US 6,895,558 B1Granted

Multi-access mode electronic personal assistant

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorShawn D. Loveland

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Abstract

A system enables communication between server resources and a wide spectrum of end-terminals to enable access to the resources of both converged and non-converged networks via voice and/or electronically generated commands. An electronic personal assistant (ePA) incorporates generalizing/abstracting communications channels, data and resources provided through a converged computer/telephony system interface such that the data and resources are readily accessed by a variety of interface formats including a voice interface or data interface. A set of applications provides dual interfaces for rendering services and data based upon the manner in which a user accesses the data. An electronic personal assistant in accordance with an embodiment of the invention provides voice/data access to web pages, email, file shares, etc. A voice-based resource server authenticates a user by receiving vocal responses to one or more requests variably selected and issued by a speaker recognition-based authentication facility. Thereafter an application proxy is created.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A terminal abstraction, interposed between functional resources of an application and end-devices, to provide the functional resources in a manner tailored to individual ones of a variety of user interfaces, including graphical and voice user interfaces, the terminal abstraction comprising:

a graphical user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a first end-device supporting a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the first end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a first end-device format expected by the first end-device, wherein a voice user interface terminal abstraction component enables interfacing the first end-device with an extensible set of applications associated with the functional resources;
and
the voice user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a second end-device supporting a voice user interface, the voice user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the second end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the voice user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a second end-device format expected by the second end-device, wherein the graphical user interface terminal abstraction enables interfacing the second end-device with an extensible set of applications associated with the functional resources;
thereby enabling access to functional resources associated with the extensible set of applications via a plurality of modes of access.

1 more element

An electronic personal assistant providing access via a variety of access modes to a variety of applications, the electronic personal assistant including a terminal abstraction, interposed between functional resources of an application and end-devices, to provide the functional resources in a manner tailored to individual ones of a variety of user interfaces, including graphical and voice user interfaces, the terminal abstraction comprising:

a graphical user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a first end-device supporting a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the first end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the graphical user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a first end-device format expected by the first end-device, wherein a voice user interface terminal abstraction component enables interfacing the first end-device with an extensible set of applications associated with the functional resources;
and
the voice user interface terminal abstraction component interposed between the functional resources and a second end-device supporting a voice user interface, the voice user interface terminal abstraction component transforming messages from the second end-device to a generic format expected by the functional resources, the voice user interface terminal abstraction component further transforming messages from the functional resources to a second end-device format expected by the second end-device, wherein the graphical user interface terminal abstraction enables interfacing the second end-device with an extensible set of applications associated with the functional resources;
thereby enabling access to functional resources associated with the extensible set of applications via a plurality of modes of access.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.