Patents Examined by Friedrich W Fahnert
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Patent number: 9894456Abstract: A system and method is provided for selecting an audio tuning profile to apply to audio signals to generate a sound field acoustically optimized at least at one listening position in a listening environment, such as a vehicle passenger compartment. Each audio tuning profile may include a number of audio settings to be applied to an audio signal at one or more audio loudspeaker channels. The audio tuning profile may be selected based on the content or the source of the audio data signals. Thus, audio tuning may be based on the context of the audio.Type: GrantFiled: November 24, 2015Date of Patent: February 13, 2018Assignee: Harman International Industries, IncorporatedInventors: Vallabha Vasant Hampiholi, Girisha Ganapathy
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Patent number: 9870055Abstract: An electronic device may include a housing, a display carried by the housing, and audio output transducer and passive radiator pairs carried by the housing. The electronic device may also include a controller capable of selectively operating the audio output transducers. In another embodiment, the electronic device may include audio output transducer and serpentine tuning port pairs.Type: GrantFiled: September 8, 2015Date of Patent: January 16, 2018Assignee: APPLE INC.Inventors: Ryan J. Mihelich, Inna Lobel
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Patent number: 9866966Abstract: A wireless audio system may be configured with a mobile communication device that is concurrently wirelessly connected to first and second monitors, respectively, via first and second wireless pathways. The first and second wireless pathways can be different and provide stereo audio reproduction with the first and second monitors with 5 ms of latency or less.Type: GrantFiled: May 20, 2016Date of Patent: January 9, 2018Assignee: Fender Musical Instruments CorporationInventor: Phillip Dale Lott
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Patent number: 9866957Abstract: There is provided a sound collection apparatus, including a directionality formation unit configured to form a directionality in a direction of a target area for input signals from a plurality of microphone arrays, a target area sound extraction unit configured to correct a delay between a target area and each of the microphone arrays, and a power of a target area sound component for an output from the directionality formation unit, suppress a non-target area sound by using each output after correction, and extract a target area sound, an area sound enhancement filter formation unit, and an area sound emphasis unit.Type: GrantFiled: May 18, 2016Date of Patent: January 9, 2018Assignee: Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.Inventor: Kazuhiro Katagiri
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Patent number: 9829930Abstract: A portable computing device having a substantially non-conducting outer housing and alternative electrical grounding and audio system architectures is disclosed. The device can be a laptop computer having a main logic board, a keyboard assembly, an audio source positioned below the keyboard assembly, and an equalizer electrically coupled to the audio source, with each of these components being electrically coupled to a universal grounding structure. The audio source emits sound waves that are propagated through the keyboard assembly and between gaps between keyboard keys and the outer housing. Settings for the equalizer can be selected to account for sound absorption and amplification characteristics of the sound waves along these sound transmission paths.Type: GrantFiled: August 22, 2013Date of Patent: November 28, 2017Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Gary Thomason, Kevin S. Fetterman, Laura M. DeForest, Ron Hopkinson, Michelle Goldberg, Ruchi Goel, John Raff, Timothy S. Hibbard
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Patent number: 9824697Abstract: A noise elimination circuit of particular application in enhancing vocal clarity in a teleconference includes a first voice processing circuit, a second voice processing circuit, and a subtracter. The first voice processing circuit receives and processes a first voice from a first microphone and the second voice processing circuit receives and processes the same voice from a second microphone (second voice). The first voice and the second voice include voice signals and noises. The subtracter is electrically connected to the two voice processing circuits to receive the first voice and the second voice respectively processed by the first voice processing circuit and the second voice processing circuit. The subtracter substracts the second voice from the first voice, and outputs a clear voice from which noise has been eliminated.Type: GrantFiled: June 24, 2016Date of Patent: November 21, 2017Assignees: NANNING FUGUI PRECISION INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD., HON HAI PRECISION INDUSTRY CO., LTD.Inventor: Lian Liu
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Patent number: 9826302Abstract: An electronic device includes a body housing one or more electronic circuits. A first actuation device and a second actuation device are disposed along the body. When actuated, the actuation devices control the operation of the one or more electronic circuits. A first speaker assembly and a second speaker assembly are operable with the one or more electronic circuits. One or both of the first actuation device or the second actuation device comprising a magnet, while one or both of the first speaker assembly or the second speaker assembly comprising a ferromagnetic material to selectively magnetically couple the first speaker assembly and the second speaker assembly to the first actuation device or the second actuation device, respectively.Type: GrantFiled: September 8, 2015Date of Patent: November 21, 2017Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLCInventors: Thinh T Nguyen, Daniel Young Yoon
