WO2024130599A1

WO2024130599A1 - Method for an electronic digital assistant taking over an assignment

Info

Publication number: WO2024130599A1
Application number: PCT/CN2022/140763
Authority: WO
Inventors: Lee M Proctor; Yong Tian
Original assignee: Motorola Solutions Inc
Current assignee: Motorola Solutions Inc
Priority date: 2022-12-21
Filing date: 2022-12-21
Publication date: 2024-06-27
Anticipated expiration: 2025-06-21
Also published as: EP4627434A1

Abstract

An electronic digital assistant detects an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled. The digital assistant determines if monitoring fulfillment of the condition can be performed by an electronic processing device and if the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device. If both, monitoring condition and performing an assignment, can be done by the electronic processing device, digital assistant initiates monitoring fulfillment of the condition, and performs the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.

Description

METHOD FOR AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL ASSISTANT TAKING OVER AN ASSIGNMENT

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Tablets, laptops, phones (e.g., cellular or satellite) , mobile (vehicular) or portable (personal) two-way radios, and other mobile computing devices are now in common use by users, such as first responders (including firemen, police officers, and paramedics, among others) , and provide such users and others with instant access to increasingly valuable additional information and resources such as vehicle histories, arrest records, outstanding warrants, health information, real-time traffic or other situational status information, and any other information that may aid the user in making a more informed determination of an action to take or how to resolve a situation, among other possibilities.

Many such mobile computing devices further comprise, or provide access to, digital assistants (or sometimes referenced to as “virtual partners” ) that can provide the user thereof with valuable information in an automated (e.g., without further user input) or semi-automated (e.g., with some further user input) fashion.

As some existing examples, electronic digital assistants such as Siri provided by Apple,

and Google Now provided by Google,

are software applications running on underlying electronic hardware that are capable of understanding natural language, and may complete electronic tasks in response to user voice inputs, among other additional or alternative types of inputs. These electronic digital assistants may perform such tasks as taking and storing voice dictation for future reference and retrieval, reading a received text message or an e-mail message aloud, warning users of nearby dangers such as traffic accidents or environmental hazards, and providing many other types of information in a reactive or proactive manner.

A digital assistant may be employed in a public-safety environment, so that simple tasks requested by an officer or dispatch center is performed by the digital assistant. Such tasks include such things as, but not limited to, a request for a status update, filtering un-needed messages during busy times, a query of a public safety database for one of a name, physical attribute, address, birth date, vehicle ownership, property ownership, or past criminal activity associated with a person or entity mentioned in the query, etc.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification and serve to further illustrate various embodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and to explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating a system for operating an electronic digital assistant, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a system diagram illustrating a plurality of communication devices of FIG. 1 that are associated with a talk group and that may be located at varying locations, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 3 is a device diagram showing a device structure of an electronic computing device for operating an electronic digital assistant, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart setting forth process steps for operating the electronic digital assistant of FIGs. 1 and/or 3, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates a communication between the users and the digital assistant in in an example case.

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In order to reduce the workload of first responders, a method, apparatus, and non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium for taking over an assignment by an electronic digital assistant is provided herein. During operation a digital assistant will detect an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled. The digital assistant will determine if an electronic processing device can monitor for the condition being fulfilled and if the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device. If both, monitoring fulfillment of the condition and performing an assignment, can be done by the electronic processing device, the digital assistant will initiate monitoring fulfillment of the condition and will perform the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.

Turning now to the drawings, wherein like numerals designate like components, FIG. 1 illustrates an operational environment for the present invention, a communication system 100.

As shown in FIG. 1, a public-safety officer (a first user) 110 has an array of devices to use during the officer’s shift. For example, the officer 110 may have one communication device, for example radio, 112 and one camera 114. The officer 110 may also have other devices, for example, a wireless microphone, a smart watch, smart handcuffs, a man-down sensor, etc. All devices used by the officer are configured to form a personal area network (PAN) by associating (pairing) with each other and communicating wirelessly among the devices. One or several devices may be configured with a digital assistant (virtual partner) .

FIG. 1 illustrates also an additional second user 120 with respective additional set of same or similar devices as the first officer 110, namely a second radio 122 and a second camera 124. Second user 120 may be geographically proximate to (or not geographically proximate to) the first officer 110. The second user 120 may also be a public-safety officer, for example a supervisor of the officer 110. In some embodiments the second user 120 may be a paramedic or a firefighter being assigned to a same incident scene as the officer 110.

