Patents Assigned to The Nielsen Company
  • Patent number: 9305560
    Abstract: Example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to perform audio watermark decoding are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes receiving an audio signal including an audience measurement code embedded therein using a first plurality of frequency components, sampling the audio signal, transforming the sampled audio signal into a first frequency domain representation, determining whether the code is detectable in the first plurality of frequency components of the first frequency domain representation, and when the code is not detected in the first plurality of frequency components, examining a second plurality of frequency components of a second frequency domain representation to determine whether the code is detected, the second plurality of frequency components being offset from the first plurality of frequency components by a first offset, the first offset corresponding to a sampling frequency mismatch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Daniel J. Nelson, Venugopal Srinivasan, John C. Peiffer
  • Patent number: 9301007
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to monitor audio/visual content from various sources are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to monitor a media presentation include generating a plurality of interpixel differences associated with a plurality of video samples of a video signal corresponding to a video frame of the media presentation. Such example methods also include processing the plurality of interpixel differences to determine whether the video frame exhibits macroblocking. Such example methods further include eliminating a first source from a plurality of possible sources of the media presentation when the video frame exhibits macroblocking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Arun Ramaswamy
  • Patent number: 9301173
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to monitor mobile internet usage are disclosed. An example method includes identifying an application associated with a first request received at a proxy. The application is credited with a presentation duration based on a time difference between the first request and a second request, the second request associated with a same application as the first request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Achilleas Papakostas
  • Patent number: 9294813
    Abstract: Probabilistic methods and apparatus to determine the state of a media device are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventor: Morris Lee
  • Patent number: 9294368
    Abstract: An example method to monitor media exposure involves receiving, at a first internet domain, a first request from a client computer, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer. The example method also involves determining if the client computer is known. If the client computer is not known, a response is sent from the first internet domain to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second internet domain, the second request to be indicative of access to the media at the client computer. If the client computer is known, an impression of the media is logged.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Mainak Mazumdar, Kevin Geraghty, Ronan Heffernan, Mark Kalus, Ari Paparo, Steven J. Splaine
  • Patent number: 9292251
    Abstract: Example systems and methods for configuring media devices utilizing audio codes and/or signatures are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein include, responsive to determining that an audio code is not present in audio data received by a device, generating a signature from the audio data. Such example methods also include determining whether the signature is associated with a first command to be executed by the device to modify operation of the device. Such example methods further include, when the signature is determined to be associated with the first command, executing the first command to modify the operation of the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Anand Jain, John Stavropoulos, Alan Neuhauser, Wendell Lynch, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Jack Crystal, David Gish
  • Patent number: 9292736
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to count people in images are disclosed. An example method includes analyzing frame pairs of a plurality of frame pairs captured over a period of time to identify a redundant person indication detected in an overlap region, the overlap region corresponding to an intersection of a first field of view and a second field of view; eliminating the identified redundant person indication to form a conditioned set of person indications for the period of time; grouping similarly located ones of the person indications of the conditioned set to form groups; analyzing the groups to identify redundant groups detected in the overlap region; and eliminating the redundant groups from a people tally generated based on the groups.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Venugopal Srinivasan, Padmanabhan Soundararajan
  • Patent number: 9294815
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to discriminate between linear and non-linear media are disclosed An example method to determine whether a media presentation is a linear or a non-linear media presentation comprises generating a reference log comprising a first media identifier of first media and a time at which the first media was presented, accessing a media presentation log comprising a second media identifier of second media and a time at which the second media was presented, and determining whether the second media correspond to a linear media presentation or a non-linear media presentation by comparing the media presentation log to the reference log.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: F. Gavin McMillan
  • Patent number: 9292858
    Abstract: The present invention relates to biologically and behaviorally based systems and methods for measuring audience response to a target stimulus. The systems and methods are deployable in multiple locations and may display stimuli based on location, target demographics, and combinations thereof.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Carl D. Marci, Brian Levine, Ravi Kanth V Kothuri, Geoff Gill
  • Patent number: 9292923
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture to monitor environments are disclosed. An example method includes analyzing a first depth value corresponding to a coordinate of an object of an image captured by a depth sensor, the first depth value having been captured with the depth sensor positioned at a first angle relative to a reference axis; moving the depth sensor to a second angle relative to the reference axis, the second angle being different than the first angle; triggering capture of a second depth value at the coordinate with the depth sensor positioned at the second angle; and calculating a depth gradient for the coordinate based on the first and second depth values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Venugopal Srinivasan, Padmanabhan Soundararajan
  • Patent number: 9288268
