Verbal Polling in Conference Calls via Speech-to-Text
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing conference call platforms interrupt the natural flow and increase the length of discussions when participants need to pose polling questions, as the process of preparing and displaying these questions requires significant time and resources, leading to reduced efficiency and increased latency.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows participants to verbally pose questions during a conference call, with the platform automatically recording and converting the audio into text, and displaying it to other participants, enabling seamless and efficient polling without interrupting the discussion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If participants prepare and display polling questions using traditional conference platform tools, then polling functionality is achieved, but the natural flow of discussion is interrupted and call length increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical interaction of typing and displaying text-based polling questions with an acoustic field-based solution. Participants verbally pose questions which are captured via microphone, converted to text through speech-to-text processing, and automatically displayed. This substitution eliminates the manual steps of typing and waiting for text input, maintaining discussion flow while achieving polling functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service polling where the participant's own voice serves as the input mechanism. The participant verbally states the question, and the system automatically processes it through speech-to-text conversion, formats it as a polling question, and displays it to other participants without requiring manual intervention or pausing the discussion.
2Loss of information
If traditional text-based polling input methods are used, then polling questions can be displayed, but significant time and system resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the energy-intensive mechanical process of manual typing and text processing with acoustic field capture and automated speech-to-text conversion. The microphone captures voice signals efficiently, and the speech-to-text system processes the audio data to generate text, eliminating the need for manual keyboard input and reducing overall system resource consumption while ensuring accurate polling question transmission.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for verbal polling during a conference call discussion are provided. A graphical user interface (UI) is provided to participants of a video conference call. The UI enables one of the participants to verbally provide a question for polling of one or more additional participants of the participants. An indication that a first participant is to provide a verbal question is received via the UI. The verbal question provided by the first participant is recorded. An indication that the first participant has finished providing the verbal question is received via the UI. A determination is made that the verbal question is to be used for polling of second participants of the video conference call. A textual form of the verbal question is provided to the one or more second participants of the video conference call in the UI.