Patents Examined by Peter-Anthony Pappas
  • Patent number: 7881589
    Abstract: When playing an AV Clip recorded on a BD-ROM, a judgment is made, for each elementary stream, which of a plurality of predetermined conditions the elementary stream satisfies. The plurality of predetermined conditions include (a) a condition that a playback apparatus has a capability of playing the elementary stream, (b) a language attribute of the elementary stream matches a language setting of the playback apparatus, and (c) a channel attribute of the elementary stream is surround sound and the playback apparatus has a surround output capability. The playback apparatus assigns a priority to each elementary stream based on which conditions the elementary stream satisfies, selects an elementary stream having a highest priority, and plays the selected elementary stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 1, 2011
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Wataru Ikeda, Tomoyuki Okada, Yasushi Uesaka
  • Patent number: 7881591
    Abstract: The information recording/reproducing apparatus of the present invention comprises: a reproduction period list reader for reading out a reproduction period list from a recording medium; a specific-time skipping device that skips a reading-out position of information from the recording medium over a prescribed time; and a reproduction period list modifier that deletes a skip period from a reproduction period in a reproduction period list using a skip start point and a skip end point in the reproduction period list that is read out by the reproduction period list reader when specific-time skip is carried out by the specific-time skipping device during reproduction of the information from the recording medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 1, 2011
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventor: Chikashi Hayashi
  • Patent number: 7876997
    Abstract: A user photographs an area including a desired portion of a television program schedule (with G-code numbers) in a newspaper, and the like, with a digital camera functional portion (219) of a mobile telephone device (2). A CPU (209) performs, for example, a data transmission/reception by a mobile telephone functional portion (231) (a communication process, an Internet connection process, electronic mail transmission and reception processes), and control of each of functional portions based on received data. Moreover, the CPU (209) performs a character recognition process on an image photographed with the digital camera functional portion (219) and on an image received by electronic mail by the mobile telephone functional portion (231), and executes a video recording reservation process based on the G-code number obtained by the recognition process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 25, 2011
    Assignee: Kyocera Corporation
    Inventor: Tetsutaka Yabuta
  • Patent number: 7873262
    Abstract: An optical disk device 4 for acquiring a file path to an AV file data corresponding to a designated data UMID in an optical disk, based on management data MD read out from the optical disk, in response to a request REQ from a computer 3 and further accessing AV file data recorded at a physical address acquired based on the file path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 18, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Yoshiaki Shibata, Mitsutoshi Shinkai
  • Patent number: 7873260
    Abstract: A system for modifying video including a source of a filter stack specifying filter operations to be carried out on a video clip, a filter registry of filter functions including information on filter operations that can be carried out by the filter functions, and a filter planner that receives the filter stack and accesses the registry in order to generate a filter plan specifying filter functions to be used in carrying out the filter operations specified in the filter stack.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 15, 2002
    Date of Patent: January 18, 2011
    Assignee: Acoustic Technology LLC
    Inventors: Senthilkumar Manickavasagam, Dennis J. Wilkinson, II
  • Patent number: 7865067
    Abstract: A recording apparatus for recording an input signal on a data unit basis and management information of data units of the input signal onto a recording medium, the recording apparatus includes a recording mode determination unit for determining a recording mode representing a recording time of the input signal onto the recording medium; and a time length determination unit for determining a time length of each data unit, wherein a minimum time length of each data unit is determined by the recording mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2011
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventor: Hideki Fukuda
  • Patent number: 7860376
    Abstract: A server apparatus 20 that is connected, through a communication network 11, to a mobile terminal 40 for reproducing a content and to a ticket gate machine 30. The ticket gate machine 30 detects that a user's entrance into a station area or boarding onto a vehicle, identifies at least a boarding zone, and notifies the identified boarding zone to the server apparatus 20. The server apparatus 20 includes a required duration calculating unit 22 which calculates, based on the boarding zone notified by the ticket gate machine 30, a duration for a user traveling by the vehicle, a content selecting unit 23 which determines a content whose reproduction is completed within the calculated duration, and a data transmitting/receiving unit 21 which delivers the determined content to the mobile terminal 40.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2006
