Abstract: A signal enhancement system improves the understandability of speech or other audio signals. The system reinforces selected parts of the signal, may attenuate selected parts of the signal, and may increase SNR. The system includes delay logic, a partitioned adaptive filter, and signal reinforcement logic. The partitioned adaptive filter may track and enhance the fundamental frequency and harmonics in the input signal. The partitioned filter output signals may approximately reproduce the input signal, delayed by an integer multiple of the period of the fundamental frequency of the input signal. The reinforcement logic combines the input signal and the filtered signals to produce an enhanced output signal.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
April 8, 2005
Date of Patent:
May 1, 2012
Assignee:
QNX Software Systems Limited
Inventors:
Rajeev Nongpiur, David Giesbrecht, Phillip Hetherington
Abstract: A voice enhancement logic improves the perceptual quality of a processed voice. The voice enhancement system includes a noise detector and a noise attenuator. The noise detector detects a wind buffet and a continuous noise by modeling the wind buffet. The noise attenuator dampens the wind buffet to improve the intelligibility of an unvoiced, a fully voiced, or a mixed voice segment.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
October 12, 2010
Date of Patent:
April 24, 2012
Assignee:
QNX Software Systems Limited
Inventors:
Phillip A. Hetherington, Xueman Li, Pierre Zakarauskas
Abstract: An end-pointer determines a beginning and an end of a speech segment. The end-pointer includes a voice triggering module that identifies a portion of an audio stream that has an audio speech segment. A rule module communicates with the voice triggering module. The rule module includes a plurality of rules used to analyze a part of the audio stream to detect a beginning and an end of the audio speech segment. A consonant detector detects occurrences of a high frequency consonant in the portion of the audio stream.
Abstract: A speech enhancement system improves the perceptual quality of an aural signal. A receiver detects and receives an unvoiced signal, a fully voiced signal, or a mixed voice remote signal. A coherence processor identifies the similarities or differences between a local signal and the remote signal. A cancellation processor or controller dampens reflected signals that may be part of the local signal.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 30, 2011
Date of Patent:
April 3, 2012
Assignee:
QNX Software Systems Limited
Inventors:
Phillip A. Hetherington, Shreyas A. Paranjpe
Abstract: An enhancement system extracts pitch from a processed speech signal. The system estimates the pitch of voiced speech by deriving filter coefficients of an adaptive filter and using the obtained filter coefficients to derive pitch. The pitch estimation may be enhanced by using various techniques to condition the input speech signal, such as spectral modification of the background noise and the speech signal, and/or reduction of the tonal noise from the speech signal.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
May 11, 2011
Date of Patent:
April 3, 2012
Assignee:
QNX Software Systems Limited
Inventors:
Rajeev Nongpiur, Phillip A. Hetherington
Abstract: A portable electronic device having a display and a processor is disclosed herein. The processor is configured to render an active application on substantially the entire display. In response to a status change, an alert is rendered in a visually insignificant area of the display.
Abstract: A system comprising a processor, a data storage device that is accessible by the processor, and filesystem software that is executable by the processor to organize files on the data storage device are provided. The filesystem software is executable to maintain a filename cache comprising filename entries. The filename entries may include a filename header section and each filename entry identifies a filename of a corresponding file.
Abstract: The present invention relates generally to computer graphics, and more specifically to methods of, and systems for, configuring, controlling and accessing multiple hardware graphics layers that are used to compose a single video display.
Abstract: A computer system having a transaction based file system is disclosed. The computer system includes file system software that manages the file data and the file system structure of files stored on a persistent data storage device and maintains a transaction file that includes a plurality of transaction records. The file system software executes a startup process in which a reconstructed file system is generated in random access memory from the transaction records. The startup process may skip verification of some of the transactions. The file system software may error check at least one of the skipped transactions in response to a request to access a file identified by a file node record in the reconstructed filed system after the startup process is completed.
Abstract: An improved distributed operating system over a network of computer systems is described. Existing distributed operating systems have transmission performance limitations dictated by their inability to (1) reliably handle transient communication failures and rapid node reboots, (2) provide a transmission protocol that adapts to link reliability, and (3) allow transmissions to occur over an arbitrary combinations of communication links. The systems and methods described herein solve these problems by providing a reliable node-to-node session protocol that offers high performance message delivery and multi-interface management and support. This is done by transmitting all data between two nodes of the operating system over a single connection that may dynamically exploit multiple interfaces between the nodes.
Abstract: A computer system having a transaction based file system is disclosed. The computer system includes file system software that manages the file data and the file system structure of files stored on a persistent data storage device and maintains a transaction file that includes a plurality of transaction records. Each of the transaction records has a header section and a data section. The header section of each transaction record includes one or more fields that are designated to store information corresponding to a file transaction that is represented by the transaction record. The file system software executes a startup process in which a reconstructed file system is generated in random access memory. The startup process skips verification of the data section of a transaction record when the transaction record meets one or more predetermined criterion.
Abstract: A system comprising a processor, a data storage device that is accessible by the processor, and filesystem software that is executable by the processor to organize files on the data storage device are provided. The filesystem software is executable to maintain a filename cache comprising filename entries. The filename entries may include a filename header section and each filename entry identifies a filename of a corresponding file.