Abstract: An arm rest includes a hook formed of a first vertical member, a horizontal member joined to the first vertical member by a first bend in a first direction, and a second vertical member joined to the horizontal member by a second bend in the first direction. A horizontal arm rest member is joined to the second vertical member by a third bend in a second direction opposite the first direction.

Abstract: An interactive device, such as a toy, equipped with an image similarity engine capable of receiving external visual inputs and providing corresponding physical outputs. The device captures an image, compares the captured image with images stored in a database, and provides physical outputs according to the recognized images.

Abstract: An apparatus, method and computer program for recognizing one or more images within digitized image data that might include a target image desired to be located. The system generates a set of domain blocks from the image data where each domain block represents a discrete portion the image data and a set of range blocks from one or more target images. Either the domain blocks, the range blocks, or both, are transformed by one or more substantially affine transformations with predetermined coefficients to create possible variants of the images. A comparison between the blocks is made to determine similarity, and includes at least a measurement of whether better matching is achieved when a range block is chosen from image data representing the image which is the source of the domain block or when chosen from other image data.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are disclosed for improving data recovery operations in a disc drive employing a redundant sync data block format. The disc drive includes a rotatable disc and a controllably positionable head which is used to store user data in a plurality of data blocks on tracks of the disc. Each data block includes a user data field to store user data, a first sync field and a redundant, second sync field, the sync fields storing first and second sync words, respectively, which establish symbol boundaries used by a read channel of the disc drive. User data are recovered from a selected data block by initiating a delay of selected duration during which a first portion of the selected data block passes proximate the head, allowing the second, remaining portion of the selected data block to be read at the completion of the delay.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are disclosed for optimizing the operational performance of a disc drive having a head adjacent a rotatable disc, a servo circuit which controls the position of the head and a read channel for decoding read signals from the head to reconstruct data previously stored on the disc. The read channel includes a channel quality monitor which generates a channel quality measurement indicative of read channel quality, the channel quality measurement determined from error values associated with the data reconstructed by the read channel from the read signal. An optimum value for a selected parameter affecting disc drive performance is selected by determining an associated quality measurement value for each of a plurality of parameter values, and selecting the optimum value for the parameter in relation to the associated quality measurement values. Preferably, each associated quality measurement value is determined in less than one revolution of the disc.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are disclosed for improving data recovery operations in a disc drive employing a redundant sync data block format. The disc drive includes a rotatable disc and a controllably positionable head which is used to store user data in a plurality of data blocks on tracks of the disc. Each data block includes a user data field to store user data, a first sync field and a redundant, second sync field, the sync fields storing first and second sync words, respectively, which establish symbol boundaries used by a read channel of the disc drive. User data are recovered from a selected data block by initiating a delay of selected duration during which a first portion of the selected data block passes proximate the head, allowing the second, remaining portion of the selected data block to be read at the completion of the delay.