System 100 further includes one or more radio access networks (RANs) 142, a public-safety core network 144, computer 146 with an internal or external memory 148 storing the databases, server 150 coupled to a database 151 and communication links 141, 143, 131, 132.

RAN 142 includes typical RAN elements such as base stations, base station controllers (BSCs) , routers, switches, and the like, arranged, connected, and programmed to provide wireless service to user equipment in a manner known to those of skill in the relevant art. RAN 142 may implement a direct-mode, conventional, or trunked land mobile radio (LMR) standard or protocol such as European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) , a Project 25 (P25) standard defined by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) , Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) , or other LMR radio protocols or standards. In other embodiments, RAN 142 may implement a Long Term Evolution (LTE) , LTE-Advance, or 5G protocol including multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS) or single site point-to-multipoint (SC-PTM) over which an open mobile alliance (OMA) push to talk (PTT) over cellular (OMA-PoC) , a voice over IP (VoIP) , an LTE Direct or LTE Device to Device, or a PTT over IP (PoIP) application may be implemented. In still further embodiments, RAN 142 may implement a Wi-Fi protocol perhaps in accordance with an IEEE 802.11 standard (e.g., 802.11a, 802.11 b, 802.11g) or a WiMAX protocol perhaps operating in accordance with an IEEE 802.16 standard.

In the example of FIG. 1, the radio 112 may form the hub of communication connectivity for the officer 110, through which other accessory devices such as camera 114 or a smart watch may communicatively couple. In order to communicate with and exchange video, audio, and/or other media and communications with the accessory devices the radio 112 may contain one or more physical electronic ports (such as a USB port, an Ethernet port, an audio jack, etc. ) for direct electronic coupling with the accessory devices and/or may contain a short-range transmitter (e.g., in comparison to the long-range transmitter such as a LMR or Broadband transmitter) and/or transceiver for wirelessly coupling with the accessory devices. The short-range transmitter may be a Bluetooth, Zigbee, or NFC transmitter having a transmit range on the order of 0.01-100 meters, or 0.1 –10 meters. In other embodiments, the accessory devices may contain their own long-range transceivers and may communicate with one another and/or with the infrastructure RAN 142 directly without passing through

radio

112 or 122, over respective wireless communication link (s) 131, 132.

In other embodiments, a hub may be formed by any other suitable computing and communication device configured to serve as a PAN primary device and to engage in wireless communication with the RAN 142 over the air interface as is known to those in the relevant art.

Public-safety core network 144 may include one or more packet-switched networks and/or one or more circuit-switched networks, and in general provides one or more public-safety agencies with any necessary computing and communication needs, transmitting any necessary public-safety-related data and communications.

It should also be noted that any one or more of the communication links 141, 143, could include one or more wireless-communication links and/or one or more wired-communication links.

Server 150 serves as a search engine and performs searching of database 151 as is commonly known in the art. Server 150 may comprise a commercial search server such as, but not limited to

etc. Alternatively, server 150 may comprise a proprietary, internal server that performs searching on internal databases, such as agency criminal records and other types of internal agency databases. Regardless of what type of search engine is provided, server 150 can receive a query from the radio 112 associated with the officer 110, search database 151, obtain result of the query and provide a response.

As shown, server 150 is communicatively coupled to the database 151. Database 151 comprises information to be searched. For example, database 151 may comprise electronic web site addresses and content, electronic crime history records, electronic department of motor vehicle (DMV) data , an electronic video repository, an electronic image repository, etc. It should be noted that although only one server 150 is shown coupled to database 151, there may exist many servers 150 providing searching capabilities, with each server 150 having its own database 151. In some embodiments, database 151 can be also stored in cloud.

In one embodiment of the present invention, server 150 is shown as a separate entity from computer 146. However, in an alternate embodiment of the present invention, server 150 may lie internal to computer 146.

Computer 146 comprises, or is part of a computer-aided-dispatch center, manned by a dispatcher 145, providing necessary dispatch operations. For example, computer 146 is a part of a dispatch console that comprises a graphical user interface that provides the dispatcher necessary information about public-safety officers or other users (paramedics, firefighters) . Some of this information originates from accessory devices providing information to radio 112, which forwards the information to RAN 142 and ultimately to computer 146. Computer 146 may be further configured to receive and store information about the users (for example first responders) , their assignments (which officers are engaged in a certain task) , current location, etc. The information is preferably stored in a dedicated database in memory 148.

