Extensible Skill Interface for Voice-Controlled Developer Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Third-party device developers face significant barriers in enabling their devices to respond to voice commands due to the resource-intensive nature of speech-processing systems, requiring substantial investments in time, money, and computing resources to create and maintain network-based infrastructure for processing voice commands and generating device-specific instructions.
Innovation Solution
A speech-processing system provides an extensible skill-interface component that allows third-party device developers to create device-specific interfaces for unique device capabilities, enabling voice-enablement without the need for maintaining extensive infrastructure, by mapping voice commands to intents and generating directives that can be executed by third-party devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If third-party device developers implement voice processing capabilities in their devices, then voice-enablement is achieved, but resource consumption and system complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the speech processing functionality from third-party devices and relocates it to a centralized remote service. The device now only needs to capture audio and send it to the remote service, which handles the resource-intensive speech recognition and returns results. This extraction eliminates the need for third-party devices to maintain complex speech processing infrastructure while still enabling voice capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a remote speech processing service as an intermediary between the third-party device and the voice command execution. The device sends audio data to this intermediary service, which then performs speech recognition, intent analysis, and generates appropriate responses or commands. This intermediary handles all the computationally intensive tasks, allowing the third-party device to remain simple while gaining advanced voice capabilities.
2Adaptability or versatility
If third-party device developers build their own speech processing infrastructure, then voice command processing is possible, but development time and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal remote speech processing service that can handle voice commands for multiple different third-party devices and applications. Instead of each developer building their own specialized speech processing system, they all utilize this single multi-functional service that supports various device types, capabilities, and use cases. This universality dramatically reduces development time and allows developers to focus on their core device functionality rather than speech processing infrastructure.
3Device complexity
If remote speech processing is used, then device complexity is reduced, but network dependency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the device capture and buffer audio data locally before sending it to the remote service. The audio capture and preprocessing happen in advance, so when network connectivity is available, the data is already prepared for transmission. This approach allows the device to maintain simple architecture while being prepared for remote processing, and the system can queue requests when the network is unavailable rather than requiring immediate connectivity.
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure describes, in part, techniques implemented by a speech-processing system for providing an extensible skill-interface component to facilitate voice-control of third-party developer devices. The speech-processing system may provide the skill-interface component to third-party device developers using a web-based portal through which the skill interfaces may be created to voice-enable third-party devices having unique capabilities. For instance, a skill interface may define events, such as voice commands of a user, which map to directives configured to cause the third-party devices to perform an operation that is responsive to the event. In this way, the speech-processing system may receive audio data representing a voice command of a user in an environment of a third-party device, and return a directive to cause the third-party device to perform an operation responsive to the voice command.