U.S. patent application number 15/994795 was filed with the patent office on 2018-09-27 for intelligent automated assistant in a home environment.
The applicant listed for this patent is Apple Inc.. Invention is credited to Sean P. BROWN, Benjamin L. BRUMBAUGH, Roshni MALANI, Garett NELL.
Application Number | 20180276197 15/994795 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 60572783 |
Filed Date | 2018-09-27 |
United States Patent
Application |
20180276197 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
NELL; Garett ; et
al. |
September 27, 2018 |
INTELLIGENT AUTOMATED ASSISTANT IN A HOME ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated
assistant are provided. In one example process, discourse input
representing a user request is received. The process determines
whether the discourse input relates to a device of an established
location. In response to determining that the discourse input
relates to a device of an established location, a data structure
representing a set of devices of the established location is
retrieved. The process determines, using the data structure, a user
intent corresponding to the discourse input, the user intent
associated with an action to be performed by a device of the set of
devices, and a criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the
action. The action and the device are stored in association with
the criterion, where, in accordance with a determination that the
criterion is satisfied, the action is performed by the device.
Inventors: |
NELL; Garett; (Seattle,
WA) ; MALANI; Roshni; (Sunnyvale, CA) ; BROWN;
Sean P.; (Cupertino, CA) ; BRUMBAUGH; Benjamin
L.; (San Jose, CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Apple Inc. |
Cupertino |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
60572783 |
Appl. No.: |
15/994795 |
Filed: |
May 31, 2018 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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15274859 |
Sep 23, 2016 |
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15994795 |
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62348015 |
Jun 9, 2016 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 40/35 20200101;
G10L 15/22 20130101; H04L 12/2823 20130101; G06F 3/167 20130101;
G10L 2015/223 20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/27 20060101
G06F017/27; G10L 15/22 20060101 G10L015/22 |
Claims
1. A method for operating a digital assistant, the method
comprising: at an electronic device with a processor and memory:
receiving discourse input representing a user request; determining
whether the discourse input relates to a device of an established
location; in response to determining that the discourse input
relates to a device of an established location, retrieving a data
structure representing a set of devices of the established
location; determining, using the data structure and the discourse
input, a user intent corresponding to: an action to be performed by
a device of the set of devices and a criterion to be satisfied
prior to performing the action; and storing the action and the
device in association with the criterion, wherein the action is
performed by the device in accordance with a determination that the
criterion is satisfied.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the criterion is associated with
an actual device characteristic of a second device of the set of
devices.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the user intent
further comprises: determining, based on the discourse input and
data structure, the actual device characteristic of the second
device; and determining, based on the data structure and the
discourse input, the second device from the set of devices.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the criterion comprises a
requirement that an actual value representing the actual device
characteristic is greater than, equal to, or less than a threshold
value.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the user intent
further comprises determining, based on the discourse input, the
threshold value.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the criterion is associated with
an operating state of a third device of the set of devices.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the criterion comprises a
requirement that the operating state of the third device is equal
to a reference operating state.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein the criterion comprises a
requirement that the operating state of the third device
transitions from a second reference operating state to a third
reference operating state.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the criterion comprises a
requirement that the action was performed less than a predetermined
number of times within a predetermined period of time.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the criterion comprises a
requirement that a time of the electronic device is equal to or
greater than a reference time.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the user intent
further comprises determining the reference time from the discourse
input.
12. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the reference time
further comprises: determining a second reference time from the
discourse input; and determining a duration associated with the
reference time, wherein the reference time is determined based on
the second reference time and the duration.
13. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving data
associated with the criterion; determining from the received data
whether the criterion is satisfied; and in response to determining
that the criterion is satisfied, providing instructions that cause
the device of the set of devices to perform the action.
14. The method of claim 1, wherein the user intent is associated
with a second criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the
action.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein satisfying the second criterion
requires the criterion to be satisfied.
16. The method of claim 14, further comprising: receiving second
data associated with the second criterion; and determining from the
received second data whether the second criterion is satisfied,
wherein the instructions are provided in response to determining
that the second criterion is satisfied.
17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one
or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions
which, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic
device, cause the electronic device to: receive discourse input
representing a user request; determine whether the discourse input
relates to a device of an established location; in response to
determining that the discourse input relates to a device of an
established location, retrieve a data structure representing a set
of devices of the established location; determine, using the data
structure and the discourse input, a user intent corresponding to:
an action to be performed by a device of the set of devices and a
criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action; and store
the action and the device in association with the criterion,
wherein the action is performed by the device in accordance with a
determination that the criterion is satisfied.
18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the
criterion is associated with an actual device characteristic of a
second device of the set of devices.
19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein
determining the user intent further comprises: determining, based
on the discourse input and data structure, the actual device
characteristic of the second device; and determining, based on the
data structure and the discourse input, the second device from the
set of devices.
20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the
criterion comprises a requirement that an actual value representing
the actual device characteristic is greater than, equal to, or less
than a threshold value.
21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein
determining the user intent further comprises determining, based on
the discourse input, the threshold value.
22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the
criterion is associated with an operating state of a third device
of the set of devices.
23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein the
criterion comprises a requirement that the operating state of the
third device is equal to a reference operating state.
24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein the
criterion comprises a requirement that the operating state of the
third device transitions from a second reference operating state to
a third reference operating state.
25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the
criterion comprises a requirement that the action was performed
less than a predetermined number of times within a predetermined
period of time.
26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the
criterion comprises a requirement that a time of the electronic
device is equal to or greater than a reference time.
27. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein
determining the user intent further comprises determining the
reference time from the discourse input.
28. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein
determining the reference time further comprises: determining a
second reference time from the discourse input; and determining a
duration associated with the reference time, wherein the reference
time is determined based on the second reference time and the
duration.
29. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further
comprising: receiving data associated with the criterion;
determining from the received data whether the criterion is
satisfied; and in response to determining that the criterion is
satisfied, providing instructions that cause the device of the set
of devices to perform the action.
30. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the
user intent is associated with a second criterion to be satisfied
prior to performing the action.
31. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 30, wherein
satisfying the second criterion requires the criterion to be
satisfied.
32. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 30, further
comprising: receiving second data associated with the second
criterion; and determining from the received second data whether
the second criterion is satisfied, wherein the instructions are
provided in response to determining that the second criterion is
satisfied.
33. An electronic device comprising: one or more processors; and
memory storing one or more programs, the one or more programs
including instructions which, when executed by the one or more
processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive discourse
input representing a user request; determine whether the discourse
input relates to a device of an established location; in response
to determining that the discourse input relates to a device of an
established location, retrieve a data structure representing a set
of devices of the established location; determine, using the data
structure and the discourse input, a user intent corresponding to:
an action to be performed by a device of the set of devices and a
criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action; and store
the action and the device in association with the criterion,
wherein the action is performed by the device in accordance with a
determination that the criterion is satisfied.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 15/274,859, filed Sep. 23, 2016, entitled
INTELLIGENT AUTOMATED ASSISTANT IN A HOME ENVIRONMENT, which claims
priority to U.S. Provisional Ser. No. 62/348,015, filed on Jun. 9,
2016, entitled INTELLIGENT AUTOMATED ASSISTANT IN A HOME
ENVIRONMENT, which are hereby incorporated by reference in their
entirety for all purposes.
[0002] This application also relates to the following co-pending
applications: U.S. Non-Provisional patent application Ser. No.
14/503,105, "INTELLIGENT ASSISTANT FOR HOME AUTOMATION," filed Sep.
30, 2014 (Attorney Docket No. 106842108200 (P23013US1)), which is
hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all
purposes.
FIELD
[0003] This relates generally to intelligent automated assistants
and, more specifically, to intelligent automated assistants in a
home environment.
BACKGROUND
[0004] Intelligent automated assistants (or digital assistants) can
provide a beneficial interface between human users and electronic
devices. Such assistants can allow users to interact with devices
or systems using natural language in spoken and/or text forms. For
example, a user can provide a speech input containing a user
request to a digital assistant operating on an electronic device.
The digital assistant can interpret the user's intent from the
speech input and operationalize the user's intent into tasks. The
tasks can then be performed by executing one or more services of
the electronic device, and a relevant output responsive to the user
request can be returned to the user.
[0005] Devices (e.g., electronic device) of an established location
(e.g., home, office, business, public institution) can be
controlled remotely using software applications running on a
computing device, such as a mobile phone, tablet computer, laptop
computer, desktop computer, or the like. For example, numerous
manufacturers create light bulbs that can be controlled by a
software application running on a mobile phone to adjust the
brightness and/or color of the bulb. Other devices, such as door
locks, thermostats, and the like, having similar controls are also
available.
[0006] While these devices can provide users with a greater level
of control and convenience, it can become exceedingly difficult to
manage these devices as the number of remotely controlled devices
and the number of types of remotely controlled devices in the home
increase. For example, a typical home can include 40-50 light bulbs
placed throughout the various rooms of the home. Using conventional
software applications, each light bulb is given a unique
identifier, and a user attempting to control one of these devices
must select the appropriate identifier from a list of available
devices within a graphical user interface. Remembering the correct
identifier for a particular light bulb and finding that identifier
from a list of 40-50 identifiers can be a difficult and
time-consuming process. For example, the user can confuse the
identifier of one device with that of another and thus be unable to
control the desired device. To add to the difficulty of managing
and controlling a large number of remotely controlled devices,
different manufactures typically provide different software
applications that must be used to control their respective devices.
As a result, a user must locate and open one software application
to turn on/off their light bulbs, and must then locate and open
another software application to set the temperature of their
thermostat.
SUMMARY
[0007] Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated
assistant are provided. In one example process, discourse input
representing a user request is received. The process determines one
or more possible device characteristics corresponding to the
discourse input. A data structure representing a set of devices of
an established location is retrieved. The process determines, based
on the data structure, one or more candidate devices from the set
of devices. The one or more candidate devices correspond to the
discourse input. The process determines, based on the one or more
possible device characteristics and one or more actual device
characteristics of the one or more candidate devices, a user intent
corresponding to the discourse input. Instructions that cause a
device of the one or more candidate devices to perform an action
corresponding to the user intent are provided.
[0008] In another example process, discourse input representing a
user request is received. The process determines whether the
discourse input relates to a device of an established location. In
response to determining that the discourse input relates to a
device of an established location, a data structure representing a
set of devices of the established location is retrieved. The
process determines, using the data structure, a user intent
corresponding to the discourse input, the user intent associated
with an action to be performed by a device of the set of devices,
and a criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action. The
action and the device are stored in association with the criterion,
where, in accordance with a determination that the criterion is
satisfied, the action is performed by the device.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0009] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system and
environment for implementing a digital assistant according to
various examples.
[0010] FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating a portable
multifunction device implementing the client-side portion of a
digital assistant according to various examples.
[0011] FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components
for event handling according to various examples.
[0012] FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device
implementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant
according to various examples.
[0013] FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction
device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface according to
various examples.
[0014] FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu
of applications on a portable multifunction device according to
various examples.
[0015] FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface for a
multifunction device with a touch-sensitive surface that is
separate from the display according to various examples.
[0016] FIG. 6A illustrates a personal electronic device according
to various examples.
[0017] FIG. 6B is a block diagram illustrating a personal
electronic device according to various examples.
[0018] FIG. 7A is a block diagram illustrating a digital assistant
system or a server portion thereof according to various
examples.
[0019] FIG. 7B illustrates the functions of the digital assistant
shown in FIG. 7A according to various examples.
[0020] FIG. 7C illustrates a portion of an ontology according to
various examples.
[0021] FIG. 8 illustrates a process for operating a digital
assistant according to various examples.
[0022] FIG. 9 is a hierarchical chart illustrating a data structure
that represents a set of devices of an established location
according to various examples.
[0023] FIG. 10A illustrates possible device characteristics
corresponding to an exemplary discourse input according to various
examples.
[0024] FIG. 10B illustrates actual device characteristics
associated with devices represented in a data structure according
to various examples.
[0025] FIG. 11 illustrates a process for operating a digital
assistant according to various examples.
[0026] FIG. 12 illustrates a functional block diagram of an
electronic device according to various examples.
[0027] FIG. 13 illustrates a functional block diagram of an
electronic device according to various examples.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0028] In the following description of examples, reference is made
to the accompanying drawings in which it is shown by way of
illustration specific examples that can be practiced. It is to be
understood that other examples can be used and structural changes
can be made without departing from the scope of the various
examples.
[0029] As discussed above, utilizing a digital assistant to control
devices of an established location, such as devices in a user's
home, can be convenient and beneficial to the user. Preferably, the
user employs natural language to convey to the digital assistant
the intended action and the intended device for performing the
action without having to refer to predefined commands or predefined
device identifiers. For example, if the user provides the natural
language command "Open the door," it can be desirable for the
digital assistant to understand exactly which door the user is
referring to and whether the intended action is to open the door or
unlock the door. The user thus would not need to remember a myriad
of predefined commands and device identifiers in order to convey
the user's intent to the digital assistant. This improves the user
experience and allow for a more natural and personable interaction
with the digital assistant.
[0030] Although natural language interactions are desirable to
improve user experience, natural language often includes ambiguous
terms which are difficult for the digital assistant to
disambiguate. For example, for the natural language command "Open
the door," the user's home could have several doors which can be
opened or unlocked. The digital assistant therefore needs to rely
on other information to supplement the natural language command in
order to accurately determine the intended action and the intended
device for performing the action. In accordance with some exemplary
systems and processes described herein, a data structure defining
the devices of an established location is utilized to assist with
determining the user's intent from the user's natural language
command. In one example process, discourse input representing a
user request is received. The process determines one or more
possible device characteristics corresponding to the discourse
input. A data structure representing a set of devices of an
established location is retrieved. The process determines, based on
the data structure, one or more candidate devices from the set of
devices. The one or more candidate devices correspond to the
discourse input. The process determines, based on the one or more
possible device characteristics and one or more actual device
characteristics of the one or more candidate devices, a user intent
corresponding to the discourse input. Instructions that cause a
device of the one or more candidate devices to perform an action
corresponding to the user intent are provided.
[0031] A digital assistant can also process user commands for
performing a future action in response to a specified condition.
The action or the condition is with respect to one or more devices
in an established location. For example, the user provides the
natural language command "Close the blinds when it reaches 80
degrees." In this example, the digital assistant determines that
the user wishes to perform the action of closing the blinds in
response to the condition of detecting a temperature equal to or
greater than 80 degrees. In particular, the digital assistant would
need to determine which "blinds" the user wishes to close and which
thermometer the user wishes to monitor with respect to the "80
degrees" criterion. The data structure referred to above is also
utilized to assist with making such a determination. For instance,
in one example process, discourse input representing a user request
is received. The process determines whether the discourse input
relates to a device of an established location. In response to
determining that the discourse input relates to a device of an
established location, a data structure representing a set of
devices of the established location is retrieved. The process
determines, using the data structure, a user intent corresponding
to the discourse input, the user intent associated with an action
to be performed by a device of the set of devices and a criterion
to be satisfied prior to performing the action. The action and the
device are stored in association with the criterion where, in
accordance with a determination that the criterion is satisfied,
the action is performed by the device.
[0032] Although the following description uses terms "first,"
"second," etc. to describe various elements, these elements should
not be limited by the terms. These terms are only used to
distinguish one element from another. For example, a first device
could be termed a second device, and, similarly, a second device
could be termed a first device, without departing from the scope of
the various described examples. The first device and the second
device, in some examples, are both devices and, in some cases, are
separate and different devices.
[0033] The terminology used in the description of the various
described examples herein is for the purpose of describing
particular examples only and is not intended to be limiting. As
used in the description of the various described examples and the
appended claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" are
intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context
clearly indicates otherwise. It will also be understood that the
term "and/or" as used herein refers to and encompasses any and all
possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed
items. It will be further understood that the terms "includes,"
"including," "comprises," and/or "comprising," when used in this
specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers,
steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude
the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers,
steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
[0034] The term "if" may be construed to mean "when" or "upon" or
"in response to determining" or "in response to detecting,"
depending on the context. Similarly, the phrase "if it is
determined" or "if [a stated condition or event] is detected" may
be construed to mean "upon determining" or "in response to
determining" or "upon detecting [the stated condition or event]" or
"in response to detecting [the stated condition or event],"
depending on the context.
1. System and Environment
[0035] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of system 100 according
to various examples. In some examples, system 100 implements a
digital assistant. The terms "digital assistant," "virtual
assistant," "intelligent automated assistant," or "automatic
digital assistant" refer to any information processing system that
interprets natural language input in spoken and/or textual form to
infer user intent, and performs actions based on the inferred user
intent. For example, to act on an inferred user intent, the system
performs one or more of the following: identifying a task flow with
steps and parameters designed to accomplish the inferred user
intent, inputting specific requirements from the inferred user
intent into the task flow; executing the task flow by invoking
programs, methods, services, APIs, or the like; and generating
output responses to the user in an audible (e.g., speech) and/or
visual form.
[0036] Specifically, a digital assistant is capable of accepting a
user request at least partially in the form of a natural language
command, request, statement, narrative, and/or inquiry. Typically,
the user request seeks either an informational answer or
performance of a task by the digital assistant. A satisfactory
response to the user request includes a provision of the requested
informational answer, a performance of the requested task, or a
combination of the two. For example, a user asks the digital
assistant a question, such as "Where am I right now?" Based on the
user's current location, the digital assistant answers, "You are in
Central Park near the west gate." The user also requests the
performance of a task, for example, "Please invite my friends to my
girlfriend's birthday party next week." In response, the digital
assistant can acknowledge the request by saying "Yes, right away,"
and then send a suitable calendar invite on behalf of the user to
each of the user's friends listed in the user's electronic address
book. During performance of a requested task, the digital assistant
sometimes interacts with the user in a continuous dialogue
involving multiple exchanges of information over an extended period
of time. There are numerous other ways of interacting with a
digital assistant to request information or performance of various
tasks. In addition to providing verbal responses and taking
programmed actions, the digital assistant also provides responses
in other visual or audio forms, e.g., as text, alerts, music,
videos, animations, etc.
[0037] As shown in FIG. 1, in some examples, a digital assistant is
implemented according to a client-server model. The digital
assistant includes client-side portion 102 (hereafter "DA client
102") executed on user device 104 and server-side portion 106
(hereafter "DA server 106") executed on server system 108. DA
client 102 communicates with DA server 106 through one or more
networks 110. DA client 102 provides client-side functionalities
such as user-facing input and output processing and communication
with DA server 106. DA server 106 provides server-side
functionalities for any number of DA clients 102 each residing on a
respective user device 104.
[0038] In some examples, DA server 106 includes client-facing I/O
interface 112, one or more processing modules 114, data and models
116, and I/O interface to external services 118. The client-facing
I/O interface 112 facilitates the client-facing input and output
processing for DA server 106. One or more processing modules 114
utilize data and models 116 to process speech input and determine
the user's intent based on natural language input. In some
examples, data and model storage 116 stores a data structure (e.g.,
data structure 900) and any other relevant information associated
with one or more of devices (e.g., devices 130, 132, 134, and 136)
that are configured to be controlled by user device 104 and/or
server system 108. Further, one or more processing modules 114
perform task execution based on inferred user intent. In some
examples, DA server 106 communicates with external services 120
through network(s) 110 for task completion or information
acquisition. I/O interface to external services 118 facilitates
such communications.
[0039] User device 104 can be any suitable electronic device. In
some examples, user device is a portable multifunctional device
(e.g., device 200, described below with reference to FIG. 2A), a
multifunctional device (e.g., device 400, described below with
reference to FIG. 4), or a personal electronic device (e.g., device
600, described below with reference to FIG. 6A-B.) A portable
multifunctional device is, for example, a mobile telephone that
also contains other functions, such as PDA and/or music player
functions. Specific examples of portable multifunction devices
include the iPhone.RTM., iPod Touch.RTM., and iPad.RTM. devices
from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Other examples of portable
multifunction devices include, without limitation, laptop or tablet
computers. Further, in some examples, user device 104 is a
non-portable multifunctional device. In particular, user device 104
is a desktop computer, a game console, a television, or a
television set-top box. In some examples, user device 104 includes
a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch screen displays and/or
touchpads). Further, user device 104 optionally includes one or
more other physical user-interface devices, such as a physical
keyboard, a mouse, and/or a joystick. Various examples of
electronic devices, such as multifunctional devices, are described
below in greater detail.
[0040] Examples of communication network(s) 110 include local area
networks (LAN) and wide area networks (WAN), e.g., the Internet.
Communication network(s) 110 is implemented using any known network
protocol, including various wired or wireless protocols, such as,
for example, Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, Global
System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM
Environment (EDGE), code division multiple access (CDMA), time
division multiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, or any other suitable
communication protocol.
[0041] Server system 108 is implemented on one or more standalone
data processing apparatus or a distributed network of computers. In
some examples, server system 108 also employs various virtual
devices and/or services of third-party service providers (e.g.,
third-party cloud service providers) to provide the underlying
computing resources and/or infrastructure resources of server
system 108.
[0042] In some examples, user device 104 communicates with DA
server 106 via second user device 122. Second user device 122 is
similar or identical to user device 104. For example, second user
device 122 is similar to devices 200, 400, or 600 described below
with reference to FIGS. 2A, 4, and 6A-B. User device 104 is
configured to communicatively couple to second user device 122 via
a direct communication connection, such as Bluetooth, NFC, BTLE, or
the like, or via a wired or wireless network, such as a local Wi-Fi
network. In some examples, second user device 122 is configured to
act as a proxy between user device 104 and DA server 106. For
example, DA client 102 of user device 104 is configured to transmit
information (e.g., a user request received at user device 104) to
DA server 106 via second user device 122. DA server 106 processes
the information and return relevant data (e.g., data content
responsive to the user request) to user device 104 via second user
device 122.
[0043] In some examples, user device 104 is configured to
communicate abbreviated requests for data to second user device 122
to reduce the amount of information transmitted from user device
104. Second user device 122 is configured to determine supplemental
information to add to the abbreviated request to generate a
complete request to transmit to DA server 106. This system
architecture can advantageously allow user device 104 having
limited communication capabilities and/or limited battery power
(e.g., a watch or a similar compact electronic device) to access
services provided by DA server 106 by using second user device 122,
having greater communication capabilities and/or battery power
(e.g., a mobile phone, laptop computer, tablet computer, or the
like), as a proxy to DA server 106. While only two user devices 104
and 122 are shown in FIG. 1, it should be appreciated that system
100, in some examples, includes any number and type of user devices
configured in this proxy configuration to communicate with DA
server system 106.
[0044] User device 104 and/or server system 108 are further coupled
to devices 130, 132, 134, and 136 via network(s) 110. Devices 130,
132, 134, and 136 can include any type of remotely controlled
device, such as a light bulb (e.g., having binary on/off operating
states, numerical dimmable operating states, color operating state,
etc.), garage door (e.g., having a binary open/closed operating
state), door lock (e.g., having binary locked/unlocked operating
state), thermostat (e.g., having one or more numerical temperature
setpoint operating states, such as a high temperature, low
temperature, time-based temperatures, etc.), electrical outlet
(e.g., having a binary on/off operating state), switch (e.g.,
having a binary on/off operating state), a music player, a
television set, or the like. Devices 130-136 are configured to
receive instructions from server system 108 and/or user device 104.
As discussed in greater detail below with respect to FIGS. 8-11,
user device 104 can issue commands (or cause DA server 106 to issue
commands) to control any of one of devices 130-136 in response to a
natural language dialogue input provided by a user to user device
104.
[0045] While only four devices 130, 132, 134, and 136 are shown in
FIG. 1, it should be appreciated that system 100 can include any
number of devices. Additionally, although the digital assistant
shown in FIG. 1 includes both a client-side portion (e.g., DA
client 102) and a server-side portion (e.g., DA server 106), in
some examples, the functions of a digital assistant are implemented
as a standalone application installed on a user device. In
addition, the divisions of functionalities between the client and
server portions of the digital assistant can vary in different
implementations. For instance, in some examples, the DA client is a
thin-client that provides only user-facing input and output
processing functions, and delegates all other functionalities of
the digital assistant to a backend server.
2. Electronic Devices
[0046] Attention is now directed toward embodiments of electronic
devices for implementing the client-side portion of a digital
assistant. FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating portable
multifunction device 200 with touch-sensitive display system 212 in
accordance with some embodiments. Touch-sensitive display 212 is
sometimes called a "touch screen" for convenience and is sometimes
known as or called a "touch-sensitive display system." Device 200
includes memory 202 (which optionally includes one or more
computer-readable storage mediums), memory controller 222, one or
more processing units (CPUs) 220, peripherals interface 218, RF
circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, microphone 213,
input/output (I/O) subsystem 206, other input control devices 216,
and external port 224. Device 200 optionally includes one or more
optical sensors 264. Device 200 optionally includes one or more
contact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of contacts
on device 200 (e.g., a touch-sensitive surface such as
touch-sensitive display system 212 of device 200). Device 200
optionally includes one or more tactile output generators 267 for
generating tactile outputs on device 200 (e.g., generating tactile
outputs on a touch-sensitive surface such as touch-sensitive
display system 212 of device 200 or touchpad 455 of device 400).