Many of the devices shown in FIG. 1 (such as the radio 112, the radio 122 and the dispatch console of the dispatcher 145) may be referred to as communication devices (for example, communication devices 200A, 200B, 200C shown in FIG. 2) .

For example, as shown in FIG. 2, multiple communication devices 200A-200C may form a talk group 250 and may be dispersed across a wide geographic area. The communication device 200A may be associated with a first user located at a first location, the communication device 200B may be associated with a second user located at a second location, and the communication device 200C may be associated with a third user located at a third location. The first, second, and third locations may be geographically the same or different from one another.

Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the communication devices 200A, 200B, and 200C are members of the same talk group, i.e., talk group 250. Although not shown in FIG. 2, each of the communication devices 200A, 200B, 200C may also be associated with one or more talk groups other than the talk group 250.

FIG. 3 sets forth a schematic diagram that illustrates an electronic processing device 300 for an electronic digital assistant taking over an assignment. In an embodiment, the device is embodied within computer 146, however in alternate embodiments the device may be embodied within the public-safety core network 144, or computing device (s) in a cloud compute cluster (not shown) , radio 112, or some other communication device not illustrated in FIG. 1, and/or may be a distributed communication device across two or more of such entities.

FIG. 3 shows those components (not all of which may be necessary) for device 300 to provide virtual-partner functionality. Device 300 may include a wide-area-network (WAN) transceiver 301 (e.g., a transceiver that utilizes a public-safety communication-system protocol) , Natural Language Processor (NLP) 302, and logic circuitry 303 (which may serve as a digital assistant) . In other implementations, device 300 may include more, fewer, or different components. Regardless, all components are connected via common data busses.

WAN transceiver 301 may comprise well known long-range transceivers that utilize any number of network system protocols. (As one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize, a transceiver comprises both a transmitter and a receiver for transmitting and receiving data) . For example, WAN transceiver 301 may be configured to utilize a next-generation cellular communications protocol operated by a cellular service provider, or any public-safety protocol such as an APCO 25 network or the FirstNet broadband network. WAN transceiver 301 receives communications from officers. It should be noted that WAN transceiver 301 is shown as part of device 300, however, WAN transceiver 301 may be located in RAN 142 (e.g., a base station of RAN 142) , with a direct link to device 300.

NLP 302 may be a well-known circuitry to analyze, understand, and derive meaning from human language in a smart and useful way. By utilizing NLP 302, automatic summarization, translation, named entity recognition, relationship extraction, sentiment analysis, speech recognition, and topic segmentation can take place.

Logic circuitry 303 comprises a digital signal processor (DSP) , general purpose microprocessor, a programmable logic device, and/or application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) .

Logic circuitry 303, along with NLP 302, can be configured to serve as a digital assistant/virtual partner in order to perform tasks requested by an officer or dispatch center. Such tasks include such things as, but not limited to, a request for a status update, filtering un-needed messages during busy times, a query of a public safety database for one of a name, physical attribute, address, birth date, vehicle ownership, property ownership, or past criminal activity associated with a person or entity mentioned in the query, etc.

. For example, logic circuitry 303 may provide the user thereof with valuable information in an automated (e.g., without further user input) or semi-automated (e.g., with some further user input) fashion. The valuable information provided to the user may be based on explicit requests for such information posed by the user via an input (e.g., such as a parsed natural language input or an electronic touch interface manipulation associated with an explicit request) in which the electronic digital assistant may reactively provide such requested valuable information, or may be based on some other set of one or more context or triggers in which the electronic digital assistant may proactively provide such valuable information to the user absent any explicit request from the user.

Logic circuitry 303 may be further configured to detect an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled, determine that monitoring for the condition being fulfilled can be performed by the electronic processing device 300, determine that the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device 300, initiate monitoring to determine that the condition was fulfilled, and perform the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.

In some embodiments, an electronic processing device for an electronic digital assistant to take over an assignment may be operable to perform, among other functions, all or a portion of the methods described herein.

Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium having program instructions stored thereon that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform, all or a portion of the methods described herein.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow chart diagram of a process 400 performed by an electronic processing device such as device 300 for an electronic digital assistant taking over an assignment. While a particular order of processing steps, message receptions, and/or message transmissions is indicated in FIG. 4 as an example, timing and ordering of such steps, receptions, and transmissions may vary where appropriate without negating the purpose and advantages of the examples set forth in detail throughout the remainder of this disclosure.

