Patent ID: 7734361

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a portable terminal configured for being worn or carried by a user and operable to facilitate the performance of tasks by the user through speech; the terminal having bi-directional voice capabilities including a user dependent speech recognition functionality for converting user speech to a digital format and a text-to-speech functionality for converting data in a digital format into audio signals to be played to a user; a peripheral device for coupling to the terminal and having at least one line for directing audio signals to the terminal; the peripheral device configured to generate a characterizing signal in the form of a non-speech data signal in an audio format and to forward the characterizing signal for a particular user on the at least one audio signal line to the terminal, the user characterizing signal being associated with one or more user-specific operational parameters of the terminal; the terminal configured for receiving the user characterizing signal and then configuring the bi-directional voice capabilities of the terminal using the one or more user-specific operational parameters that are associated with the characterizing signal; the user-specific operational parameters including at least one of voice templates for speech recognition and text-to-speech preferences for the user for providing more efficient use of the terminal for the performance of tasks.