System and method for allowing family members to access TV contents and program media recorder over telephone or internet

摘要

Users of the system can access the TV contents and program media recorder by speaking in natural language sentences. The user interacts with the television and with other multimedia equipment, such as media recorders and VCRs, through the unified access controller. A speaker verification/identification module determines the identity of the speaker and this information is used to control how the dialog between user and system proceeds. Speech can be input through either a microphone or over the telephone. In addition, the user can interact with the system using a suitable computer attached via the internet. Regardless of the mode of access, the unified access controller interprets the semantic content of the user's request and supplies the appropriate control signals to the television tuner and/or recorder.