Activation control of a speech recognizer through use of a pointing device

Abstract

A speech recognition system includes a facility for toggling the state of the speech recognition system solely in response to a user using a pointing input device, such as a mouse. In one embodiment of the present invention, a user designates a predetermined area of a display surface on a video display to be a hot region. When a mouse cursor points to a location within the hot region, the speech recognition system is put in a listening state wherein the speech recognition system is listening for and processing audio input. When the mouse cursor is moved so as to no longer lie within the designated hot region, the state of the speech recognition system is changed back to the state that immediately preceded the listening state. The previous state may be a not listening state where an audio input is not processed by the speech recognition system or a standing-by state wherein only selected audio input is processed by the speech recognition system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.