Abstract: The invention relates to a method of controlling function units of a motorcar or of devices (1a, 1b) installed in a motorcar, via speech signals, in which acoustic signals occurring in the motorcar, which contain noise signal portions that depend on the operating state and/or operation environment of the motorcar, and speech signal portions, as the case may be, are applied to a speech recognition system (3) and the speech recognition system (3) uses acoustic references (8) which are selected and/or adapted in dependence on detected data of the operating state and/or operation environment. The invention is not restricted to speech control in the domain of motorcars.

Abstract: A radio communication system has a random access channel for the transmission of data (214) from a secondary station to a primary station. Such a channel is intended for use by secondary stations having data (214) to transmit to a primary station while not actually engaged in a call. By enabling access requests (202) to be transmitted with a greater range of possible signatures, a much greater number of degrees of freedom is available to a secondary station requesting access to a random access channel. This enables significantly improved efficiency of resource allocation by increasing the amount of information transmitted to the primary station by the access request (202).

Abstract: A recording apparatus for recording data on a rewritable optical recording medium includes a read/write head for reading and recording data, an error corrector for finding and correcting errors in the recorded data read, and a controller for controlling the recording and reading of the data. The recording apparatus is capable of performing fast and efficient examination of formatted recording medium in order to adapt a data recording strategy, so as to increase the efficiency of writing operations.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for upgrading software held in read-only storage are described comprising non-reprogrammable read-only memory (116) which stores a file manager program (120), program file A (122) and program file B (124) and a Flash® RAM (118) which stores file X (132). Under control of the file manager program (120), when an upgrade program file B+(126) is acquired, for example via the Internet, it is stored within Flash® RAM (118) and file X (132) is updated. When the software executes, file A (122) calls file B+(126) in preference to calling file B (124), in accordance with the contents of file X (132).

Abstract: In a device for placing a lamp in a reflector, a socket for holding a lamp is provided with a main body part to be brought into contact with the a reflector. The lamp is held with a resilient annular spring secured to the main body part, and with two upright arms provided with clicks, while a back plate is provided with pressure points. When securing the back plate to the reflector, the reference plane is brought into contact with the reflector, and the pressure points, when in contact with the clicks of the socket, displace the clicks in the direction of the reflector over a distance ?x so as to put the annular spring under tension. The distance ?x is such that the annular spring presses the reference plane towards the reflector with a force of at least 5N.

Abstract: The buffer management system (100) is arranged to control in a data communication system an end to end delay (?) of a data unit (150) from input to output. Blocks (104, 106) of data units (150, 152) are written in a buffer (102) with a block write rate (Rw), and data units (154, 156) are read from this buffer (102) with a read rate (Rr). The end to end delay (?) is controlled by adapting the read rate (Rr) from the buffer (102), and hence the buffer filling (F) on the basis of measurements of delays in the buffer management system (100).

Abstract: A dynamic foil display 900 is provided wherein the spacer elements 902, 904 also serve as resistance-reducing tracks for the electrode circuitry. Resistance-reduction can thereby be provided for the row and column electrodes as well as for the foil electrode. To this end a foil display 900 comprises a light guide plate 905; a passive plate 910; and a transparent light-scattering foil 903 sandwiched between and separated from said plates by means of spacer elements 902, 904 is described. The spacer elements 902, 904 are arranged essentially along rows and columns on said plates 905, 910 and thereby define a plurality of pixel elements arranged in a matrix configuration along said rows and columns.

Abstract: An electronic device, operating as a USB host, has an embedded processor and a system memory, connected by a memory bus. A host controller integrated circuit does not need to master the system memory, but instead acts purely as a slave. The embedded processor is then adapted to write the data to the host controller integrated circuit in the form of transfer-based transactions.

Abstract: This invention relates to a device and a method of representing a transfer of data between a main memory and a storage device in a storage system. The invention uses scatter gather lists to describe the data area of both the main memory and of the storage device that are relevant for the data transfer. Further is a direction indicator used to specify whether the disk location is source and the part of the main memory is destination or the other way around. Preferably a surplus previously un-used bit is used as the direction indicator. In this way, an efficient way of handling read, write and/or modify processes is enabled. Further, no actual data is moved during CPU processing, since only references to the data, i.e. tuples, are copied between SGLs which greatly reduces storage and bandwidth requirements.

Abstract: A threshold mechanism is provided so that a producer and a corresponding consumer, executing on the same resource (e.g., CPU) are able to switch context between them in a manner that reduces the total number of such context switches. The threshold mechanism is associated with a buffer into which the producer stores packets up to a given threshold before the consumer is allowed to remove packets. The buffer has an associated upper limit on the number of packets that can be stored in the buffer. A flush empties the buffer of any remaining packets when no more packets are to be produced. This reduction in the total number of context switches in general leads to better performance at the cost of more latency.