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Patent number: 9820070Abstract: At least one processor can detect a volume of a sound input to an upper microphone. The at least one processor can determine whether or not at least one of a sound emission hole for a rear speaker and a sound collection hole for the upper microphone is clogged, based on the detected volume. The at least one processor can give a notification about a result of determination.Type: GrantFiled: June 21, 2016Date of Patent: November 14, 2017Assignee: KYOCERA CORPORATIONInventor: Hayato Takenouchi
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Patent number: 9813811Abstract: At a microphone array, a soundfield is detected to produce a set of microphone signals each from a corresponding microphone in the microphone array. The set of microphone signals represents the soundfield. The detected soundfield is decomposed into a set of sub-soundfield signals based on the set of microphone signals. Each sub-soundfield signal is processed, such that each sub-soundfield signal is separately dereverberated to remove reverberation therefrom, to produce a set of processed sub-soundfield signals. The set of processed sub-sound field signals are mixed into a mixed output signal.Type: GrantFiled: June 1, 2016Date of Patent: November 7, 2017Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.Inventor: Haohai Sun
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Patent number: 9800981Abstract: The application relates to a hearing device comprising an input unit for providing first and second electric input signals representing sound signals, a beamformer filter for making frequency-dependent directional filtering of the electric input signals, the output of said beamformer filter providing a resulting beamformed output signal. The application further relates to a method of providing a directional signal. The object of the present application is to create a directional signal. The problem is solved in that the beamformer filter comprises a directional unit for providing respective first and second beamformed signals from weighted combinations of the electric input signals, an equalization unit for equalizing a phase (and possibly an amplitude) of the beamformed signals and providing first and second equalized beamformed signals, and a beamformer output unit for providing the resulting beamformed output signal from the first and second equalized beamformed signals.Type: GrantFiled: September 4, 2015Date of Patent: October 24, 2017Assignee: BERNAFON AGInventor: Martin Kuriger
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Patent number: 9800987Abstract: A binaural decoder for an MPEG surround stream, which decodes an MPEG surround stream into a stereo 3D signal, and a decoding method thereof. The method includes dividing a compressed audio stream and head related transfer function (HRTF) data into subbands, selecting predetermined subbands of the HRTF data divided into subbands and filtering the HRTF data to obtain the selected subbands, decoding the audio stream divided into subbands into a stream of multi-channel audio data with respect to subbands according to spatial additional information, and binaural-synthesizing the HRTF data of the selected subbands with the multi-channel audio data of corresponding subbands.Type: GrantFiled: June 26, 2015Date of Patent: October 24, 2017Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.Inventors: Han-gil Moon, Sun-min Kim, In-gyu Chun
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Patent number: 9788097Abstract: The present disclosure describes a multi-mode headset incorporating both bone conduction and aural transducers. Bone conduction plates of the headset rest on a users' temples, just in front of each ear in one implementation, and create sound through vibrations in a first mode, allowing the user to listen to the headset while still leaving environmental or external sounds audible. In a second mode, the user detaches aural transducers or earbuds from an attachment point and inserts them into the user's ears, blocking external noise and providing passive and/or active noise isolation. In a third mode, both the bone conduction plates and aural transducers may be used simultaneously, providing additional amplitude and potentially wider frequency response. The headset may include a switch, such as a magnetic proximity sensor detecting the position of the aural transducers, to control a mixer or amplifier to re-route audio through the aural transducers.Type: GrantFiled: June 10, 2016Date of Patent: October 10, 2017Assignee: BIG O LLCInventors: Stefan Bisits Bullen, Nicolas Sabharwal, Sunil Sabharwal
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Patent number: 9788109Abstract: Architectures of numbers of microphones and their positioning in a device for sound source direction estimation and source separation are presented. The directions of sources are front, back, left, right, top, and bottom of the device, and can be determined by amplitude and phase differences of microphone signals with proper microphone positioning. The source separation is to separate the sound coming from different directions from the mix of sources in microphone signals. This can be done with blind source separation (BSS), independent component analysis (ICA), and beamforming (BF) technologies. The device can perform many kinds of audio enhancements for the device. For example, it can perform noise reduction for communications; it can choose a source from a desired direction to perform speech recognition; and it can correct sound perceiving directions in microphones and generate desired sound images like stereo audio output. In addition, with source separation, 2.1, 5.1, 7.Type: GrantFiled: September 9, 2015Date of Patent: October 10, 2017Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Youhong Lu, Chun Beng Goh, Douglas L. Beck, Jia Hua, Ilya Khorosh
