Patents Examined by David Siegel
  • Patent number: 10824232
    Abstract: A sound outputting apparatus which includes a communicator communicate with an electronic apparatus and receive first audio data, an output module to output the first audio data received, and to output second audio data, which is modified data of the first audio data, a sensor to detect brainwave data of a user, and a processor to control so that the brainwave data of the user detected through the sensor is transmitted to the electronic apparatus through the communicator, and so that the second audio data is received from the electronic apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Tae-ho Hwang, Mi-young Kim, Min-su Hwangbo, Jong-youb Ryu
  • Patent number: 10818457
    Abstract: Electrical switch devices are installed at in-wall electrical boxes of a building. Each device features a switch module with multiple electrically controlled switches for respective connection of multiple load circuits. A control panel with a user interface is mountable over the electrical box and is connected or connectable to the switch module. A communications transceiver of each device is operable to transmit and receive communications to and from each of the other devices. The control panel has a touch-screen display, and is configured to display virtual on-screen switches, including at least one virtual switch whose output is assigned to a respective one of the electrically controlled switches of the other devices. The at least one virtual switch at one device is thereby operable to control at least one load at another of said devices. User selected names are assignable to the switches, and used to label the virtual switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Umbrela Smart Inc.
    Inventors: Salman Qureshi, Filipe Fernandes, Ryan Ramchandar
  • Patent number: 10809965
    Abstract: Example techniques related to a sub-index of a media index. An example implementation may involve maintaining, on a mobile device, a first index of audio tracks associated with a particular user profile, the audio tracks indexed in the first index consisting of a particular subset of audio tracks that are indexed in a second index. Based on the receiving the input data indicating the search query, the mobile device searches, within the first index, for audio tracks corresponding to the search query. If the audio tracks corresponding to the search query are not found in the first index, the mobile device sends to one or more servers of the cloud service, a request to search the second index for audio tracks corresponding to the search query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Amber Brown, Diane Roberts
  • Patent number: 10795930
    Abstract: A system for a driver jukebox on a driver device includes a music server system interface, a ride server system, a playlist determiner, a ride started determiner, and a music player. The music server system interface is for providing a driver credential to a music server system. The ride server system interface is for receiving a rider music preference from a rider device. The playlist determiner is for determining a playlist based at least in part on the rider music preference. The ride started determiner is for determining that a ride for the rider has started. The music server system interface for indicating to play the playlist.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: LYFT, INC.
    Inventors: Evan Goldin, James Addison, Brady Law, Christopher John Selin, Marc Haumann
  • Patent number: 10785590
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method for calibrating audio of a virtual reality device, the method comprising: determining a difference between a perceived tone location and an actual audible tone location, in response to an emitting of the actual audible tone; wherein the tone comprises a spectral tone, and creating and calibrating a user ear model by: emitting the spectral tone at a random time during a simulation by the virtual reality device; determining the perceived tone location during the simulation; and computing an error adjustment for one or more geometric variables of a default ear model based on a result of the determining.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Benjamin David Briggs, Lawrence A. Clevenger, Leigh Anne Hodges Clevenger, Christopher J. Penny, Michael Rizzolo, Aldis Gunars Sipolins
  • Patent number: 10783224
    Abstract: The invention, as shown by the system in FIG. 2, relates to a client-side content tracking system of media files, e.g. digital music files. Audio tracking—or indeed multimedia tracking—is shifted to a client-side perspective, with the client tasked with establishing use of a selected source audio track by tracking—and then reporting uplink to the server—at least one of: entry and exit points associated with playing of at least one of said musical sections in the identified source audio track, and how the identified source audio track was used, performed or manipulated at the client device. Server functionality is designed, having regard to the reported tracking data and its link to a unique identifier to permit the media file (e.g. source audio track) to be selected and/or identified, to store or relay—possibly in the context of a subscription service and billing regime for content use—tracking data related to use of at least a portion of the source audio track at or by the client device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2020
    Assignee: TIME MACHINE CAPITAL LIMITED
    Inventor: Joseph Michael William Lyske
  • Patent number: 10769204
    Abstract: A system and method are presented for unsupervised discovery of similar audio events collected from an automated dialing campaign. Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) is used to search for similar audio clips within a large dataset of audio recordings. A database is queried for possible matches between an unknown audio clip and any reference carrier audio message present in the database. The database is updated when new, or changed, carrier audio messages are detected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Inventors: Rivarol Vergin, Jason Anthony McDowell, Emma Ehrhardt, Adam Paugh
