Automatic search of audio channels by matching viewer-spoken words against closed-caption/audio content for interactive television

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided to enable a user watching and/or listening to a program to search for new information in the stream of a telecommunications data. The apparatus includes a voice recognition system that recognizes the user's request and causes a search to be performed in the long stream of data of at least one other telecommunication channel. The system includes a storage device for storing and processing the request. Upon recognition of the request, the incoming signal or signals are scanned for matches with the request. Upon finding the match between the request and the incoming signal, information related to the data is brought to the viewer's attention. This can be accomplished by either changing the viewer's station or by bringing in a split screen display forward into the display.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.