Process 400 begins at step 402, where the electronic processing device 300 detects an assignment to be performed by a first user 110 when a condition is fulfilled.

The electronic processing device 300 may detect the assignment based on an audio inquiry (i.e. a voice command) , for example received from a second user 120. The electronic processing device 300 may additionally or alternatively detect the assignment by monitoring communications, for example audio communications received by the first user 110 via his communication device 112, on a talk group channel associated with the talk group of the first user 110 and/or on a private call. In other embodiments, the electronic processing device 300 may detect the assignment by receiving an input audio signal being a multi-party voice dialog (for example between a first user and a second user) captured by a communication device (for example by a microphone of the communication device 112 or a wireless microphone) . In this embodiment, the first user and the second user may be a police officer and his supervisor talking at an incident scene.

In accordance with some embodiments, the electronic digital assistant (for example, implemented at the communication device 112 of the first user 110 or at one or more other electronic computing devices in the system 100) receives signals representative of the audio inquiry and analyzes the signals to identify the intent and/or content of the audio inquiry. For example, the electronic digital assistant processes the audio inquiry via a NLP 302 to identify the intent and/or content of the audio inquiry. In accordance with some embodiments, the electronic digital assistant identifies that the intent and/or content of the audio inquiry indicates a need to perform an assignment by the first user when a condition is fulfilled. In this case, the electronic digital assistant processes the audio inquiry to extract information related to: the assignment to be completed by the first user and the condition that has to be fulfilled before the assignment is performed. As used herein, the term assignment indicates one or more tasks assigned to be performed by the first user, and the tasks may include, but not limited to, one or more of: reporting arrival at a destination or providing an information regarding the destination, activating a device, contacting a particular person, taking a picture or recording an audio and/or a video.

Other possibilities to detect an assignment to be performed by a first user 110 exist as well, for example the assignment can be passed by a text message, a video message, an instant message, e-mail or as a task assigned to the user from a computer-aided-dispatch center or other system.

At step 404, the electronic processing device determines that the assignment to be completed by the first user, identified in the previous step, can be performed by the electronic processing device. In some embodiments this step can be performed by determining that the identified assignment matches one of the predefined commands for the digital assistant.

At step 406, the electronic processing device determines that monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled can be performed by the electronic processing device. In this step the electronic processing device determines for example if it has access to electronic sensors, parameters, devices, relevant databases, communication channels or any other type of data, that have to be monitored to determine if the condition was fulfilled. For example if the task is “Go to X and report your arrival” the electronic processing device determines if it has access to a GPS sensor indicating location of the first user. In another example, the task is “Call witness A and book an interrogation room if he agrees to testify tomorrow” and the electronic processing device determines if it has access to telephone calls and a telephone network to monitor communication of first user with witness A. In still other example, the task is “Let me know when battery of your camera is low” and the electronic processing device determines if it has access to the status of a battery of camera 114.

Steps

404 and 406 can be performed simultaneously or in any order.

At optional step 408, the electronic processing device asks the first user for permission to perform the assignment by the electronic processing device. This can be done for example by generating an audio communication comprising request for permission to perform the assignment (for example “Do you want digital assistant to report your arrival at the destination X? ” ) and transmitting the audio communications via a first users’ communication device, for example radio 112. At step 410, the electronic processing device receives permission from the first user. The first user may grant his or her permission using his or her communication device, for example by replying to the audio communication or by pressing a predefined button. Optionally, the electronic processing device may be configured to automatically monitor for the condition being fulfilled and to automatically perform the assignment without further necessary user input or action, but may still notify the user in some manner that it will handle the assignment.

In some embodiments, step 408 may be preceded by a step (not shown) in which the electronic processing device asks the first user for permission to initiate monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled. In some embodiments,

steps

408 and 410 can be performed in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled (for example “You arrived at the destination X, do you want me to report your arrival? ” ) . In other embodiments,

steps

408 and 410 can be omitted.

At step 412, the electronic processing device initiates monitoring for determining if the condition was fulfilled. Depending of the nature of the condition, monitoring may be performed continuously or periodically. For example if the task is “Call witness A and book an interrogation room if he agrees to testify tomorrow” the electronic processing device has to continuously monitor the communication of the first user with the witness A (for example telephone calls) to determine if the condition (witness A agreed to testify tomorrow) was fulfilled. In other example, the task is “Let me know when battery of you camera is low” , so the state of the battery can be checked every 2 or 5 or 10 minutes. If the task is “Let me know when your incident report is ready” the condition (status of the incident report in a police system changed to “ready” ) can be checked even less frequently, for example every hour.

