Talking your way around a conference: a speech interface for remote equipment control

Videoconferencing enables people to attend and participate in meetings from remote locations. The key problem faced by electronic attendees is the limited sense of engagement offered by the audiovisual channel. The attendee is typically restricted to a single view of the room and has no ability to interact with presentation technology at the conference site. As a first step to improving the situation we want to assign electronic attendees a view of the room appropriate to their particular “social roles,” which may include presenting a topic, listening to a talk, or participating in a discussion. However, attendees may change roles during a meeting, thus requiring a different position and view more suited to the new role. This involves switching video inputs and outputs to new cameras and monitors. One possible method to enable video attendees to effect these changes independently is to provide them with the same graphical user interface (GUI) that the central site has to control the equipment. Unfortunately, using state-of-the-art systems for such control is often confusing and complex. Furthermore, this solution requires the attendees to have “extra” computer equipment (i.e. equipment not already required for videoconferencing) and learn how to operate the GUI. Instead, using speech recognition and video overlay technologies, we are able to provide a non-technical interface to equipment in the meeting room. In doing so, we do not require any extra equipment at the attendees’ sites. Our approach provides attendees with the means of controlling their own view of the meeting, changing electronic seats, and manipulating equipment remotely, all through simple voice commands.