Cloud-based assistive services for use in telecommunications and on premise devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11316974-B2
Application number	US-202016791959-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2020
Priority date	Jul 9, 2014
Publication date	Apr 26, 2022
Grant date	Apr 26, 2022

Abstract

Cloud-based assistive services for use in telecommunications and on premise devices are disclosed herein. An example method includes: operating in a monitoring state to actively monitor for a first predetermined action, receiving an audio stream based on communications between a first party and a second party, identifying the first predetermined action, establishing one- or two-way communications with any of the first party or the second party in response to the first predetermined action, determining a request for the intelligent personal assistant service in the one- or two-way communications, generating a result by the intelligent personal assistant service, the result being responsive to the request, providing the result to any of the first party and the second party, receiving a second predetermined action from any of the first party and the second party, and returning the intelligent personal assistant service to the monitoring state based on the second predetermined action.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A cloud computing service for providing an intelligent personal assistant service, the cloud computing service comprising:
at least compute and storage capabilities to service at least one cloud resource customer, wherein the compute and storage capabilities are configured to provide an intelligent personal assistant service to the at least one cloud resource customer, the intelligent personal assistant service being configured to:
operate in a monitoring state to actively monitor a voice call between a called party and a calling party for a first predetermined action;
receive an audio stream based on communications between the called party and the calling party;
identify the first predetermined action from the audio stream;
establish a connection to provide one- or two-way communications with one of the called party or the calling party in response to the first predetermined action;
determine a request for the intelligent personal assistant service in the one- or two-way communications;
generate a result by the intelligent personal assistant service, the result being responsive to the request;
provide the result to the one of the called party or the calling party;
receive a second predetermined action from the one of the called party or the calling party; and
terminate the connection to return the intelligent personal assistant service to the monitoring state of the voice call based on the second predetermined action.

2. The cloud computing service according to claim 1 , wherein the audio stream is obtained from the voice call between the called party and the calling party.

3. The cloud computing service according to claim 1 , wherein the intelligent personal assistant service is configured to determine when the audio stream has terminated.

4. The cloud computing service according to claim 1 , wherein the first predetermined action and the second predetermined action comprise any of a wake word, a key sequence, or a combination thereof.

5. The cloud computing service according to claim 1 , wherein the first predetermined action or the second predetermined action comprise a wake gesture, the intelligent personal assistant service being configured to:
receive images from a camera associated with an on premise device; and
determine the wake gesture.

6. The cloud computing service according to claim 1 , further comprising an on premise device that facilitates the audio stream that is received by the cloud computing service.

7. The cloud computing service according to claim 6 , wherein the on premise device is any of a telephone handset, a speaker phone, a telephone headset, and a telephone base station.

8. The cloud computing service according to claim 7 , wherein the voice call is at least one of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call over a data network, Internet endpoint communications, and a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) call.

9. A system, comprising:
an on premise device configured to facilitate a voice call between a first party and a second party; and
at least compute and storage capabilities to service at least one cloud resource customer, wherein the compute and storage capabilities are configured to provide an intelligent personal assistant service to the at least one cloud resource customer, the intelligent personal assistant service being configured to:
operate in a monitoring state to actively monitor for a first predetermined action in the voice call audio stream;
identify the first predetermined action from the audio stream;
establish a connection to provide one- or two-way communications with any of the first party or the second party in response to the first predetermined action, the connection being separate and distinct from the voice call;
determine a request for the intelligent personal assistant service in the one- or two-way communications;
generate a result by the intelligent personal assistant service, the result being responsive to the request;
provide the result to any of the first party and the second party using the one- or two-way communications;
receive a second predetermined action from any of the first party and the second party;
terminate the connection; and
return the intelligent personal assistant service to the monitoring state for the voice call based on the second predetermined action.

10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the on premise device is configured to:
determine an identifier for a called party;
initiate the voice call using a received identifier, the voice call being used to create the audio stream; and
terminate the voice call.

11. The system according to claim 10 , wherein the identifier is at least one of a telephone number and a user identification.

12. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the first predetermined action is a predetermined word for activating the intelligent personal assistant service.

13. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the audio stream is provisioned over at least one of a wired data network and a wireless data network.

14. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the request is for real-time information including at least one of weather, traffic, currency exchange rate, score of a sporting event, and news.

15. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the request searches at least one of a calendar of the first party, a calendar of the second party, an email account of the first party, an email account of the second party, Wikipedia articles, IMDb, television schedule, movie show times, theater show times, and restaurant hours.

16. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the intelligent personal assistant service creates at least one of a to-do list item, shopping list item, text message, email message, and calendar event in response to the request.

17. A method, comprising:
operating in a monitoring state to actively monitor for a first predetermined action in an audio stream obtained from a voice call between a first party and a second party;
identifying the first predetermined action in the audio stream;
establishing a connection allowing one- or two-way communications with any of the first party or the second party in response to the first predetermined action;
determining a request for an intelligent personal assistant service in the one- or two-way communications;
generating a result by the intelligent personal assistant service, the result being responsive to the request;
providing the result to any of the first party and the second party;
terminating the connection;
returning the intelligent personal assistant service to the monitoring state.

18. The method according to claim 17 , further comprising determining when the voice call has terminated.

19. The method according to claim 17 , wherein the first predetermined action and a second predetermined action comprise any of a wake word, a key sequence, or a combination thereof.

Assignees

• Ooma Inc

Inventors

• White Thaddeus
• Osterlund Karl
• Farrand Tobin E
• Vasudev Arvind
• Hart Douglas E
• Bryan David A
• Gillon William M

Classifications

• H04L12/282

  based on user interaction within the home (receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204) · CPC title

• H04M3/42102 Primary

  Making use of the called party identifier · CPC title

• H04L2012/2841

  Wireless · CPC title

• G08C2201/31

  Voice input · CPC title

• G06F3/167

  Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback · CPC title