  • Patent number: 10769203
    Abstract: A method includes obtaining acoustic event information from at least one device, the acoustic event information associated with a first activity, at least a portion of the acoustic event information associated with sounds originating from a plurality of individuals in an identified group during a time period of the first activity. The method also includes categorizing the acoustic event information into a plurality of sound classes. The method also includes performing collaborative filtering on the plurality of sound classes. The method also includes determining one or more interests of the plurality of individuals in the identified group based on results of the collaborative filtering. The method also includes recommending a common activity for the identified group, based in part on the one or more interests of the plurality of individuals in the identified group.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Moiz Kaizar Sonasath, Vinod Cherian Joseph
  • Patent number: 10764679
    Abstract: Multiple aspects of systems and methods for voice control and related features and functionality for various embodiments of media playback devices, networked microphone devices, microphone-equipped media playback devices, and speaker-equipped networked microphone devices are disclosed and described herein, including but not limited to designating and managing default networked devices, audio response playback, room-corrected voice detection, content mixing, music service selection, metadata exchange between networked playback systems and networked microphone systems, handling loss of pairing between networked devices, actions based on user identification, and other voice control of networked devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan P. Lang, Mark Plagge, Simon Jarvis, Romi Kadri, Yean-Nian Willy Chen, Paul Andrew Bates, Luis Vega-Zayas, Christopher Butts, Nicholas A. J. Millington, Keith Corbin
  • Patent number: 10764706
    Abstract: An audio navigation device comprising an input means for inputting two or more audio pieces into the navigation device; a spatialization means for allocating a position in the form of a unique spatial coordinate to each audio piece and arranging the audio pieces in a multi-dimensional arrangement; a generating means for generating a binaural audio output for each audio piece, wherein the audio output simulates sounds that would be made by one or more physical sources located at the given position of each audio piece; an output means for simultaneously outputting multiple audio pieces as binaural audio output to a user; a navigation means for enabling a user to navigate around the audio outputs in the multi-dimensional arrangement; and a selection means for allowing a user to select a single audio output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: III HOLDINGS 1, LLC
    Inventors: Mark Brian Sandler, Rebecca Lynne Stewart
  • Patent number: 10748555
    Abstract: Example embodiments disclosed herein relate to perception based multimedia processing. There is provided a method for processing multimedia data, the method includes automatically determining user perception on a segment of the multimedia data based on a plurality of clusters, the plurality of clusters obtained in association with predefined user perceptions and processing the segment of the multimedia data at least in part based on determined user perception on the segment. Corresponding system and computer program products are disclosed as well.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2020
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Claus Bauer, Lie Lu, Mingqing Hu, Jun Wang, Poppy Crum, Rhonda Wilson, Regunathan Radhakrishnan
  • Patent number: 10747493
    Abstract: Devices, system, and methods are disclosed for provisioning devices over a cloud network in accordance with modifications to operational settings of a media playback system. In example embodiments, a playback device is provided that is configured to identify a change to a property of an operational setting of the media playback system. Based on the identified change, the playback device is configured to locally provision itself in accordance with the identified change to the property of the operational setting, cause at least one additional playback device to be provisioned in accordance with the identified change to the property of the operational setting, and cause a cloud computing device located outside of the media playback system to be provisioned in accordance with the identified change to the property of the operational setting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2020
    Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
    Inventors: Keith Thoresz, Daniel Casimiro, Sachin Lad, Steven Beckhardt
  • Patent number: 10701500
    Abstract: An electronic device may comprise audio processing circuitry and a first connector having a first contact and a second contact. In a first mode of operation, the audio processing circuitry is configured to output one or more audio signals carrying music and/or voice via the first contact and the second contact. In a second mode of operation, the audio processing circuitry is configured to output a signal for delivering supply current via the first contact and the second contact. While the electronic device is in the first mode of operation, a gain and/or volume limit of the audio processing circuitry may be set to a first level, and while the electronic device is in the second mode of operation, the gain and/or volume limit of the audio processing circuitry may be set to a second level that is higher than the first level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2020
    Assignee: Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc.