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to monitor shoppers in a retail environment are disclosed herein. In a disclosed example method, a first signal is transmitted via a first device in a first direction to a second device and a second signal is transmitted via the first device in a second direction to a third device associated with a shopper. A direction of travel of the third device is determined based on the first signal and a path of travel of the third device through a monitored establishment is determined based on the second signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Arun Ramaswamy, Rafael E. Alonso, Fred A. Martensen
  • Patent number: 9286903
    Abstract: Example methods disclosed herein to embed a watermark in a compressed audio stream include accessing a first scale factor and a first set of mantissas for a first set of transform coefficients included in the compressed audio stream, the first set of transform coefficients corresponding to a first band of a compression standard. Such disclosed example methods also include quantizing a second set of transform coefficients based on a second scale factor corresponding to the first scale factor reduced by a unit of resolution to determine a second set of mantissas, the second set of transform coefficients corresponding to the first band of the compression standard and including the watermark. Such disclosed example methods further include replacing the first scale factor with the second scale factor and the first set of mantissas with the second set of mantissas to embed the watermark in the compressed audio stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Venugopal Srinivasan
  • Patent number: 9286517
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to specify regions of interest in video frames are disclosed. Example disclosed methods to mark a region in a graphical presentation include selecting a first point located at a substantially central position within the region, selecting a plurality of second points to define a boundary of the region, and comparing a plurality of stored templates with the selected first and second points to identify a first one of the stored templates to represent the region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Kevin Keqiang Deng, Barry Greenberg
  • Patent number: 9286912
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are disclosed for identifying media and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for decoding identifiers after broadcast. An example method includes a portion of an identifying code from a media signal, determine a partition of the look-up table based on the portion of the identifying code wherein the partition of the look-up table includes reference signatures associated with the portion of the identifying code, and identify the media signal by comparing a signature extracted from the media signal to reference signatures in the partition of the look-up table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Venugopal Srinivasan, Alexander Topchy
  • Patent number: 9282366
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to communicate audience measurement information are disclosed. An example method includes analyzing a plurality of media identifiers collected over a first period of time to identify a dominant one of the media identifiers for the first period of time; and communicating the dominant media identifier for the first period of time via a text-only messaging service to a storage facility.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Christen Nielsen
  • Patent number: 9282369
    Abstract: Disclosed example methods to determine a time offset between a first media signature having a first sequence of first data pairs and a second media signature having a second sequence of second data pairs include comparing ones of the first data pairs in the first sequence with ones of the second data pairs in the second sequence to determine original time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs. Such example methods also include scaling and truncating the original time differences to determine scaled time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs. Such example methods further include determining a histogram comprising bins representative of the scaled time differences, and selecting a histogram bin to correspond to the time offset between the first and second signatures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Kevin Keqiang Deng
  • Patent number: 9275285
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to count people in images are disclosed. An example method includes generating a first fluctuation factor for a first frame by averaging fluctuation values of a random set of pixels of the first frame; generating a second fluctuation factor for a person indication area of the first frame by averaging fluctuation values of pixels of the person indication area; and marking the person indication area as a false positive when the second fluctuation factor is less than or equal to the first fluctuation factor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Venugopal Srinivasan, Padmanabhan Soundararajan
  • Patent number: 9277265
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to calculate video-on-demand viewing probability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Benjamin Wood, John Charles Coughlin, Molly Poppie, Marie Kramer, Brian Fuhrer, Albert T. Borawski, Joseph G. Milavsky, Paul Donato, Balachander Shankar, David J. Kurzynski
  • Patent number: 9269093
    Abstract: An example disclosed method involves collecting first data with first sensors fixed at entrances or exits of aisles in a retail or commercial establishment, and collecting second data with second sensors fixed in the retail or commercial establishment. The first sensors to collect the first data by detecting a first signal type different from a second signal type detected by the second sensors. The example method also involves generating a path of travel of a person in the retail or commercial establishment using the second data, and correcting an error in the path of travel based on the first data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2016
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Morris Lee, Arun Ramaswamy
  • Publication number: 20160050452
    Abstract: Methods and systems are disclosed to monitor a media device. An example method includes attempting to detect a logical transition between two sequential bits in a sequence of bits of a digital audio signal output by a port of the media device, the digital audio signal being encoded via differential encoding; and when the logical transition is detected, generating operating state data including a first time and indicating that the media device was in an on state at the first time; or when the logical transition is not detected, generating the operating state data including the first time and indicating that the media device was in an off state at the first time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 30, 2015
    Publication date: February 18, 2016
    Applicant: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventor: Chuck Conklin