These components optionally communicate over one or more
communication buses or signal lines 203.
[0047] As used in the specification and claims, the term
"intensity" of a contact on a touch-sensitive surface refers to the
force or pressure (force per unit area) of a contact (e.g., a
finger contact) on the touch-sensitive surface, or to a substitute
(proxy) for the force or pressure of a contact on the
touch-sensitive surface. The intensity of a contact has a range of
values that includes at least four distinct values and more
typically includes hundreds of distinct values (e.g., at least
256). Intensity of a contact is, optionally, determined (or
measured) using various approaches and various sensors or
combinations of sensors. For example, one or more force sensors
underneath or adjacent to the touch-sensitive surface are,
optionally, used to measure force at various points on the
touch-sensitive surface. In some implementations, force
measurements from multiple force sensors are combined (e.g., a
weighted average) to determine an estimated force of a contact.
Similarly, a pressure-sensitive tip of a stylus is, optionally,
used to determine a pressure of the stylus on the touch-sensitive
surface. Alternatively, the size of the contact area detected on
the touch-sensitive surface and/or changes thereto, the capacitance
of the touch-sensitive surface proximate to the contact and/or
changes thereto, and/or the resistance of the touch-sensitive
surface proximate to the contact and/or changes thereto are,
optionally, used as a substitute for the force or pressure of the
contact on the touch-sensitive surface. In some implementations,
the substitute measurements for contact force or pressure are used
directly to determine whether an intensity threshold has been
exceeded (e.g., the intensity threshold is described in units
corresponding to the substitute measurements). In some
implementations, the substitute measurements for contact force or
pressure are converted to an estimated force or pressure, and the
estimated force or pressure is used to determine whether an
intensity threshold has been exceeded (e.g., the intensity
threshold is a pressure threshold measured in units of pressure).
Using the intensity of a contact as an attribute of a user input
allows for user access to additional device functionality that may
otherwise not be accessible by the user on a reduced-size device
with limited real estate for displaying affordances (e.g., on a
touch-sensitive display) and/or receiving user input (e.g., via a
touch-sensitive display, a touch-sensitive surface, or a
physical/mechanical control such as a knob or a button).
[0048] As used in the specification and claims, the term "tactile
output" refers to physical displacement of a device relative to a
previous position of the device, physical displacement of a
component (e.g., a touch-sensitive surface) of a device relative to
another component (e.g., housing) of the device, or displacement of
the component relative to a center of mass of the device that will
be detected by a user with the user's sense of touch. For example,
in situations where the device or the component of the device is in
contact with a surface of a user that is sensitive to touch (e.g.,
a finger, palm, or other part of a user's hand), the tactile output
generated by the physical displacement will be interpreted by the
user as a tactile sensation corresponding to a perceived change in
physical characteristics of the device or the component of the
device. For example, movement of a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a
touch-sensitive display or trackpad) is, optionally, interpreted by
the user as a "down click" or "up click" of a physical actuator
button. In some cases, a user will feel a tactile sensation such as
an "down click" or "up click" even when there is no movement of a
physical actuator button associated with the touch-sensitive
surface that is physically pressed (e.g., displaced) by the user's
movements. As another example, movement of the touch-sensitive
surface is, optionally, interpreted or sensed by the user as
"roughness" of the touch-sensitive surface, even when there is no
change in smoothness of the touch-sensitive surface. While such
interpretations of touch by a user will be subject to the
individualized sensory perceptions of the user, there are many
sensory perceptions of touch that are common to a large majority of
users. Thus, when a tactile output is described as corresponding to
a particular sensory perception of a user (e.g., an "up click," a
"down click," "roughness"), unless otherwise stated, the generated
tactile output corresponds to physical displacement of the device
or a component thereof that will generate the described sensory
perception for a typical (or average) user.
[0049] It should be appreciated that device 200 is only one example
of a portable multifunction device, and that device 200 optionally
has more or fewer components than shown, optionally combines two or
more components, or optionally has a different configuration or
arrangement of the components. The various components shown in FIG.
2A are implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both
hardware and software, including one or more signal processing
and/or application-specific integrated circuits.
[0050] Memory 202 includes one or more computer-readable storage
mediums. The computer-readable storage mediums are, for example,
tangible and non-transitory. Memory 202 includes high-speed random
access memory and also includes non-volatile memory, such as one or
more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other
non-volatile solid-state memory devices. Memory controller 222
controls access to memory 202 by other components of device
200.
[0051] In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage
medium of memory 202 is used to store instructions (e.g., for
performing aspects of processes described below) for use by or in
connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or
device, such as a computer-based system, processor-containing
system, or other system that can fetch the instructions from the
instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the
instructions. In other examples, the instructions (e.g., for
performing aspects of the processes described below) are stored on
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (not shown) of
the server system 108 or are divided between the non-transitory
computer-readable storage medium of memory 202 and the
non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of server system
108.
[0052] Peripherals interface 218 is used to couple input and output
peripherals of the device to CPU 220 and memory 202. The one or
more processors 220 run or execute various software programs and/or
sets of instructions stored in memory 202 to perform various
functions for device 200 and to process data. In some embodiments,
peripherals interface 218, CPU 220, and memory controller 222 are
implemented on a single chip, such as chip 204. In some other
embodiments, they are implemented on separate chips.
[0053] RF (radio frequency) circuitry 208 receives and sends RF
signals, also called electromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208
converts electrical signals to/from electromagnetic signals and
communicates with communications networks and other communications
devices via the electromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208
optionally includes well-known circuitry for performing these
functions, including but not limited to an antenna system, an RF
transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a tuner, one or more
oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chipset, a
subscriber identity module (SIM) card, memory, and so forth. RF
circuitry 208 optionally communicates with networks, such as the
Internet, also referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), an intranet
and/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone network, a
wireless local area network (LAN) and/or a metropolitan area
network (MAN), and other devices by wireless communication. The RF
circuitry 208 optionally includes well-known circuitry for
detecting near field communication (NFC) fields, such as by a
short-range communication radio. The wireless communication
optionally uses any of a plurality of communications standards,
protocols, and technologies, including but not limited to Global
System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM
Environment (EDGE), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA),
high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), Evolution, Data-Only
(EV-DO), HSPA, HSPA+, Dual-Cell HSPA (DC-HSPDA), long term
evolution (LTE), near field communication (NFC), wideband code
division multiple access (W-CDMA), code division multiple access
(CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Bluetooth
Low Energy (BTLE), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (e.g., IEEE 802.11a,
IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11 In, and/or IEEE 802.11 ac),
voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, a protocol for e mail
(e.g., Internet message access protocol (IMAP) and/or post office
protocol (POP)), instant messaging (e.g., extensible messaging and
presence protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol for Instant
Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), Instant
Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS)), and/or Short Message
Service (SMS), or any other suitable communication protocol,
including communication protocols not yet developed as of the
filing date of this document.
[0054] Audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, and microphone 213 provide
an audio interface between a user and device 200. Audio circuitry
210 receives audio data from peripherals interface 218, converts
the audio data to an electrical signal, and transmits the
electrical signal to speaker 211. Speaker 211 converts the
electrical signal to human-audible sound waves. Audio circuitry 210
also receives electrical signals converted by microphone 213 from
sound waves. Audio circuitry 210 converts the electrical signal to
audio data and transmits the audio data to peripherals interface
218 for processing. Audio data are retrieved from and/or
transmitted to memory 202 and/or RF circuitry 208 by peripherals
interface 218. In some embodiments, audio circuitry 210 also
includes a headset jack (e.g., 312, FIG. 3). The headset jack
provides an interface between audio circuitry 210 and removable
audio input/output peripherals, such as output-only headphones or a
headset with both output (e.g., a headphone for one or both ears)
and input (e.g., a microphone).
[0055] I/O subsystem 206 couples input/output peripherals on device
200, such as touch screen 212 and other input control devices 216,
to peripherals interface 218. I/O subsystem 206 optionally includes
display controller 256, optical sensor controller 258, intensity
sensor controller 259, haptic feedback controller 261, and one or
more input controllers 260 for other input or control devices. The
one or more input controllers 260 receive/send electrical signals
from/to other input control devices 216. The other input control
devices 216 optionally include physical buttons (e.g., push
buttons, rocker buttons, etc.), dials, slider switches, joysticks,
click wheels, and so forth. In some alternate embodiments, input
controller(s) 260 are, optionally, coupled to any (or none) of the
following: a keyboard, an infrared port, a USB port, and a pointer
device such as a mouse. The one or more buttons (e.g., 308, FIG. 3)
optionally include an up/down button for volume control of speaker
211 and/or microphone 213. The one or more buttons optionally
include a push button (e.g., 306, FIG. 3).
[0056] A quick press of the push button disengages a lock of touch
screen 212 or begin a process that uses gestures on the touch
screen to unlock the device, as described in U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 11/322,549, "Unlocking a Device by Performing
Gestures on an Unlock Image," filed Dec. 23, 2005, U.S. Pat. No.
7,657,849, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its
entirety. A longer press of the push button (e.g., 306) turns power
to device 200 on or off. The user is able to customize a
functionality of one or more of the buttons. Touch screen 212 is
used to implement virtual or soft buttons and one or more soft
keyboards.
[0057] Touch-sensitive display 212 provides an input interface and
an output interface between the device and a user. Display
controller 256 receives and/or sends electrical signals from/to
touch screen 212. Touch screen 212 displays visual output to the
user. The visual output includes graphics, text, icons, video, and
any combination thereof (collectively termed "graphics"). In some
embodiments, some or all of the visual output correspond to
user-interface objects.
[0058] Touch screen 212 has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor, or
set of sensors that accepts input from the user based on haptic
and/or tactile contact. Touch screen 212 and display controller 256
(along with any associated modules and/or sets of instructions in
memory 202) detect contact (and any movement or breaking of the
contact) on touch screen 212 and convert the detected contact into
interaction with user-interface objects (e.g., one or more soft
keys, icons, web pages, or images) that are displayed on touch
screen 212. In an exemplary embodiment, a point of contact between
touch screen 212 and the user corresponds to a finger of the
user.
[0059] Touch screen 212 uses LCD (liquid crystal display)
technology, LPD (light emitting polymer display) technology, or LED
(light emitting diode) technology, although other display
technologies may be used in other embodiments. Touch screen 212 and
display controller 256 detect contact and any movement or breaking
thereof using any of a plurality of touch sensing technologies now
known or later developed, including but not limited to capacitive,
resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave technologies, as
well as other proximity sensor arrays or other elements for
determining one or more points of contact with touch screen 212. In
an exemplary embodiment, projected mutual capacitance sensing
technology is used, such as that found in the iPhone@ and iPod
Touch.RTM. from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
[0060] A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch
screen 212 is analogous to the multi-touch sensitive touchpads
described in the following U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846 (Westerman et
al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,557 (Westerman et al.), and/or U.S. Pat.
No. 6,677,932 (Westerman), and/or U.S. Patent Publication
2002/0015024A1, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference
in its entirety. However, touch screen 212 displays visual output
from device 200, whereas touch-sensitive touchpads do not provide
visual output.
[0061] A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch
screen 212 is as described in the following applications: (1) U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 11/381,313, "Multipoint Touch Surface
Controller," filed May 2, 2006, (2) U.S. patent application Ser.
No. 10/840,862, "Multipoint Touchscreen," filed May 6, 2004; (3)
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/903,964, "Gestures For Touch
Sensitive Input Devices," filed Jul. 30, 2004; (4) U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 11/048,264, "Gestures For Touch Sensitive
Input Devices," filed Jan. 31, 2005; (5) U.S. patent application
Ser. No. 11/038,590, "Mode-Based Graphical User Interfaces For
Touch Sensitive Input Devices," filed Jan. 18, 2005; (6) U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 11/228,758, "Virtual Input Device
Placement On A Touch Screen User Interface," filed Sep. 16, 2005;
(7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,700, "Operation Of A
Computer With A Touch Screen Interface," filed Sep. 16, 2005; (8)
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/228,737, "Activating Virtual
Keys Of A Touch-Screen Virtual Keyboard," filed Sep. 16, 2005; and
(9) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/367,749, "Multi-Functional
Hand-Held Device," filed Mar. 3, 2006. All of these applications
are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
[0062] Touch screen 212 has, for example, a video resolution in
excess of 100 dpi. In some embodiments, the touch screen has a
video resolution of approximately 160 dpi. The user makes contact
with touch screen 212 using any suitable object or appendage, such
as a stylus, a finger, and so forth. In some embodiments, the user
interface is designed to work primarily with finger-based contacts
and gestures, which can be less precise than stylus-based input due
to the larger area of contact of a finger on the touch screen. In
some embodiments, the device translates the rough finger-based
input into a precise pointer/cursor position or command for
performing the actions desired by the user.
[0063] In some embodiments, in addition to the touch screen, device
200 includes a touchpad (not shown) for activating or deactivating
particular functions. In some embodiments, the touchpad is a
touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen,
does not display visual output. The touchpad is a touch-sensitive
surface that is separate from touch screen 212 or an extension of
the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen.
[0064] Device 200 also includes power system 262 for powering the
various components. Power system 262 includes a power management
system, one or more power sources (e.g., battery, alternating
current (AC)), a recharging system, a power failure detection
circuit, a power converter or inverter, a power status indicator
(e.g., a light-emitting diode (LED)) and any other components
associated with the generation, management and distribution of
power in portable devices.
[0065] Device 200 also includes one or more optical sensors 264.
FIG. 2A shows an optical sensor coupled to optical sensor
controller 258 in I/O subsystem 206. Optical sensor 264 includes
charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors. Optical sensor 264 receives
light from the environment, projected through one or more lenses,
and converts the light to data representing an image. In
conjunction with imaging module 243 (also called a camera module),
optical sensor 264 captures still images or video. In some
embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of device
200, opposite touch screen display 212 on the front of the device
so that the touch screen display is used as a viewfinder for still
and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical
sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user's
image is obtained for video conferencing while the user views the
other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In
some embodiments, the position of optical sensor 264 can be changed
by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the
device housing) so that a single optical sensor 264 is used along
with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still
and/or video image acquisition.
[0066] Device 200 optionally also includes one or more contact
intensity sensors 265. FIG. 2A shows a contact intensity sensor
coupled to intensity sensor controller 259 in I/O subsystem 206.
Contact intensity sensor 265 optionally includes one or more
piezoresistive strain gauges, capacitive force sensors, electric
force sensors, piezoelectric force sensors, optical force sensors,
capacitive touch-sensitive surfaces, or other intensity sensors
(e.g., sensors used to measure the force (or pressure) of a contact
on a touch-sensitive surface). Contact intensity sensor 265
receives contact intensity information (e.g., pressure information
or a proxy for pressure information) from the environment. In some
embodiments, at least one contact intensity sensor is collocated
with, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive surface (e.g.,
touch-sensitive display system 212). In some embodiments, at least
one contact intensity sensor is located on the back of device 200,
opposite touch screen display 212, which is located on the front of
device 200.
[0067] Device 200 also includes one or more proximity sensors 266.
FIG. 2A shows proximity sensor 266 coupled to peripherals interface
218. Alternately, proximity sensor 266 is coupled to input
controller 260 in I/O subsystem 206. Proximity sensor 266 is
performed as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No.
11/241,839, "Proximity Detector In Handheld Device"; Ser. No.
11/240,788, "Proximity Detector In Handheld Device"; Ser. No.
11/620,702, "Using Ambient Light Sensor To Augment Proximity Sensor
Output"; Ser. No. 11/586,862, "Automated Response To And Sensing Of
User Activity In Portable Devices"; and Ser. No. 11/638,251,
"Methods And Systems For Automatic Configuration Of Peripherals,"
which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. In
some embodiments, the proximity sensor turns off and disables touch
screen 212 when the multifunction device is placed near the user's
ear (e.g., when the user is making a phone call).
[0068] Device 200 optionally also includes one or more tactile
output generators 267. FIG. 2A shows a tactile output generator
coupled to haptic feedback controller 261 in I/O subsystem 206.
Tactile output generator 267 optionally includes one or more
electroacoustic devices such as speakers or other audio components
and/or electromechanical devices that convert energy into linear
motion such as a motor, solenoid, electroactive polymer,
piezoelectric actuator, electrostatic actuator, or other tactile
output generating component (e.g., a component that converts
electrical signals into tactile outputs on the device). Contact
intensity sensor 265 receives tactile feedback generation
instructions from haptic feedback module 233 and generates tactile
outputs on device 200 that are capable of being sensed by a user of
device 200. In some embodiments, at least one tactile output
generator is collocated with, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive
surface (e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212) and, optionally,
generates a tactile output by moving the touch-sensitive surface
vertically (e.g., in/out of a surface of device 200) or laterally
(e.g., back and forth in the same plane as a surface of device
200). In some embodiments, at least one tactile output generator
sensor is located on the back of device 200, opposite touch screen
display 212, which is located on the front of device 200.
[0069] Device 200 also includes one or more accelerometers 268.
FIG. 2A shows accelerometer 268 coupled to peripherals interface
218. Alternately, accelerometer 268 is coupled to an input
controller 260 in I/O subsystem 206. Accelerometer 268 performs,
for example, as described in U.S. Patent Publication No.
20050190059, "Acceleration-based Theft Detection System for
Portable Electronic Devices," and U.S. Patent Publication No.
20060017692, "Methods And Apparatuses For Operating A Portable
Device Based On An Accelerometer," both of which are incorporated
by reference herein in their entirety. In some embodiments,
information is displayed on the touch screen display in a portrait
view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from
the one or more accelerometers. Device 200 optionally includes, in
addition to accelerometer(s) 268, a magnetometer (not shown) and a
GPS (or GLONASS or other global navigation system) receiver (not
shown) for obtaining information concerning the location and
orientation (e.g., portrait or landscape) of device 200.
[0070] In some embodiments, the software components stored in
memory 202 include operating system 226, communication module (or
set of instructions) 228, contact/motion module (or set of
instructions) 230, graphics module (or set of instructions) 232,
text input module (or set of instructions) 234, Global Positioning
System (GPS) module (or set of instructions) 235, Digital Assistant
Client Module 229, and applications (or sets of instructions) 236.
Further, memory 202 stores data and models, such as user data and
models 231. Furthermore, in some embodiments, memory 202 (FIG. 2A)
or 470 (FIG. 4) stores device/global internal state 257, as shown
in FIGS. 2A and 4. Device/global internal state 257 includes one or
more of: active application state, indicating which applications,
if any, are currently active; display state, indicating what
applications, views or other information occupy various regions of
touch screen display 212; sensor state, including information
obtained from the device's various sensors and input control
devices 216, and location information concerning the device's
location and/or attitude.
[0071] Operating system 226 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, OS X,
iOS, WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks)
includes various software components and/or drivers for controlling
and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage
device control, power management, etc.) and facilitates
communication between various hardware and software components.
[0072] Communication module 228 facilitates communication with
other devices over one or more external ports 224 and also includes
various software components for handling data received by RF
circuitry 208 and/or external port 224. External port 224 (e.g.,
Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, etc.) is adapted for coupling
directly to other devices or indirectly over a network (e.g., the
Internet, wireless LAN, etc.). In some embodiments, the external
port is a multi-pin (e.g., 30-pin) connector that is the same as,
or similar to and/or compatible with, the 30-pin connector used on
iPod.RTM. (trademark of Apple Inc.) devices.
[0073] Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects contact with
touch screen 212 (in conjunction with display controller 256) and
other touch-sensitive devices (e.g., a touchpad or physical click
wheel). Contact/motion module 230 includes various software
components for performing various operations related to detection
of contact, such as determining if contact has occurred (e.g.,
detecting a finger-down event), determining an intensity of the
contact (e.g., the force or pressure of the contact or a substitute
for the force or pressure of the contact), determining if there is
movement of the contact and tracking the movement across the
touch-sensitive surface (e.g., detecting one or more
finger-dragging events), and determining if the contact has ceased
(e.g., detecting a finger-up event or a break in contact).
Contact/motion module 230 receives contact data from the
touch-sensitive surface. Determining movement of the point of
contact, which is represented by a series of contact data,
optionally includes determining speed (magnitude), velocity
(magnitude and direction), and/or an acceleration (a change in
magnitude and/or direction) of the point of contact. These
operations are, optionally, applied to single contacts (e.g., one
finger contacts) or to multiple simultaneous contacts (e.g.,
"multitouch"/multiple finger contacts). In some embodiments,
contact/motion module 230 and display controller 256 detect contact
on a touchpad.
[0074] In some embodiments, contact/motion module 230 uses a set of
one or more intensity thresholds to determine whether an operation
has been performed by a user (e.g., to determine whether a user has
"clicked" on an icon). In some embodiments, at least a subset of
the intensity thresholds are determined in accordance with software
parameters (e.g., the intensity thresholds are not determined by
the activation thresholds of particular physical actuators and can
be adjusted without changing the physical hardware of device 200).
For example, a mouse "click" threshold of a trackpad or touch
screen display can be set to any of a large range of predefined
threshold values without changing the trackpad or touch screen
display hardware. Additionally, in some implementations, a user of
the device is provided with software settings for adjusting one or
more of the set of intensity thresholds (e.g., by adjusting
individual intensity thresholds and/or by adjusting a plurality of
intensity thresholds at once with a system-level click "intensity"
parameter).
[0075] Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects a gesture input
by a user. Different gestures on the touch-sensitive surface have
different contact patterns (e.g., different motions, timings,
and/or intensities of detected contacts). Thus, a gesture is,
optionally, detected by detecting a particular contact pattern. For
example, detecting a finger tap gesture includes detecting a
finger-down event followed by detecting a finger-up (liftoff) event
at the same position (or substantially the same position) as the
finger-down event (e.g., at the position of an icon). As another
example, detecting a finger swipe gesture on the touch-sensitive
surface includes detecting a finger-down event followed by
detecting one or more finger-dragging events, and subsequently
followed by detecting a finger-up (liftoff) event.
[0076] Graphics module 232 includes various known software
components for rendering and displaying graphics on touch screen
212 or other display, including components for changing the visual
impact (e.g., brightness, transparency, saturation, contrast, or
other visual property) of graphics that are displayed. As used
herein, the term "graphics" includes any object that can be
displayed to a user, including, without limitation, text, web
pages, icons (such as user-interface objects including soft keys),
digital images, videos, animations, and the like.
[0077] In some embodiments, graphics module 232 stores data
representing graphics to be used. Each graphic is, optionally,
assigned a corresponding code. Graphics module 232 receives, from
applications etc., one or more codes specifying graphics to be
displayed along with, if necessary, coordinate data and other
graphic property data, and then generates screen image data to
output to display controller 256.
[0078] Haptic feedback module 233 includes various software
components for generating instructions used by tactile output
generator(s) 267 to produce tactile outputs at one or more
locations on device 200 in response to user interactions with
device 200.
[0079] Text input module 234, which is, in some examples, a
component of graphics module 232, provides soft keyboards for
entering text in various applications (e.g., contacts 237, email
240, IM 241, browser 247, and any other application that needs text
input).
[0080] GPS module 235 determines the location of the device and
provides this information for use in various applications (e.g., to
telephone 238 for use in location-based dialing; to camera 243 as
picture/video metadata; and to applications that provide
location-based services such as weather widgets, local yellow page
widgets, and map/navigation widgets).
[0081] Digital assistant client module 229 includes various
client-side digital assistant instructions to provide the
client-side functionalities of the digital assistant. For example,
digital assistant client module 229 is capable of accepting voice
input (e.g., speech input), text input, touch input, and/or
gestural input through various user interfaces (e.g., microphone
213, accelerometer(s) 268, touch-sensitive display system 212,
optical sensor(s) 229, other input control devices 216, etc.) of
portable multifunction device 200. Digital assistant client module
229 is also capable of providing output in audio (e.g., speech
output), visual, and/or tactile forms through various output
interfaces (e.g., speaker 211, touch-sensitive display system 212,
tactile output generator(s) 267, etc.) of portable multifunction
device 200. For example, output is provided as voice, sound,
alerts, text messages, menus, graphics, videos, animations,
vibrations, and/or combinations of two or more of the above. During
operation, digital assistant client module 229 communicates with DA
server 106 using RF circuitry 208.
[0082] User data and models 231 include various data associated
with the user (e.g., user-specific vocabulary data, user preference
data, user-specified name pronunciations, data from the user's
electronic address book, to-do lists, shopping lists, etc.) to
provide the client-side functionalities of the digital assistant.
