A time of flight (TOF) assembly includes a laser light source, one or more photo detectors and a detection circuit. The one or more photo detectors are configured to receive light and convert the received light into an electric signal. The detection circuit is configured to send a turning-off control signal to turn off the laser light source in response to the electric signal indicating that a time length, in which the laser light source is in an effective working state within a first duration, is greater than a preset time length threshold value or the electric signal indicating that energy of light emitted from the laser light source within a second duration is greater than a preset energy threshold. The disclosure also provides a terminal device and a control method for a TOF assembly.

A system and method for utilizing a plain-old-telephone (“POT”) to interface with a digital assistant system. The POT is linked to an interface adapted to selectively provide a bidirectional audio connection to a standard telephone communication network, or to provide an interface to a digital assistant system in response to user voice commands. The functionality of the POT digital assistant interface being dependent upon the user input—DTMF tone/pulse dialing signals as opposed to voice commands spoken into the POT mouthpiece. Audio cues and prompts, as well as audio responses from the digital assistant system are provided to the user via the POT earpiece. Digital assistant functionality is provided via a simple and familiar interface, without impeding any standard voice telephony functionality (making/receiving calls, call waiting, caller ID, etc.)

The disclosed embodiments include computerized methods, systems, and devices, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating terms of a search query based on a user's spoken utterances, identifying multiple cross-platform messages based on the generated terms, and to generating, via a presentation device, a single interface that enables the user to interact with identified messages. Based on a spoken utterance, the disclosed embodiments may determine user-specified search terms and/or criteria, and based on the user-specified search terms and/or criteria, may obtain cross-platform message data that corresponds to the search query. The communications device may generate one or more interface elements that describe corresponding ones of the cross-platform messages, which may be presented within a unified graphical user interface or voice-user interface by a communications device.

Utterances of at least two speakers in a speech signal may be distinguished and the associated speaker identified by use of diarization together with automatic speech recognition of identifying words and phrases commonly in the speech signal. The diarization process clusters turns of the conversation while recognized special form phrases and entity names identify the speakers. A trained probabilistic model deduces which entity name(s) correspond to the clusters.

A method is implemented to move media content display between two media output devices. A server system determines in a voice message recorded by an electronic device a media transfer request that includes a user voice command to transfer media content to a destination media output device and a user voice designation of the destination media output device. The server system then obtains from a source cast device instant media play information including information of a media play application, the media content that is being played, and a temporal position. The server system further identifies a destination cast device associated in a user domain coupled to the destination media output device, and sends to the destination cast device a media play request including the instant media play information, thereby enabling the destination cast device to execute the media play application for playing the media content from the temporal location.

In one aspect, the present invention facilitates the investigation of networks of criminals, by gathering associations between phone numbers, the names of persons reached at those phone numbers, and voice print data. In another aspect the invention automatically detects phone calls from a prison where the voiceprint of the person called matches the voiceprint of a past inmate. In another aspect the invention detects identity scams in prisons, by monitoring for known voice characteristics of likely imposters on phone calls made by prisoners. In another aspect, the invention automatically does speech-to-text conversion of phone numbers spoken within a predetermined time of detecting data indicative of a three-way call event while monitoring a phone call from a prison inmate. In another aspect, the invention automatically thwarts attempts of prison inmates to use re-dialing services. In another aspect, the invention automatically tags audio data retrieved from a database, by steganographically encoding into the audio data the identity of the official retrieving the audio data.

The invention is a method of creating a dialstring for use with mobile smartphones and other computer-enabled telephones. A software app designed to implement the method recognizes input from the user (such as the initial digits of a phone number) that identifies the organization to be called, and accesses a stored representation of the IVR phone tree for that organization. The app then presents a graphical representation of all or part of the phone tree on the display of the telephone. The user can then respond to the graphical representation by providing selective inputs that cause the app to synthesize all or part of the dialstring needed to navigate the phone tree to the desired destination. Once a dialing option has been synthesized to the user's satisfaction, the user may provide additional input that the system interprets as an instruction to open a phone call and dial the synthesized number.

A method of initiating a communication using speech recognition on a mobile wireless communication device. Voice input is parsed using speech recognition to identify and extract a name and a communication type to be initiated from a plurality of potential communication types. A local address book is searched to identify all contact records having both a contact name including the name extracted from the voice input and a populated address field associated with the communication type extracted from the voice input. When only one contact record matches the extracted information, a communication is automatically initiated to the contact address from the populated address field of the contact record using an application associated with the communication type. When more than one contact record in the local address book matches the extracted information, a list of all of the matching contacts is output from which a communication can be initiated.

A voice-based peer-to-peer communication system may be used to detect voice commands from users to provide a wireless communication voice connection that allows the users to directly communicate with each other. The system may include a first computing device of a first user communicatively coupled to a second computing device of a second user over the wireless connection. The system may process the detected voice command having a phrase, contact name, and voice message. The phrase may include a wake, answer, or stop phrase. The contact name may be utilized to determine whether that contact name matches an entry within a predetermined contact list of the first user, where the matched contact name may be associated with the second user. Finally, the system may generate audio data based on the processed voice command that is then transmitted to the second computing device of the second user over the wireless connection.

A method on a mobile device for processing an audio input is described. A trigger for the audio input is received. At least one parameter is determined for an audio processor based on at least one input characteristic for the audio input. The audio input is routed to the audio processor with the at least one parameter.