An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.

Intelligent Automated Assistant

A method and system for synchronizing a main database of a server and a local database of a handheld device. A user can use an application residing in the handheld device to make transactions in the local database. During a synchronization operation, the handheld device and server are coupled. The system then determines whether the application should be updated and, if so, causes the server to provide an update. The system also causes the handheld device to provide to the server information related to the transactions made by the user to the local database. The system causes the server to perform transactions on the main database based on the transaction information. The system also causes the server to extract data from the main database. The server can then provide at least some of the extracted data to the handheld device to update the local database.

Method and system for server synchronization with a computing device

A method and system for direct server synchronization (100) with a computing device is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises synchronizing directly a handheld device (110) and an enterprise server (130), which comprises retrieving a record extraction sequence from the server; and extracting records stored on a database according to the record extraction sequence, wherein the extracted records are not already stored on the computing device.

Method and system for direct server synchronization with a computing device

A virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user. Context helps to clarify the user's intent and to reduce the number of candidate interpretations of the user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input. Context can include any available information that is usable by the assistant to supplement explicit user input to constrain an information-processing problem and/or to personalize results. Context can be used to constrain solutions during various phases of processing, including, for example, speech recognition, natural language processing, task flow processing, and dialog generation.

Using context information to facilitate processing of commands in a virtual assistant

A system and method for automatically providing content associated with captured information is described. In some examples, the system receives input by a user, and automatically provides content or links to content associated with the input. In some examples, the system receives input via text entry or by capturing text from a rendered document, such as a printed document, an object, an audio stream, and so on.

Automatically providing content associated with captured information, such as information captured in real-time

A method of automatically aligning a written transcript with speech in video and audio clips. The disclosed technique involves as a basic component an automatic speech recognizer. The automatic speech recognizer decodes speech (recorded on a tape) and produces a file with a decoded text. This decoded text is then matched with the original written transcript via identification of similar words or clusters of words. The results of this matching is an alignment of the speech with the original transcript. The method can be used (a) to create indexing of video clips, (b) for "teleprompting" (i.e. showing the next portion of text when someone is reading from a television screen), or (c) to enhance editing of a text that was dictated to a stenographer or recorded on a tape for its subsequent textual reproduction by a typist.

Automatic indexing and aligning of audio and text using speech recognition

A framework is provided for describing multimedia content and a system in which a plurality of multimedia storage devices employing the content description methods of the present invention can interoperate. In accordance with one form of the present invention, the content description framework is a description scheme (DS) for describing streams or aggregations of multimedia objects, which may comprise audio, images, video, text, time series, and various other modalities. This description scheme can accommodate an essentially limitless number of descriptors in terms of features, semantics or metadata, and facilitate content-based search, index, and retrieval, among other capabilities, for both streamed or aggregated multimedia objects.

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Michelle Y Kim

Papers

Automatic indexing and aligning of audio and text using speech recognition

Multimedia content description framework

Automatic indexing of audio using speech recognition