Further, user data and models 231 include various models (e.g.,
speech recognition models, statistical language models, natural
language processing models, ontology, task flow models, service
models, etc.) for processing user input and determining user
intent.
[0083] In some examples, digital assistant client module 229
utilizes the various sensors, subsystems, and peripheral devices of
portable multifunction device 200 to gather additional information
from the surrounding environment of the portable multifunction
device 200 to establish a context associated with a user, the
current user interaction, and/or the current user input. In some
examples, digital assistant client module 229 provides the
contextual information or a subset thereof with the user input to
DA server 106 to help infer the user's intent. In some examples,
the digital assistant also uses the contextual information to
determine how to prepare and deliver outputs to the user.
Contextual information is referred to as context data.
[0084] In some examples, the contextual information that
accompanies the user input includes sensor information, e.g.,
lighting, ambient noise, ambient temperature, images or videos of
the surrounding environment, etc. In some examples, the contextual
information can also includes the physical state of the device,
e.g., device orientation, device location, device temperature,
power level, speed, acceleration, motion patterns, cellular signals
strength, etc. In some examples, information related to the
software state of DA server 106, e.g., running processes, installed
programs, past and present network activities, background services,
error logs, resources usage, etc., and of portable multifunction
device 200 is provided to DA server 106 as contextual information
associated with a user input.
[0085] In some examples, the digital assistant client module 229
selectively provides information (e.g., user data 231) stored on
the portable multifunction device 200 in response to requests from
DA server 106. In some examples, digital assistant client module
229 also elicits additional input from the user via a natural
language dialogue or other user interfaces upon request by DA
server 106. Digital assistant client module 229 passes the
additional input to DA server 106 to help DA server 106 in intent
deduction and/or fulfillment of the user's intent expressed in the
user request.
[0086] A more detailed description of a digital assistant is
described below with reference to FIGS. 7A-C. It should be
recognized that digital assistant client module 229 can include any
number of the sub-modules of digital assistant module 726 described
below.
[0087] Applications 236 include the following modules (or sets of
instructions), or a subset or superset thereof: [0088] Contacts
module 237 (sometimes called an address book or contact list);
[0089] Telephone module 238; [0090] Video conference module 239;
[0091] E-mail client module 240; [0092] Instant messaging (IM)
module 241; [0093] Workout support module 242; [0094] Camera module
243 for still and/or video images; [0095] Image management module
244; [0096] Video player module; [0097] Music player module; [0098]
Browser module 247; [0099] Calendar module 248; [0100] Widget
modules 249, which includes, in some examples, one or more of:
weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator widget 249-3,
alarm clock widget 249-4, dictionary widget 249-5, and other
widgets obtained by the user, as well as user-created widgets
249-6; [0101] Widget creator module 250 for making user-created
widgets 249-6; [0102] Search module 251; [0103] Video and music
player module 252, which merges video player module and music
[0104] player module; [0105] Notes module 253; [0106] Map module
254; and/or [0107] Online video module 255.
[0108] Examples of other applications 236 that are stored in memory
202 include other word processing applications, other image editing
applications, drawing applications, presentation applications,
JAVA-enabled applications, encryption, digital rights management,
voice recognition, and voice replication.
[0109] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input
module 234, contacts module 237 are used to manage an address book
or contact list (e.g., stored in application internal state 292 of
contacts module 237 in memory 202 or memory 470), including: adding
name(s) to the address book; deleting name(s) from the address
book; associating telephone number(s), e-mail address(es), physical
address(es) or other information with a name; associating an image
with a name; categorizing and sorting names; providing telephone
numbers or e-mail addresses to initiate and/or facilitate
communications by telephone 238, video conference module 239,
e-mail 240, or IM 241; and so forth.
[0110] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210,
speaker 211, microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input
module 234, telephone module 238 are used to enter a sequence of
characters corresponding to a telephone number, access one or more
telephone numbers in contacts module 237, modify a telephone number
that has been entered, dial a respective telephone number, conduct
a conversation, and disconnect or hang up when the conversation is
completed. As noted above, the wireless communication uses any of a
plurality of communications standards, protocols, and
technologies.
[0111] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210,
speaker 211, microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller
256, optical sensor 264, optical sensor controller 258,
contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module
234, contacts module 237, and telephone module 238, video
conference module 239 includes executable instructions to initiate,
conduct, and terminate a video conference between a user and one or
more other participants in accordance with user instructions.
[0112] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, and text input module 234, e-mail client module 240 includes
executable instructions to create, send, receive, and manage e-mail
in response to user instructions. In conjunction with image
management module 244, e-mail client module 240 makes it very easy
to create and send e-mails with still or video images taken with
camera module 243.
[0113] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, and text input module 234, the instant messaging module 241
includes executable instructions to enter a sequence of characters
corresponding to an instant message, to modify previously entered
characters, to transmit a respective instant message (for example,
using a Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Message Service
(MMS) protocol for telephony-based instant messages or using XMPP,
SIMPLE, or IMPS for Internet-based instant messages), to receive
instant messages, and to view received instant messages. In some
embodiments, transmitted and/or received instant messages include
graphics, photos, audio files, video files and/or other attachments
as are supported in an MMS and/or an Enhanced Messaging Service
(EMS). As used herein, "instant messaging" refers to both
telephony-based messages (e.g., messages sent using SMS or MMS) and
Internet-based messages (e.g., messages sent using XMPP, SIMPLE, or
IMPS).
[0114] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, text input module 234, GPS module 235, map module 254, and
music player module, workout support module 242 includes executable
instructions to create workouts (e.g., with time, distance, and/or
calorie burning goals); communicate with workout sensors (sports
devices); receive workout sensor data; calibrate sensors used to
monitor a workout; select and play music for a workout; and
display, store, and transmit workout data.
[0115] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, optical sensor(s) 264, optical sensor controller 258,
contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and image
management module 244, camera module 243 includes executable
instructions to capture still images or video (including a video
stream) and store them into memory 202, modify characteristics of a
still image or video, or delete a still image or video from memory
202.
[0116] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input
module 234, and camera module 243, image management module 244
includes executable instructions to arrange, modify (e.g., edit),
or otherwise manipulate, label, delete, present (e.g., in a digital
slide show or album), and store still and/or video images.
[0117] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, and text input module 234, browser module 247 includes
executable instructions to browse the Internet in accordance with
user instructions, including searching, linking to, receiving, and
displaying web pages or portions thereof, as well as attachments
and other files linked to web pages.
[0118] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, text input module 234, e-mail client module 240, and browser
module 247, calendar module 248 includes executable instructions to
create, display, modify, and store calendars and data associated
with calendars (e.g., calendar entries, to-do lists, etc.) in
accordance with user instructions.
[0119] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, text input module 234, and browser module 247, widget modules
249 are mini-applications that can be downloaded and used by a user
(e.g., weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator widget
249-3, alarm clock widget 249-4, and dictionary widget 249-5) or
created by the user (e.g., user-created widget 249-6). In some
embodiments, a widget includes an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
file, a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file, and a JavaScript file.
In some embodiments, a widget includes an XML (Extensible Markup
Language) file and a JavaScript file (e.g., Yahoo! Widgets).
[0120] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, text input module 234, and browser module 247, the widget
creator module 250 are used by a user to create widgets (e.g.,
turning a user-specified portion of a web page into a widget).
[0121] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input
module 234, search module 251 includes executable instructions to
search for text, music, sound, image, video, and/or other files in
memory 202 that match one or more search criteria (e.g., one or
more user-specified search terms) in accordance with user
instructions.
[0122] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio
circuitry 210, speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, and browser module
247, video and music player module 252 includes executable
instructions that allow the user to download and play back recorded
music and other sound files stored in one or more file formats,
such as MP3 or AAC files, and executable instructions to display,
present, or otherwise play back videos (e.g., on touch screen 212
or on an external, connected display via external port 224). In
some embodiments, device 200 optionally includes the functionality
of an MP3 player, such as an iPod (trademark of Apple Inc.).
[0123] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input
module 234, notes module 253 includes executable instructions to
create and manage notes, to-do lists, and the like in accordance
with user instructions.
[0124] In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212,
display controller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module
232, text input module 234, GPS module 235, and browser module 247,
map module 254 are used to receive, display, modify, and store maps
and data associated with maps (e.g., driving directions, data on
stores and other points of interest at or near a particular
location, and other location-based data) in accordance with user
instructions.
[0125] In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller
256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio
circuitry 210, speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, text input module
234, e-mail client module 240, and browser module 247, online video
module 255 includes instructions that allow the user to access,
browse, receive (e.g., by streaming and/or download), play back
(e.g., on the touch screen or on an external, connected display via
external port 224), send an e-mail with a link to a particular
online video, and otherwise manage online videos in one or more
file formats, such as H.264. In some embodiments, instant messaging
module 241, rather than e-mail client module 240, is used to send a
link to a particular online video. Additional description of the
online video application can be found in U.S. Provisional Patent
Application No. 60/936,562, "Portable Multifunction Device, Method,
and Graphical User Interface for Playing Online Videos," filed Jun.
20, 2007, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/968,067,
"Portable Multifunction Device, Method, and Graphical User
Interface for Playing Online Videos," filed Dec. 31, 2007, the
contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their
entirety.
[0126] Each of the above-identified modules and applications
corresponds to a set of executable instructions for performing one
or more functions described above and the methods described in this
application (e.g., the computer-implemented methods and other
information processing methods described herein). These modules
(e.g., sets of instructions) need not be implemented as separate
software programs, procedures, or modules, and thus various subsets
of these modules can be combined or otherwise rearranged in various
embodiments. For example, video player module can be combined with
music player module into a single module (e.g., video and music
player module 252, FIG. 2A). In some embodiments, memory 202 stores
a subset of the modules and data structures identified above.
Furthermore, memory 202 stores additional modules and data
structures not described above.
[0127] In some embodiments, device 200 is a device where operation
of a predefined set of functions on the device is performed
exclusively through a touch screen and/or a touchpad. By using a
touch screen and/or a touchpad as the primary input control device
for operation of device 200, the number of physical input control
devices (such as push buttons, dials, and the like) on device 200
is reduced.
[0128] The predefined set of functions that are performed
exclusively through a touch screen and/or a touchpad optionally
include navigation between user interfaces. In some embodiments,
the touchpad, when touched by the user, navigates device 200 to a
main, home, or root menu from any user interface that is displayed
on device 200. In such embodiments, a "menu button" is implemented
using a touchpad. In some other embodiments, the menu button is a
physical push button or other physical input control device instead
of a touchpad.
[0129] FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components
for event handling in accordance with some embodiments. In some
embodiments, memory 202 (FIG. 2A) or 470 (FIG. 4) includes event
sorter 270 (e.g., in operating system 226) and a respective
application 236-1 (e.g., any of the aforementioned applications
237-251, 255, 480-490).
[0130] Event sorter 270 receives event information and determines
the application 236-1 and application view 291 of application 236-1
to which to deliver the event information. Event sorter 270
includes event monitor 271 and event dispatcher module 274. In some
embodiments, application 236-1 includes application internal state
292, which indicates the current application view(s) displayed on
touch-sensitive display 212 when the application is active or
executing. In some embodiments, device/global internal state 257 is
used by event sorter 270 to determine which application(s) is (are)
currently active, and application internal state 292 is used by
event sorter 270 to determine application views 291 to which to
deliver event information.
[0131] In some embodiments, application internal state 292 includes
additional information, such as one or more of: resume information
to be used when application 236-1 resumes execution, user interface
state information that indicates information being displayed or
that is ready for display by application 236-1, a state queue for
enabling the user to go back to a prior state or view of
application 236-1, and a redo/undo queue of previous actions taken
by the user.
[0132] Event monitor 271 receives event information from
peripherals interface 218. Event information includes information
about a sub-event (e.g., a user touch on touch-sensitive display
212, as part of a multi-touch gesture). Peripherals interface 218
transmits information it receives from I/O subsystem 206 or a
sensor, such as proximity sensor 266, accelerometer(s) 268, and/or
microphone 213 (through audio circuitry 210). Information that
peripherals interface 218 receives from I/O subsystem 206 includes
information from touch-sensitive display 212 or a touch-sensitive
surface.
[0133] In some embodiments, event monitor 271 sends requests to the
peripherals interface 218 at predetermined intervals. In response,
peripherals interface 218 transmits event information. In other
embodiments, peripherals interface 218 transmits event information
only when there is a significant event (e.g., receiving an input
above a predetermined noise threshold and/or for more than a
predetermined duration).
[0134] In some embodiments, event sorter 270 also includes a hit
view determination module 272 and/or an active event recognizer
determination module 273.
[0135] Hit view determination module 272 provides software
procedures for determining where a sub-event has taken place within
one or more views when touch-sensitive display 212 displays more
than one view. Views are made up of controls and other elements
that a user can see on the display.
[0136] Another aspect of the user interface associated with an
application is a set of views, sometimes herein called application
views or user interface windows, in which information is displayed
and touch-based gestures occur. The application views (of a
respective application) in which a touch is detected correspond to
programmatic levels within a programmatic or view hierarchy of the
application. For example, the lowest level view in which a touch is
detected is called the hit view, and the set of events that are
recognized as proper inputs is determined based, at least in part,
on the hit view of the initial touch that begins a touch-based
gesture.
[0137] Hit view determination module 272 receives information
related to sub events of a touch-based gesture. When an application
has multiple views organized in a hierarchy, hit view determination
module 272 identifies a hit view as the lowest view in the
hierarchy which should handle the sub-event. In most circumstances,
the hit view is the lowest level view in which an initiating
sub-event occurs (e.g., the first sub-event in the sequence of
sub-events that form an event or potential event). Once the hit
view is identified by the hit view determination module 272, the
hit view typically receives all sub-events related to the same
touch or input source for which it was identified as the hit
view.
[0138] Active event recognizer determination module 273 determines
which view or views within a view hierarchy should receive a
particular sequence of sub-events. In some embodiments, active
event recognizer determination module 273 determines that only the
hit view should receive a particular sequence of sub-events. In
other embodiments, active event recognizer determination module 273
determines that all views that include the physical location of a
sub-event are actively involved views, and therefore determines
that all actively involved views should receive a particular
sequence of sub-events. In other embodiments, even if touch
sub-events were entirely confined to the area associated with one
particular view, views higher in the hierarchy would still remain
as actively involved views.
[0139] Event dispatcher module 274 dispatches the event information
to an event recognizer (e.g., event recognizer 280). In embodiments
including active event recognizer determination module 273, event
dispatcher module 274 delivers the event information to an event
recognizer determined by active event recognizer determination
module 273. In some embodiments, event dispatcher module 274 stores
in an event queue the event information, which is retrieved by a
respective event receiver 282.
[0140] In some embodiments, operating system 226 includes event
sorter 270. Alternatively, application 236-1 includes event sorter
270. In yet other embodiments, event sorter 270 is a stand-alone
module, or a part of another module stored in memory 202, such as
contact/motion module 230.
[0141] In some embodiments, application 236-1 includes a plurality
of event handlers 290 and one or more application views 291, each
of which includes instructions for handling touch events that occur
within a respective view of the application's user interface. Each
application view 291 of the application 236-1 includes one or more
event recognizers 280. Typically, a respective application view 291
includes a plurality of event recognizers 280. In other
embodiments, one or more of event recognizers 280 are part of a
separate module, such as a user interface kit (not shown) or a
higher level object from which application 236-1 inherits methods
and other properties. In some embodiments, a respective event
handler 290 includes one or more of: data updater 276, object
updater 277, GUI updater 278, and/or event data 279 received from
event sorter 270. Event handler 290 utilizes or calls data updater
276, object updater 277, or GUI updater 278 to update the
application internal state 292. Alternatively, one or more of the
application views 291 include one or more respective event handlers
290. Also, in some embodiments, one or more of data updater 276,
object updater 277, and GUI updater 278 are included in a
respective application view 291.
[0142] A respective event recognizer 280 receives event information
(e.g., event data 279) from event sorter 270 and identifies an
event from the event information. Event recognizer 280 includes
event receiver 282 and event comparator 284. In some embodiments,
event recognizer 280 also includes at least a subset of: metadata
283, and event delivery instructions 288 (which include sub-event
delivery instructions).
[0143] Event receiver 282 receives event information from event
sorter 270. The event information includes information about a
sub-event, for example, a touch or a touch movement. Depending on
the sub-event, the event information also includes additional
information, such as location of the sub-event. When the sub-event
concerns motion of a touch, the event information also includes
speed and direction of the sub-event. In some embodiments, events
include rotation of the device from one orientation to another
(e.g., from a portrait orientation to a landscape orientation, or
vice versa), and the event information includes corresponding
information about the current orientation (also called device
attitude) of the device.
[0144] Event comparator 284 compares the event information to
predefined event or sub-event definitions and, based on the
comparison, determines an event or sub event, or determines or
updates the state of an event or sub-event. In some embodiments,
event comparator 284 includes event definitions 286. Event
definitions 286 contain definitions of events (e.g., predefined
sequences of sub-events), for example, event 1 (287-1), event 2
(287-2), and others. In some embodiments, sub-events in an event
(287) include, for example, touch begin, touch end, touch movement,
touch cancellation, and multiple touching. In one example, the
definition for event 1 (287-1) is a double tap on a displayed
object. The double tap, for example, comprises a first touch (touch
begin) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase, a first
liftoff (touch end) for a predetermined phase, a second touch
(touch begin) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase,
and a second liftoff (touch end) for a predetermined phase. In
another example, the definition for event 2 (287-2) is a dragging
on a displayed object. The dragging, for example, comprises a touch
(or contact) on the displayed object for a predetermined phase, a
movement of the touch across touch-sensitive display 212, and
liftoff of the touch (touch end). In some embodiments, the event
also includes information for one or more associated event handlers
290.
[0145] In some embodiments, event definition 287 includes a
definition of an event for a respective user-interface object. In
some embodiments, event comparator 284 performs a hit test to
determine which user-interface object is associated with a
sub-event. For example, in an application view in which three
user-interface objects are displayed on touch-sensitive display
212, when a touch is detected on touch-sensitive display 212, event
comparator 284 performs a hit test to determine which of the three
user-interface objects is associated with the touch (sub-event). If
each displayed object is associated with a respective event handler
290, the event comparator uses the result of the hit test to
determine which event handler 290 should be activated. For example,
event comparator 284 selects an event handler associated with the
sub-event and the object triggering the hit test.
[0146] In some embodiments, the definition for a respective event
(287) also includes delayed actions that delay delivery of the
event information until after it has been determined whether the
sequence of sub-events does or does not correspond to the event
recognizer's event type.
[0147] When a respective event recognizer 280 determines that the
series of sub-events do not match any of the events in event
definitions 286, the respective event recognizer 280 enters an
event impossible, event failed, or event ended state, after which
it disregards subsequent sub-events of the touch-based gesture. In
this situation, other event recognizers, if any, that remain active
for the hit view continue to track and process sub-events of an
ongoing touch-based gesture.
[0148] In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280
includes metadata 283 with configurable properties, flags, and/or
lists that indicate how the event delivery system should perform
sub-event delivery to actively involved event recognizers. In some
embodiments, metadata 283 includes configurable properties, flags,
and/or lists that indicate how event recognizers interact, or are
enabled to interact, with one another. In some embodiments,
metadata 283 includes configurable properties, flags, and/or lists
that indicate whether sub-events are delivered to varying levels in
the view or programmatic hierarchy.
[0149] In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280
activates event handler 290 associated with an event when one or
more particular sub-events of an event are recognized. In some
embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 delivers event
information associated with the event to event handler 290.
Activating an event handler 290 is distinct from sending (and
deferred sending) sub-events to a respective hit view. In some
embodiments, event recognizer 280 throws a flag associated with the
recognized event, and event handler 290 associated with the flag
catches the flag and performs a predefined process.
[0150] In some embodiments, event delivery instructions 288 include
sub-event delivery instructions that deliver event information
about a sub-event without activating an event handler. Instead, the
sub-event delivery instructions deliver event information to event
handlers associated with the series of sub-events or to actively
involved views. Event handlers associated with the series of
sub-events or with actively involved views receive the event
information and perform a predetermined process.
[0151] In some embodiments, data updater 276 creates and updates
data used in application 236-1. For example, data updater 276
updates the telephone number used in contacts module 237, or stores
a video file used in video player module. In some embodiments,
object updater 277 creates and updates objects used in application
236-1. For example, object updater 277 creates a new user-interface
object or updates the position of a user-interface object. GUI
updater 278 updates the GUI. For example, GUI updater 278 prepares
display information and sends it to graphics module 232 for display
on a touch-sensitive display.
[0152] In some embodiments, event handler(s) 290 includes or has
access to data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater
278. In some embodiments, data updater 276, object updater 277, and
GUI updater 278 are included in a single module of a respective
application 236-1 or application view 291. In other embodiments,
they are included in two or more software modules.
[0153] It shall be understood that the foregoing discussion
regarding event handling of user touches on touch-sensitive
displays also applies to other forms of user inputs to operate
multifunction devices 200 with input devices, not all of which are
initiated on touch screens. For example, mouse movement and mouse
button presses, optionally coordinated with single or multiple
keyboard presses or holds; contact movements such as taps, drags,
scrolls, etc. on touchpads; pen stylus inputs; movement of the
device; oral instructions; detected eye movements; biometric
inputs; and/or any combination thereof are optionally utilized as
inputs corresponding to sub-events which define an event to be
recognized.
[0154] FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device 200
having a touch screen 212 in accordance with some embodiments. The
touch screen optionally displays one or more graphics within user
interface (UI) 300. In this embodiment, as well as others described
below, a user is enabled to select one or more of the graphics by
making a gesture on the graphics, for example, with one or more
fingers 302 (not drawn to scale in the figure) or one or more
styluses 303 (not drawn to scale in the figure). In some
embodiments, selection of one or more graphics occurs when the user
breaks contact with the one or more graphics. In some embodiments,
the gesture optionally includes one or more taps, one or more
swipes (from left to right, right to left, upward and/or downward),
and/or a rolling of a finger (from right to left, left to right,
upward and/or downward) that has made contact with device 200. In
some implementations or circumstances, inadvertent contact with a
graphic does not select the graphic. For example, a swipe gesture
that sweeps over an application icon optionally does not select the
corresponding application when the gesture corresponding to
selection is a tap.
[0155] Device 200 also includes one or more physical buttons, such
as "home" or menu button 304. As described previously, menu button
304 is used to navigate to any application 236 in a set of
applications that is executed on device 200. Alternatively, in some
embodiments, the menu button is implemented as a soft key in a GUI
displayed on touch screen 212.
[0156] In one embodiment, device 200 includes touch screen 212,
menu button 304, push button 306 for powering the device on/off and
locking the device, volume adjustment button(s) 308, subscriber
identity module (SIM) card slot 310, headset jack 312, and
docking/charging external port 224. Push button 306 is, optionally,
used to turn the power on/off on the device by depressing the
button and holding the button in the depressed state for a
predefined time interval; to lock the device by depressing the
button and releasing the button before the predefined time interval
has elapsed; and/or to unlock the device or initiate an unlock
process. In an alternative embodiment, device 200 also accepts
verbal input for activation or deactivation of some functions
through microphone 213. Device 200 also, optionally, includes one
or more contact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of
contacts on touch screen 212 and/or one or more tactile output
generators 267 for generating tactile outputs for a user of device
200.
[0157] FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction
device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface in accordance
with some embodiments. Device 400 need not be portable. In some
embodiments, device 400 is a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a
tablet computer, a multimedia player device, a navigation device,
an educational device (such as a child's learning toy), a gaming
system, or a control device (e.g., a home or industrial
controller). Device 400 typically includes one or more processing
units (CPUs) 410, one or more network or other communications
interfaces 460, memory 470, and one or more communication buses 420
for interconnecting these components. Communication buses 420
optionally include circuitry (sometimes called a chipset) that
interconnects and controls communications between system
components. Device 400 includes input/output (I/O) interface 430
comprising display 440, which is typically a touch screen display.
I/O interface 430 also optionally includes a keyboard and/or mouse
(or other pointing device) 450 and touchpad 455, tactile output
generator 457 for generating tactile outputs on device 400 (e.g.,
similar to tactile output generator(s) 267 described above with
reference to FIG. 2A), sensors 459 (e.g., optical, acceleration,
proximity, touch-sensitive, and/or contact intensity sensors
similar to contact intensity sensor(s) 265 described above with
reference to FIG. 2A). Memory 470 includes high-speed random access
memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, DDR RAM, or other random access solid
state memory devices; and optionally includes non-volatile memory,
such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, optical disk
storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid
state storage devices. Memory 470 optionally includes one or more
storage devices remotely located from CPU(s) 410. In some
embodiments, memory 470 stores programs, modules, and data
structures analogous to the programs, modules, and data structures
stored in memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200 (FIG.