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2010
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Takahiro Kudo, Jun Ozawa
  • Patent number: 7860368
    Abstract: An information recording medium (100) on which there are recorded: a series of content information which includes an image portion which can be a background image; button information (301) for defining a button menu which allows an operation as for the content information and which is displayed during the reproduction of the content information; and play list information (120) for defining reproduction sequence of the content information by a unit of item, which constitutes the content information and which is accessible upon reproduction, the button information including a plurality of button pages (301p) each of which can constitute the button menu and whose display can be changed to each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2006
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2010
    Assignee: Pioneer Corporation
    Inventors: Nobuyuki Takakuwa, Yasuko Fukuda, Takao Sawabe, Tohru Kanegae, Masanori Nakahara, Takeshi Koda
  • Patent number: 7852335
    Abstract: An intersection of a cut plane with a proxy geometry representing a scan volume is determined with a processor. The intersection is simplified, such as identifying a quadrilateral or triangle most closely enclosing the intersection. The vertex processor of a GPU deforms a reference grid and determines Cartesian coordinates and the texture coordinates for grid points of the reference grid as a function of the input intersection. The vertex processor provides coordinates for data for subsets of cut planes. The fragment processor inputs the texture coordinates and retrieves the data from the texture memory. The data is blended. The blended subsets are then blended together in the frame buffer of the GPU.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2010
    Assignees: Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Tomtec Imaging Systems GmbH
    Inventors: Stefan Brabec, Thilaka S. Sumanaweera
  • Patent number: 7843449
    Abstract: A three-dimensional display system provides a projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function. Three-dimensional images are respectively modulated in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to define a programmable mirror with a programmable deflection angle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2010
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Christoph H. Krah
  • Patent number: 7839382
    Abstract: A sensing baseball game apparatus (10) has a game machine (12) connected to a television monitor (18). A bat input device (32) is provided with an acceleration sensor. An acceleration signal is transmitted by an infrared-ray LED (34) to an infrared-ray receiving part of the game machine (12) whereby the game machine (12) determines a moving speed of the bat input device (32) to calculate a moving parameter of a ball to be batted. Accordingly, a batted ball is moved in the game scene according to the parameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: SSD Company Limited
    Inventors: Hiromu Ueshima, Shuhei Kato
  • Patent number: 7840113
    Abstract: An optical disk reproducing apparatus that plays back information recorded on an optical disk, includes: a system controller; and a controller that is operated in accordance with an instruction of the system controller, wherein: when a user operation of skip up/skip down is performed during reproducing of information recorded on the optical disk, the system controller determines whether the skip up/skip down is restricted/permitted; and if it is determined that the skip up/skip down is restricted, the system controller pauses the reproducing and then performs a process with respect to the user operation so as to reproduce designated information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Kazuki Hayashibara
  • Patent number: 7839400
    Abstract: The present invention is a system that manages a volumetric display using volume windows. The volume windows have the typical functions, such as minimize, resize, etc., which operate in a volume. When initiated by an application a volume window is assigned to the application in a volume window data structure. Application data produced by the application is assigned to the windows responsive to which applications are assigned to which windows in the volume window data structure. Input events are assigned to the windows responsive to whether they are spatial or non-spatial. Spatial events are assigned to the window surrounding the event or cursor where a policy resolves situations where more than one window surrounds the cursor. Non-spatial events are assigned to the active or working window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: Autodesk, Inc.
