Patent ID: 8762150

Claim:
A method for use in a system comprising a first device that receives human speech and a second device that comprises a speech recognizer, wherein the first device receives at least one sound wave comprising the human speech and encodes the received at least one sound wave, via at least one speech encoder in the first device, to produce at least one encoded representation of the at least one sound wave, wherein the first device transmits the at least one encoded representation to the second device, wherein the second device decodes the at least one encoded representation and performs, via the speech recognizer, speech recognition on the human speech, the method, performed by the first device, comprising acts of: determining an estimated endpoint of the human speech in the at least one sound wave by analyzing information available from the at least one speech encoder, without analyzing the at least one sound wave and without producing a decoded representation of the at least one sound wave, wherein the encoded representation of the at least one sound wave comprises a plurality of speech frames, and wherein the act of determining an estimated endpoint of the human speech comprises analyzing information indicative of a change in energy level between two speech frames; and in addition to transmitting the at least one encoded representation to the second device, providing to the second device a separate indication of the estimated endpoint.