2A), or a subset thereof. Furthermore, memory 470 optionally stores
additional programs, modules, and data structures not present in
memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200. For example,
memory 470 of device 400 optionally stores drawing module 480,
presentation module 482, word processing module 484, website
creation module 486, disk authoring module 488, and/or spreadsheet
module 490, while memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200
(FIG. 2A) optionally does not store these modules.
[0158] Each of the above-identified elements in FIG. 4 is, in some
examples, stored in one or more of the previously mentioned memory
devices. Each of the above-identified modules corresponds to a set
of instructions for performing a function described above. The
above-identified modules or programs (e.g., sets of instructions)
need not be implemented as separate software programs, procedures,
or modules, and thus various subsets of these modules are combined
or otherwise rearranged in various embodiments. In some
embodiments, memory 470 stores a subset of the modules and data
structures identified above. Furthermore, memory 470 stores
additional modules and data structures not described above.
[0159] Attention is now directed towards embodiments of user
interfaces that can be implemented on, for example, portable
multifunction device 200.
[0160] FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu
of applications on portable multifunction device 200 in accordance
with some embodiments. Similar user interfaces are implemented on
device 400. In some embodiments, user interface 500 includes the
following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:
[0161] Signal strength indicator(s) 502 for wireless
communication(s), such as cellular and Wi-Fi signals; [0162] Time
504; [0163] Bluetooth indicator 505; [0164] Battery status
indicator 506; [0165] Tray 508 with icons for frequently used
applications, such as: [0166] Icon 516 for telephone module 238,
labeled "Phone," which optionally includes an indicator 514 of the
number of missed calls or voicemail messages; [0167] Icon 518 for
e-mail client module 240, labeled "Mail," which optionally includes
an indicator 510 of the number of unread e-mails; [0168] Icon 520
for browser module 247, labeled "Browser;" and [0169] Icon 522 for
video and music player module 252, also referred to as iPod
(trademark of Apple Inc.) module 252, labeled "iPod;" and [0170]
Icons for other applications, such as: [0171] Icon 524 for IM
module 241, labeled "Messages;" [0172] Icon 526 for calendar module
248, labeled "Calendar;" [0173] Icon 528 for image management
module 244, labeled "Photos;" [0174] Icon 530 for camera module
243, labeled "Camera;" [0175] Icon 532 for online video module 255,
labeled "Online Video;" [0176] Icon 534 for stocks widget 249-2,
labeled "Stocks;" [0177] Icon 536 for map module 254, labeled
"Maps;" [0178] Icon 538 for weather widget 249-1, labeled
"Weather;" [0179] Icon 540 for alarm clock widget 249-4, labeled
"Clock;" [0180] Icon 542 for workout support module 242, labeled
"Workout Support;" [0181] Icon 544 for notes module 253, labeled
"Notes," and [0182] Icon 546 for a settings application or module,
labeled "Settings," which provides access to settings for device
200 and its various applications 236.
[0183] It should be noted that the icon labels illustrated in FIG.
5A are merely exemplary. For example, icon 522 for video and music
player module 252 is optionally labeled "Music" or "Music Player."
Other labels are, optionally, used for various application icons.
In some embodiments, a label for a respective application icon
includes a name of an application corresponding to the respective
application icon. In some embodiments, a label for a particular
application icon is distinct from a name of an application
corresponding to the particular application icon.
[0184] FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface on a device
(e.g., device 400, FIG. 4) with a touch-sensitive surface 551
(e.g., a tablet or touchpad 455, FIG. 4) that is separate from the
display 550 (e.g., touch screen display 212). Device 400 also,
optionally, includes one or more contact intensity sensors (e.g.,
one or more of sensors 457) for detecting intensity of contacts on
touch-sensitive surface 551 and/or one or more tactile output
generators 459 for generating tactile outputs for a user of device
400.
[0185] Although some of the examples which follow will be given
with reference to inputs on touch screen display 212 (where the
touch-sensitive surface and the display are combined), in some
embodiments, the device detects inputs on a touch-sensitive surface
that is separate from the display, as shown in FIG. 5B. In some
embodiments, the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., 551 in FIG. 5B) has
a primary axis (e.g., 552 in FIG. 5B) that corresponds to a primary
axis (e.g., 553 in FIG. 5B) on the display (e.g., 550). In
accordance with these embodiments, the device detects contacts
(e.g., 560 and 562 in FIG. 5B) with the touch-sensitive surface 551
at locations that correspond to respective locations on the display
(e.g., in FIG. 5B, 560 corresponds to 568 and 562 corresponds to
570). In this way, user inputs (e.g., contacts 560 and 562, and
movements thereof) detected by the device on the touch-sensitive
surface (e.g., 551 in FIG. 5B) are used by the device to manipulate
the user interface on the display (e.g., 550 in FIG. 5B) of the
multifunction device when the touch-sensitive surface is separate
from the display. It should be understood that similar methods are,
optionally, used for other user interfaces described herein.
[0186] Additionally, while the following examples are given
primarily with reference to finger inputs (e.g., finger contacts,
finger tap gestures, finger swipe gestures), it should be
understood that, in some embodiments, one or more of the finger
inputs are replaced with input from another input device (e.g., a
mouse-based input or stylus input). For example, a swipe gesture
is, optionally, replaced with a mouse click (e.g., instead of a
contact) followed by movement of the cursor along the path of the
swipe (e.g., instead of movement of the contact). As another
example, a tap gesture is, optionally, replaced with a mouse click
while the cursor is located over the location of the tap gesture
(e.g., instead of detection of the contact followed by ceasing to
detect the contact). Similarly, when multiple user inputs are
simultaneously detected, it should be understood that multiple
computer mice are, optionally, used simultaneously, or a mouse and
finger contacts are, optionally, used simultaneously.
[0187] FIG. 6A illustrates exemplary personal electronic device
600. Device 600 includes body 602. In some embodiments, device 600
includes some or all of the features described with respect to
devices 200 and 400 (e.g., FIGS. 2A-4B). In some embodiments,
device 600 has touch-sensitive display screen 604, hereafter touch
screen 604. Alternatively, or in addition to touch screen 604,
device 600 has a display and a touch-sensitive surface. As with
devices 200 and 400, in some embodiments, touch screen 604 (or the
touch-sensitive surface) has one or more intensity sensors for
detecting intensity of contacts (e.g., touches) being applied. The
one or more intensity sensors of touch screen 604 (or the
touch-sensitive surface) provide output data that represents the
intensity of touches. The user interface of device 600 responds to
touches based on their intensity, meaning that touches of different
intensities can invoke different user interface operations on
device 600.
[0188] Techniques for detecting and processing touch intensity are
found, for example, in related applications: International Patent
Application Serial No. PCT/US2013/040061, titled "Device, Method,
and Graphical User Interface for Displaying User Interface Objects
Corresponding to an Application," filed May 8, 2013, and
International Patent Application Serial No. PCT/US2013/069483,
titled "Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for
Transitioning Between Touch Input to Display Output Relationships,"
filed Nov. 11, 2013, each of which is hereby incorporated by
reference in their entirety.
[0189] In some embodiments, device 600 has one or more input
mechanisms 606 and 608. Input mechanisms 606 and 608, if included,
are physical. Examples of physical input mechanisms include push
buttons and rotatable mechanisms. In some embodiments, device 600
has one or more attachment mechanisms. Such attachment mechanisms,
if included, can permit attachment of device 600 with, for example,
hats, eyewear, earrings, necklaces, shirts, jackets, bracelets,
watch straps, chains, trousers, belts, shoes, purses, backpacks,
and so forth. These attachment mechanisms permit device 600 to be
worn by a user.
[0190] FIG. 6B depicts exemplary personal electronic device 600. In
some embodiments, device 600 includes some or all of the components
described with respect to FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 4. Device 600 has bus
612 that operatively couples I/O section 614 with one or more
computer processors 616 and memory 618. I/O section 614 is
connected to display 604, which can have touch-sensitive component
622 and, optionally, touch-intensity sensitive component 624. In
addition, I/O section 614 is connected with communication unit 630
for receiving application and operating system data, using Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, near field communication (NFC), cellular, and/or other
wireless communication techniques. Device 600 includes input
mechanisms 606 and/or 608. Input mechanism 606 is a rotatable input
device or a depressible and rotatable input device, for example.
Input mechanism 608 is a button, in some examples.
[0191] Input mechanism 608 is a microphone, in some examples.
Personal electronic device 600 includes, for example, various
sensors, such as GPS sensor 632, accelerometer 634, directional
sensor 640 (e.g., compass), gyroscope 636, motion sensor 638,
and/or a combination thereof, all of which are operatively
connected to I/O section 614.
[0192] Memory 618 of personal electronic device 600 is a
non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, for storing
computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by one or
more computer processors 616, for example, cause the computer
processors to perform the techniques and processes described below.
The computer-executable instructions, for example, are also stored
and/or transported within any non-transitory computer-readable
storage medium for use by or in connection with an instruction
execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based
system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch
the instructions from the instruction execution system, apparatus,
or device and execute the instructions. Personal electronic device
600 is not limited to the components and configuration of FIG. 6B,
but can include other or additional components in multiple
configurations.
[0193] As used here, the term "affordance" refers to a
user-interactive graphical user interface object that is, for
example, displayed on the display screen of devices 200, 400,
and/or 600 (FIGS. 2, 4, and 6). For example, an image (e.g., icon),
a button, and text (e.g., hyperlink) each constitutes an
affordance.
[0194] As used herein, the term "focus selector" refers to an input
element that indicates a current part of a user interface with
which a user is interacting. In some implementations that include a
cursor or other location marker, the cursor acts as a "focus
selector" so that when an input (e.g., a press input) is detected
on a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touchpad 455 in FIG. 4 or
touch-sensitive surface 551 in FIG. 5B) while the cursor is over a
particular user interface element (e.g., a button, window, slider
or other user interface element), the particular user interface
element is adjusted in accordance with the detected input. In some
implementations that include a touch screen display (e.g.,
touch-sensitive display system 212 in FIG. 2A or touch screen 212
in FIG. 5A) that enables direct interaction with user interface
elements on the touch screen display, a detected contact on the
touch screen acts as a "focus selector" so that when an input
(e.g., a press input by the contact) is detected on the touch
screen display at a location of a particular user interface element
(e.g., a button, window, slider, or other user interface element),
the particular user interface element is adjusted in accordance
with the detected input. In some implementations, focus is moved
from one region of a user interface to another region of the user
interface without corresponding movement of a cursor or movement of
a contact on a touch screen display (e.g., by using a tab key or
arrow keys to move focus from one button to another button); in
these implementations, the focus selector moves in accordance with
movement of focus between different regions of the user interface.
Without regard to the specific form taken by the focus selector,
the focus selector is generally the user interface element (or
contact on a touch screen display) that is controlled by the user
so as to communicate the user's intended interaction with the user
interface (e.g., by indicating, to the device, the element of the
user interface with which the user is intending to interact). For
example, the location of a focus selector (e.g., a cursor, a
contact, or a selection box) over a respective button while a press
input is detected on the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touchpad
or touch screen) will indicate that the user is intending to
activate the respective button (as opposed to other user interface
elements shown on a display of the device).
[0195] As used in the specification and claims, the term
"characteristic intensity" of a contact refers to a characteristic
of the contact based on one or more intensities of the contact. In
some embodiments, the characteristic intensity is based on multiple
intensity samples. The characteristic intensity is, optionally,
based on a predefined number of intensity samples, or a set of
intensity samples collected during a predetermined time period
(e.g., 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10 seconds) relative to a
predefined event (e.g., after detecting the contact, prior to
detecting liftoff of the contact, before or after detecting a start
of movement of the contact, prior to detecting an end of the
contact, before or after detecting an increase in intensity of the
contact, and/or before or after detecting a decrease in intensity
of the contact). A characteristic intensity of a contact is,
optionally based on one or more of: a maximum value of the
intensities of the contact, a mean value of the intensities of the
contact, an average value of the intensities of the contact, a top
10 percentile value of the intensities of the contact, a value at
the half maximum of the intensities of the contact, a value at the
90 percent maximum of the intensities of the contact, or the like.
In some embodiments, the duration of the contact is used in
determining the characteristic intensity (e.g., when the
characteristic intensity is an average of the intensity of the
contact over time). In some embodiments, the characteristic
intensity is compared to a set of one or more intensity thresholds
to determine whether an operation has been performed by a user. For
example, the set of one or more intensity thresholds includes a
first intensity threshold and a second intensity threshold. In this
example, a contact with a characteristic intensity that does not
exceed the first threshold results in a first operation, a contact
with a characteristic intensity that exceeds the first intensity
threshold and does not exceed the second intensity threshold
results in a second operation, and a contact with a characteristic
intensity that exceeds the second threshold results in a third
operation. In some embodiments, a comparison between the
characteristic intensity and one or more thresholds is used to
determine whether or not to perform one or more operations (e.g.,
whether to perform a respective operation or forgo performing the
respective operation) rather than being used to determine whether
to perform a first operation or a second operation.
[0196] In some embodiments, a portion of a gesture is identified
for purposes of determining a characteristic intensity. For
example, a touch-sensitive surface receives a continuous swipe
contact transitioning from a start location and reaching an end
location, at which point the intensity of the contact increases. In
this example, the characteristic intensity of the contact at the
end location is based on only a portion of the continuous swipe
contact, and not the entire swipe contact (e.g., only the portion
of the swipe contact at the end location). In some embodiments, a
smoothing algorithm is applied to the intensities of the swipe
contact prior to determining the characteristic intensity of the
contact. For example, the smoothing algorithm optionally includes
one or more of: an unweighted sliding-average smoothing algorithm,
a triangular smoothing algorithm, a median filter smoothing
algorithm, and/or an exponential smoothing algorithm. In some
circumstances, these smoothing algorithms eliminate narrow spikes
or dips in the intensities of the swipe contact for purposes of
determining a characteristic intensity.
[0197] The intensity of a contact on the touch-sensitive surface is
characterized relative to one or more intensity thresholds, such as
a contact-detection intensity threshold, a light press intensity
threshold, a deep press intensity threshold, and/or one or more
other intensity thresholds. In some embodiments, the light press
intensity threshold corresponds to an intensity at which the device
will perform operations typically associated with clicking a button
of a physical mouse or a trackpad. In some embodiments, the deep
press intensity threshold corresponds to an intensity at which the
device will perform operations that are different from operations
typically associated with clicking a button of a physical mouse or
a trackpad. In some embodiments, when a contact is detected with a
characteristic intensity below the light press intensity threshold
(e.g., and above a nominal contact-detection intensity threshold
below which the contact is no longer detected), the device will
move a focus selector in accordance with movement of the contact on
the touch-sensitive surface without performing an operation
associated with the light press intensity threshold or the deep
press intensity threshold. Generally, unless otherwise stated,
these intensity thresholds are consistent between different sets of
user interface figures.
[0198] An increase of characteristic intensity of the contact from
an intensity below the light press intensity threshold to an
intensity between the light press intensity threshold and the deep
press intensity threshold is sometimes referred to as a "light
press" input. An increase of characteristic intensity of the
contact from an intensity below the deep press intensity threshold
to an intensity above the deep press intensity threshold is
sometimes referred to as a "deep press" input. An increase of
characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below the
contact-detection intensity threshold to an intensity between the
contact-detection intensity threshold and the light press intensity
threshold is sometimes referred to as detecting the contact on the
touch-surface. A decrease of characteristic intensity of the
contact from an intensity above the contact-detection intensity
threshold to an intensity below the contact-detection intensity
threshold is sometimes referred to as detecting liftoff of the
contact from the touch-surface. In some embodiments, the
contact-detection intensity threshold is zero. In some embodiments,
the contact-detection intensity threshold is greater than zero.
[0199] In some embodiments described herein, one or more operations
are performed in response to detecting a gesture that includes a
respective press input or in response to detecting the respective
press input performed with a respective contact (or a plurality of
contacts), where the respective press input is detected based at
least in part on detecting an increase in intensity of the contact
(or plurality of contacts) above a press-input intensity threshold.
In some embodiments, the respective operation is performed in
response to detecting the increase in intensity of the respective
contact above the press-input intensity threshold (e.g., a "down
stroke" of the respective press input). In some embodiments, the
press input includes an increase in intensity of the respective
contact above the press-input intensity threshold and a subsequent
decrease in intensity of the contact below the press-input
intensity threshold, and the respective operation is performed in
response to detecting the subsequent decrease in intensity of the
respective contact below the press-input threshold (e.g., an "up
stroke" of the respective press input).
[0200] In some embodiments, the device employs intensity hysteresis
to avoid accidental inputs sometimes termed "jitter," where the
device defines or selects a hysteresis intensity threshold with a
predefined relationship to the press-input intensity threshold
(e.g., the hysteresis intensity threshold is X intensity units
lower than the press-input intensity threshold or the hysteresis
intensity threshold is 75%, 90%, or some reasonable proportion of
the press-input intensity threshold). Thus, in some embodiments,
the press input includes an increase in intensity of the respective
contact above the press-input intensity threshold and a subsequent
decrease in intensity of the contact below the hysteresis intensity
threshold that corresponds to the press-input intensity threshold,
and the respective operation is performed in response to detecting
the subsequent decrease in intensity of the respective contact
below the hysteresis intensity threshold (e.g., an "up stroke" of
the respective press input). Similarly, in some embodiments, the
press input is detected only when the device detects an increase in
intensity of the contact from an intensity at or below the
hysteresis intensity threshold to an intensity at or above the
press-input intensity threshold and, optionally, a subsequent
decrease in intensity of the contact to an intensity at or below
the hysteresis intensity, and the respective operation is performed
in response to detecting the press input (e.g., the increase in
intensity of the contact or the decrease in intensity of the
contact, depending on the circumstances).
[0201] For ease of explanation, the descriptions of operations
performed in response to a press input associated with a
press-input intensity threshold or in response to a gesture
including the press input are, optionally, triggered in response to
detecting either: an increase in intensity of a contact above the
press-input intensity threshold, an increase in intensity of a
contact from an intensity below the hysteresis intensity threshold
to an intensity above the press-input intensity threshold, a
decrease in intensity of the contact below the press-input
intensity threshold, and/or a decrease in intensity of the contact
below the hysteresis intensity threshold corresponding to the
press-input intensity threshold. Additionally, in examples where an
operation is described as being performed in response to detecting
a decrease in intensity of a contact below the press-input
intensity threshold, the operation is, optionally, performed in
response to detecting a decrease in intensity of the contact below
a hysteresis intensity threshold corresponding to, and lower than,
the press-input intensity threshold.
3. Digital Assistant System
[0202] FIG. 7A illustrates a block diagram of digital assistant
system 700 in accordance with various examples. In some examples,
digital assistant system 700 is implemented on a standalone
computer system. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 is
distributed across multiple computers. In some examples, some of
the modules and functions of the digital assistant are divided into
a server portion and a client portion, where the client portion
resides on one or more user devices (e.g., devices 104, 122, 200,
400, or 600) and communicates with the server portion (e.g., server
system 108) through one or more networks, e.g., as shown in FIG. 1.
In some examples, digital assistant system 700 is an implementation
of server system 108 (and/or DA server 106) shown in FIG. 1. It
should be noted that digital assistant system 700 is only one
example of a digital assistant system, and that digital assistant
system 700 can have more or fewer components than shown, can
combine two or more components, or can have a different
configuration or arrangement of the components. The various
components shown in FIG. 7A are implemented in hardware, software
instructions for execution by one or more processors, firmware,
including one or more signal processing and/or application specific
integrated circuits, or a combination thereof.
[0203] Digital assistant system 700 includes memory 702, one or
more processors 704, input/output (I/O) interface 706, and network
communications interface 708. These components can communicate with
one another over one or more communication buses or signal lines
710.
[0204] In some examples, memory 702 includes a non-transitory
computer-readable medium, such as high-speed random access memory
and/or a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium (e.g., one
or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or
other non-volatile solid-state memory devices).
[0205] In some examples, I/O interface 706 couples input/output
devices 716 of digital assistant system 700, such as displays,
keyboards, touch screens, and microphones, to user interface module
722. I/O interface 706, in conjunction with user interface module
722, receives user inputs (e.g., voice input, keyboard inputs,
touch inputs, etc.) and processes them accordingly. In some
examples, e.g., when the digital assistant is implemented on a
standalone user device, digital assistant system 700 includes any
of the components and I/O communication interfaces described with
respect to devices 200, 400, or 600 in FIGS. 2A, 4, 6A-B,
respectively. In some examples, digital assistant system 700
represents the server portion of a digital assistant
implementation, and can interact with the user through a
client-side portion residing on a user device (e.g., devices 104,
200, 400, or 600).
[0206] In some examples, the network communications interface 708
includes wired communication port(s) 712 and/or wireless
transmission and reception circuitry 714. The wired communication
port(s) receives and send communication signals via one or more
wired interfaces, e.g., Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB),
FIREWIRE, etc. The wireless circuitry 714 receives and sends RF
signals and/or optical signals from/to communications networks and
other communications devices. The wireless communications use any
of a plurality of communications standards, protocols, and
technologies, such as GSM, EDGE, CDMA, TDMA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi,
VoIP, Wi-MAX, or any other suitable communication protocol. Network
communications interface 708 enables communication between digital
assistant system 700 with networks, such as the Internet, an
intranet, and/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone
network, a wireless local area network (LAN), and/or a metropolitan
area network (MAN), and other devices.
[0207] In some examples, memory 702, or the computer-readable
storage media of memory 702, stores programs, modules,
instructions, and data structures including all or a subset of:
operating system 718, communications module 720, user interface
module 722, one or more applications 724, and digital assistant
module 726. In particular, memory 702, or the computer-readable
storage media of memory 702, stores instructions for performing the
processes described below. One or more processors 704 execute these
programs, modules, and instructions, and reads/writes from/to the
data structures.
[0208] Operating system 718 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, iOS,
OS X, WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks)
includes various software components and/or drivers for controlling
and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage
device control, power management, etc.) and facilitates
communications between various hardware, firmware, and software
components.
[0209] Communications module 720 facilitates communications between
digital assistant system 700 with other devices over network
communications interface 708. For example, communications module
720 communicates with RF circuitry 208 of electronic devices such
as devices 200, 400, and 600 shown in FIG. 2A, 4, 6A-B,
respectively. Communications module 720 also includes various
components for handling data received by wireless circuitry 714
and/or wired communications port 712.
[0210] User interface module 722 receives commands and/or inputs
from a user via I/O interface 706 (e.g., from a keyboard, touch
screen, pointing device, controller, and/or microphone), and
generate user interface objects on a display. User interface module
722 also prepares and delivers outputs (e.g., speech, sound,
animation, text, icons, vibrations, haptic feedback, light, etc.)
to the user via the I/O interface 706 (e.g., through displays,
audio channels, speakers, touch-pads, etc.).
[0211] Applications 724 include programs and/or modules that are
configured to be executed by one or more processors 704. For
example, if the digital assistant system is implemented on a
standalone user device, applications 724 include user applications,
such as games, a calendar application, a navigation application, or
an email application. If digital assistant system 700 is
implemented on a server, applications 724 include resource
management applications, diagnostic applications, or scheduling
applications, for example.
[0212] Memory 702 also stores digital assistant module 726 (or the
server portion of a digital assistant). In some examples, digital
assistant module 726 includes the following sub-modules, or a
subset or superset thereof: input/output processing module 728,
speech-to-text (STT) processing module 730, natural language
processing module 732, dialogue flow processing module 734, task
flow processing module 736, service processing module 738, and
speech synthesis module 740. Each of these modules has access to
one or more of the following systems or data and models of the
digital assistant module 726, or a subset or superset thereof:
ontology 760, vocabulary index 744, user data 748, task flow models
754, service models 756, and ASR systems.
[0213] In some examples, using the processing modules, data, and
models implemented in digital assistant module 726, the digital
assistant can perform at least some of the following: converting
speech input into text; identifying a user's intent expressed in a
natural language input received from the user; actively eliciting
and obtaining information needed to fully infer the user's intent
(e.g., by disambiguating words, games, intentions, etc.);
determining the task flow for fulfilling the inferred intent; and
executing the task flow to fulfill the inferred intent.