    Inventor: Richard Kulavik
  • Patent number: 10678496
    Abstract: Disclosed herein is an audio transmitter receiver device. The device includes an audio interface providing an audio signal, the audio signal including at least one of an audio input signal and an audio output signal; a digital communications interface for at least communicating audio information; and an audio codec for transcoding the audio information such that the audio information includes at least a high quality distortion free lossless representation of the audio signal and the audio signal includes an audio representation of the audio information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Inventor: Stéphanie England
  • Patent number: 10679633
    Abstract: The present disclosure is provided an audio processing device and an audio playback system thereof. The audio processing device includes a receiving module configured to receive an audio signal and identify a transmission mode of the audio signal, with the transmission mode at least including a Bluetooth transmission mode and a WIFI transmission mode; a processing module configured to decode the audio signal into an analog audio signal and a digital audio signal; an output module configured to receive the analog audio signal and the digital audio signal and then output the analog audio signal to a conventional audio via an AUX analog output port and output the digital audio signal to an HiFi audio via an optical fiber output port. The present disclosure can receive audio signals with different transmission types and output the audio signals of different types, which enriches audio selectivity and is of high interest.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: SHENZHEN CHUANGYUANTENG TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Lichao Shi
  • Patent number: 10671339
    Abstract: Embodiments are directed to a method and system for receiving, in a bitstream, metadata associated with the audio data, and analyzing the metadata to determine whether a loudness parameter for a first group of audio playback devices are available in the bitstream. Responsive to determining that the parameters are present for the first group, the system uses the parameters and audio data to render audio. Responsive to determining that the loudness parameters are not present for the first group, the system analyzes one or more characteristics of the first group, and determines the parameter based on the one or more characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignees: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Jeffrey Riedmiller, Scott Gregory Norcross, Karl Jonas Roeden
  • Patent number: 10664226
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for managing audio files of a user to reduce latencies in play start times on local devices. The audio files are stored on cloud storage managed by a server. One method includes processing a plurality of audio files associated with a user, where the processing is configured to create audio snippet files from each of the plurality of audio files. The audio snippet files representing a beginning part of each of the plurality of audio files. The method also includes transmitting the audio snippet files to a client device and detecting a request from the client to begin playing a first audio file from the plurality of audio files of the user. The first audio file being stored on the cloud storage managed by the server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2020
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventor: Neel B. Parekh
  • Patent number: 10657174
    Abstract: The present invention relates to providing identification information in response to an audio segment using a first mode of operation including receiving an audio segment and sending the audio segment to a remote server and receiving, from the remote server, identification information relating to the audio segment, and a second mode of operation of receiving an audio segment and using stored information to obtain identification information relating to the received audio segment received, without sending the audio segment to the remote server. The present invention further includes using identification information from the remote server and using local identification information and selecting either identification information from the remote server or local identification information based on selection criteria, and generating an output based on the selected identification information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignee: SoundHound, Inc.
    Inventors: Aaron Master, Bernard Mont-Reynaud, Keyvan Mohajer, Timothy Stonehocker
  • Patent number: 10649719
    Abstract: A rotary fader apparatus includes a fader control knob that is directly attached to the rotor of a non-contact electrical motor. The apparatus may produce a fade effect based on the rotational position of the fader control knob and may be automated through signals to the motor. Such a rotary fader apparatus may be used, for example, in audio mixing applications to provide automated or manual rotary control of track fading. The motor may also be used to alter the feel of the movement of the fader control knob and/or provide tactile feedback in response to mixing parameters or signal properties.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: SOUND DEVICES, LLC
    Inventors: Matt Anderson, Steven Popovich, Paul Isaacs, Jason McDonald
  • Patent number: 10649714
    Abstract: According to embodiments of the present disclosure, a data output method may include: receiving unit-time or unit-size auditory data which are generated around a user and detected via a first apparatus; removing noises from the auditory data; extracting a frequency component included in the auditory data from which the noises have been removed; measuring at least one frequency of the auditory data on the basis of the frequency component; searching a database on the basis of the at least one frequency to fine reference data oscillating at the at least one frequency; generating first output data providing semantic data included in the reference data; and generating and providing an output control signal for transmitting the first output data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: DOT INCORPORATION
    Inventors: Ju Yoon Kim, Ji Ho Kim, Hyeon Cheol Park