Abstract: An apparatus for scanning a track on a record carrier has a head (41) for providing a beam of radiation and generating at least one sensor signal. The device has a focusing unit for controlling a focusing element to maintain an in-focus position for generating a focused spot on the track. The sensor signal is converted into a displacement signal by a multitude of piecewise converters (42,43,44), each converter converting a range of the sensor signal values into a position signal, and selection means (46) for selecting one of the position signals as the displacement signal based on an estimated displacement.

Abstract: A lamp assembly (50) employs a reflector (52) defining a light reflecting area (53), and a heat sink (54) defining a circuit housing area (55). A LED assembly (51) is disposed within the light reflecting area (53) and heat sink (54) dissipates heat away from LED assembly (51). One or more LEDs of LED assembly (51) emit a light in response to a flow of a LED current through the LEDs. One or more optical power sensors of LED assembly (51) sense an emission of the light by LED(s). A LED driver circuit (30) is disposed within the circuit housing area (55) to control the flow of the LED current through the LED(s) as a function of a sensing of the emission of the light by the optical power sensor(s) and a desired level of one or more lighting variables associated with the LED(s).

Abstract: The invention relates to a device, in particular a patient monitoring system with a mobile terminal unit (1) for acquiring patient data. The measured data is transferred from the terminal unit (1) via a short-range radio technology (2) (e.g. Bluetooth) to a data monitor (3) arranged at the patient's bedside when the patient is in the vicinity thereof. If necessary, communication can be switched to a long-range radio technology (7) (e.g. WLAN) to ensure interruption-free data transmission while the patient moves around.

Abstract: Electrophoretic display units (100) comprising pixels (11) situated between a common electrode (6) and pixel electrodes (5) need, for shortening the total image update times, increased driving voltages across the pixels (11) which make disturbances more visible. To camouflage such disturbances, instead of one common electrode (6), different counter electrodes (16,17) coupled to different portions (66,67) of the electrophoretic display panel (60) are introduced. First and second counter electrodes (16,17) receive first and second voltage signals (V16, V17) lik˜ alternating voltage signals having opposite phases. First shaking data pulses (V16-VE1, V16-VE3) are supplied to the first portion (66) and second shaking data pulses (V17-VE2, V17-VE4) are supplied to the second portion (67), which first and second shaking data pulses have opposite amplitudes. Setting signals (S1,S2,S3,S4) supplied during setting frame period (FS) reduce voltage swings at pixel electrodes (5).

Abstract: This invention proposes a method, system, and device to update a revocation list, receive an update for the revocation list, and make a random decision to either update the list with the update or to ignore it.

Abstract: Disclosed is a bit-detection arrangement able to convert an analog signal (AS) having an amplitude into a digital signal (DS) representing a bit sequence from which the analog signal (AS) is derived. The bit-detection arrangement has a phase detector which detect the phase difference between a quantized analog signal and a clock signal C2. The phase difference is sampled by an AD converter. The AD converter can sample at a relatively slow rate as the phase difference is a low frequency signal. The sampled phase difference is fed to a digital PLL which outputs a phase signal PHI. The phase signal and the quantized analog signal are used to recreate the digital signal (DS).

Abstract: A display device comprising a light guide (12), a front plate (14), and an intermediate electromechanically operable foil (16). Two electrode layers (22, 23) are arranged on either side of the foil (16) to induce electrostatic forces on the foil (16) and to bring selected portions of the foil into contact with the light guide (12), thereby extracting light from the light guide (12). The second electrode layer (22) is arranged on the opposite side of the light guide (12) with reference to the foil (16), and separated from the light guide (12) by means of a refractive layer (28). As no electrode layer is required on the light guide itself, the light path of rays extracted from the light guide is cleaner, and the absorption of light is reduced.

Abstract: In an electronic circuit data is transmitted between data processing circuits across a network (12). A two-way network interface is provided for both sending transmission messages and receiving reception messages between a pair of processors through the network. The network interface uses transmission messages to transmit both data and information representing respective amounts of unreported buffer space R for receiving data items from reception messages in a buffer storage circuit (27) for the processing circuit (10). The network interface holds up transmission of a transmission message from a particular one of the data processing circuits (10) until a number A of data items, that the particular one of the data processing circuits (10) has made available for transmission in the message and for which buffer space is available across the network (12), exceeds a threshold.

Abstract: A system and method is provided for transmitting data in a video signal by modulating a brightness level of the video signal. The invention comprises a video display unit that is capable of encoding data into a brightness level of a video signal and creating brightness modulated video images for display on a display screen. The invention also comprises a brightness modulated data receiver unit that is capable of receiving the brightness modulated video images from the display screen and decoding the data that is encoded in the brightness modulated video images. The modulation of the brightness level of the video signal is adjusted so that changes in the brightness level of the video signal are not perceptible to human vision.