[0214] In some examples, as shown in FIG. 7B, I/O processing module
728 interacts with the user through I/O devices 716 in FIG. 7A or
with a user device (e.g., devices 104, 200, 400, or 600) through
network communications interface 708 in FIG. 7A to obtain user
input (e.g., a speech input) and to provide responses (e.g., as
speech outputs) to the user input. I/O processing module 728
optionally obtains contextual information associated with the user
input from the user device, along with or shortly after the receipt
of the user input. The contextual information includes
user-specific data, vocabulary, and/or preferences relevant to the
user input. In some examples, the contextual information also
includes software and hardware states of the user device at the
time the user request is received, and/or information related to
the surrounding environment of the user at the time that the user
request was received. In some examples, I/O processing module 728
also sends follow-up questions to, and receive answers from, the
user regarding the user request. When a user request is received by
I/O processing module 728 and the user request includes speech
input, I/O processing module 728 forwards the speech input to STT
processing module 730 (or speech recognizer) for speech-to-text
conversions.
[0215] STT processing module 730 includes one or more ASR systems.
The one or more ASR systems can process the speech input that is
received through I/O processing module 728 to produce a recognition
result. Each ASR system includes a front-end speech pre-processor.
The front-end speech pre-processor extracts representative features
from the speech input. For example, the front-end speech
pre-processor performs a Fourier transform on the speech input to
extract spectral features that characterize the speech input as a
sequence of representative multi-dimensional vectors. Further, each
ASR system includes one or more speech recognition models (e.g.,
acoustic models and/or language models) and implements one or more
speech recognition engines. Examples of speech recognition models
include Hidden Markov Models, Gaussian-Mixture Models, Deep Neural
Network Models, n-gram language models, and other statistical
models. Examples of speech recognition engines include the dynamic
time warping based engines and weighted finite-state transducers
(WFST) based engines. The one or more speech recognition models and
the one or more speech recognition engines are used to process the
extracted representative features of the front-end speech
pre-processor to produce intermediate recognitions results (e.g.,
phonemes, phonemic strings, and sub-words), and ultimately, text
recognition results (e.g., words, word strings, or sequence of
tokens). In some examples, the speech input is processed at least
partially by a third-party service or on the user's device (e.g.,
device 104, 200, 400, or 600) to produce the recognition result.
Once STT processing module 730 produces recognition results
containing a text string (e.g., words, or sequence of words, or
sequence of tokens), the recognition result is passed to natural
language processing module 732 for intent deduction.
[0216] More details on the speech-to-text processing are described
in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 13/236,942 for "Consolidating
Speech Recognition Results," filed on Sep. 20, 2011, the entire
disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
[0217] In some examples, STT processing module 730 includes and/or
accesses a vocabulary of recognizable words via phonetic alphabet
conversion module 731. Each vocabulary word is associated with one
or more candidate pronunciations of the word represented in a
speech recognition phonetic alphabet. In particular, the vocabulary
of recognizable words includes a word that is associated with a
plurality of candidate pronunciations. For example, the vocabulary
includes the word "tomato" that is associated with the candidate
pronunciations of //and //. Further, vocabulary words are
associated with custom candidate pronunciations that are based on
previous speech inputs from the user. Such custom candidate
pronunciations are stored in STT processing module 730 and are
associated with a particular user via the user's profile on the
device. In some examples, the candidate pronunciations for words
are determined based on the spelling of the word and one or more
linguistic and/or phonetic rules. In some examples, the candidate
pronunciations are manually generated, e.g., based on known
canonical pronunciations.
[0218] In some examples, the candidate pronunciations are ranked
based on the commonness of the candidate pronunciation. For
example, the candidate pronunciation // is ranked higher than //,
because the former is a more commonly used pronunciation (e.g.,
among all users, for users in a particular geographical region, or
for any other appropriate subset of users). In some examples,
candidate pronunciations are ranked based on whether the candidate
pronunciation is a custom candidate pronunciation associated with
the user. For example, custom candidate pronunciations are ranked
higher than canonical candidate pronunciations. This can be useful
for recognizing proper nouns having a unique pronunciation that
deviates from canonical pronunciation. In some examples, candidate
pronunciations are associated with one or more speech
characteristics, such as geographic origin, nationality, or
ethnicity. For example, the candidate pronunciation // is
associated with the United States, whereas the candidate
pronunciation // is associated with Great Britain. Further, the
rank of the candidate pronunciation is based on one or more
characteristics (e.g., geographic origin, nationality, ethnicity,
etc.) of the user stored in the user's profile on the device. For
example, it can be determined from the user's profile that the user
is associated with the United States. Based on the user being
associated with the United States, the candidate pronunciation //
(associated with the United States) is ranked higher than the
candidate pronunciation // (associated with Great Britain). In some
examples, one of the ranked candidate pronunciations is selected as
a predicted pronunciation (e.g., the most likely
pronunciation).
[0219] When a speech input is received, STT processing module 730
is used to determine the phonemes corresponding to the speech input
(e.g., using an acoustic model), and then attempt to determine
words that match the phonemes (e.g., using a language model). For
example, if STT processing module 730 first identifies the sequence
of phonemes // corresponding to a portion of the speech input, it
can then determine, based on vocabulary index 744, that this
sequence corresponds to the word "tomato."
[0220] In some examples, STT processing module 730 uses approximate
matching techniques to determine words in an utterance. Thus, for
example, the STT processing module 730 can determine that the
sequence of phonemes // corresponds to the word "tomato," even if
that particular sequence of phonemes is not one of the candidate
sequence of phonemes for that word.
[0221] Natural language processing module 732 ("natural language
processor") of the digital assistant can take the sequence of words
or tokens ("token sequence") generated by STT processing module
730, and attempt to associate the token sequence with one or more
"actionable intents" recognized by the digital assistant. An
"actionable intent" represents a task that can be performed by the
digital assistant, and can have an associated task flow implemented
in task flow models 754. The associated task flow is a series of
programmed actions and steps that the digital assistant takes in
order to perform the task. The scope of a digital assistant's
capabilities is dependent on the number and variety of task flows
that have been implemented and stored in task flow models 754, or
in other words, on the number and variety of "actionable intents"
that the digital assistant recognizes. The effectiveness of the
digital assistant, however, also dependents on the assistant's
ability to infer the correct "actionable intent(s)" from the user
request expressed in natural language.
[0222] In some examples, in addition to the sequence of words or
tokens obtained from STT processing module 730, natural language
processing module 732 also receives contextual information
associated with the user request, e.g., from I/O processing module
728. The natural language processing module 732 optionally uses the
contextual information to clarify, supplement, and/or further
define the information contained in the token sequence received
from STT processing module 730. The contextual information
includes, for example, user preferences, hardware, and/or software
states of the user device, sensor information collected before,
during, or shortly after the user request, prior interactions
(e.g., dialogue) between the digital assistant and the user, and
the like. As described herein, contextual information is, in some
examples, dynamic, and changes with time, location, content of the
dialogue, and other factors.
[0223] In some examples, the natural language processing is based
on, e.g., ontology 760. Ontology 760 is a hierarchical structure
containing many nodes, each node representing either an "actionable
intent" or a "property" relevant to one or more of the "actionable
intents" or other "properties." As noted above, an "actionable
intent" represents a task that the digital assistant is capable of
performing, i.e., it is "actionable" or can be acted on. A
"property" represents a parameter associated with an actionable
intent or a sub-aspect of another property. A linkage between an
actionable intent node and a property node in ontology 760 defines
how a parameter represented by the property node pertains to the
task represented by the actionable intent node.
[0224] In some examples, ontology 760 is made up of actionable
intent nodes and property nodes. Within ontology 760, each
actionable intent node is linked to one or more property nodes
either directly or through one or more intermediate property nodes.
Similarly, each property node is linked to one or more actionable
intent nodes either directly or through one or more intermediate
property nodes. For example, as shown in FIG. 7C, ontology 760
includes a "restaurant reservation" node (i.e., an actionable
intent node). Property nodes "restaurant," "date/time" (for the
reservation), and "party size" are each directly linked to the
actionable intent node (i.e., the "restaurant reservation"
node).
[0225] In addition, property nodes "cuisine," "price range," "phone
number," and "location" are sub-nodes of the property node
"restaurant," and are each linked to the "restaurant reservation"
node (i.e., the actionable intent node) through the intermediate
property node "restaurant." For another example, as shown in FIG.
7C, ontology 760 also includes a "set reminder" node (i.e., another
actionable intent node). Property nodes "date/time" (for setting
the reminder) and "subject" (for the reminder) are each linked to
the "set reminder" node. Since the property "date/time" is relevant
to both the task of making a restaurant reservation and the task of
setting a reminder, the property node "date/time" is linked to both
the "restaurant reservation" node and the "set reminder" node in
ontology 760.
[0226] An actionable intent node, along with its linked concept
nodes, is described as a "domain." In the present discussion, each
domain is associated with a respective actionable intent, and
refers to the group of nodes (and the relationships there between)
associated with the particular actionable intent. For example,
ontology 760 shown in FIG. 7C includes an example of restaurant
reservation domain 762 and an example of reminder domain 764 within
ontology 760. The restaurant reservation domain includes the
actionable intent node "restaurant reservation," property nodes
"restaurant," "date/time," and "party size," and sub-property nodes
"cuisine," "price range," "phone number," and "location." Reminder
domain 764 includes the actionable intent node "set reminder," and
property nodes "subject" and "date/time." In some examples,
ontology 760 is made up of many domains. Each domain shares one or
more property nodes with one or more other domains. For example,
the "date/time" property node is associated with many different
domains (e.g., a scheduling domain, a travel reservation domain, a
movie ticket domain, etc.), in addition to restaurant reservation
domain 762 and reminder domain 764.
[0227] While FIG. 7C illustrates two example domains within
ontology 760, other domains include, for example, "find a movie,"
"initiate a phone call," "find directions," "schedule a meeting,"
"send a message," and "provide an answer to a question," "read a
list," "providing navigation instructions," "provide instructions
for a task" and so on. A "send a message" domain is associated with
a "send a message" actionable intent node, and further includes
property nodes such as "recipient(s)," "message type," and "message
body." The property node "recipient" is further defined, for
example, by the sub-property nodes such as "recipient name" and
"message address."
[0228] In some examples, ontology 760 includes all the domains (and
hence actionable intents) that the digital assistant is capable of
understanding and acting upon. In some examples, ontology 760 is
modified, such as by adding or removing entire domains or nodes, or
by modifying relationships between the nodes within the ontology
760.
[0229] In some examples, nodes associated with multiple related
actionable intents are clustered under a "super domain" in ontology
760. For example, a "travel" super-domain includes a cluster of
property nodes and actionable intent nodes related to travel. The
actionable intent nodes related to travel includes "airline
reservation," "hotel reservation," "car rental," "get directions,"
"find points of interest," and so on. The actionable intent nodes
under the same super domain (e.g., the "travel" super domain) have
many property nodes in common. For example, the actionable intent
nodes for "airline reservation," "hotel reservation," "car rental,"
"get directions," and "find points of interest" share one or more
of the property nodes "start location," "destination," "departure
date/time," "arrival date/time," and "party size."
[0230] In some examples, each node in ontology 760 is associated
with a set of words and/or phrases that are relevant to the
property or actionable intent represented by the node. The
respective set of words and/or phrases associated with each node
are the so-called "vocabulary" associated with the node. The
respective set of words and/or phrases associated with each node
are stored in vocabulary index 744 in association with the property
or actionable intent represented by the node. For example,
returning to FIG. 7B, the vocabulary associated with the node for
the property of "restaurant" includes words such as "food,"
"drinks," "cuisine," "hungry," "eat," "pizza," "fast food," "meal,"
and so on. For another example, the vocabulary associated with the
node for the actionable intent of "initiate a phone call" includes
words and phrases such as "call," "phone," "dial," "ring," "call
this number," "make a call to," and so on. The vocabulary index 744
optionally includes words and phrases in different languages.
[0231] Natural language processing module 732 receives the token
sequence (e.g., a text string) from STT processing module 730, and
determines what nodes are implicated by the words in the token
sequence. In some examples, if a word or phrase in the token
sequence is found to be associated with one or more nodes in
ontology 760 (via vocabulary index 744), the word or phrase
"triggers" or "activates" those nodes. Based on the quantity and/or
relative importance of the activated nodes, natural language
processing module 732 selects one of the actionable intents as the
task that the user intended the digital assistant to perform. In
some examples, the domain that has the most "triggered" nodes is
selected. In some examples, the domain having the highest
confidence value (e.g., based on the relative importance of its
various triggered nodes) is selected. In some examples, the domain
is selected based on a combination of the number and the importance
of the triggered nodes. In some examples, additional factors are
considered in selecting the node as well, such as whether the
digital assistant has previously correctly interpreted a similar
request from a user.
[0232] User data 748 includes user-specific information, such as
user-specific vocabulary, user preferences, user address, user's
default and secondary languages, user's contact list, and other
short-term or long-term information for each user. In some
examples, natural language processing module 732 uses the
user-specific information to supplement the information contained
in the user input to further define the user intent. For example,
for a user request "invite my friends to my birthday party,"
natural language processing module 732 is able to access user data
748 to determine who the "friends" are and when and where the
"birthday party" would be held, rather than requiring the user to
provide such information explicitly in his/her request.
[0233] Other details of searching an ontology based on a token
string is described in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 12/341,743
for "Method and Apparatus for Searching Using An Active Ontology,"
filed Dec. 22, 2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated
herein by reference.
[0234] In some examples, once natural language processing module
732 identifies an actionable intent (or domain) based on the user
request, natural language processing module 732 generates a
structured query to represent the identified actionable intent. In
some examples, the structured query includes parameters for one or
more nodes within the domain for the actionable intent, and at
least some of the parameters are populated with the specific
information and requirements specified in the user request. For
example, the user says "Make me a dinner reservation at a sushi
place at 7." In this case, natural language processing module 732
is able to correctly identify the actionable intent to be
"restaurant reservation" based on the user input. According to the
ontology, a structured query for a "restaurant reservation" domain
includes parameters such as {Cuisine}, {Time}, {Date}, {Party
Size}, and the like. In some examples, based on the speech input
and the text derived from the speech input using STT processing
module 730, natural language processing module 732 generates a
partial structured query for the restaurant reservation domain,
where the partial structured query includes the parameters
{Cuisine="Sushi"} and {Time="7 pm"}. However, in this example, the
user's utterance contains insufficient information to complete the
structured query associated with the domain. Therefore, other
necessary parameters such as {Party Size} and {Date} is not
specified in the structured query based on the information
currently available. In some examples, natural language processing
module 732 populates some parameters of the structured query with
received contextual information. For example, in some examples, if
the user requested a sushi restaurant "near me," natural language
processing module 732 populates a (location) parameter in the
structured query with GPS coordinates from the user device.
[0235] In some examples, natural language processing module 732 is
configured to determine user intents (e.g., actionable intents)
associated with performing a task using a device of an established
location. In particular, ontology 760 includes domains or nodes
related to performing a task using a device of an established
location. For example, ontology 760 includes a "home" domain
related to controlling a device associated with the user's home, or
an "office" domain related to controlling a device associated with
the user's office. Vocabulary index 744 includes words and phrases
associated with devices in one or more established locations (e.g.,
homes, offices, businesses, and public institutions). For example,
the words and phrases include command words such as "set," "open,"
"lock," "activate," "print," "turn on," or the like. Additionally,
the words and phrases include device-related words such as "door,"
"thermostat," "toaster," "humidifier," or the like. In some
examples, vocabulary index includes look-up tables, models, or
classifiers that enable natural language process module 732 to
determine one or more alternative terms for a given term. For
example, vocabulary index 744 maps the term "thermostat" to one or
more alternative terms such as "heater," "air conditioning," "A/C,"
"HVAC" and "climate control." User data 748 includes one or more
data structures (e.g., data structure 900) that each represents a
set of devices of a respective established location.
[0236] To determine an actionable intent associated with performing
a task using a device of an established location, natural language
processing module 732 is configured to determine one or more
possible device characteristics and one or more candidate devices
corresponding to user speech input. Natural language processing
module 732 is further configured to determine overlapping device
characteristics common to the one or more possible device
characteristics and the actual device characteristics of the one or
more candidate devices.
[0237] In some examples, natural language process module 732 is
configured to determine one or more criteria defined in the user
speech input. The one or more criteria are identified based on
recognizing conditional terms (e.g., "when," "if," "once," "upon,"
etc.) in the user speech input. In some examples, determining the
one or more criteria includes determining quantitative criteria
corresponding to ambiguous qualitative phrases in the user speech
input. For example, natural language process module 732 is
configured to access one or more knowledge sources to determine
that the ambiguous qualitative phrase "too hot" in the user speech
input corresponds to the quantitative criteria of "greater than 90
degrees Fahrenheit." The one or more knowledge sources can, for
example, include look-up tables that map qualitative terms (e.g.,
adjectives) to specific values or ranges of measurable
characteristics. The one or more knowledges sources are stored on
the digital assistant system (e.g., in memory 702) or on a remote
system. In some examples, the one or more criteria are associated
with a device of an established location. Natural language process
module 732 is configured to determine the device associated with
the one or more criteria using ontology 760, vocabulary index 744,
and one or more data structures stored in user data 748.
[0238] In some examples, natural language processing module 732
passes the generated structured query (including any completed
parameters) to task flow processing module 736 ("task flow
processor"). Task flow processing module 736 is configured to
receive the structured query from natural language processing
module 732, complete the structured query, if necessary, and
perform the actions required to "complete" the user's ultimate
request. In some examples, the various procedures necessary to
complete these tasks are provided in task flow models 754. In some
examples, task flow models 754 include procedures for obtaining
additional information from the user and task flows for performing
actions associated with the actionable intent.
[0239] As described above, in order to complete a structured query,
task flow processing module 736 needs to initiate additional
dialogue with the user in order to obtain additional information,
and/or disambiguate potentially ambiguous utterances. When such
interactions are necessary, task flow processing module 736 invokes
dialogue flow processing module 734 to engage in a dialogue with
the user. In some examples, dialogue flow processing module 734
determines how (and/or when) to ask the user for the additional
information and receives and processes the user responses. The
questions are provided to and answers are received from the users
through I/O processing module 728. In some examples, dialogue flow
processing module 734 presents dialogue output to the user via
audio and/or visual output, and receives input from the user via
spoken or physical (e.g., clicking) responses. Continuing with the
example above, when task flow processing module 736 invokes
dialogue flow processing module 734 to determine the "party size"
and "date" information for the structured query associated with the
domain "restaurant reservation," dialogue flow processing module
734 generates questions such as "For how many people?" and "On
which day?" to pass to the user. Once answers are received from the
user, dialogue flow processing module 734 then populates the
structured query with the missing information, or pass the
information to task flow processing module 736 to complete the
missing information from the structured query.
[0240] Once task flow processing module 736 has completed the
structured query for an actionable intent, task flow processing
module 736 proceeds to perform the ultimate task associated with
the actionable intent. Accordingly, task flow processing module 736
executes the steps and instructions in the task flow model
according to the specific parameters contained in the structured
query. For example, the task flow model for the actionable intent
of "restaurant reservation" includes steps and instructions for
contacting a restaurant and actually requesting a reservation for a
particular party size at a particular time. For example, using a
structured query such as: {restaurant reservation, restaurant=ABC
Cafe, date=3/12/2012, time=7 pm, party size=5}, task flow
processing module 736 performs the steps of: (1) logging onto a
server of the ABC Cafe or a restaurant reservation system such as
OPENTABLE.RTM., (2) entering the date, time, and party size
information in a form on the website, (3) submitting the form, and
(4) making a calendar entry for the reservation in the user's
calendar.
[0241] In some examples, task flow processing module 736 employs
the assistance of service processing module 738 ("service
processing module") to complete a task requested in the user input
or to provide an informational answer requested in the user input.
For example, service processing module 738 acts on behalf of task
flow processing module 736 to make a phone call, set a calendar
entry, invoke a map search, invoke or interact with other user
applications installed on the user device, and invoke or interact
with third-party services (e.g., a restaurant reservation portal, a
social networking website, a banking portal, etc.). In some
examples, the protocols and application programming interfaces
(API) required by each service are specified by a respective
service model among service models 756. Service processing module
738 accesses the appropriate service model for a service and
generate requests for the service in accordance with the protocols
and APIs required by the service according to the service
model.
[0242] For example, if a restaurant has enabled an online
reservation service, the restaurant submits a service model
specifying the necessary parameters for making a reservation and
the APIs for communicating the values of the necessary parameter to
the online reservation service. When requested by task flow
processing module 736, service processing module 738 establishes a
network connection with the online reservation service using the
web address stored in the service model, and send the necessary
parameters of the reservation (e.g., time, date, party size) to the
online reservation interface in a format according to the API of
the online reservation service.
[0243] In some examples, natural language processing module 732,
dialogue flow processing module 734, and task flow processing
module 736 are used collectively and iteratively to infer and
define the user's intent, obtain information to further clarify and
refine the user intent, and finally generate a response (i.e., an
output to the user, or the completion of a task) to fulfill the
user's intent. The generated response is a dialogue response to the
speech input that at least partially fulfills the user's intent.
Further, in some examples, the generated response is output as a
speech output. In these examples, the generated response is sent to
speech synthesis module 740 (e.g., speech synthesizer) where it can
be processed to synthesize the dialogue response in speech form. In
yet other examples, the generated response is data content relevant
to satisfying a user request in the speech input.
[0244] For actionable intents and structured queries associated
with performing one or more tasks using one or more devices of an
established location, service processing module 738 is configured
to cause the one or more tasks to be performed by the one or more
devices of the established location. For example, service
processing module 738 is configured to provide instructions or
commands (e.g., via network(s) 110) to the one or more devices of
the established location to cause the one or more devices to
perform the one or more tasks.
[0245] Speech synthesis module 740 is configured to synthesize
speech outputs for presentation to the user. Speech synthesis
module 740 synthesizes speech outputs based on text provided by the
digital assistant. For example, the generated dialogue response is
in the form of a text string. Speech synthesis module 740 converts
the text string to an audible speech output. Speech synthesis
module 740 uses any appropriate speech synthesis technique in order
to generate speech outputs from text, including, but not limited,
to concatenative synthesis, unit selection synthesis, diphone
synthesis, domain-specific synthesis, formant synthesis,
articulatory synthesis, hidden Markov model (HMM) based synthesis,
and sinewave synthesis. In some examples, speech synthesis module
740 is configured to synthesize individual words based on phonemic
strings corresponding to the words. For example, a phonemic string
is associated with a word in the generated dialogue response. The
phonemic string is stored in metadata associated with the word.
Speech synthesis model 740 is configured to directly process the
phonemic string in the metadata to synthesize the word in speech
form.
[0246] In some examples, instead of (or in addition to) using
speech synthesis module 740, speech synthesis is performed on a
remote device (e.g., the server system 108), and the synthesized
speech is sent to the user device for output to the user. For
example, this can occur in some implementations where outputs for a
digital assistant are generated at a server system. And because
server systems generally have more processing power or resources
than a user device, it is possible to obtain higher quality speech
outputs than would be practical with client-side synthesis.
[0247] Additional details on digital assistants can be found in the
U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 12/987,982, entitled "Intelligent
Automated Assistant," filed Jan. 10, 2011, and U.S. Utility
application Ser. No. 13/251,088, entitled "Generating and
Processing Task Items That Represent Tasks to Perform," filed Sep.
30, 2011, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein
by reference.
4. Processes for Operating a Digital Assistant
[0248] FIG. 8 illustrates process 800 for operating a digital
assistant according to various examples. Process 800 is performed,
for example, using one or more electronic devices (e.g., devices
104, 106, 200, 400, or 600) implementing a digital assistant. In
some examples, the processes is performed at a client-server system
(e.g., system 100) implementing a digital assistant. The blocks of
the processes can be divided up in any manner between the server
(e.g., DA server 106) and the client (e.g., user device 104). In
process 800, some blocks are, optionally, combined, the order of
some blocks is, optionally, changed, and some blocks are,
optionally, omitted. In some examples, only a subset of the
features or blocks described below with reference to FIG. 8 is
performed.
[0249] At block 802, discourse input representing a user request is
received (e.g., at microphone 213 or at I/O processing module 728).
The discourse input is, for example, speech input or text input. In
addition, the discourse input is, for example, in natural language
form. In some examples, the user request is a request for a device
(e.g., devices 130, 132, 134, or 136) to perform an action. The
device is a separate and different device from the electronic
device (e.g., devices 104, 106, 200, 400, or 600) receiving or
processing the discourse input. In some examples, the discourse
input contains one or more ambiguous terms by virtue of being in
natural language form. The one or more ambiguous terms, for
example, each has more than one possible interpretation. For
example, the discourse input is "Set the thermostat to sixty." In
this example, the discourse input is ambiguous with respect to
defining the device for performing the requested action.
Specifically, in the context of an established location, such as
the user's home, there can be several devices associated with the
term "thermostat," such as a central heating unit, a bedroom space
heater, or a living room air conditioning unit. It is thus
ambiguous as to which device the user is referring to in the
discourse input. Additionally, in the same example, the discourse
input is ambiguous with respect to defining the specific action
being requested. For example, one or more devices in the
established location are capable of adjusting the temperature as
well as the humidity. The discourse input is thus ambiguous as to
whether the user wishes to adjust the temperature of a device to
sixty degrees Fahrenheit or to adjust the humidity of a device to
sixty percent relative humidity.
