Mass-Scale, User-Independent, Device-Independent Voice Messaging System
A mass-scale, user-independent, device-independent, voice messaging system that converts unstructured voice messages into text for display on a screen is disclosed. The system comprises (i) computer implemented sub-systems and also (ii) a network connection to human operators providing transcription and quality control; the system being adapted to optimise the effectiveness of the human operators by further comprising 3 core sub-systems, namely (i) a pre-processing front end that determines an appropriate conversion strategy; (ii) one or more conversion resources; and (iii) a quality control sub-system.
1 . A mass-scale, user-independent, device-independent, voice messaging system that converts an unstructured voice message into text for display on a screen; the system comprising (i) computer implemented sub-systems and also (ii) a network connection to human operators providing transcription and quality control; the system being adapted to optimise the effectiveness of the human operators by further comprising:
a computer implemented queue manager sub-system that intelligently manages loading and calls in resources as required to ensure that converted message delivery times meet a pre-defined standard.
2 . The system of claim 1 in which the queue manager sub-system determines what should happen to a voice message at each stage of processing through the system.
3 . The system of claim 1 in which if at any stage of the automated conversion, confidence intervals or other measures suggest any part of a message are not good enough, then the queue manager directs this to the correct human operator for assistance.
4 . The system of claim 1 in which the queue manager sub-system makes decisions by calculating trade-offs between conversion time and quality.
5 . The system of claim 1 in which the queue manager sub-system uses state-machines that, for any given language queue, can decide how best to process the messages through the system.
6 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voicemail intended for a mobile telephone and the voice message is converted to text and sent to that mobile telephone.
7 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voice message intended for an instant messaging service and the voice message is converted to text and sent to an instant messaging service for a display on a screen.
8 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voice message intended for a web service and the voice message is converted to text and sent to a server for display as part of the web service.
9 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voice message intended to be converted to text format and sent as a text message.
10 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voice message intended to be converted to text format and sent as an email message.
11 . The system of claim 1 in which the message is a voice message intended to be converted to text format and sent as a note or memo, by email or text, to an originator of the message.
12 . A mobile telephone network that is connected to the system of claim 1 .
13 . A mobile telephone when displaying a message converted by the system of claim 1 .
14 . A computer display screen when displaying a message converted by the system of claim 1 .
15 . A method of providing voice messaging, comprising the step of a user sending a voice message to a messaging system as claimed in claim 1 .