In some embodiments, fulfilling the condition comprises performing a primary assignment by the first user, for example “go to destination X and take a picture of building Y” or “upload a video from your camera and let me know when it’s done” . In other embodiments the first user 110 cannot affect the fulfillment of the condition (for example “Let me know when battery of your camera is low” ) .

At step 414, the electronic processing device determines that the condition was fulfilled. At step 416, the electronic processing device performs the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.

In some embodiments, the condition is an arrival at a destination. The assignment to be performed by the first user may include, but not limited to, one or more of: reporting arrival at the destination, providing an information regarding the destination (temperature, weather, gate open/closed etc. ) , activating a device upon arrival (for example body worn camera 114 or a fixed video camera at the destination) , contacting a particular person (for example the second user 120) , taking a picture or recording an audio and/or video at the destination. Taking a picture may include video analytics to detect that a requested object or person of interest is in the field of view of the camera.

The electronic processing device may notify the first user that the assignment was performed. Additionally or alternatively the first user may be notified about initiating monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled or the assignment is being taken over by the electronic processing device. For example, the electronic processing device may compose a text message notification, an e-mail notification, an audio notification, a video notification or an instant message notification, and provide the notification to the first user 110 by providing the composed notification to a text message server, e-mail server, an audio response server, a video response server or instant message server accompanying identities of the notification for further distribution of the notification to the first user 110. The received text message, e-mail, an audio notification, a video notification or instant message could then be displayed or played back (e.g., via a text-to-voice feature) at the first user’s device according to first user’s device’s configuration.

FIG. 5 shows the method in an example case of a police officer Smith (first user 110) receiving an assignment from Captain Johnson (second user 120) to go to location X and report his arrival. Electronic processing device 300 monitors communication 502 between Smith’s and Johnson’s

communication devices

112 and 122 and detects 504 an assignment (report arrival) and a condition (when you get to location X) . Electronic processing device 300 determines 506 that it has access to data regarding Smith’s location (for example GPS tracker) and is able to send notifications to Johnson. Electronic processing device 300 generates an audio communication 508, comprising a request for permission to perform the assignment ( “Do you want me to report your arrival? ” ) and transmits the audio communications via Smith’s radio 112. Smith grants his permission by replying “Yes” 510 to the audio communication.

Electronic processing device 300 initiates monitoring 512 to determine if the condition was fulfilled and tracks Smith’s location. When electronic processing device 300 determines 514 that Smith arrived at location X, electronic processing device 300 causes notifications to be sent to Smith’s and Johnson’s radios. Johnson receives audio communication “Smith arrived at location X “516, and Smith receives audio communication “I reported your arrival at location X to Johnson” 518.

In some embodiments, all actions taken by the electronic processing device and/or all communications or notifications generated by the electronic processing device can be reported to the computer 146 that comprises, or is part of a computer-aided-dispatch center. In such a case, dispatch center may be aware of digital assistant actions taken and records may be stored for future evidence collection or scene recreation.

In some embodiments, some of audio communications generated by the electronic processing device, for example communications notifying that the condition was fulfilled or that the assignment was performed by the electronic processing device, can be transmitted to the talk group channel associated with the talk group of the first user 110 or a talk group of users involved in the assignment.

CONCLUSION

In accordance with the foregoing, an improved device, method, and system is disclosed for an electronic digital assistant taking over an assignment.

As a result of the foregoing, and in some embodiments, electronic digital assistants may take over an assignment that is assigned to a user and has to be performed when a condition is fulfilled. Therefore, in some embodiments the user can focus on activities leading to fulfilling the condition. In other embodiments, especially when the user cannot affect the fulfillment of the condition, the invention enables that the assignment is fulfilled even if the user forgets about it or is too busy to do it. Other features and advantages are possible as well.

In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present teachings. The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element (s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.

Moreover, in this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms "comprises, " "comprising, " “has” , “having, ” “includes” , “including, ” “contains” , “containing” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises …a” , “has …a” , “includes …a” , “contains …a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms “a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. The terms “substantially” , “essentially” , “approximately” , “about” or any other version thereof, are defined as being close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and in one non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, in another embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1%and in another embodiment within 0.5%. The term “one of” , without a more limiting modifier such as “only one of” , and when applied herein to two or more subsequently defined options such as “one of A and B” should be construed to mean an existence of any one of the options in the list alone (e.g., A alone or B alone) or any combination of two or more of the options in the list (e.g., A and B together) .