[0250] At block 804, a determination is made as to whether the
discourse input corresponds to a domain that is associated with an
actionable intent of performing a task using a device of an
established location (e.g., the user's primary home, the user's
office, the user's vacation home, etc.). The domain is a domain of
an ontology (e.g., ontology 760). In one example, the domain is an
"automation" domain corresponding to the actionable intent of
controlling one or more devices in an established location. The
determination at block 804 is, for example, performed using natural
language processing (e.g., with natural language processing module
732, vocabulary 744, and user data 748). For instance, in the
example "Set the thermostat to sixty," it can be determined based
on the words "set," "thermostat," and "sixty" that the discourse
input likely corresponds to the actionable intent of controlling a
device (e.g., a thermostat) in the user's home. In this example,
the actionable intent is thus associated with the "automation"
domain.
[0251] As shown in FIG. 8, in response to determining that the
discourse input corresponds to a domain that is associated with an
actionable intent of performing a task with a device of an
established location, block 806 is performed. In particular, block
806 is performed automatically without further input from the user
in response to determining that the discourse input corresponds to
a domain that is associated with an actionable intent of performing
a task with a device of an established location. Alternatively, in
response to determining that the discourse input does not
correspond to a domain that is associated with an actionable intent
of performing a task with a device of an established location,
block 805 is performed. Specifically, at block 805, process 800
forgoes retrieving a data structure representing a set of devices
of the established location.
[0252] At block 806, a data structure representing a set of devices
of an established location is retrieved. In some examples, the data
structure is retrieved from the user device (e.g., user data and
models 231 of user device 200). In other examples, the data
structure is retrieved from the server (e.g., data & models 116
of DA server 106). The data structure defines, for example, a
hierarchical relationship between a plurality of regions in the
established location. The data structure further defines the
relationship of each device of the set of devices with respect to
the plurality of regions.
[0253] The established location is a location associated with an
establishment, such as a business organization, a household, or a
public institution. For example, the established location is
associated with the user who provided the discourse input (e.g.,
user's home, user's workplace, or user's vacation home). In other
examples, the established location is associated with a public
institution (e.g., a church, a school, or a library). In yet other
examples, the established location is associated with a business
(e.g., store, company office, restaurant, etc.).
[0254] In some examples, process 800 determines which data
structure from among a plurality of data structures to retrieve.
Each data structure of the plurality of data structures is
associated with a respective established location. Process 800
determines a location corresponding to the discourse input. For
example, process 800 determines a location of the user device
(e.g., using GPS module 235) at the time the discourse input is
received. An established location is then identified based on the
location of the user device. For instance, in one example, it is
determined that the location of the user device corresponds to the
location of the user's home. Based on the determined established
location, the corresponding data structure is identified and
retrieved from the plurality of data structures. For example, the
data structure representing the devices in the user's home is
identified and retrieved.
[0255] FIG. 9 is a hierarchical chart illustrating exemplary data
structure 900 that represents a set of devices of an established
location, according to various examples. As shown, data structure
900 includes a plurality of nodes 902-950 organized in a
hierarchical structure across levels 960-968. The organization of
nodes 902-950 defines how the various devices (e.g., garage door,
back door, central thermostat, space heater, and son's lamp) of the
established location relate to the various regions (e.g., floor 1,
floor 2, garage, living room, mater bedroom, and son's bedroom) of
the established location. Specifically, the nodes of levels 960-964
define how the various regions of the established location are
organized. The root node of level 960 represents the established
location (e.g., John's house) and the nodes of level 962 represent
the major regions (e.g., floor 1 and floor 2) of the established
location. The nodes of level 964 represent the sub-regions within
each of the major regions. In the present example, the sub-regions
include the separate rooms or living areas (garage, living room,
master bedroom, and son's bedroom) in John's house. Although in the
present example, data structure 900 includes one level (level 960)
for the major regions and one level (level 964) for the
sub-regions, it should be recognized that in other examples, the
data structure includes any number of levels for organizing the
various regions of an established location.
[0256] The nodes of level 966 define the device(s) associated with
each region of level 964. For example, nodes 926 and 928 indicate
that there is a garage door device and a back door device
associated with the garage of John's house. Similarly, node 930
indicates that a thermostat is associated with the living room of
John's house. The devices represented by nodes 908-914 are similar
or identical to devices 130-136 of FIG. 1. For example, the devices
represented by nodes 908-914 are communicatively coupled to an
electronic device (e.g., user device 104) or server (e.g., DA
server 106) via one or more networks (e.g., network(s) 110). The
electronic device provides commands via the one or more networks
that cause one or more of the devices of nodes 908-914 to perform
an action defined by the user.
[0257] The nodes of level 968 define the actual device
characteristics associated with each device of level 966. For
example, node 936 indicates that the garage door device has the
actual device characteristic of"position." Similarly, node 938
indicates that the back door device has the actual device
characteristic of "lock." An actual device characteristic
describes, for example, an actual function or characteristic of the
device that can be controlled using the electronic device (e.g.,
devices 104, 200, 400, or 600). For example, the "position" of the
garage door can be changed by controlling the garage door device or
the back door can be "locked" or "unlocked" by controlling the back
door device.
[0258] Each node of data structure 900 includes one or more stored
attributes. For example, as shown in FIG. 9, user-defined
identifiers (IDs) are stored in association with each node of
levels 960-966. Specifically, node 902 includes the user-defined ID
"John's house" that describes the established location. Similarly,
each of nodes 904-914 includes a user-defined ID describing the
respective region of the established location. For example, node
912 includes the user-defined ID "master bedroom" and node 914
includes the user-defined ID "son's bedroom." Further, each of
nodes 926-934 includes a user-defined ID describing the respective
device. For example, node 930 includes the user-defined ID "central
thermostat" and node 934 includes the user-defined ID "son's lamp."
In some examples, only data structures stored on the user device
(e.g., user device 104) include user-defined IDs. Data structures
stored on the server (e.g., DA server 106) include, for example,
generic IDs such as "region 1" or "region 2" for nodes representing
regions in the established location and "device 1" or "device 2"
for nodes representing devices. In other examples, each device and
each region in the data structure is identified with respect to a
temporary session key associated with the received discourse input.
This is desirable to preserve the user's privacy when data
structure is stored on the server.
[0259] Each of nodes 902-934 further includes stored attributes
(not shown) that define, for example, the region type for each
region in the established location or the device type for each
device in the established location. For example, "master bedroom"
(node 912) and "son's bedroom" (node 914) each has a region type
of"bedroom." Similarly, "central thermostat" (node 930) has a
device type of "thermostat" and "son's lamp" (node 934) has a
device type of "light." The region type and device type are
standardized descriptions based on a list of standard region types
and device types. Other examples of region types include
"basement," "store room," "attic," "kitchen," or the like. Further
examples of device types include "door lock," "humidifier," "music
player," "toaster," or the like.
[0260] Nodes 926-934 further include additional stored attributes
that indicate the operating states of each device with respect to
the relevant device characteristic. For example, the "garage door"
(node 936) has an operating status "open" or "closed" for the
device characteristic "position." In another example, the "central
thermostat" (node 930) has an operating status "73 degrees
Fahrenheit" for the device characteristic "temperature" and "60%"
with respect to the device characteristic "humidity." Additional
examples of operating status include "locked" or "unlocked" with
respect to the device characteristic "lock" (e.g., for a door lock
device), "on" or "off" with respect to the device characteristic
"power" (e.g., for a music player device), and "75%" with respect
to the device characteristic "brightness" (e.g., for a dimmable
lighting device).
[0261] The data structure is created (e.g., using devices 104 or
200 or server system 108) based on user input and/or data received
from the devices of the established location. For example, a user
device provides a user interface that enables the user to enter
information for creating the data structure. Specifically, the user
device receives, via the user interface, information regarding the
various regions in the established location and the various devices
of the established location. Further, the user device receives
information that associates a particular device of the established
location to one or more regions of the established location. For
example, user input received via the user interface defines a
region named "master bedroom" (e.g., node 912) and a device named
"space heater" in the established location. The user input further
associates the "space heater" device to the "master bedroom"
region. In some examples, information in the data structure is
auto-populated based on data received from the devices of the
established location. For example, each device of the established
location transmits various attributes associated with the device of
the established location to the user device. Specifically, device
IDs, device characteristics, operating statuses, or device types
are transmitted to the user device. The user device then
auto-populates this data into the respective data structure.
[0262] In some examples, the digital assistant of the user device
automatically proposes additions or modifications to the data
structure based on information received regarding the various
devices of the established location. The received information
includes, for example, device information defining a first device
of the established location having a device ID "bedroom1_light" and
a second device of the established location having a device ID
"bedroom1_radio." Based on the common phrase "bedroom1" in each of
the device IDs of the first and second devices, process 800
determines that both devices are likely associated with a common
region "bedroom1" in the established location. Additionally or
alternatively, the received information includes location
information of the first and second devices. For example, the
location information indicates that the first and second devices
are disposed within a common region of the established location. In
another example, the location information indicates that the first
device and the second device are positioned within a threshold
distance apart in the established location. Based on the location
information, a relationship between the first device and the second
device is determined with respect to one or more regions of the
established location. For example, it is determined that the first
and second devices are associated with the "bedroom1" region of the
established location. Based on the determined relationship between
the first and second devices, a prompt is provided to the user
suggesting a modification to the data structure. For example, a
prompt is provided asking the user "Would you like to create the
room `bedroom1` that includes the devices `bedroom1_light` and
`bedroom1_radio`?" A user input (e.g., selection of a user
interface button) is received responsive to the provided prompt.
The user input confirms the modification proposed by the prompt. In
response to receiving the user input, the data structure is
modified to define the determined relationship between the first
device and the second device with respect to the established
location. For example, a node representing the region "bedroom1" in
the established location is created in the data structure.
Additionally, the nodes representing the devices "bedroom1_light"
and "bedroom1_radio" are associated with the node representing the
region "bedroom1."
[0263] It should be appreciated that data structure 900, described
above, is a non-limiting example of a data structure representing a
set of devices of an established location and that various
modifications and variations of data structure 900 are possible in
view of the above description. For example, the data structure can
include any number of nested levels of nodes. In some examples, one
or more of the levels of nodes in data structure 900 are optionally
removed, and/or additional levels of nodes are optionally added. In
one example, the nodes of level 962 are optionally removed in data
structure 900 and the nodes of level 964 are nested directly under
the root node 902. In other examples, one or more additional levels
of nodes representing sub-regions are optionally added to data
structure 900. Specifically, one or more additional levels of nodes
representing sub-regions are optionally included between levels 962
and 964, or between levels 964 and 966 of data structure 900.
Further, it should be recognized that that in some examples, the
nodes representing devices need not be nested under a node
representing a major region or a sub region. For instance, in some
examples, any one of nodes 926-934 in data structure 900 is
optionally nested directly under root node 960 or a node of level
962.
[0264] At block 808, one or more possible device characteristics
corresponding to the discourse input are determined. In particular,
the words of the discourse input are parsed and analyzed to
identify possible device characteristics related to the words
and/or phrases in the discourse input. Block 808 is performed, for
example, using a natural language processing module (e.g., natural
language processing module 732) utilizing suitable models and
vocabulary (e.g., vocabulary 744). In particular, a machine
learning classifier of the natural language processing module, for
example, processes the words of the discourse input and determine
possible device characteristics associated with the words. In one
example, the discourse input is "Open the door." In this example,
the terms "open" and "door" are determined to each correspond to
the possible device characteristics of "position" and
"lock/unlock."
[0265] In some examples, each term of the discourse input is
initially analyzed individually. For example, with reference to
FIG. 10A, discourse input 1002 is "Set the thermostat to sixty
percent." In this example, the term "set" is determined to
correspond to a first set of possible device characteristics 1004
that includes "temperature," "humidity," "brightness," "volume,"
and "speed." The term "thermostat" is determined to correspond to a
second set of possible device characteristics 1006 that include
"temperature" and "humidity." The term "sixty" is determined to
correspond to a third set of possible device characteristics 1008
that include "temperature," "humidity," and "brightness." The term
"percent" is determined to correspond to a fourth set of possible
device characteristics 1010 that include "brightness" and
"humidity."
[0266] The one or more possible device characteristics are
determined based on the sets of possible device characteristics
(e.g., 1004, 1006, 1008, 1010) corresponding to the individual
terms in the discourse input. For example, the one or more possible
device characteristics determined at block 808 are a combination of
the sets of possible device characteristics. In some examples, the
one or more possible device characteristics are determined based on
the frequency of each possible device characteristic among the sets
of possible device characteristics. For example, the one or more
possible device characteristics are determined to include the
possible device characteristic "humidity," which has the greatest
frequency across the sets of possible device characteristics 1004,
1006, 1008, 1010.
[0267] In some examples, the one or more possible device
characteristics are determined based on the popularity of each
possible device characteristic in the sets of possible device
characteristics (e.g., 1004, 1006, 1008, 1010). The popularity
refers to how frequently actions associated with a device
characteristic are requested by a population of users. For example,
if actions related to "temperature" are more frequently requested
than actions related to the other device characteristics, the
possible device characteristic "temperature" is weighted more
heavily when determining the one or more possible device
characteristics at block 808. In other examples, the one or more
possible device characteristics are determined based on the
salience of each term in the discourse input. For example, the term
"thermostat" has the greatest salience among the terms in the
discourse input and thus set of possible device characteristics
1006 is weighted more heavily than other sets of possible device
characteristics when determining the one or more possible device
characteristics at block 808. Thus, in this example, the one or
more possible device characteristics more likely include the
possible device characteristics of "temperature" and "humidity"
from set of possible device characteristics 1006.
[0268] At block 810, one or more candidate devices from the set of
devices are determined based on the data structure. The one or more
candidate devices correspond to the discourse input. In some
examples, block 808 is performed using a natural language
processing module (e.g., natural language processing module 732)
based on suitable models and vocabulary (e.g., vocabulary 744). In
particular, a machine learning classifier of the natural language
processing module, for example, processes the words of the
discourse input and determine candidate devices from the set of
devices in the data structure that most likely correspond to the
discourse input. For example, in the discourse input "Set the
thermostat to sixty percent," the word "thermostat" in the
discourse input is recognized as being relevant and compared (e.g.,
based on semantic or syntactic similarity) to the various
attributes and IDs of the nodes in the data structure to determine
candidate devices corresponding to the discourse input. In
particular, the devices "central thermostat" (e.g., node 930) and
"space heater" (e.g., node 932) are determined as the one or more
candidate devices based on the word "thermostat" in the discourse
input.
[0269] In another example, the discourse input is "Set the living
room to sixty percent." In this example, the word "living room" is
recognized as being relevant and compared to the various attributes
and IDs of the nodes in the data structure. In this example,
"living room" in the discourse input is determined to correspond to
the "living room" region (e.g., node 910) defined in data structure
900. Because "living room" region (e.g., node 910) is associated
with the "central thermostat" device (e.g., node 930) in data
structure 900, the one or more candidate devices are determined to
include the "central thermostat device."
[0270] In some examples, the one or more candidate devices are
determined based on one or more alternative terms derived from one
or more terms in the discourse input. Returning to the example of
the discourse input, "Set the thermostat to sixty percent," one or
more alternative terms associated with "thermostat" are determined.
In particular, "thermostat" is determined to be associated with the
alternative terms "heater," "A/C," "radiator," "regulator,"
"thermometer," and "humidifier." In this example, the alternative
terms are used to search the nodes of the data structure to
determine the one or more candidate devices. For example, devices
having user-defined device IDs "John's heater" and "office A/C" are
identified based on the alternative terms, and the devices are
included in the one or more candidate devices determined at block
808.
[0271] In some examples, the one or more alternative terms are
based on phrases commonly used to refer to an action or device. For
example, the discourse input "Open the door" can commonly be
expressed as "Open the back," "Open the back door," "Open the back
lock," "Open the lock," "Open the door lock," or "Open the bolt."
In this example, the term "door" is determined to be associated
with the alternative terms "back," "back door," "lock," "door
lock," "back lock," "back door lock," and "bolt." Candidate devices
are identified from the data structure using the alternative terms.
For example, devices associated with user-defined IDs or other
attributes containing the alternative terms "back," "lock," or
"back door" in the data structure are identified and included in
the one or more candidate devices.
[0272] The one or more alternative terms are determined using a
look-up table, a model, or a classifier. In particular, the look-up
table, model, or classifier associates a term with one or more
alternative terms. The association is based on semantic mapping. In
some examples, the association is user-defined. For example, prior
to receiving the discourse input at block 802, a user input
defining an alternative term is received. The user input can, for
example, include speech stating "The `television` can be called the
`telly.`" Based on the user input, the relevant look-up table,
model, or classifier is updated such that "television" is
associated with the alternative term "telly" and vice versa. Thus,
the one or more alternative terms are based on the received user
input.
[0273] In some examples, the one or more candidate devices are
determined using retrieved context information. In one example, the
discourse input is "Turn on John's lights." Process 800 determines
that "lights" is associated with a lighting device represented in
the data structure. However, there can be several lighting devices
represented in the data structure. In this example, retrieved
context information serves to reduce the number of identified
candidate devices. Specifically, the term "John" is determined to
be associated with contact information, and, in response, contact
information on the user device is searched in accordance with the
term "John." Through searching the contact information, information
indicating that the user has a son named "John" is retrieved. The
one or more candidate devices are thus determined based on this
retrieved contact information. In particular, process 800
identifies from the data structure that the established location
includes a region named "son's bedroom" (e.g., node 914 in FIG. 9),
which is associated with the lighting device "son's lamp" (e.g.,
node 934). Thus, in this example, the one or more candidate devices
are determined to include the device "son's lamp" in the son's
bedroom.
[0274] It should be recognized that, in some examples, block 808 or
810 is integrated into block 812. For example, block 808 or 810 is
performed as part of determining the user intent at block 812.
[0275] At block 812, a user intent corresponding to the discourse
input is determined. The user intent refers to the inferred intent
of the user in providing the discourse input. For example, the user
intent is the actionable intent described above with reference to
FIG. 7B. In a specific example, the inferred user intent
corresponding to the discourse input "Open the door" is to have the
back door of the user's house unlocked. The user intent is
determined based on the one or more possible device characteristics
of block 808 and one or more actual device characteristics of the
one or more candidate devices of block 810.
[0276] In some examples, determining the user intent at block 812
includes determining a device from the one or more candidate
devices. In particular, the candidate devices are narrowed down to
the device that the user is most likely referring to. The
determination is based on the one or more possible device
characteristics and the one or more actual device characteristics
of the one or more candidate devices of block 810. For example, one
or more overlapping device characteristics that are common between
one or more possible device characteristics and the one or more
actual device characteristics are determined, and the device is
determined based on the overlapping device characteristics.
[0277] In the example shown FIG. 10B, the one or more candidate
devices are determined to include "central thermostat" (e.g., node
930) and "space heater" (e.g., node 932) based on the discourse
input "Set the thermostat to sixty percent." According to data
structure 900, the actual device characteristics of the candidate
device "central thermostat" include "temperature" and "humidity"
and the actual device characteristics of the candidate device
"space heater" include "temperature" and "fan speed." Additionally,
based on the most frequent device characteristic among the sets of
possible device characteristics 1004-1010, the one or more possible
device characteristic corresponding to the discourse input "Set the
thermostat to sixty percent" are determined to be "humidity" (FIG.
10A). Thus, in this example, the one or more overlapping device
characteristics that are common between one or more possible device
characteristics and the one or more actual device characteristics
are determined to be "humidity." Because the overlapping device
characteristic "humidity" corresponds to a device characteristic of
"central thermostat" (e.g., node 930) but not to any device
characteristic of "space heater" (e.g., node 932), the one or more
candidate devices are narrowed down to the device "central
thermostat" (e.g., node 930) in the living room of the user's
house. The user intent is thus determined based on the device
"central thermostat" (e.g., node 930). Specifically, based on the
device "central thermostat," the overlapping device characteristic
"humidity," and the words "sixty percent" in the discourse input,
it is determined that the user intent is to program the humidity
setpoint of the central thermostat in the user's living room to the
value of sixty percent.
[0278] In some examples, more than one candidate user intent is
determined. For example, it may not be possible to narrow down the
candidate devices to a single device based on the one or more
overlapping characteristics. In one such example, based on the
discourse input "Open the door," the one or more possible device
characteristics are determined to include "position" and "lock."
Additionally, based on data structure 900, the candidate devices
"garage door" (e.g., node 926) and "back door" (e.g., node 928)
having actual device characteristics "position" and "lock,"
respectively, are determined to correspond to the discourse input.
In this example, the overlapping device characteristics that are
common between the one or more possible device characteristics and
the one or more actual device characteristics are determined to
include "position" and "lock." It is thus not possible to narrow
down the candidate devices "garage door" (e.g., node 926) and "back
door" (e.g., node 928) based on these overlapping device
characteristics. Specifically, two candidate user intents are
determined based on the candidate devices "garage door" (e.g., node
926) and "back door" (e.g., node 928), the overlapping device
characteristics "position" and "lock," and the word "open" in the
discourse input. The first candidate user intent is to activate the
garage door motor to lift open the garage door. The second
candidate user intent is to unlock the back door entrance at the
garage. In this example, additional information is required to
disambiguate the user intent. In particular, the digital assistant
retrieves additional information to determine a single user intent
from the first and second candidate user intents. In some examples,
the digital assistant automatically retrieves the additional
information in response to determining more than one candidate user
intent that cannot be disambiguated using the data structure.
[0279] In some examples, the user intent is disambiguated based on
the position of the user at the time the discourse input was
received. For example, a relative position of the user with respect
to a region in the established location is determined. The user
intent is then determined based on the determined relative
position. For example, continuing with the discourse input of "Open
the door," a determination is made that when the discourse input
was received, the user was closer to the garage door (e.g., node
926) than the back door (e.g., node 928). The relative position of
the user is determined based on location data (e.g., GPS data,
etc.) from the user device or data from various sensors (e.g.,
proximity sensors, image sensors, infrared sensors, motion sensors,
etc.) disposed in and around the established location. For example,
a motion sensor in front of the garage door is triggered and thus
it is determined based on data obtained from the motion sensor that
that the user is outside of the house on the driveway in front of
the garage door. Because the user is closer to the garage door than
the back door, it is determined that the first candidate user
intent is more likely than the second candidate user intent. As a
result, the user intent is determined to be activating the garage
door motor to lift open the garage door.
[0280] In other examples, the user intent is disambiguated based on
the operating states of the candidate devices. In particular, the
operating state of each of the one or more candidate devices is
obtained. In some examples, the operating state is obtained from
the data structure. In some examples, the devices of the
established location transmit their operating states (e.g.,
periodically or when a change in operating state occurs) to the
user device and the operating states is updated in the data
structure. Referring back to the example where the discourse input
is "Open the door," the operating states of the garage door (e.g.,
node 926) and the back door (e.g., node 928) are obtained from the
data structure. The operating states indicate, for example, that
the garage door is already open but the back door is locked.
Because the garage door is already open, it is determined that the
second candidate user intent of unlocking the back door entrance at
the garage is more likely than the first candidate user intent of
activating the garage door motor to lift open the garage door.
Thus, based on the obtained operating states of the garage door and
the back door, the user intent is determined to be unlocking the
back door entrance at the garage.
[0281] In yet other examples, the user intent is disambiguated
based on the salience of each action associated with the respective
candidate user intent. For example, a first salience associated
with opening the garage door and a second salience associated with
unlocking the back door is determined. In the present example, the
first salience is greater than the second salience because fewer
users may request the back door to be unlocked than request the
garage door to be opened. Also, the garage door is considered a
more prominent feature of the garage than the back door. The
candidate user intents are then ranked. In particular, based on the
first salience being greater than the second salience, the first
candidate user intent of activating the garage door motor to lift
open the garage door is ranked higher than and the second candidate
user intent of unlocking the back door entrance at the garage. As a
result of the higher ranked first candidate user intent, the user
intent is determined to be activating the garage door motor to lift
open the garage door.
[0282] In some examples, the user intent is disambiguated based on
additional information from the user. For example, dialogue (e.g.,
speech or text) is outputted on the user device. The dialogue
requests clarification from the user regarding the user intent. For
example, the dialogue asks the user whether the user wishes to
"open the garage door" or "unlock the back door entrance." User
input that is responsive to the output dialogue is received. For
example, the user input is a selection of the user intent of "open
the garage door" received via a user interface of the user device.