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Patent number: 9781237Abstract: An electronic device includes an analog connector and a digital connector. The analog connector has one or more analog signal contacts and at least one other contact. A signal detector detects signals at the other contact. A switch is coupled to the other contact to, where analog signals are at the other contact, to cause the switch to transition a connection to other contact from a common node of the device to a signal node of the device, thereby allowing a user to use either a four-wire accessory device or five-wire accessory device with a four-wire analog connector.Type: GrantFiled: January 3, 2014Date of Patent: October 3, 2017Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLCInventor: Michael David McLaughlin
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Patent number: 9781502Abstract: A process for sending headset control information from a mobile device to a wireless headset utilizing the BLUETOOTH Hands-Free Profile audio channel is provided. The process includes the steps of encoding the headset control information as an analog signal; digitizing the analog signal; transmitting the digitized signal from the mobile device; receiving the digitized signal on the wireless headset; and decoding the digitized signal into the headset control information.Type: GrantFiled: September 9, 2015Date of Patent: October 3, 2017Assignee: Hand Held Products, Inc.Inventors: David D. Hardek, Dale McGary
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Patent number: 9773215Abstract: In embodiments of the present invention, methods for reproducing an acoustic environment are described, which may include accessing a computer stored multi-dimensional sound profile of a first space, measuring a multi-dimensional sound profile in a second space, comparing multi-dimensional sound profile of the first space and the multi-dimensional sound profile of the second space, accessing the sound characteristics of an audio output device that will serve as the audio output device in the second space, and modifying the audio output of a media content of the audio output device taking into account the sound characteristics of the audio output device, wherein the modifying reduces the difference as determined in the comparing between the multi-dimensional sound profile of the first space and the multi-dimensional sound profile of the second space as output by the audio output device.Type: GrantFiled: June 18, 2015Date of Patent: September 26, 2017Assignee: Constellation Productions, Inc.Inventors: Glenn KnicKrehm, Alban Bassuet, Andrew Neill Woodger
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Patent number: 9762987Abstract: An apparatus includes acoustic equipment and an enclosure to support the acoustic equipment. The enclosure includes a front cover member, a middle cover member, a back cover member, and a hinge to connect the front cover member to the back cover member. The hinge enables the movement of the front cover member and the back cover member between an open position and a closed position. The middle cover member is disposed between the front cover member and the back cover member, with the middle cover member being connected to the hinge to enable movement of the middle cover member and the back cover member between an open position and a closed position. The enclosure further includes a first latch configured to releasably secure the middle cover member to the back cover member, and a second latch configured to releasably secure the front cover member to the back cover member.Type: GrantFiled: September 9, 2015Date of Patent: September 12, 2017Assignee: WILDLIFE ACOUSTICS, INC.Inventors: Sherwood Kenneth Snyder, Theodore J. Wright, Thomas A. Hagerty, Ivan Mark Lazich
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Patent number: 9741333Abstract: A programmable Active Noise Compensation (ANC) system for an audio input includes a parameter store structured to store a number of various filter parameters. A mode of operation is selected that represents the type of environment the ANC system is operating in—feed-forward, feed-back, or combined feed-forward and feedback. Different filter parameters are retrieved from the parameter store based on the selected mode and desired operation. Audio inputs are sampled at a relatively high sample rate that matches inputs from a feed-forward and feedback microphone that may be present in the system. Parameters and instructions may be changed in the system responsive to changing conditions of the compensation system.Type: GrantFiled: January 6, 2014Date of Patent: August 22, 2017Assignee: AVNERA CORPORATIONInventors: Amit Kumar, Wai Lang Lee, Jianping Wen
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Patent number: 9723399Abstract: An electronic device may include a housing having an audio output port therein, a display carried by the housing, and a baffle enclosure carried within the housing. The electronic device may also include an audio output transducer carried by the baffle enclosure and acoustically coupled to the audio output port, and a passive radiator carried by the baffle enclosure, acoustically coupled between the audio output transducer and the display, and acoustically isolated from the audio output port.Type: GrantFiled: September 8, 2015Date of Patent: August 1, 2017Assignee: APPLE INC.Inventors: Ryan J. Mihelich, Inna Lobel
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Patent number: 9721575Abstract: Embodiments of systems and methods are described for providing backwards compatibility for legacy devices that are unable to natively render non-channel based audio objects. These systems and methods can also be beneficially used to produce a reduced set of audio objects for compatible object-based decoders with low computing resources.Type: GrantFiled: September 3, 2015Date of Patent: August 1, 2017Assignee: DTS LLCInventors: Roger Wallace Dressler, Pierre-Anthony Stivell Lemieux, Alan D. Kraemer