A device or structure that is “configured” in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed.

The terms “coupled” , “coupling” or “connected” as used herein can have several different meanings depending on the context in which these terms are used. For example, the terms coupled, coupling, or connected can have a mechanical or electrical connotation. For example, as used herein, the terms coupled, coupling, or connected can indicate that two elements or devices are directly connected to one another or connected to one another through intermediate elements or devices via an electrical element, electrical signal or a mechanical element depending on the particular context.

It will be appreciated that some embodiments may be comprised of one or more generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices” ) such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored program instructions (including both software and firmware) that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of the method and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) , in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used.

Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a computer (e.g., comprising a processor) to perform a method as described and claimed herein. Any suitable computer-usable or computer readable medium may be utilized. Examples of such computer-readable storage mediums include, but are not limited to, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a ROM (Read Only Memory) , a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) , an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) , an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flash memory. In the context of this document, a computer- usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus that may be on or off-premises, or may be accessed via the cloud in any of a software as a service (SaaS) , platform as a service (PaaS) , or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) architecture.

It is contemplated that any part of any aspect or embodiment discussed in this specification can be implemented or combined with any part of any other aspect or embodiment discussed in this specification.

Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation. For example, computer program code for carrying out operations of various example embodiments may be written in an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++, Python, or the like. However, the computer program code for carrying out operations of various example embodiments may also be written in conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on a computer, partly on the computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the computer and partly on a remote computer or server or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer or server may be connected to the computer through a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN) , or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider) .

The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.

Claims

A method for an electronic digital assistant taking over an assignment, the method comprising:

detecting, by an electronic processing device, an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled;

determining, by the electronic processing device, that monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled can be performed by the electronic processing device;

determining, by the electronic processing device, that the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device;

initiating, by the electronic processing device, monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled, and

performing the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of initiating monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled or the step of performing the assignment is performed in response to receiving a permission from a first user.
The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting an assignment to be performed by a first user comprises monitoring a communication.
The method according to claim 3, wherein the communication is at least one of an audio communication, text communication or video communication between the first user and at least a second user.
The method according to claim 1, wherein determining that the condition was fulfilled comprises detecting that the first user performed a primary assignment.
The method according to claim 1, further comprising notifying the first user about one or more: initiating monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled, the assignment being taken over by the electronic processing device, the assignment being performed.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the condition is an arrival at a destination.
The method according to claim 7, wherein the assignment is one or more of: reporting arrival, providing an information regarding the destination, activating a device, contacting a particular person, taking a picture or recording an audio and/or video.
An electronic processing device for an electronic digital assistant to take over an assignment, the electronic processing device comprising:

an electronic processor; and

a communication interface communicatively coupled to the electronic processor,

wherein the electronic processor is configured to:

detect an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled;

determine that monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled can be performed by the electronic processing device;

determine that the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device;

initiate monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled, and

perform the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.
The electronic processing device according to claim 9, wherein the electronic processor is further configured to receive a permission from a first user to initiate monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled or a permission from a first user to perform the assignment, and configured to perform a respective step in response to receiving respective permission.
The electronic processing device according to claim 9, wherein detecting an assignment to be performed by a first user comprises monitoring a communication.
The electronic processing device according to claim 11, wherein the communication is an audio communication between the first user and at least a second user.
The electronic processing device according to claim 9, wherein fulfilling the condition comprises performing a primary assignment by the first user.
The electronic processing device according to claim 9, wherein the electronic processor is further configured to notify the first user about one or more: initiating monitoring if the condition was fulfilled, the assignment being taken over by the electronic processing device, the assignment being performed.
The electronic processing device according to claim 9, wherein the condition is an arrival at a destination.
The electronic processing device according to claim 15, wherein the assignment is one or more of: reporting arrival, providing an information regarding the destination, activating a device, contacting a particular person, taking a picture or recording an audio and/or video.
A non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium having program instructions stored thereon that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:

detect an assignment to be performed by a first user when a condition is fulfilled;

determine that monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled can be performed by an electronic processing device;

determine that the assignment can be performed by the electronic processing device;

initiate monitoring to determine if the condition was fulfilled, and

perform the assignment in response to determining that the condition was fulfilled.