Based on the user input, the user intent is disambiguated between
the first and second candidate user intents. Specifically,
consistent with the user's selection, the user intent is determined
to be activating the garage door motor to lift open the garage
door. It should be appreciated that disambiguating based on
additional information from the user is disruptive to the user and
can, in some cases, negatively impact user experience. Therefore,
in some examples, prompting the user for additional information to
disambiguate the user intent is performed as a last resort only
when the user intent cannot be disambiguated based on other
available sources of information (e.g., contextual information,
operating state of the candidate device, salience of the action,
position of the user, etc.). For example, a determination is made
as to whether the two or more candidate user intents are
disambiguated based on information accessible to the user device.
Dialogue requesting for additional information is outputted only in
response to determining that the two or more candidate user intents
cannot be disambiguated based on information accessible to the user
device.
[0283] At block 814, instructions that cause a device of the one or
more candidate devices to perform an action corresponding to the
user intent are provided. In particular, for the example discourse
input of "Set the thermostat to sixty percent," the provided
instructions cause the "central thermostat" (e.g., node 930) to
change its humidity setpoint to sixty percent. For the other
example discourse input of "Open the door," the provided
instructions cause the garage door motor to lift open the garage
door. In some examples, the instructions are transmitted directly
to the respective device (e.g., the thermostat or the garage door
motor) to cause the device to perform the relevant action. In other
examples, the instructions are transmitted to the user device and
the instructions cause the user device to transmit a command to the
respective device to perform the relevant action.
[0284] In some examples, the instructions are provided in response
to receiving a user confirmation. In particular, prior to providing
the instructions, dialogue (e.g., speech or text) confirming the
action to be performed and the device performing the action is
outputted. For example, the dialogue asks the user "Would you like
to set the humidity of the living room thermostat to sixty
percent?" or "Open the garage door?" A user input that is
responsive to the output dialogue is received. The user input
confirms or rejects the output dialogue. In one example, the user
input is the speech input "yes." In response to receiving user
input confirming the output dialogue, the instructions are
provided. Conversely, in response to receiving user input rejecting
the output dialogue, process 800 forgoes providing the
instructions.
[0285] In some examples, the user programs the user device to
recognize a custom command that causes the operating states of a
plurality of devices in the established location to be set in a
predetermined manner. Such a set of predetermined operating states
for the plurality of devices is referred to as a scene. For
example, the user creates the custom scene command "party time"
where in response to receiving this custom command, instructions
are provided that cause the living room music player to turn on,
the living room lights to dim to a brightness of 15%, and the
living room disco ball to turn on. These predefined operating
states of the living room music player, the living room lights, and
the living room disco ball are stored in association with the
custom scene command "party time."
[0286] In some examples, the digital assistant detects, in
associated with an event, one or more user inputs for setting the
operating states of a plurality of devices and then prompts the
user to create a corresponding custom scene command. For example,
the one or more user inputs are provided by the user to, for
example, turn on the kitchen and living room lights, set the
thermostat to 75 degrees, and turn on the living room television.
In some examples, the one or more user inputs are detected by
detecting one or more corresponding changes in the operating states
of the devices. In addition, the one or more user inputs are
associated with the event of the user arriving home. For example,
the one or more user inputs are detected within a predetermined
duration after detecting one or more events related to the user
arriving home. The one or more events include, for example,
detecting a proximity sensor being activated in the garage or
detecting the back door entrance being opened. In response to
detecting the one or more user inputs in associated with the event,
a prompt is provided. The prompt asks whether the user wishes to
store the respective operating states of the plurality of devices
in association with a custom scene command. For example, the prompt
is "I noticed that upon arriving home, you turned on the kitchen
and living room lights, set the thermostat to 75 degrees, and
turned on the living room television. Would you like to create an
"arrive home" scene with these device settings?" User input
responsive to the prompt is received. For example, the user
confirms or rejects the prompt to create a custom scene command
associated with a set of operating states of a plurality of
devices. In response to receiving a user input that confirms the
prompt, the respective operating states of the plurality of devices
are stored in association with the custom scene command such that
in response to receiving the custom scene command, the user device
causes the plurality of devices to be set to the respective
operating states. Conversely, in response to receiving a user input
that rejects the prompt, process 800 forgoes storing the respective
operating states of the plurality of devices in association with
the custom scene command.
[0287] In some examples, the digital assistant detects, in
association with an existing scene, user input that causes an
additional device in the set of devices to be set to a particular
operating state and then prompt the user to modify the existing
scene to include setting the additional device to the particular
operating state. For example, the scene command "party time" is
received from the user and in response to receiving the scene
command, instruction are provided to cause the living room music
player to turn on, the living room lights to dim to a brightness of
15%, and the living room disco ball to turn on. Then, within a
predetermined duration of receiving the "party time" scene command,
user input that causes the living room air conditioning to be set
to 70 degrees is detected. For example, a change in the setpoint of
the living room air conditioning to 70 degrees is detected. In
response to detecting the user input, a prompt is provided to the
user. The prompt asks whether the user wishes to store the
operating state "70 degrees" of the living room air conditioning
device in association with the custom scene command "party time."
For example, the prompt asks "Do you wish to add setting the living
room air conditioning to 70 degrees to the `party time` scene?"
User input that is responsive to the prompt is received. The user
input confirms or rejects the prompt. In response to receiving user
input confirming the prompt, the operating state "70 degrees" of
the living room air conditioning device is stored in association
with the custom "scene" command. After the storing, in response to
receiving the custom scene command "party time," instructions are
provided (e.g., by the user device or server) to cause the living
room music player to turn on, the living room lights to dim to a
brightness of 15%, the living room disco ball to turn on, and the
living room air conditioning to be set to 70 degrees. Conversely,
in response to receiving user input rejecting the prompt, process
800 forgoes storing the operating state "70 degrees" of the living
room air conditioning device in association with the custom "scene"
command.
[0288] FIG. 11 illustrates process 1100 for operating a digital
assistant according to various examples. Process 1100 is performed,
for example, using one or more electronic devices (e.g., devices
104, 106, 200, 400, or 600) implementing a digital assistant. In
some examples, the processes is performed at a client-server system
(e.g., system 100) implementing a digital assistant. The blocks of
the processes can be divided up in any manner between the server
(e.g., DA server 106) and the client (e.g., user device 104). In
process 1100, some blocks are, optionally, combined, the order of
some blocks is, optionally, changed, and some blocks are,
optionally, omitted. In some examples, only a subset of the
features or blocks described below with reference to FIG. 11 is
performed. Further, one of ordinary skill would appreciate that the
details of process 800 described above are also applicable in an
analogous manner to process 1100 described below. For example,
process 1100 optionally includes one or more of the characteristics
of process 800 described above (and vice versa). For brevity, these
details are not repeated below
[0289] At block 1102, discourse input representing a user request
is received. Block 1102 is similar or identical to block 802
described above. For example, the discourse input is speech input
or text input and is in natural language form. In some examples,
the user request defines a request for a device of an established
location (e.g., devices 130, 132, 134, or 136) to perform an
action. Additionally, the user request defines a criterion that is
required to be satisfied prior to performing the action. In some
examples, the criterion is associated with a second device of the
established location. For example, the discourse input is "Close
the blinds when it reaches 80 degrees."
[0290] At block 1104, a determination is made as to whether the
discourse input relates to a device of an established location.
Specifically, the determination includes determining whether the
discourse input is requesting for a device of an established
location to perform an action. Block 1104 is similar or identical
to block 804, described above. For example, a determination is made
as to whether the discourse input corresponds to a domain that is
associated with an actionable intent of performing a task using a
device of the established location. The discourse input is
determined to relate to a device of the established location if the
discourse input is determined to correspond to such a domain. In
response to determining that the discourse input relates to a
device of an established location, block 1106 is performed.
Conversely, in response to determining that the discourse input
does not relate to a device of an established location, block 1105
is performed. In particular, at block 1105, process 1100 forgoes
retrieving a data structure representing a set of devices of the
established location.
[0291] At block 1106, a data structure representing a set of
devices of the established location is retrieved. Block 1106 is
similar or identical to block 806, discussed above. In particular,
the data structure is retrieved from the user device (e.g., user
data and models 231 of user device 200) or from the server (e.g.,
data & models 116 of DA server 106). In some examples, the data
structure defines a hierarchical relationship between a plurality
of regions in the established location. The data structure further
defines the relationship of each device of the set of devices with
respect to the plurality of regions. The data structure is similar
or identical to data structure 900 described with reference to FIG.
9.
[0292] At block 1108, a user intent corresponding to the discourse
input is determined using the data structure retrieved at block
1106. Block 1108 is performed using natural language processing
(e.g., with natural language processing module 732, vocabulary 744,
and user data 748). The user intent is associated with an action to
be performed by a device of the established location. Determining
the user intent thus includes determining, based on the discourse
input and the data structure, the action to be performed by the
device (e.g., as described in block 812). For example, it is
determined from the discourse input of "Close the blinds when it
reaches 80 degrees" and based on the data structure that the action
to be performed by the device is actuating the blinds to cause the
blinds to close.
[0293] Determining the action to be performed by the device
includes determining one or more possible device characteristics
corresponding to the discourse input (e.g., as described in block
808). For example, based on the phrase "close the blinds" in the
discourse input, the one or more possible device characteristics
are determined to include "position." Determining the action to be
performed by the device further includes determining, based on the
data structure, one or more candidate devices of the established
location (e.g., as described in block 810) that correspond to the
discourse input. For example, based on the phrase "close the
blinds" in the discourse input, the one or more candidate devices
are determined to include one or more "blinds" represented in the
data structure that have an operating status of "open." The device
performing the action is then determined from the one or more
candidate devices. For example, the device is determined from the
one or more candidate devices based on one or more overlapping
device characteristics that are common between the one or more
possible device characteristics and one or more actual device
characteristics of the one or more candidate devices (e.g., as
described in block 812). In examples where disambiguation is
required between multiple actions or devices, additional
information (e.g., context information, operating state of the
candidate devices, salience of the actions, position of the user,
etc.) is retrieved. As discussed above in block 812, the additional
information is used to disambiguate between the multiple actions or
devices and determine an intended action to be performed by a
device of the established location.
[0294] The action to be performed by the device of the established
location includes causing at least a portion of the device to
change positions. In particular, the action includes actuating the
device to cause at least a portion of the device to change
positions. For example, based on the discourse input of "Close the
blinds when it reaches 80 degrees," the action is determined to
include actuating the blinds to cause the blinds to change from an
open position to a closed position. Similarly, for the discourse
input "Close the garage door after I enter the house," the action
is determined to include activating the garage motor to cause the
garage door to change from an open position to a closed
position.
[0295] In some examples, the action to be performed by the device
causes a device to lock or unlock. For example, based on the
discourse input of "Open the gate when the gardener arrives," the
action is determined to include unlocking the side gate of the
established location. Other example discourse inputs that
correspond to an action that causes a device of the established
location to lock or unlock include "Lock the safe when I leave the
house" or "Lock all the doors and windows when I go to bed."
[0296] In some examples, the action to be performed by the device
causes the device to be activated or deactivated. For example,
based on the discourse input of "Turn on the alarm when I leave the
house," the action is determined to include activating the house
alarm. Other exemplary actions that cause the device to activate or
deactivate include turning the power of a device on or off, placing
a device in an "active" mode or a "sleep," or causing a device to
"arm" or "disarm."
[0297] In some examples, the action to be performed by the device
causes a setpoint of the device to change. For example, based on
the discourse input of "Set the thermostat to 76 when I get home,"
the action is determined to include causing the temperature
setpoint of the thermostat to change. Other exemplary actions that
cause a setpoint of the device to change include setting the
humidity of a humidifier or setting the temperature of an oven. In
yet other examples, the action to be performed by the device causes
a parameter value of the device to change. For example, the action
causes the volume level of a music player to change to a particular
value (e.g., 1-10), the fan speed of a fan to change to a
particular setting (e.g., high, medium, low), the sprinkler
duration of a sprinkler station to change to a particular duration,
or a window to open by a certain percentage. In some examples, the
action is defined in the discourse input using relative or
ambiguous terms. For example, in the discourse input "Make the
television louder when the train goes by," the term "louder" is a
relative term that is ambiguous. Process 1100 can determine a
definite action corresponding to such a discourse input having
relative or ambiguous terms. Specifically, in the present example,
process 1100 can determine that the action includes causing the
volume level of the television to increase by a predetermined
amount relative to the current volume level or relative to a
detected ambient noise level.
[0298] In some examples, the user intent is associated with a
criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action. In these
examples, determining the user intent further includes determining,
based on the discourse input and the data structure, the criterion
to be satisfied prior to performing the action. For example,
returning to the discourse input of "Close the blinds when it
reaches 80 degrees," it is determined based on the discourse input
and the data structure that the criterion to be satisfied prior to
closing the blinds is the detecting of a temperature value being
equal to or greater than 80 degrees Fahrenheit at a particular
temperature sensor in the established location.
[0299] The criterion is associated with a device characteristic of
a second device of the established location. For example, the
criterion of the discourse input "Close the blinds when it reaches
80 degrees," is associated with the device characteristic
"temperature" of the temperature sensor in the established
location. Determining the user intent includes determining, based
on the discourse input and data structure, the device
characteristic of the second device associated with the criterion.
The second device is determined in a similar manner as discussed
above in blocks 808-812. In particular, one or more second possible
device characteristics and one or more second candidate devices are
determined from the portion of the discourse input defining the
criterion. The second device is then determined based on one or
more second overlapping device characteristics that are common
between the one or more second possible device characteristics and
one or more actual device characteristics of the one or more
candidate devices (e.g., as described in block 812). Further, in
some examples, the relationship of the second device with respect
to the device performing the action is considered when determining
the second device. For example, if there are two thermostats that
cannot be disambiguated based on the data structure, the second
device is determined to be the thermostat that is positioned closer
to the blinds or associated with the same region as the blinds.
[0300] In some examples, the criterion is associated with an
operating state of the second device. In particular, the criterion
includes the requirement that the operating state of the second
device be equal to a reference operating state. For example, the
discourse input is "Set the thermostat to 72 degrees when the
garage door is open." In this example, the criterion is detecting
the garage door having the operating status of "open." More
specifically, the criterion includes the requirement that the
operating state of the second device transitions from a second
reference operating state to a third reference operating state. For
example, the criterion includes detecting the operating state of
the garage door transitioning from a "closed" operating state to an
"open" operating state. In another example where the discourse
input is "Turn on the living room lights when the television is
turned on," the criterion includes detecting the operating state of
the television transitioning from an "off" operating state to an
"on" operating state.
[0301] In some examples, the criterion includes the requirement
that an actual value representing the device characteristic be
greater than, equal to, or less than a threshold value. For
example, the discourse input is "Close the window when the
temperature drops below 68 degrees." In this example, the criterion
is associated with the device characteristic of "temperature" for a
temperature sensor of the established location. Specifically, the
criterion includes detecting that the actual value (e.g., the
temperature reading) representing the device characteristic
"temperature" of an electronic thermometer is less than the
threshold value of 68 degrees.
[0302] In some examples, the criterion is defined in the discourse
input using one or more relative or ambiguous terms. Examples of
discourse input that define the criterion using one or more
relative or ambiguous terms include "Close the blinds when it's
sunny outside," "turn on the heater when it's cold," "turn up the
volume of the television when it gets noisy." Specifically, in
these examples, the criterion is defined in the discourse input
using relative or ambiguous terms, such as "sunny," "cold," and
"noisy." As discussed in greater detail below, process 1100 can
determine a definite criterion from the discourse input despite the
use of relative or ambiguous terms in the discourse input to define
the criterion.
[0303] In some examples, determining the user intent includes
determining, based on the discourse input, the threshold value
associated with the criterion. In particular, the threshold value
is ambiguous in the discourse input and thus a quantitative
threshold value may need to be interpreted from the discourse
input. For example, the discourse input is "Turn on the kitchen fan
when it gets too hot." In this example, based on the words "when it
gets too hot," the criterion is determined to be detecting the
temperature of an electronic thermometer exceeding a threshold
value. The threshold value is determined based on the phrase "too
hot" and one or more knowledge sources. Specifically, information
from the one or more knowledge sources is retrieved in accordance
with the phrase "too hot." The knowledge sources can, for example,
provide the historical temperature distribution of the established
location and thus the threshold value is determined to be a
predetermined percentile (e.g., 80.sup.th percentile or 90.sup.th
percentile) of the temperature distribution. In another example,
the knowledge source associates the term "hot" to a numeric
threshold value of a corresponding device characteristic. For
example, "hot" is associated with greater than 90 degrees measured
at an electronic thermometer of the established location.
Similarly, for other example discourse inputs where a criterion is
defined based on an ambiguous adjective, the knowledge sources
provide a corresponding threshold value for the respective device
characteristic. For example, based on the knowledge sources, the
criterion "when it's dark" is associated with less than 0.2 lux and
the criterion "when it's noisy" is associated with greater than 90
decibels.
[0304] It should be recognized that the criterion can be associated
with any device characteristic of any sensor of the established
location. The sensor, for example, is a standalone sensor of the
established location (e.g., standalone electronic thermometer,
standalone light sensor, standalone motion sensor, etc.) or a
sensor integrated in a device of the established location (e.g.,
thermometer of the thermostat for the central heater, photodiode of
the nightlight, etc.) For example, the criterion is associated with
the device characteristic of "humidity" for a humidity sensor of
the established location. In particular, the discourse input is
"Close the bathroom window when it starts raining," or "Turn on the
humidifier when it gets too dry." As discussed above, corresponding
quantitative values for the ambiguous criterion "too dry" or
"starts raining" are determined based on the one or more knowledge
sources. For example, "too dry" is determined to correspond to the
criterion of detecting a relative humidity of less than a
predetermined threshold value (e.g., 25%). Similarly, "starts
raining" is determined to correspond to the criterion of detecting
a relative humidity equal to 100% at a humidity sensor or detecting
moisture content greater than a predetermined threshold value
(e.g., 50%) at a moisture sensor of the established location.
[0305] In some examples, the criterion is associated with the
device characteristic of "brightness" for a brightness sensor
(e.g., light sensor, photodiode) of the established location. In
particular, the discourse input is "Turn on the living room lights
once it gets dark," "Close the blinds if there's direct sunlight,"
or "Bring down the shades half way when it gets too bright." In
these examples, corresponding quantitative values for the ambiguous
criteria "dark," "direct sunlight," or "too bright" are determined.
For example, "dark" is determined to correspond to the criterion of
detecting a brightness of less than a predetermined value (e.g.,
0.2 lux) at a brightness sensor of the established location.
Similarly, "direct sunlight" or "too bright" corresponds to the
criterion of detecting a brightness of greater than a second
predetermined value (e.g., 25000 lux).
[0306] In some examples, the criterion is associated with the
device characteristic of "air quality" for an air quality sensor of
the established location. The air quality sensor can, for example,
be a particulate sensor that measures the size and concentration of
particles in the air or a gas sensor for measuring the
concentration of one or more specific gases (e.g., carbon monoxide,
ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, acetone, alcohols, etc.).
Exemplary discourse inputs having criteria associated with the
device characteristic of "air quality" for an air quality sensor of
the established location include "Turn on the air filter when the
air quality is unsafe" or "Close the window when dangerous gases
are detected." In these examples, the criterion is detecting (e.g.,
at an air quality sensor of the established location) a particulate
level or a concentration level of a specific gas in the air that
exceeds a predetermined threshold value.
[0307] In some examples, the criterion is associated with an
authentication characteristic of an authentication device at the
established location. The authentication characteristic is for
example, a voiceprint, passcode, fingerprint, personal
identification number, or the like. The authentication device is a
device configured to obtain or receive authentication data (e.g.,
camera, capacitive touch sensor, microphone, keypad, security
console, etc.). For example, the discourse input is "Open the door
when the baby sitter arrives," or "Unlock the door when John
arrives." In these examples, the criterion includes a requirement
that a confidence value associated with the authentication
characteristic of the authentication device be greater than or
equal to a predetermined threshold value. For example, the baby
sitter or John interacts with an authentication device at the front
door of the established location to provide authentication data
(e.g., voice sample, fingerprint, passcode, facial image, etc.).
The authentication data is processed and compared with reference
authentication data (e.g., reference voiceprint, reference
fingerprint, reference passcode, etc.) to determine a confidence
value. Specifically, the confidence value represents a probability
that authentication data received from the authentication device
matches reference authentication data. In these examples, the
criterion for opening or unlocking the door is obtaining a
confidence value that is greater than or equal to a predetermined
threshold value.
[0308] In some examples, the criterion is determined using
retrieved context information. In particular, the discourse input
defines the criterion using one or more relative or ambiguous terms
and determining the criterion requires, for example, utilizing
context information to disambiguate the one or more relative or
ambiguous terms. For instance, in one example, the discourse input
is "Open the door when she arrives." In this example, the discourse
input defines the criterion for opening the door using the
ambiguous term "she." Determining the criterion thus requires
disambiguating the term "she" using, for example, context
information. In one example, prior to receiving the discourse
input, a text message is received from the babysitter stating that
she will be arriving in 15 minutes. Specifically, while the
electronic device is displaying the text message from the
babysitter, the discourse input "Open the front door when she
arrives" is received from the user. In this example, the text
message from the babysitter is context information that can be used
to disambiguate the term "she" in the discourse input. In
particular, based on the text message, a determination is made that
"she" refers to the babysitter. Thus, in this example, based on the
discourse input and the text message, the criterion is determined
to include receiving authentication data corresponding to the
babysitter at an authentication device associated with the front
door of the user's house.
[0309] In some examples, the criterion includes the requirement
that the action was performed less than a predetermined number of
times within a predetermined period of time. For example, the
discourse input is "Allow Owen access to the TV three times a
week." In this example, the criterion requires the determination
that access to the TV was provided less than three times to an
individual identified as Owen within the current week. In another
example, the discourse input is "Allow the babysitter in once a day
from 3-4 pm." In this example, the criterion includes the
determination that the front door was unlocked for less than one
time from 3-4 pm that day for an individual identified as the baby
sitter. It should be recognized that in these examples, the
criterion further includes confirming the identity of the
individual (e.g., "Owen" and "baby sitter"). In particular, the
identity of the individual (e.g., Owen or the baby sitter) is
confirmed based on authentication data received from the
individual. For example, it is determined that authentication data
received from an individual at the front door between 3-4 pm
corresponds to the baby sitter. The front door is then unlocked if
it is determined that the front door was unlocked for less than one
time from 3-4 pm that day for the baby sitter.
[0310] In some examples, the criterion includes the requirement
that a time indicated on the electronic device be equal to or after
a reference time or within a range of reference times. The
reference time is with respect to hours and minutes or with respect
to a particular date. In some examples, the reference time is an
absolute time. For example, the discourse input is "Turn on the
porch light at 7 pm." In this example, the criterion includes
detecting that the current time is equal to 7 pm. In another
example, the discourse input is "Close the garage door after 7 pm."
In this example, the criterion is detecting that the current time
is after 7 pm. In yet another example, the discourse input is "Turn
on the night light from 10 pm to 7 am." In this example, the
criterion is detecting that the current time is within the range of
times 10 pm to 7 am.
[0311] In some examples, determining the user intent includes
determining the reference time from the discourse input. In
particular, for the discourse input "Turn on the Christmas lighting
on Christmas Eve," a database search is performed to determine that
"Christmas Eve" refers to December 24.sup.th. Further, a
determination is made that the action of turning on the lights is
one that is typically performed in the evening. Based on this
determination, it is determined that the reference time is at dusk
(e.g., 5 pm) on December 24.sup.th. In other examples, the
discourse input is "Disable the sprinklers on Chinese New Year" or
"Turn off the porch light during the next full moon." In these
examples, the relevant date corresponding to "Chinese New Year" and
"next full moon" is obtained and thus the reference time is
determined based on the relevant date.
[0312] In some examples, the discourse input specifies a relative
time rather than an absolute time. For example, the discourse input
is "Turn on the Christmas lights two weeks before Christmas." In
this example, process 1100 first determines an initial reference
time corresponding to "Christmas" (December 25.sup.th) and then
determine a duration associated with the initial reference time in
the discourse input (e.g., two weeks). The reference time
associated with the criterion is thus determined based on the
initial reference date and the duration. Specifically, the
reference time is determined to be December 11.sup.th, which is two
weeks before Christmas (December 25.sup.th). In this example, the
determined criterion in the discourse input is thus detecting that
the current time is equal to the reference time of December
11.sup.th.
[0313] In some examples, the user intent is associated with more
than one criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action.
For example, the discourse input "Allow John to turn on the
television once a day between 3 to 5 pm" includes three criteria:
an authentication criterion of successfully authenticating that the
requestor is "John," a time criterion of being within the time
range of 3 to 5 pm, and a frequency criterion of having turned on
the television for John less than once within the time range of 3
to 5 pm that day. In another example, the discourse input "Let the
house cleaner in between 9 to 10 am" includes multiple
authentication criteria, which include detecting by a proximity
sensor a person standing at the front door, successfully
authenticating the person based on authentication data received at
an authentication device by the front door, and receiving a text
message from a device associated with the house cleaner.
