a plurality of devices comprising: a 3 dimensional microphone array; a feature extraction module coupled to the first microphone array; a speech recognition module coupled to the feature extraction module, wherein the speech recognition module utilizes hidden Markov models and can switch between different acoustic models and different grammars, wherein at least one of the different acoustic models and at least one of the different grammars is downloaded over a network; 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 of one or more types that are coupled to the device interface based upon non-prompted, open-ended natural language requests from a user; wherein the natural language interface module abstracts each of the plurality of devices into a respective one of the different grammars and a respective one of a plurality of lexica corresponding to each of the plurality of devices.