    Inventors: Gordon Paul Kurtenbach, George William Fitzmaurice, Ravin Balakrishnan
  • Patent number: 7831204
    Abstract: A unified system of programming communication. The system encompasses the prior art (television, radio, broadcast, hardcopy, computer communications, etc.) and new user specific mass media. Within the unified system, parallel processing computer systems, each having an input (e.g., 77) controlling a plurality of computers (e.g., 205), generate and output user information at receiver stations. Under broadcast control, local computers (73, 205), combine user information selectively into prior art communications to exhibit personalized mass media programming at video monitors (202), speakers (263), printers (221), etc. At intermediate transmission stations (e.g., cable television stations), signals in network broadcasts and from local inputs (74, 77, 97, 98) cause control processors (71) and computers (73) to selectively automate connection and operation of receivers (53), recorder/players (76), computers (73), generators (82), strippers (81), etc.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 1995
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2010
    Assignee: Personalized Media Communications, LLC
    Inventors: John Christopher Harvey, James William Cuddihy
  • Patent number: 7825927
    Abstract: Systems and methods for computing three-dimensional (3D) Euclidean Voronoi diagrams are disclosed. For some embodiments, a set of 3D objects is accessed, in which each 3D object is mathematically defined. Thereafter, a Voronoi region associated with each of the 3D objects is computed, thereby resulting in a complete Euclidean Voronoi diagram of the set of 3D objects. In some embodiments, the 3D objects are spheres, each of which is defined by a center and a radius. For other embodiments, the 3D objects are convex objects, each of which is mathematically-definable (e.g., cylinders, sphero-cylinders, etc.). Unlike prior approaches that suggested using a numerical approach to computing the Voronoi diagram, the present disclosure employs mathematical approaches for computing the Euclidean Voronoi diagram, thereby improving efficiency in the computation of the Euclidean Voronoi diagram.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2010
    Assignee: Iucf-Hyu (Industry University Cooperation Foundation Hanyang University)
    Inventors: Deok-Soo Kim, Youngsong Cho, Donguk Kim
  • Patent number: 7821516
    Abstract: A method for a computer system includes receiving a selection of a plurality of assets to be rendered from a user, wherein the selection comprises a plurality of symbolic references, determining respective static references associated with each asset from the plurality of assets in response to the plurality of symbolic references, rendering the plurality of assets in response to asset data associated with the respective static references to form a rendered image, storing the respective static references associated with each asset from the plurality of assets in a pinset file, and associating the rendered image with the pinset file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2010
    Assignee: Pixar
    Inventors: Stephan Vladimir Bugaj, Brett Levin, Zachariah Baum
  • Patent number: 7812841
    Abstract: The object of the present invention can be achieved by a display controlling apparatus for displaying a plurality of information objects including an information object shown by a three-dimensional shape in a three-dimensional virtual space. In the display controlling apparatus, a view to display is determined based on a shape of the information object to observe by corresponding to a view movement instruction input by a user as if the view traces a surface of the shape. And display images of the plurality of information objects linked each other are generated based on the view. Then, the display images are displayed at a display unit so as to display the information objects corresponding to the view movement instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2010
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Toru Kamiwada, Takushi Fujita
  • Patent number: 7796132
    Abstract: An objective is to provide an image generation system and program which can overcome the problem of flickering in screen due to the appearance and disappearance of distant objects. A depth cueing processing is executed such that the color of an object being more distant from the viewpoint is made closer to the target color. At the same time, the alpha value is varied such that an object being more distant from the viewpoint is made more transparent. By drawing the most distant background including a color different from the target color, the generated images can be improved in variety. The depth cueing and alpha value varying processings are carried out on condition that the object is positioned within the depth cueing area. The depth cueing value and alpha value for each vertex in the object are varied based on a Z-value for the vertex. Objects to be varied in the alpha value are sorted such that they are drawn sequentially from an object nearest to the viewpoint.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 14, 2010
    Assignee: Namco Bandai Games Inc.
    Inventor: Jun Nakagawa
  • Patent number: 7791608
    Abstract: A method of animating a computer generated character in real-time through a single person performance is disclosed. The method provides a mobile input device configured to receive a hand puppetry movement as an input from a performer. Further, the method provides a motion capture device that includes a plurality of markers. The motion capture device is configured to be worn on the body of the performer. Motion capture data is received at a computer. The motion capture data is representative of the positions of the plurality of markers. In addition, input device data is received from the mobile input device at the computer. A computer generated animated character is then generated, the body movements of the character being based on the motion capture data, and head and facial movements being based on the input device data received from the mobile input device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 7, 2010
    Assignee: The Jim Henson Company, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian Henson, Jeff Forbes, Michael Babcock, Glenn Muravsky, John Criswell
  • Patent number: 7783252
    Abstract: A unified system of programming communication. The system encompasses the prior art (television, radio, broadcast hardcopy, computer communications, etc.) and new user specific mass media. Within the unified system, parallel processing computer systems, each having an input (e.g., 77) controlling a plurality of computers (e.g., 205), generate and output user information at receiver stations. Under broadcast control, local computers (73, 205), combine user information selectively into prior art communications to exhibit personalized mass media programming at video monitors (202), speakers (263), printers (221), etc. At intermediate transmission stations (e.g., cable television stations), signals in network broadcasts and from local inputs (74, 77, 97, 98) cause control processors (71) and computers (73) to selectively automate connection and operation of receivers (53), recorder/players (76), computers (73), generators (82), strippers (81), etc.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 1995
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2010
    Assignee: Personalized Media Communications, LLC
    Inventors: John Christopher Harvey, James William Cuddihy