Personal directory service

1. A method of providing a personal directory service, the method comprising:

receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, wherein the query spoken by the user includes a speech utterance representing a category of persons;

determining a geographic location of the user terminal;

recognizing the category of persons with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of persons;

searching, with one or more processors, a listing of persons within or near the determined geographic location matching the query to select persons responsive to the query spoken by the user; and

sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive persons.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the query further includes a speech utterance representing a name of a person; the method further comprising:

recognizing the name of the person with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the name of the person.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the query further includes a speech utterance representing a geographic location; the method further comprising:

recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

selecting, from a set of speech recognition language models for recognizing speech, a subset of speech recognition language models, wherein the subset of speech recognition language models is selected based on the recognized location.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes N-grams in which a probability of a word in a vocabulary is estimated by counting the occurrences of that word in the context of a last N words.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes phrase-list grammars in which a probability of a phrase is estimated by counting the occurrences of the phrase.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing a telephone number of one of the responsive persons to the user terminal.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing an option of connecting the user terminal with one of the responsive persons.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein searching the listing of persons within or near the recognized geographic location includes:

ascertaining an adjacent location that is adjacent to the recognized location;

searching a listing of persons within the adjacent location to select additional persons responsive to the query spoken by the user.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

prompting the user for information related to the category of persons, via the user terminal.

11. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that when executed by at least some of the one or more processors effectuates operations comprising:

receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, wherein the query spoken by the user includes a speech utterance representing a category of persons;

recognizing the category of persons with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of persons;

determining a geographic location of the user terminal;

searching a listing of persons within or near and the determined geographic location to select persons responsive to the query spoken by the user; and

sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive persons.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the query further includes a speech utterance representing a name of a person, the operations further comprising:

recognizing the name of the person with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the name of the person.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the query further includes a speech utterance representing a geographic location, the operations further comprising:

recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise selecting, from a set of speech recognition language models for recognizing speech, a subset of speech recognition language models, wherein the subset of speech recognition language models is selected based on the recognized location.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes N-grams in which a probability of a word in a vocabulary is estimated by counting the occurrences of that word in the context of a last N words.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes phrase-list grammars in which a probability of a phrase is estimated by counting the occurrences of the phrase.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise providing a telephone number of one of the responsive persons to the user terminal.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise providing an option of connecting the user terminal with one of the responsive persons.

19. The system of claim 11 , wherein searching the listing of persons within or near the recognized geographic location includes:

ascertaining an adjacent location that is adjacent to the recognized location;

searching a listing of persons within the adjacent location to select additional persons responsive to the query spoken by the user.

20. The system of claim 11 , wherein the operations comprise prompting the user for information related to the category of persons, via the user terminal.