A method to transcribe communications may include obtaining, at a first device, an audio signal that originates at a remote device during a communication session. The audio signal may be shared between the first device and a second device. The method may also include obtaining an indication that the second device is associated with a remote transcription system and in response to the second device being associated with the remote transcription system, directing the audio signal to the remote transcription system by one of the first device and the second device instead of both the first device and the second device directing the audio signal to the remote transcription system when the second device is not associated with the remote transcription system.

A method may include obtaining an indicator that a first device is in a location of a second device and in response to obtaining the indicator, sending a redirect request to a communication service provider of the first device to direct, to the second device, incoming communication requests handled by the communication service provider that are directed to the first device. The method may further include after sending the redirect request and after a communication request to a communication session is directed to the first device, obtaining, at the second device, a communication indication to participate in the communication session. The method may further include directing audio of the communication session to a transcription system and obtaining, at the second device, the transcription of the audio from the transcription system. The method may also include presenting, by the second device, the audio and the transcription.

A method may include obtaining an indicator that a first device is in a location of a second device and in response to obtaining the indicator, sending a redirect request to a communication service provider of the first device to direct, to the second device, incoming communication requests handled by the communication service provider that are directed to the first device. The method may further include after sending the redirect request and after a communication request to a communication session is directed to the first device, obtaining, at the second device, a communication indication to participate in the communication session. The method may further include directing audio of the communication session to a transcription system and obtaining, at the second device, the transcription of the audio from the transcription system. The method may also include presenting, by the second device, the audio and the transcription.

A communication system and method usable to facilitate communication between a hearing user and an assisted user. In particular, the system employs a wireless portable tablet or other portable electronic computing device linked to a captioning enabled phone as a remote interface for that phone, thereby providing an assisted user with more options, more freedom, and improved usability of the system.

A call captioning system for captioning a hearing user's (HU's) voice signal during an ongoing call with an assisted user (AU) includes: an AU communication device with a display screen and a caption service activation feature, and a first processor programmed to, during an ongoing call, receive the HU's voice signal. Prior to activating the caption service via the activation feature, the processor uses an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate HU voice signal captions, detect errors in the HU voice signal captions, use the errors to train the ASR software to the HU's voice signal to increase accuracy of the HU captions generated by the ASR engine; and store the trained ASR engine for subsequent use. Upon activating the caption service during the ongoing call, the processor uses the trained ASR engine to generate HU voice signal captions and present them to the AU via the display screen.

A call captioning system for captioning a hearing user's (HU's) voice signal during an ongoing call with an assisted user (AU) includes: an AU communication device with a display screen and a caption service activation feature, and a first processor programmed to, during an ongoing call, receive the HU's voice signal. Prior to activating the caption service via the activation feature, the processor uses an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate HU voice signal captions, detect errors in the HU voice signal captions, use the errors to train the ASR software to the HU's voice signal to increase accuracy of the HU captions generated by the ASR engine; and store the trained ASR engine for subsequent use. Upon activating the caption service during the ongoing call, the processor uses the trained ASR engine to generate HU voice signal captions and present them to the AU via the display screen.

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods that aid users with hearing and/or speech impediments to have a conversation with a remote phone number without human assistance. In one aspect, an application residing on a user's device, such as a smartphone, tablet computer, laptop, etc., may be used to initiate a phone call to a recipient. Upon initiating the phone call locally, a service residing on the server may receive a request to initiate a connection to the recipient. Once the recipient answers, the user may converse with the recipient by providing text input to their local app. The text input may be transmitted to the service. The service may use a text to speech converter to translate the received text to speech that can be delivered to the recipient.

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods that aid users with hearing and/or speech impediments to have a conversation with a remote phone number without human assistance. In one aspect, an application residing on a user's device, such as a smartphone, tablet computer, laptop, etc., may be used to initiate a phone call to a recipient. Upon initiating the phone call locally, a service residing on the server may receive a request to initiate a connection to the recipient. Once the recipient answers, the user may converse with the recipient by providing text input to their local app. The text input may be transmitted to the service. The service may use a text to speech converter to translate the received text to speech that can be delivered to the recipient.

A telephone system is described herein, wherein the telephone system is configured to assist a hearing-impaired person with telephone communications as well as face-to-face conversations. In telephone communication sessions, the telephone system is configured to audibly emit spoken utterances while simultaneously depicting a transcription of the spoken utterances on a display. When the telephone system is not employed in a telephone communication session, the telephone system is configured to display transcriptions of spoken utterances of people who are in proximity to the telephone system.

A system comprising a plurality of processing devices is arranged for performing an algorithm having a plurality of computational tasks. The plurality of processing devices are interconnected with each other. A control logic module is adapted to select an implementation of the algorithm among a plurality of implementations. At least a part of the control logic module resides in one of the processing devices and the implementation is selected according to at least one criterion of (latency requirements, computational power, resource availability, data locality, privacy requirements, precision requirements, hardware capabilities, distance, location, acoustical performance requirements, energy efficiency, orientation) and in the selected implementation the plurality of computational tasks of the algorithm is distributed over at least two of the processing devices.