[0314] In some examples, the user intent is associated with a first
criterion and a second criterion and satisfying the second
criterion requires the first criterion to be satisfied. For
example, the discourse input is "Turn on the sprinklers 15 minutes
after I leave the house." In this example, the discourse input
defines two criteria. The first criterion requires detecting the
user leaving the house (e.g., using motion sensors and/or based on
the garage door opening and closing). The second criterion requires
the current time be equal to a reference time that is 15 minutes
after the time when the user is detected to leave the house. In
this example, the second criterion cannot be satisfied without the
first criterion being satisfied since the second criterion is based
on a reference time that is relative to the first criterion being
satisfied.
[0315] Although the examples described above are mainly directed to
actions performed by devices of an established location, it should
be recognized that, in some examples, the user intent is associated
with an action performed by a device separate from the set of
devices of the established location. In particular, the device may
not be represented in the data structure. For example, the user
intent is associated with an action performed by the user device
(e.g., user device 104) or the server (e.g., DA server 106). In one
such example, the action includes causing a notification associated
with the criterion to be provided. For example, based on the
discourse input "Tell me when the front door is open," the
determined user intent is associated with the criterion of
detecting the front door being opened. The action to be performed
by the user device upon determining that the criterion is satisfied
includes causing a notification (e.g., text or speech) to be
provided at the user device. The notification indicates that the
front door has been opened. Other examples of discourse inputs
corresponding to actions performed by the user device include "Text
the baby sitter the entry passcode when she arrives," "Alert me
when the home alarm is triggered," "Tell me when someone turns on
the television," "Call the fire department when the smoke detector
goes off." In these examples, the criterion is associated with a
device of the established location, whereas the action is to be
performed by the user device.
[0316] At block 1110, the determined action and the determined
device to perform the action are stored in association with the
determined criterion. For example, instructions are stored based on
the determined action, device, and criterion. In particular, the
instructions cause the user device to continuously or periodically
monitor data associated with the criterion to determine whether the
criterion is satisfied. The data associated with the criterion is,
for example, data of the user device, data from a sensor of the
established location, or data indicating the operating state of a
device at the established location. In some examples, the data
associated with the criterion is actively retrieved by the device.
In some examples, the device passively receives the data associated
with the criterion and analyzes the data to determine whether the
criterion is satisfied.
[0317] The stored instructions further cause the user device to
perform a task in response to determining that the criterion is
satisfied. For example, the instructions cause the user device to
transmit a command that causes the action to be performed by the
device. The action is thus performed by the device in accordance
with a determination that the criterion is satisfied.
[0318] At block 1112, data associated with the criterion is
received. As discussed above, the data is received from a device of
the established location. In particular, returning to the example
discourse input "Close the blinds when it reaches 80 degrees," the
received data is temperature data from the thermostat of the
established location. The temperature data is periodically
transmitted by the thermostat and received by the user device. In
some examples, the user device actively retrieves the temperature
data from the thermostat. In other examples, the data is data
generated or obtained from the user device (e.g., time data, email
data, messages data, location data, sensors data, etc.). In yet
other examples, the data is retrieved from the data structure
(e.g., operating state, such as on/off, locked/unlocked,
open/close, etc.)
[0319] At block 1114, a determination is made from the received
data of block 1112 whether the criterion is satisfied. In
particular, the received data is analyzed to determine whether the
criterion is satisfied. For example, the received data indicates
that the thermostat is detecting a temperature of 84 degrees. Based
on the discourse input "Close the blinds when it reaches 80
degrees," the criterion is detecting a temperature of the
thermostat that is equal to or greater than the reference
temperature of 80 degrees. In this example, a determination is made
from the received data that the criterion has been satisfied.
[0320] In response to determining that the criterion has been
satisfied, block 1116 is performed. Conversely, in response to
determining that the criterion is not satisfied, process 1100
returns to block 1112 where new or updated data associated with the
criterion is received. Process 1100 thus forgoes performing block
1116 in response to determining that the criterion has not been
satisfied.
[0321] At block 1116, instructions that cause the device of the set
of devices to perform the action are provided. Returning to the
example discourse input "Close the blinds when it reaches 80
degrees," instructions are provided that cause the blinds to close.
Block 1116 is similar or identical to block 814, described
above.
5. Electronic Devices
[0322] FIG. 12 shows a functional block diagram of electronic
device 1200 configured in accordance with the principles of the
various described examples. The functional blocks of the device can
be optionally implemented by hardware, software, or a combination
of hardware and software to carry out the principles of the various
described examples. It is understood by persons of skill in the art
that the functional blocks described in FIG. 12 can be optionally
combined or separated into sub-blocks to implement the principles
of the various described examples. Therefore, the description
herein optionally supports any possible combination, separation, or
further definition of the functional blocks described herein.
[0323] As shown in FIG. 12, electronic device 1200 includes touch
screen display unit 1202 configured to display a graphical user
interface and to receive input (e.g., text input) from the user,
audio input unit 1204 configured to receive audio input (e.g.,
speech input) from the user, and communication unit 1206 configured
to transmit and receive information. Electronic device 1200 further
includes processing unit 1208 coupled to touch screen display unit
1202, audio input unit 1204, and communication unit 1206. In some
examples, processing unit 1208 includes receiving unit 1210,
determining unit 1212, retrieving unit 1214, providing unit 1216,
obtaining unit 1218, modifying unit 1220, outputting unit 1222,
detecting unit 1224, and storing unit 1226.
[0324] In accordance with some embodiments, processing unit 1208 is
configured to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1212 and via touch
screen display unit 1202 or audio input unit) discourse input
(e.g., discourse input of block 802) representing a user request.
Processing unit 1208 is further configured to determine (e.g., with
determining unit 1212) one or more possible device characteristics
(e.g., possible device characteristics of block 808) corresponding
to the discourse input. Processing unit 1208 is further configured
to retrieve (e.g., with retrieving unit 1214) a data structure
(e.g., data structure of block 806) representing a set of devices
of an established location. Processing unit 1208 is further
configured to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212), based
on the data structure, one or more candidate devices (e.g.,
candidate devices of block 810) from the set of devices. The one or
more candidate devices correspond to the discourse input.
Processing unit 1208 is further configured to determine (e.g., with
determining unit 1212), based on the one or more possible device
characteristics and one or more actual device characteristics of
the one or more candidate devices, a user intent (e.g., user intent
of block 812) corresponding to the discourse input. Processing unit
1208 is further configured to provide (e.g., with providing unit
1216 and communication unit 1206) instructions (e.g., instructions
of block 814) that cause a device of the one or more candidate
devices to perform an action corresponding to the user intent.
[0325] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises determining one or more candidate user intents (e.g.,
candidate user intents of block 812) corresponding to the discourse
input, and determining the user intent from the one or more
candidate user intents based on the one or more possible device
characteristics and the one or more actual device
characteristics.
[0326] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises determining the device (e.g., device of block 812) from
the one or more candidate devices based on the one or more possible
device characteristics and the one or more actual device
characteristics.
[0327] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212) one or more
overlapping device characteristics (e.g., overlapping device
characteristics of block 812) that are common between one or more
possible device characteristics and the one or more actual device
characteristics. The user intent is determined based on the one or
more overlapping device characteristics.
[0328] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212) a relative position
of a user with respect to a region in the established location
(e.g., block 812). The discourse input is associated with the user
and the user intent is determined based on the relative
position.
[0329] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to obtain (e.g., with obtaining unit 1218) an operating state of
each of the one or more candidate devices (e.g., block 812). The
user intent is determined based on the operating state of each of
the one or more candidate devices.
[0330] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises determining, based on the one or more possible device
characteristics and the one or more actual device characteristics,
a first candidate user intent corresponding to the discourse input
and a second candidate user intent corresponding to the discourse
input, determining a first salience of a first action associated
with the first candidate user intent and a second salience of a
second action associated with the second candidate user intent, and
ranking the first user intent and the second user intent based on
the first salience and the second salience (e.g., block 812). The
user intent is determined based on the ranking.
[0331] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises determining, based on the one or more possible device
characteristics and the one or more actual device characteristics,
two or more candidate user intents corresponding to the discourse
input and determining whether the two or more candidate user
intents can be disambiguated (e.g., block 812). Determining the
user intent further comprises, in response to determining that the
two or more candidate user intents cannot be disambiguated,
outputting dialogue that requests for additional information (e.g.,
block 812). Determining the user intent further comprises receiving
user input responsive to the output dialogue, and disambiguating
the two or more candidate user intents based on the user input to
determine the user intent (e.g., block 812).
[0332] In some examples, determining the one or more possible
device characteristics further comprises determining one or more
second possible device characteristics corresponding to a first
term in the discourse input, and determining one or more third
possible device characteristics corresponding to a second term in
the discourse input, wherein the one or more possible device
characteristics is determined based on the one or more second
possible device characteristics and the one or more third possible
device characteristics (e.g., block 808).
[0333] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212) whether the
discourse input corresponds to a domain (e.g., block 804), the
domain associated with an actionable intent of performing a task
based on a device of the established location. Retrieving the data
structure representing the set of devices of the established
location is performed in response to determining that the discourse
input corresponds to the domain.
[0334] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to retrieve (e.g., with retrieving unit 1214) contact information
based on a term in the discourse input, wherein the one or more
candidate devices of the set of devices is determined based on the
retrieved contact information (e.g., block 810).
[0335] In some examples, determining the one or more candidate
devices of the set of devices further comprises determining one or
more alternative terms associated with a second term in the
discourse input, wherein the one or more candidate devices is
determined based on the one or more alternative terms (e.g., block
810).
[0336] In some examples, an alternative term of the one or more
alternative terms is based on second user input received at the
electronic device prior to receiving the discourse input (e.g.,
block 810).
[0337] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212) a location
corresponding to the discourse input. Processing unit 1208 is
further configured to determine (e.g., with determining unit 1212),
based on the location, the established location from a plurality of
established locations (e.g., block 806).
[0338] In some examples, the data structure defines a hierarchical
relationship between a plurality of regions in the established
location, and a relationship between each device of the set of
devices and the plurality of regions (e.g., block 806).
[0339] In some examples, each device in the set of devices and each
region in the plurality of regions are identified in the data
structure with respect to a temporary session key associated with
the received discourse input (e.g., block 806).
[0340] In some examples, the data structure defines one or more
actual device characteristics associated with each device in the
set of devices (e.g., block 806). In some examples, the data
structure defines an operating state of each device in the set of
devices (e.g., block 806).
[0341] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1210) a first attribute of a
first device in the established location and a second attribute of
a second device in the established location. Processing unit 1208
is further configured to determine (e.g., with determining unit
1212), based on the first attribute and the second attribute, a
relationship between the first device and the second device with
respect to the established location. Processing unit 1208 is
further configured to provide (e.g., with providing unit 1216) a
prompt to modify the data structure based on the determined
relationship. Processing unit 1208 is further configured to receive
(e.g., with receiving unit 1210 and via touch screen display unit
1202 or audio input unit 1204) a third user input responsive to the
prompt. Processing unit 1208 is further configured to, in response
to receiving the third user input, modify (e.g., with modifying
unit 1220) the data structure to define the determined relationship
between the first device and the second device with respect to the
established location (e.g., block 806).
[0342] In some examples, the discourse input is in natural language
form, and the discourse input is ambiguous with respect to defining
the action (e.g., block 802). In some examples, the discourse input
is in natural language form, and the discourse input is ambiguous
with respect to defining the device for performing the action
(e.g., block 802).
[0343] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to, prior to providing the instructions, output (e.g., outputting
unit 1222) second dialogue confirming the action to be performed
and the device performing the action (e.g., block 814). Processing
unit 1208 is further configured to, prior to providing the
instructions, receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1210 and via touch
screen display unit 1202 or audio input unit 1204) a fourth user
input responsive to the second output dialogue (e.g., block 814).
The instructions are provide in response to receiving the fourth
user input.
[0344] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to detect (e.g., with detecting unit 1224), in association with an
event, one or more user inputs that cause a plurality of devices in
the set of devices to be set to respective operating states.
Processing unit 1208 is further configured to, in response to
detecting the one or more user inputs, provide (e.g., with
providing unit 1216) a second prompt to store the respective
operating states of the plurality of devices in association with a
custom command. Processing unit 1208 is further configured to,
receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1210 and via touch screen
display unit 1202 or audio input unit 1204) a user input responsive
to the second prompt. Processing unit 1208 is further configured
to, in response to receiving the fifth user input, store (e.g.,
with storing unit) the respective operating states of the plurality
of devices in association with the custom command, wherein in
response to receiving the custom command, the electronic device
causes the plurality of devices to be set to the respective
operating states (e.g., block 814).
[0345] In some examples, processing unit 1208 is further configured
to detect (e.g., with detecting unit 1224), in association with a
second plurality of devices in the set of devices being set to
second respective operating states, a sixth user input that causes
a third device in the set of devices to be set to a third operating
state, wherein the second respective operating states of the second
plurality of devices are stored in association with a second custom
command. Processing unit 1208 is further configured to, in response
to detecting the sixth user input, provide (e.g., with providing
unit 1216) a third prompt to store the third operating state of the
third device in association with the second custom command.
Processing unit 1208 is further configured to receive (e.g., with
receiving unit 1210 and via touch screen display unit 1202 or audio
input unit 1204) a seventh user input responsive to the third
prompt. Processing unit 1208 is further configured to, in response
to receiving the seventh user input, store storing the third
operating state of the third device in association with the second
custom command, wherein in response to receiving the second custom
command after storing the third operating state of the third device
in association with the second custom command, the electronic
device causes the second plurality of devices to be set to the
second respective operating states and the third device to be set
to the third operating state (e.g., block 814).
[0346] The operations described above with reference to FIG. 8 are
optionally implemented by components depicted in FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B,
7A, and 12. For example, the operations of process 800 may be
implemented by one or more of operating system 718, applications
module 724, I/O processing module 728, STT processing module 730,
natural language processing module 732, task flow processing module
736, service processing module 738, or processor(s) 220, 410, 704.
It would be clear to a person having ordinary skill in the art how
other processes are implemented based on the components depicted in
FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B, and 7A.
[0347] FIG. 13 shows a functional block diagram of electronic
device 13200 configured in accordance with the principles of the
various described examples. The functional blocks of the device can
be optionally implemented by hardware, software, or a combination
of hardware and software to carry out the principles of the various
described examples. It is understood by persons of skill in the art
that the functional blocks described in FIG. 13 can be optionally
combined or separated into sub-blocks to implement the principles
of the various described examples. Therefore, the description
herein optionally supports any possible combination, separation, or
further definition of the functional blocks described herein.
[0348] As shown in FIG. 13, electronic device 1300 includes touch
screen display unit 1302 configured to display a graphical user
interface and to receive input (e.g., text input) from the user,
audio input unit 1304 configured to receive audio input (e.g.,
speech input) from the user, and communication unit 1306 configured
to transmit and receive information. Electronic device 1300 further
includes processing unit 1308 coupled to touch screen display unit
1302, audio input unit 1304, and communication unit 1306. In some
examples, processing unit 1308 includes receiving unit 1310,
determining unit 1312, retrieving unit 1314, providing unit 1316,
and storing unit 1318.
[0349] In accordance with some embodiments, processing unit 1308 is
configured to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1310 and via touch
screen display unit 1302 or audio input unit 1304) discourse input
(e.g., discourse input of block 1102) representing a user request.
Processing unit 1708 is further configured to determine (e.g., with
determining unit 1312) whether the discourse input relates to a
device of an established location (e.g., block 1104). Processing
unit 1308 is further configured to, in response to determining that
the discourse input relates to a device of an established location,
retrieve (e.g., with retrieving 1314) a data structure (e.g., data
structure of block 1106) representing a set of devices of the
established location. Processing unit 1308 is further configured to
determine (e.g., with determining unit 1312), using the data
structure, a user intent (e.g., user intent of block 1108)
corresponding to the discourse input. The user intent is associated
with an action to be performed by a device of the set of devices
and a criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action.
Processing unit 1308 is further configured to store (e.g., with
storing unit 1318) the action and the device in association with
the criterion, wherein the action is performed by the device in
accordance with a determination that the criterion is satisfied
(e.g., block 1110).
[0350] In some examples, the criterion is associated with an actual
device characteristic of a second device of the set of devices
(e.g., block 1108).
[0351] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises 1) determining, based on the discourse input and data
structure, the actual device characteristic of the second device
(e.g., block 1108), and 2) determining, based on the data structure
and the discourse input, the second device from the set of devices
(e.g., block 1108).
[0352] In some examples, the criterion comprises a requirement that
an actual value representing the actual device characteristic is
greater than, equal to, or less than a threshold value (e.g.,
threshold value of block 1108).
[0353] In some examples, determining the user intent further
comprises determining, based on the discourse input, the threshold
value (e.g., block 1108).
[0354] In some examples, the actual device characteristic is
humidity, and the second device includes a humidity sensor (e.g.,
block 1108). In some examples, the actual device characteristic is
temperature, and the second device includes a temperature sensor
(e.g., block 1108). In some examples, the actual device
characteristic is brightness, and the second device includes a
brightness sensor (e.g., block 1108). In some examples, the actual
device characteristic is air quality, and wherein the second device
includes an air quality sensor (e.g., block 1108). In some
examples, the actual device characteristic is an authentication
characteristic, and the second device includes an authentication
device (e.g., block 1108).
[0355] In some examples, the criterion comprises a requirement that
a confidence value is greater than or equal to a threshold value
(e.g., block 1108). The confidence value represents a probability
that authentication data received from the authentication device
matches reference authentication data.
[0356] In some examples, the criterion is associated with an
operating state of a third device of the set of devices (e.g.,
block 1108). In some examples, the criterion comprises a
requirement that the operating state of the third device is equal
to a reference operating state (e.g., block 1108). In some
examples, the criterion comprises a requirement that the operating
state of the third device transitions from a second reference
operating state to a third reference operating state (e.g., block
1108). In some examples, the criterion comprises a requirement that
the action was performed less than a predetermined number of times
within a predetermined period of time (e.g., block 1108).
[0357] In some examples, the criterion comprises a requirement that
a time of electronic device 1300 is equal to or greater than a
reference time (e.g., block 1108). In some examples, determining
the user intent further comprises determining the reference time
from the discourse input (e.g., block 1108). In some examples,
determining the reference time further comprises 1) determining a
second reference time from the discourse input (e.g., block 1108),
and 2) determining a duration associated with the reference time,
wherein the reference time is determined based on the second
reference time and the duration (e.g., block 1108).
[0358] In some examples, processing unit 1308 is further configured
to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1310 and via communication
unit 1306) data (e.g., data of block 1112) associated with the
criterion. Processing unit 1308 is further configured to determine
(e.g., with determining unit 1312) from the received data whether
the criterion is satisfied (e.g., block 1114). Processing unit 1308
is further configured to, in response to determining that the
criterion is satisfied, provide (e.g., with providing unit 1316)
instructions (e.g., instructions of block 1116) that cause the
device of the set of devices to perform the action.
[0359] In some examples, the user intent is associated with a
second criterion to be satisfied prior to performing the action
(e.g., block 1108). In some examples, satisfying the second
criterion requires the criterion to be satisfied (e.g., block
1108).
[0360] In some examples, processing unit 1308 is further configured
to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1310 and via communication
unit 1306) second data associated with the second criterion (e.g.,
block 1112). Processing unit 1308 is further configured to
determine (e.g., with determining unit 1312) from the received
second data whether the second criterion is satisfied (e.g., block
1114), where the instructions are provided in response to
determining that the second criterion is satisfied (e.g., block
1116).
[0361] In some examples, the action includes providing a
notification associated with the criterion (e.g., block 1108). In
some examples, performing the action by the device causes a portion
of the device to change positions (e.g., block 1108). In some
examples, performing the action by the device causes a device to
lock or unlock (e.g., block 1108). In some examples, performing the
action by the device causes the device to be activated or
deactivated (e.g., block 1108). In some examples, performing the
action by the device causes a setpoint of the device to change
(e.g., block 1108).
[0362] In some examples, processing unit 1308 is further configured
to, in response to determining that the criterion is satisfied,
provide (e.g., with providing unit 1316) a prompt to perform the
action using the device (e.g., block 1116). Processing unit 1308 is
further configured to receive (e.g., with receiving unit 1310) a
user input responsive to the prompt (e.g., block 1116). Processing
unit 1308 is further configured to, in response to receiving the
user input, provide (e.g., with providing unit 1316) instructions
that cause the device to perform the action (e.g., block 1116).
[0363] The operations described above with reference to FIG. 11 are
optionally implemented by components depicted in FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B,
7A, and 13. For example, the operations of process 1100 are
implemented by one or more of operating system 718, applications
module 724, I/O processing module 728, STT processing module 730,
natural language processing module 732, task flow processing module
736, service processing module 738, or processor(s) 220, 410, 704.
It would be clear to a person having ordinary skill in the art how
other processes are implemented based on the components depicted in
FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B, and 7A.
[0364] In accordance with some implementations, a computer-readable
storage medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer readable storage
medium) is provided, the computer-readable storage medium storing
one or more programs for execution by one or more processors of an
electronic device, the one or more programs including instructions
for performing any of the methods or processes described
herein.
[0365] In accordance with some implementations, an electronic
device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that
comprises means for performing any of the methods or processes
described herein.
[0366] In accordance with some implementations, an electronic
device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that
comprises a processing unit configured to perform any of the
methods or processes described herein.
[0367] In accordance with some implementations, an electronic
device (e.g., a portable electronic device) is provided that
comprises one or more processors and memory storing one or more
programs for execution by the one or more processors, the one or
more programs including instructions for performing any of the
methods or processes described herein.
[0368] The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has
been described with reference to specific embodiments. However, the
illustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or
to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many
modifications and variations are possible in view of the above
teachings. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to
best explain the principles of the techniques and their practical
applications. Others skilled in the art are thereby enabled to best
utilize the techniques and various embodiments with various
modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
[0369] Although the disclosure and examples have been fully
described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be
noted that various changes and modifications will become apparent
to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to
be understood as being included within the scope of the disclosure
and examples as defined by the claims.
[0370] As described above, one aspect of the present technology is
the gathering and use of data available from various sources to
improve the delivery to users of invitational content or any other
content that may be of interest to them. The present disclosure
contemplates that in some instances, this gathered data may include
personal information data that uniquely identifies or can be used
to contact or locate a specific person. Such personal information
data can include demographic data, location-based data, telephone
numbers, email addresses, home addresses, device characteristics of
personal devices, or any other identifying information.
[0371] The present disclosure recognizes that the use of such
personal information data, in the present technology, can be used
to the benefit of users. For example, the personal information data
can be used to deliver targeted content that is of greater interest
to the user. Accordingly, use of such personal information data
enables calculated control of the delivered content. Further, other
uses for personal information data that benefit the user are also
contemplated by the present disclosure.
[0372] The present disclosure further contemplates that the
entities responsible for the collection, analysis, disclosure,
transfer, storage, or other use of such personal information data
will comply with well-established privacy policies and/or privacy
practices. In particular, such entities should implement and
consistently use privacy policies and practices that are generally
recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmental
requirements for maintaining personal information data private and
secure. For example, personal information from users should be
collected for legitimate and reasonable uses of the entity and not
shared or sold outside of those legitimate uses. Further, such
collection should occur only after receiving the informed consent
of the users. Additionally, such entities would take any needed
steps for safeguarding and securing access to such personal
information data and ensuring that others with access to the
personal information data adhere to their privacy policies and
procedures. Further, such entities can subject themselves to
evaluation by third parties to certify their adherence to widely
accepted privacy policies and practices.
[0373] Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also
contemplates embodiments in which users selectively block the use
of, or access to, personal information data. That is, the present
disclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software elements can
be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information
data. For example, in the case of advertisement delivery services,
the present technology can be configured to allow users to select
to "opt in" or "opt out" of participation in the collection of
personal information data during registration for services. In
another example, users can select not to provide location
information for targeted content delivery services. In yet another
example, users can select to not provide precise location
information, but permit the transfer of location zone
information.
[0374] Therefore, although the present disclosure broadly covers
use of personal information data to implement one or more various
disclosed embodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates
that the various embodiments can also be implemented without the
need for accessing such personal information data. That is, the
various embodiments of the present technology are not rendered
inoperable due to the lack of all or a portion of such personal
information data. For example, content can be selected and
delivered to users by inferring preferences based on non-personal
information data or a bare minimum amount of personal information,
such as the content being requested by the device associated with a
user, other non-personal information available to the content
delivery services, or publically available information.
* * * * *