Electronic device and method

Abstract

According to one embodiment, an electronic device records an audio signal, determines a plurality of user-specific utterance features within the audio signal, the plurality of user-specific utterance features including a first set of user specific-utterance features associated with the registered user and a second set of user-specific utterance features associated with the unregistered user, and displays the identifier of the registered user differently than an identifier of the unregistered user.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An electronic device comprising:
 a microphone configured to obtain audio and convert the audio into a first audio signal, the first audio including utterances from a first user and utterances from a second user, wherein one of the first user or the second user is a registered user and the other of the first user or second user is an unregistered user;   a memory, wherein the memory stores an identifier associated with the registered user; and   a hardware processor in communication with the memory, the hardware processor configured to:
 record the first audio signal; 
 determine a plurality of user-specific utterance features within the first audio signal, the plurality of user-specific utterance features including a first set of user specific-utterance features associated with the registered user and a second set of user-specific utterance features associated with the unregistered user; 
 display the identifier of the registered user differently than an identifier of the unregistered user. 
   
     
     
         2 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to:
 identify the first set of user-specific utterance features associated with the registered user from a second audio signal;   register the first set of user-specific utterance features with the registered user by associating the user-specific utterance feature with the identifier of the first user in the memory; and   determine which portions of the second audio signal correspond to utterances from the first user based at least in part on the user-specific utterance features associated with the identifier of the first user stored in the memory.   
     
     
         3 . The electronic device of  claim 2 , wherein the second audio signal comprises a portion of the first audio signal. 
     
     
         4 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to provisionally register a user name entered in accordance with a user's operation to cause the user name to be registered with a next user-specific utterance feature if a next user-specific utterance feature is registered. 
     
     
         5 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein at least some of the user-specific utterance features are weighted, and
 the hardware processor is further configured to, delete a user-specific utterance feature in response to a number of registered user-specific utterance features satisfying a threshold, wherein the user-specific utterance feature selected for deletion is selected based at least in part on a weight associated with the user-specific utterance feature.   
     
     
         6 . The electronic device of  claim 5 , wherein weights associated with at least some of the user-specific utterance features are updated in response to new registration of the user-specific utterance feature. 
     
     
         7 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to display one or more user names registered with the user-specific utterance features in a selectable form as a correction candidate in response to a command to correct an identifier. 
     
     
         8 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to display on a display screen an identifier of a user-specific utterance feature registered one time differently than the identifier of the registered user and the identifier of the unregistered. 
     
     
         9 . The electronic device of  claim 8 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to display a tutorial screen prompting entry of a user name in response to the audio signal without including user-specific utterance features associated with the registered user and without including user-specific utterance features associated with the unregistered user. 
     
     
         10 . The electronic device of  claim 8 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured to display the tutorial screen in response to the audio signal including a user-specific utterance feature associated with the unregistered user, a user-specific utterance feature registered one time, and a number of times a tutorial screen prompting entry of a user name is displayed is less than a display threshold. 
     
     
         11 . The electronic device of  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor comprises a means for:
 recording utterances obtained by the microphone;   determining whether the recorded utterances include user-specific utterance features stored in the memory; and   displaying on a display screen visual representations of the utterances from the first user and visual representations of the utterances from the second user the plurality, wherein the visual representations of the utterances from the first user are distinguishable from the visual representation of the utterances from the second user.   
     
     
         12 . A method comprising:
 recording an audio signal generated by a microphone receiving audio that includes utterances from a first user and utterances from a second user;   determining whether the audio signal includes user-specific utterance features stored in a memory; and   displaying a visual representation of the audio signal on a display screen, wherein a visual representation of the utterances of the first user are displayed in a first row and a visual representation of the utterances of the second user are displayed in a second row, wherein the first row is labelled with a first identifier associated with the first user when the first user is registered, wherein the first identifier is stored in the memory, and wherein the second row is labelled with an unregistered identifier when the second user is unregistered.